…and it ain’t much fun!
March 28, 2020, Saturday, in isolation at home.
Sad. Isolated and nearly home bound and I couldn’t do much driving anywhere! It seemed the best I could do was step outside and look longingly at Big Blue II as she sat in the RV lot and awaited her next call to service. But I felt an escape coming on!
The coronavirus is very real! We old folks take it very seriously, and we’re living in a community of nuthin’ but old folks! Our county had 28 cases as of two days ago, including two firefighters in our town. There had been two deaths in the county, including an elderly lady who lived at a local care facility. (Two weeks later our county had 237 confirmed cases and 14 deaths!)
We’ve been dealing with the usual closures of local parks, etc. One local market, Grocery Outlet, is offering delivery at no charge to old folks, just to be neighborly. They’ve dropped off a few groceries to us on two occasions. We cannot use a credit card for such deliveries, but they do take our checks.
We’ve told our family that we’re in isolation, and haven’t had a soul visit in over two weeks. We don’t have a clue when this isolation will end, and that seems the worst of it for us. We comfort each other by reminding ourselves how good we have it; we’re used to staying home, we have everything we need, and it is going to be just a matter of time. Frankly, my days aren’t all that different from the usual, but we do miss family. We also miss the occasional meal out or, mostly for me, the meals I like to bring in once in awhile. I miss my Chinese food and the teriyaki chicken meals I occasionally bring home.
We had planned a family reunion at my sisters’ place in Gridley for this week. It was to include their kids and spouses from Oregon and Arizona, and, of course, us old folks. Because of this awful health crisis, that was cancelled.
I made one short trip since my last post on March 27 when I posted about our trip to my sister’s place. I drove Big Blue to Turlock’s Les Schwab tire store for some brand new tires!
Big Blue got six brand new Firestone tires! There was plenty of tread on the old Firestones, but they were dated 2012 and too old to depend upon. Six of those big 22.5″ tires was a very serious purchase, but one I couldn’t put off, because safety is paramount!
I bought the tires at Les Schwab Tires out of habit, but mostly because they can “sipe” the tires. Siping is explained by Schwab this way: “Siping is the process of cutting thin slits across the surface of a tire to improve traction for driving in snowy, wet or icy conditions. Siping can also help manage tire heat when the road is overly hot.” The cost of siping is worth it if one drives on slippery roads, and of course, occasionally I do. And we do a lot of traveling in the hot summers when tires often run very hot.
I made a trip to Walmart with our car about three weeks ago for an order I placed online. I got about two weeks or more of groceries because the Covid-19 problems were beginning. Just a week ago I did the same. We usually order online for our groceries from Walmart. Now, it seems to be the safest way as I deal only with the person that brings out the order. The time is nearing for another grocery run, probably toward the end of the coming week. This one, I think, will be different!
I plan to climb aboard Big Blue and head somewhere over a hundred miles away. It may well be south 150 miles or so to Visalia. Or I may go north to, perhaps, the Oroville Walmart which also is over a hundred miles away. I will spend the night in the lot after picking up the groceries, and head home the next day. I’ll have two weeks of groceries, and also an overnight trip aboard the coach! I am overdue for even a short adventure.
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Hi Fish Wisher/barnsour. Enjoyed your post. I have read a bunch of your travel stories,really enjoy.The stories and pictures remind me of the travels I took with my parents as a kid. In 65 my mom and dad bought a truck camper and the three of us would travel for six or eight weeks every summer. Did that for about eight years. We had a ball. Usually did things on the cheap. In those days we quite often didn’t camp in a campground. We would just pull off the side of the road behind a stone pile or something that the county had left alongside the road and spend the night. Try doing things like that now and you’d get chased away. For years I thought I would get some kind of an RV and do that again, retracing our steps. Now that I’m free to do that ,I’ve kind of lost interest. I’m now retired in Clearwater Florida and don’t want to leave Paradise I love it. Apparently I’m lazy at heart,and cheap. That part runs in the family. So I’m happy going to the beach every other day,soaking in the warm water,taking walks,and falling asleep under my umbrella. I always look forward to barnsour’s comments in the arcamax comics. Your post are very witty and refreshing compared to what most of the rest of us post. It’s too easy to fall into the temptation of being nasty and impatient with some of the political ding-a-lings. You never seem to have that problem. I’m trying to step back and soften my comments a little bit. I recently changed my name from spudspud to couponclipper. I had blocked someone a few months ago and couldn’t unblock them. So I thought if I opened a new account they wouldn’t be blocked. It didn’t work. Still blocked. Oh well. May the Lord look over you your family and friends and all stay safe and healthy during these awful times. I keep reminding myself we are only here for a few years. That if we know the Lord as our personal savior we will spend eternity in paradise. God is in control.
Kent/couponclipper formerly known as spudspud
Hi Kent/couponclipper –
What a kind and friendly post! I appreciate your visit and I love to hear when a reader enjoys the travelogues. I realize driving all day and spending nights at Walmarts is not interesting to most folks, but it’s good to know some folks do – including you. So thanks so much for the comment.
I used to get awful political on other sites, and it never did any good for anyone, really. I’m not going to change anyone’s mind, and in my old age, nobody is going to change mine. And I’ve realized that I’ll never change anything of substance since I’m not a billionaire, and that I am (and most of us are) just along for the ride!
Keep the faith – I hope and pray that you and yours will make it through these very trying times, too. I don’t recall anything such as this virus in my lifetime, nothing quite so earth-shaking except perhaps 9-11. And even then, nobody suggested up to 240,000 deaths, either.
Thanks again for your very kind comments.
– Dale