This article is a part of The S&B’s Anniversary Project. See the entire project here.

These photos capture the moments as and after students left campus, their first encounters with travel during a pandemic.

Sending off

Hannah Agpoon, Finn Dworkin and Erin Ritter (left to right), all `22, wait outside Langan Hall for their friend Ingrid Meulemans `22 to pack up her dad’s truck and say goodbye before driving home to Wisconsin.

Curbside pickup

Students stand on the sidewalk outside Gates Tower next to piles of bags, bins and other dorm contents. To help parents comply with the College’s request that visitors not enter campus buildings, faculty and staff volunteered their time to haul belongings to be packed into vehicles. (Abraham Teuber is a features and arts editor for The S&B.)

“Have a great ride”

While waiting for their parents to pick them up along Park Street, students saw a dead squirrel revealed by the recently melted snow, which was then tossed into the dumpster by someone’s valiant father. The final resting place of this particular unofficial Grinnell mascot (seen in the bottom left corner of the image) paired with the chiding message of the cardboard box made for a dark moment of humor that matched the tone of a traumatizing week. (Abraham Teuber is a features and arts editor for The S&B.)

Rest stop

Elena Copell, Wini Austin and Henry Firestone (left to right), all `21, “wave a one-gloved hello” at a rest stop in Ohio while caravanning to their homes on the East Coast.

Carry-on

Securing a carry-on for his flight home to Maine was lost in the shuffle for Finn Dworkin `22, who resorted to stuffing his personal items in a plastic Walmart bag to be brought on the plane.

View from the plane

The tarmac captured by Rachel Snodgrass `21 en route from Costa Rica upon the early end of her study abroad program. “The contrast between the sky in this picture and in San José really reflects how I was feeling during this transition,” wrote Snodgrass. “I had so much personal growth in Costa Rica … I was thriving. Then I had to come home to gray skies, snow, cold weather and online school.”

Empty flight

After several cancelled flights led them to believe there would be no way to get home to Brazil, Leticia Monteiro and Carolina Novaes, both `23, eventually booked a flight out of the country. “The airplane was empty (we had rows all to ourselves) and I tried to capture that (and our tired faces) in the picture,” wrote Novaes.