Friday April 10th 2020

Most of the day was calm and cool for the season. The temperature got to around seventy similar to yesterday. Near sunset the calm was interrupted by a pretty strong wind out of the northwest. There is a slight possibility of rain tomorrow morning.

My routine was broken by a few chores and maintenance tasks today. After my first walk of the day I decided it was time to empty my holding tanks. When I arrived here almost three weeks ago, I didn’t hook up my sewer hose. It needed to be snaked along the ground under the RV and out the back to reach the connection. The utilities in this park weren’t well though out for RVs. After getting everything else done, I didn’t feel like crawling in the gravel. Instead of doing it the next day, I decided to test my tank conservation. The two seventy gallon holding tanks easily made it three weeks. I dumped today so I could take a long hot shower rather than the quick ones I’ve been taking most of the last three weeks. After crawling under the RV on the loose pea gravel, I really needed the shower.

On the maintenance front I got to work fixing the latch on my clothes hamper. The screws that hold the latch to the door were coming loose. Today I took the screws out and pumped some wood glue into the holes before resetting the screws. This should work, since the threads were still biting into the wood. If I need to try again I’ll use a match stick in the hole with the glue. Should everything else fail, I can move both sides of the latch over an inch into clean wood.

Thursday April 9th 2020

The low pressure system that moved in to the area yesterday hung around today. It was a sunny day with very little wind, but the temperature only made it to around seventy. It was a very nice day even though the temperature was more than ten degrees below normal. The wind is forecast to return tomorrow.

I canceled my one remaining reservation during April today. I was waiting to see if it would be canceled for me, but it wasn’t. The KOA campground in Monument Valley is still open. The Navajo Indian Nation that surrounds the campground is closed to visitors and has long periods of curfew to combat a serious outbreak of the virus. I’m not even sure you can get to the campground or leave once you get there, but they are still trying to make a go of the campground. I not going to find out.

My next reservation that isn’t canceled starts May 5th at the Utah Lake State Park in Provo Utah. I can not see anyway that I’m going to keep that reservation. Currently, Utah State Parks are only open to people living in the same county. I fully expect they will cancel the reservation soon. If they don’t I’ll have to call and cancel around the end of this month.

I got in my two daily walks around the RV park along with lots of reading and TV watching. Any day that I don’t experience a sense of boredom is a good day. Today was a good day.

Wednesday April 8th 2020

The first half of the day was calm and cool. The second half of the day was extremely windy. Right around the noon hour a wind out of the west arrived and continued to strengthen all day. The TV weather people reported 20mph sustained with gusts higher in Phoenix. I suspect the sustain wind was much higher here southeast of the city. The temperature in the early afternoon was close to eighty degrees, but it went down fast as clouds moved in.

Most of the residents of this RV park have been here all winter. For some this has been their winter home for several years. When I arrived it was clear that there were a number of close social groups in the park. They would gather at one site or another for happy hour. As the messaged of “social distancing” set in the size of the groups got smaller and the distance between seats got larger. Now, a lot of the snowbirds have returned to their northern residences. Gatherings now take on a very different form. People meet in the middle of the roads and stand several feet apart and have their conversations. Other times people walking around the park will stop along the road at the curb and talk to the people sitting in front of or in their RVs.

One consequence of the long distance conversations is the volume of the communications. This morning in particular when it was calm I overheard several different discussions about why they were still here, when they wanted to leave and the obstacles associated with moving on. It was generally depressing to be reminded of the uncertainty and probable duration for needing to stay in place.

Arizona is now requiring people arriving from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to self quarantine for two weeks. I guess it’s better late than never. Utah to the north is now requiring all people entering the state by air or road to answer a questionnaire that is basically a health declaration and visitation rationalization. What they will do with the information isn’t clear, but it’s one more indication of how the response to the crises is being met in different ways in different localities.

By mid afternoon, I managed to work myself out of the daily angst. I’m still healthy and things will eventually get better. The chance that I’ll be thrown out of here by the powers that be before I want to leave is low. The state of Arizona hasn’t shown any signs of wholesale closing RV parks. I may end up here for a month or so longer than I first expected, but time will tell. The inconvenience is nothing compared to the people fighting for their lives or the medical people supporting the infected in their battles.

Tuesday April 7th 2020

Even with more clouds and less wind today was a beautiful day. The temperature got into the low eighties. Tomorrow has a forty percent chance of rain.

My day was another routine wait it out style day, so I don’t have much to blog about. I worked on my four plus years of pictures for a little while. Included below are a few of the fireworks pictures I taken. I enjoy the challenge and some of the surprising outcomes.

Monday April 6th 2020

Today began calm and sunny, but my mid day it had more wind than the last couple of days. A few high clouds joined the mix to keep the temperature in the low eighties.

In addition to my daily routine I resumed a long term task today. Back in December I began to filter through four plus years of pictures. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, so I got back to the task today. The reminder about all the things I’ve seen on the road is encouraging. It raises some hope of getting back to seeing things in the future. I may try to include some of the old pictures in future blog entries while I’m in virus induced travel interruption mode.

On this evenings walk around the RV park I was more interested in watching the rising moon than the setting sun. The April full moon is tomorrow night. It’s called the Pink Moon and is also a super moon. Tomorrow night will probably be clouded over in this location so I spent some time watching the moon rise into the Arizona sky. I even managed to get a picture with the light of the setting sun allowing the detail on the moon surface to show through.

Sunday April 5th 2020

Today’s high temperature was in the mid eighties a couple of degrees warmer than yesterday. The daily pattern seems to be a cool calm start to the day followed by warming temperatures and stiffing winds. It was another nice weather day.

This is the beginning of my third full week of interrupted travel. As I watch the progress of the virus and the social countermeasures around it, finding this place to stay put was the right decision. I may know every crack in the road and plant in the desert outside the park along my daily walking route by the time I leave here.

It was nearly noon before I got out on my morning walk. TV and internet reading while sipping coffee delayed the start a bit. The afternoon was filled with more TV and reading. A couple of Italian sausages and some rice pilaf with peas, onions and carrots was my big meal of the day before my final walk of the day as the sun set.

Saturday April 4th 2020

There was nothing to complain about today’s weather. It was a repeat of Friday with just enough wind to keep the bright sun from overheating the area. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties.

I woke up this morning to find my rear neighbors had departed for their home state of Colorado. They had been packing a little bit each day for the last week or so. It seemed like they would pack for the first two hours of the day then rest the remainder of the day. Yesterday, they really got busy and loaded there little Smart Car into the back of the Fifth Wheel. That was an interesting sight. Think about a minnow swimming up the back end of a whale.

Most of the RVs remaining in the RV park are here for the duration. They are either full timers like me, come from states in bad shape or have too far to travel. Basically, they are allowing common sense to dictate that they stay put. Right now California to the west of Arizona and New Mexico to the east both have stronger stay at home measures than Arizona. Finding places to stop while traveling through the state might be difficult. In Utah to the north, it depends on the county. Some areas are very anti traveler and others have much weaker stay at home policies. Arizona still seems to be in the middle of the pack in terms of directed stay at home rules.

Today was a two walk day. My mid day walk extended into the undeveloped area outside the RV park walls. Once I was in the middle of nowhere I realized I was wandering in a desert without water, so I returned to the RV park. I’ll be equipped with water next time I venture out.

Friday April 3rd 2020

Today’s weather was a clone of Thursday. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties with lots of sun and wind. Tomorrow is forecast to be a little warmer.

Yet another of my reservations going forward was canceled today. This one was for the end of April into the beginning of May. I was a little surprised that it was canceled this early. It was at a private campground that probably needs the revenue. I would have been calling to cancel the reservation anyway, but closer to the time. I still have one six night reservation in the second half of this month that I haven’t canceled yet. It will be interesting to see if they do it before I call them.

So far five of the fifteen reservations I made for the first half of my summer travels are canceled. Right now I suspect the other ten will be canceled as well. If I can’t get back on the road by Memorial Day, catching up with my planned itinerary isn’t practical. I’ll need to figure out a whole new travel plan. Trying to figure out when it will be reasonable to travel again is impossible. Health officials, politicians and psychics all have different opinions and they’re not sharing them. After forcing myself to plan more than normal back in December and January, it looks like I’m going to be winging it more than ever this year.

Overall today was very routine. I took two walks around the park. The last was at sunset so I could get a picture or two of the setting sun.

Thursday April 2nd 2020

Windy is the best way to describe today’s weather. It was a bright sunny day with lots of wind out of the west. The temperature reached the low eighties.

Nothing broke my daily routine today. It was a two walk around the park day with a little cooking in between. I’ve given myself the challenge to stretch my food supply as long as possible, so I’ve been cooking things that will work for two or more meals. Today I cooked a beef stew. It isn’t the best meal for hot weather, but a little stew beef, carrots, onions and potatoes goes a long way. I still have more beef in the freezer. By biggest issue with stretching my food will be things like milk, bread and munchies. I’ll probably make another venture into the wild west of the grocery store long before my primary entrees are exhausted.

Wednesday April 1st 2020

Today approached the warmest day of the year so far in central Arizona. The temperature got into the mid to upper eighties. I haven’t heard if it reached the high for the year yet, but tomorrow is forecast to be warmer.

I forgot to get up early this morning to make another reservation for next winter. Sitting on the travel sidelines waiting for the virus to work its way through the world and uncertain about when I can start traveling again makes it hard to remember to plan. It was afternoon before I remembered I needed to make my March 1st 2021 reservations in Florida. The high demand State Parks didn’t have any available spaces, but I found a couple of open sites in a nearby State Park. I booked another two week stay for next year. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep it.

I built my whole travel plan for this year around attending the Escapee RV Club’s Escapade in the mountains of Wyoming at the end of June. Today I learned that they have canceled the event. I understand why it was canceled. I would have been a little concerned attending the event with other RVers from around North America in these uncertain times. Once the future becomes a little clearer I’ll have to find a place to stay and things to do for the newly available week. The longer things need to remain shutdown, the more change I’m likely to have to address.

Today was a three walk around the RV park day. The additional walk was in the morning after breakfast. I didn’t linger over my coffee this morning. A couple of new RVs arrived today presumably to wait out the “Stay at Home” orders. There were also a few departures. The first of April represents the end of the snowbird season around here. The lure of home seems to have won out over any concerns about traveling north. I guess if they have a place to go, their only real problem is places to stop along the way and maybe law enforcement asking why they are on the road. I’m happy to stay put.