The warming temperature trend continued. It made it into the upper 90s today. The wind was light most of the day, but when it chose to blow there were some goodM gusts.
I got in two walks around the RV park today. On my morning walk I managed to get some nice pictures of cactus blossoms. They have been hiding from me the last few days. I’m not sure what conditions cause the blossoms to open. Most of the time I see them on the plants tightly closed. When I catch them open they are very pretty.
A NASCAR race from Darlington South Carolina was on TV today. It was run without fans in the stands. Watching on TV I couldn’t tell the difference. Being able to watch new sports entertainment was a treat. I just can’t get into replays of sporting events from five, ten and fifteen years ago. Watching weird sports like professional bean bag tossing also gets old fast. I hope Major League Baseball can negotiate a way to play games for TV this summer.
On my evening walk I noticed that some of the residents of the RV park have found the reopened pool. The closed sign was taken down on Friday. It was replaced by social distancing instructions. Today was the first time I saw anyone in the pool. There were four people in the hot tub totally ignoring the six foot social distancing rule. Maybe they all live in the same RV.
This was a very lazy Saturday. I got up too late for my early walk of the day, but the morning hours seemed to drag on as the day warmed up. The temperature peaked in the mid nineties under a full sun. Even the wind seemed to be lazy today. There wasn’t much wind all day.
I spent most of my day channel surfing across the channels on my satellite TV. I never really found anything to keep my interest. The day dragged on until sunset caught me by surprise. I got into action for my sunset walk. The rabbits were out and about again, but not many people. This RV park is turning into a ghost town. My count down to departure is at 5 days and counting.
The full sun was back today and the wind wasn’t blowing as hard as yesterday. The end result was a warmer day in the low 90s. The temperature trend is upward until Monday before it drops again.
I didn’t take my morning walk. Instead, I headed into town after breakfast. My destination was Walmart for groceries. It has been three weeks since my last visit to the nexus of the virus phobic and fearless fools. They still have the provisions for controlling the number of people in the store, but their capacity must be pretty high. The store had lots of customers. Less than half had masks.
The only thing new from my last visit were direction arrows on all the aisles. They don’t seem to make any difference. I think more people were going against the arrows than with. Even the Walmart employees with their blue pickup carts weren’t following the arrows. I called one of them on it, who was being particularly obstructive. His response was some garbage about his computer tells him where to go. How can the store expect anyone to follow the directions if its own employees don’t.
The meat and paper goods sections were the only significantly under stocked areas. Other than ground beef, there wasn’t any beef on the shelves. There seemed to be a fare selection of pork and lots of chicken. I found enough product to restock my freezer. In the paper goods area I found paper towels for the first time in three visits during the pandemic. I still haven’t found toilet paper. I’m going to have to be more persistent in my search. I’m down to about three weeks of supply.
On my afternoon walk around the park, I discovered the new summer residents. The rabbits have arrived. I’ve seen one or two while I’ve been here, but today they were all over the place. I probably saw a dozen scattered around the park.
It was a partly cloudy day which kept the temperature right around 90 degrees. It was a very comfortable day.
Today’s blossom picture.
I’ve got a bad case of hitch itch, the desire to hitch up the towed car to the motorhome and hit the road. This morning, before I was really out of bed, another neighbor hooked up and departed. This place continues to empty out. My departure count down is now at one week. I am looking forward to staying at places that have more access to nature and opportunities to hike.
My plan is to be as flexible as possible this summer. I’ll try to lock in reservations two weeks to a month out. That allows me to figure out what’s open and what travel restrictions might be in place. It seems to be a good decision. I’m currently booked through June 8th in Cottonwood AZ. Options for my next stop are opening up every day. The Lake Powell area is already open and the Grand Canyon is starting to reopen. They may not have available reservations and restrictions might make them a bad choice, but they are back on the list of possible destinations. I am also exploring a few other options in Arizona for the second half of June. My first real challenge may be Fourth of July weekend.
I still have four reservations in Wyoming and Colorado that I will probably cancel. My evolving plan is to head toward the east along the Interstate 40 corridor over the course of the summer. I have been doing some research on places in Tennessee for late August into September, but everything depends on how a little virus twists the world into chaos.
Today was another two walk day. I’ve gotten into the habit of taking the morning walk before breakfast. During last weeks triple digit temperature days it was the only real time to walk before sunset. Today I could have taken the walk at anytime.
The high temperature is back down in the seasonal normal range. It only reached 93 degrees today. The steady breeze out of the west kept the day in the comfortable range.
Out of focus blossom of the day
Today was back to a very routine slow day. I got my morning walk in before breakfast and my evening walk in after the evening meal. The RV park is really getting sleepy. There are fewer people out walking and more RVs look like they are empty. Many of the RVs that aren’t empty look like they are getting ready to leave soon. I’ve got a little over a week before I move on. I won’t be the last to leave, but not many people other than the year round residents will be here.
Today was a little closer to a normal May day in the Arizona desert. The high temperature was only a little above the normal at 95 degrees. A steady wind also kept things comfortable.
Tonight’s sunset.
Between my two daily walks around the RV park I actually had a little more active day. The first order of business was canceling a couple more reservations. All of my original summer travel reservations through the June 12th are now canceled. I made reservations last week here in Arizona until June 8th, so there is still a possibility of catching up with the original itinerary. I think it is very unlikely. I’m working on alternatives.
My other major activity for the day was a drive southeast to the northern suburbs of Tuscon. Traffic on Interstate 10 was much heavier than last month when I made a similar shorter trip. Off the interstate in the retail areas, it looked like a pre-pandemic day. Retail businesses have had permission to open with safety considerations in place since last Friday. The parking lots weren’t full, but they had plenty of parked cars. My only stops were at an Amazon locker to pick up a package and a gas station on the return trip. This was my first opportunity to take advantage of the lower gas prices. With all of the Arizona gas taxes it was only $1.95 a gallon.
Sky to the north at sunset.
Arizona’s stay at home order ends on Friday. The governor is still calling for people to work from home if possible, but most businesses can start to phase into operation. Even movie theaters and casinos will be allowed to open. Large gatherings are not allowed, but sports teams can practice and play in empty stadiums. This later opening may be a bid to have the baseball spring training facilities used by Major League Baseball during this years modified regular season. Arizona is opening up again.
The clouds and humidity were gone this morning. It turned out to be a fairly comfortable day with lots of wind and a high temperature in the upper half of the nineties.
Cactus blossom of the day.
I don’t have much to write about in this blog entry. It was a very routine day with a walk in the morning before breakfast and a walk at night after my final meal of the day. In between I did a few chores, watched some TV and read some arbitrary stuff.
This is the fifty first day of my exile in the desert as I sit out the “stay at home” directives. In ten days my personal phased approach to returning to travel begins.
After a warm overnight the day turned out to be partly cloudy and humid for the desert. Late in the afternoon Mother Nature really wanted to drop some rain on the area, but it was a poor performance. Most of the rain evaporated before it reached the ground. It was very dark and windy, but not many rain drops landed. The whole event lasted about an hour before the sun made another attempt to brighten the area.
Tonight’s sunset after the rain attempt.
It was a two walk day. My first walk of the day was before 9AM and the second was shortly after 7PM as the sun was setting. In between I did a lot of reading, some TV watching and a little cooking. The bottom line is it was a very routine day.
The snowbirds continue to dribble out of the RV park. Two more RVs departed today. I have given up trying to guess who’s leaving and who’s staying. I’ve been wrong too many times. I was sure one of today’s departures would be here all summer. They went from fully spread out with lawn furniture, plants and whirligigs to a fully packed RV and empty site overnight. The big motorhome towed a twenty foot box trailer packed with a car and lots of extra stuff.
My departure count down is at eleven days and counting.
There were more clouds in the sky today. Along with the clouds came more humidity, so even though the mercury didn’t climb as high it wasn’t as comfortable as some of the previous triple digit days.
It was a two walk day. On my morning walk I manged to find a couple of photogenic cactus blossoms. My walk at sunset was under heavy clouds, so I didn’t get any pictures of the setting sun. On both walks I didn’t see nearly as many people as on previous walks. Departures and the heat have reduced the field of fellow walkers.
One of the things I accomplished between the two walks was making, as opposed to canceling, a couple of reservations. They weren’t major destination reservations, but a gradual return to travel at places with more to do than my current location. My two month stay here is up on the 21st just before the memorial day holiday. The popular places are booked for the holiday weekend. Staying here at a nightly rate is not going to happen, so I’m going to spend the weekend at Picacho Peak State Park. It is just down the interstate from here and isn’t a popular destination this time of year because of the heat. I’ve stayed there before among the saguaros.
After the Memorial Day weekend I’ll move north of Phoenix to Cottonwood for two weeks. I’ve booked two weeks at the Dead Horse Ranch State Park. It’s higher elevation won’t be as hot. I spent two weeks at the park in the fall of 2017 and was heading there again when I decided to make this RV park home for the last two months. The majority of the Arizona State Parks remained open for the entire “stay at home” period. There was one twenty four hour period at the beginning of April that a shutdown order was issued, but it was rescinded before it was implemented.
Arizona seems to understand that most of the state parks and campgrounds aren’t a major social distancing concern. The few that are indoors or in otherwise contained spaces like caves are closed. I think it also helps that none of the nearby states have major outbreaks of the virus. There aren’t many travelers by road to fear at a higher level than your neighbor. People flying in from the virus hot spots don’t typically jump in an RV and head for a state park. Of course this could all change without warning, but right now the Arizona State Parks seem to be a viable option.
I think I’ll be in Arizona most of June. Utah and New Mexico are the options that I’m trying to understand better. Utah is opening up faster than Arizona and New Mexico, but it has a few counties that are more restrictive. Some of the National Parks in Utah are starting to reopen. New Mexico seems to be the most shutdown of the three states. Its state parks are all closed and private RV parks are restricted to 25 percent occupancy. So far, I haven’t read anything about a reopening timeline. I check travel restrictions and options at least once everyday. I don’t think that is going to change anytime soon.
As the sun set last night the clouds moved in. They kept the overnight temperature a little warmer than the previous few nights. I had to run the AC most of the night. Today, that same cloud cover kept the sun from really heating things up. The temperature stayed a little below the century mark in this area. Phoenix to the north was 103 again.
I am surprised this week went by quickly. Everyday has been very similar dominated by staying inside out of the hot sun during the majority of the day. Today I got in my morning walk with the help of the clouds keeping the beating sun away. For my sunset walk the clouds were starting to breakup, so they may not be around to help keep the temperature under control tomorrow. On the positive side the forecast high temperatures are returning closer to normal next week. There aren’t any 100 plus degree days in next weeks forecast (yet).
Another of my late May early June reservations was canceled today. The Idaho State Parks are delaying their opening. I have a couple of private campground reservations that I need to cancel. The first one I tried wasn’t answering the phone, so I need to keep trying. They may not have anyone staffing the office. Understanding what’s open and what’s staffed in any given area is a challenge.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 