Thursday January 4th 2018

The weather was brighter and warmer today. It got up to the high sixties after a cool start in the forties. I was really feeling the cold this morning. I ran the furnace and the heat pump to bring the inside temperature up to the comfort level as quickly as possible. My nose was running and I felt general lousy. Once the RV warmed up I improved rapidly. It doesn’t take much change in temperature or humidity to start my nose running again, but I’m doing fine.

I stayed at home and generally took it easy today. If a cold is trying to get a hold of me, I’m going to fight it from the start. Fighting a cold seemed like a good reason to make a beef stew. So I spent the late morning loading up the slow cooker and the late afternoon finishing up the process with the carrots and potatoes. It served its purpose well. My insides were warmed up well.

My second sunset picture of the year.

The only problem with cooking is it produces dirty dishes. The limited space for food preparation and cleanup means that I use the same space for many things. I have to transition from cooking to cleaning mode before doing dishes. The cover on the second sink bowl used for food preparation needs to be removed and the stove needs to cool off enough so I can put the cover over the burners. I need the stove space to hold the freshly washed dishes. The end result is I haven’t done the dishes yet, but need to before I go to bed tonight. As soon as I publish this blog entry I’ll have my hands in hot water.

Besides watching the Weather Channel coverage of the east coast storm, I worked on my travel planning some more. For some reason allocating five and a half weeks to get back to Florida is simultaneously to much time and to little time. If I only had a week, I’d just drive three hundred miles or so every day, but once you allocate more time, you have to decide what you want to visit. Some areas need more time than others to do a stop justice. The question I’m trying to answer is which places to visit on this repositioning trip and which places should I reserve for a longer stay. In the back of my mind continues to be the need to be flexible to deal with weather and other unexpected issues. I have more options scratched out on calendars than I have decisions at this point.

Today’s exercise was restricted to the RV park. I made several loops around the park including one at sunset. When I don’t have a good picture to include in the blog, I go in search of sunset pictures. One good thing is the sun is setting later every day.