GI Joe’s to the rescue!

It was a big week for us here, not just celebrating myself and Miles’ birthday, but also getting my second Pfizer shot!

Miles had gotten his 2nd shot a few weeks ago, so was able to enjoy a birthday party at his house, with 15 or so of his fellow vaccinated friends from school in Portland. He’s enjoying life getting back to normal, a big part of which is taking the house dog, Toby, out for walks. Here’s a picture of Toby meeting some goats near Miles’ house in Portland.

Liam was able to get his vaccine shot and opted for the one and done J&J vaccine, which he located about 90 miles southwest of Chicago. Shockingly Kat was able to find a vaccine appointment in the city. Here they are proudly displaying their proof of vaccination cards (personal information blurred out).

My own personal vaccination story was a little more complex. I had originally gotten my first Pfizer shot similar to Liam, downstate in Illinois, where for some reason demand for vaccinations is a lot lower than here in Chicago. I got my shot in a Walgreens and got a follow up appointment for four weeks later. This turned out to be a huge snafu as the CDC recommends a three week follow up appointment for Pfizer and a four week follow up shot for Moderna. Apparently Walgreens scheduling software couldn’t handle both, so they put everyone on the four week rotation. When this was revealed they offered to reschedule everyone but it was impossible to find an appointment at such short notice!

Enter the GI Joes (and Janes!). The federal government has set up a bunch of mega-vaccination sites where the US Army is able to give out thousands of vaccine shots a day. I was able to find an appointment down in Gary, Indiana, only 25 miles south of Chicago, this Saturday, exactly three weeks after my first Pfizer shot!

It was a very impressive operation. They had rearranged traffic flows in the streets around the site, so that there was no congestion and all the traffic was flowing one way.

We were checked in at the entrance and then went into an extremely large car park of a local high school, registered inside a tent, pulled up to a series of drive-thru vaccination tents, and then sent over to a waiting area for 15 minutes, and told to honk our horns if we felt any adverse reactions. It was quiet the operation!

Everyone was in great mood, checking in on us, making sure we knew where to go, and joking around. I think the soldiers were in especially good moods as they had just gone through a rainy few weeks, and my guess is the US Army does not make staying in the tent when in rains an option!

I definitely felt the after effects of the 2nd shot, so when I got home settled down in the basement, catching up on some old movies, enjoying, probably not unrelatedly, “Saving Private Ryan.” Some movies never get old!