The year of the “stay at home” Memorial Day weekend
MetroCreative
Do-it-yourself projects are on weekend to-do lists as many people find themselves at home this Memorial Day weekend.
MetroCreative
Many people will be staying home to spruce up yards over the Memorial Day weekend.
This summer is shaping up to be the summer of the “staycation,” and if that turns out to be how it unfolds, it will start this weekend.
The three-day weekend that ends with Memorial Day on Monday is the traditional kickoff of the summer season, even if summer itself doesn’t arrive until June 20. Along with somber remembrances of fallen U.S. service personnel, the Memorial Day weekend has traditionally been marked by Americans fully shaking off the hibernation of the cold-weather months and taking to the road to visit family, head to a lake or beach, go to a concert, see a blockbuster movie and otherwise get out of the house.
But as coronavirus restrictions continue, large-scale gatherings are discouraged, ballparks are closed, multiplexes remain shuttered, and parades and ceremonies are canceled. That being the case, this Memorial Day weekend promises to be more low key than most. It’s likely to be so much more subdued that AAA declined to release a forecast for travel this year, the first time in two decades it has done so.
Even without a formal forecast, the association is predicting that vastly fewer than the 43 million Americans who hit the road last Memorial Day weekend will be traveling this year. Paul Twidale, senior vice president of AAA Travel, explained that with ongoing social-distancing guidelines across the country, “this holiday weekend’s travel volume is likely to set a record low.”
It appears, however, that some of the money Americans would have spent on gasoline and accommodations is instead going toward sprucing up the four walls they have been sequestered within the last few months. The two major home-improvement chains, Home Depot and Lowe’s, have reported increased sales in the first quarter of 2020, with same-store sales at Lowe’s jumping by 11%, a surge credited to homeowners with unanticipated time on their hands. Other home-improvement stores have seen similar increases.
Things have been “nonstop busy” at the Busy Beaver store in Washington, according to Tiffany Finley, the store’s general manager. There have been lines at the store, and paint has been a popular item.
“I think a lot of people are so bored right now,” Finley said.
Paint has also been popular at DeVore Hardware in Monongahela, according to Matt Scheiber, a store employee, along with rakes and shovels for work in yards.
“We’ve been super busy the last couple of days,” Scheiber explained.
For people who have already pruned the garden to perfection or just have to break out of the house, parks in Washington and Greene counties will be open, though visitors are urged to follow precautions. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be posted at parks overseen by Washington County, according to Lisa Cessna, the county’s planning director. She added that shelter rentals are down this year, almost certainly the result of uncertainty stirred by the pandemic.
“We want everyone to enjoy themselves and use common sense,” Cessna said.
A large number of people are expected on the seven-mile Greene River Trail in Greene County over the three-day weekend, according to Bret Moore, the county’s recreation director. Over the last couple of weekends, “everyone has been very good” when it comes to social distancing and not gathering in large groups on the trail, Moore said.
State park and forest facilities have been gradually reopening across Pennsylvania, and some state parks saw record-breaking attendance in April. The state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) is urging visitors to parks to keep their distance from one another, avoid crowded parking lots and trailheads, avoid hiking in groups and bring hand sanitizer.
Campsite reservations are going or gone at some sites and “our rangers and park and forest officials are taking an ‘educational’ rather than a ‘law enforcing role,'” when it comes to coronavirus protocols, according to Terry Brady, a spokesman for the DCNR.