unwelcome on the other side of the Atlantic
was a psychological shock, too, akin to being
spurned by an old and familiar friend.
“We were going to get married in Las Vegas,
with Elvis. It was going to be epic,” said Sandrine
Reynaert, a Parisian who was having to cancel
the ceremony on April 20, a date that Gael, her
future husband, already has engraved on the
inside of his ring.
“It’s strange,” she said of the travel ban. “Perhaps
an overreaction compared to the epidemic.”
Reynaert said she’d take a day off work Friday
to devote herself to canceling or adjusting
reservations, unraveling the road trip that, as
well as Las Vegas, also would have taken them
to other iconic spots of Americana: Route 66,
Joshua Tree National Park, the Grand Canyon.
Likewise, retired French teacher Jean-
Michel Deaux spent months planning the
3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) trans-America road
trip that has now evaporated just when it was
within touching distance, with a flight into New
Orleans that had been booked for March 24.
The March-May voyage with his wife, Christiane,
would have taken them through multiple states,
on a giant south-north loop. They planned to
follow in the footsteps of the Marquis de Lafayette,
the French aristocrat who fought with American
colonists against the British. They wanted to see
Amish communities in Pennsylvania, take in music
in Memphis and ride a boat on the Mississippi.
They even bought extra suitcases to carry gifts
and souvenirs back to France.
“We’ve been preparing this trip for years,”
Jean-Michel Deaux said. “It was going to be
a pilgrimage.”
Image: Michael Probst