We made it to our destination today and are getting comfortable in the Airbnb. Have already seen the grandkids and it’s already worth the trip. But we’re beat.

We made a decision to get a COVID test in Columbia MO yesterday, the day before arriving in KY, hoping that we’d get our negative result quickly and could visit the grandkids with no risk and no mask. That actually worked, but not due to any cooperation from the Missouri health systems.

We saw a drive-up test facility in a parking lot very near our Columbia MO hotel and tried there. It was run by the University of MO, and when we pulled up they informed us that they would only test if we had symptoms or if we had a doctor’s referral (?!). I tried reasoning with the gatekeepers there, but they were adamant. I don’t know who made that decision, but it felt like they were trying to reduce testing, not make it more available.

We were informed that we could get a test at any urgent care clinic. So after checking in, we found the closest urgent care, a strip-mall facility run by NextEra. We checked in, inside a small windowless, ventilation-free room with 7-8 other people already in it. We filled out the forms and got the hell out of that room ASAP.

We waited outside and watched as they serviced about one person every 20 minutes. Already road weary, we decided to wait back at the hotel and they could call us if/when they got to our place in the queue. At that point I thought our plan to get an early test was down the drain.

Two hours later, when we had already given up and were getting settled in, they called. It was a hard decision, but we got re-dressed and drove over t NextEra for our tests. We didn’t have to stay in the still overcrowded waiting room and were ushered directly into the treatment areas.

Two sets of vital signs, a few questions and a double swab later we were done. This was the rapid Abbott test, so we expected our results within 24 hours. We got them about three hours later; both negative as expected. Novid!

I’m glad we went to the trouble of establishing that we’re Novid. It made our first visit with the kids much nicer. But call me very, very unimpressed with Missouri’s dedication to testing. That might explain their overall recent positivity rate of 11%.