Friday April 17th 2020

My laid back daily routine continued today. A strong wind out of the west arrived to keep the temperature in the low eighties. The desert dust was really blowing and walking was difficult at times, but I still made my two walks around the park.

I didn’t find any new interesting things on my walks to take pictures for this blog entry, so I started checking my archives for pictures from this time last year. I was still in Florida until near the end of May 2019 working on plans for travel during the summer of 2019. On April 17th I included a nice hibiscus blossom in my blog entry, so I’m including it again in this blog.

Reviewing the old blog entries reminded me that this was the first year I made extensive travel plans well ahead of time. Many of those plans have already been canceled and others will have to be soon. I’m not sure that any of my 2020 plans make sense anymore. For 2016 through 2019 my planning was more just in time. With a few exceptions for stays during the high season in popular areas I only planned a couple of months ahead. That seems like a much safer approach given current world conditions. Everyday I spend some time investigating alternatives for the coming months, but what tomorrow brings is largely a big unknown.

Thursday April 16th 2020

It is starting to get hot in the desert. Today’s high temperature was above eighty five. Tomorrow is forecast to be a little warmer. The current forecast has the first ninety degree day of the year next week. The average first ninety degree day is on March 31st, so I’m not going to complain. The first week of may is the average first one hundred degree day around here. The bottom line is it’s going to get hot around here.

I was back to a two walk day today. The time used for the third walk of the last couple of days was taken up by reading. A few more snowbirds departed this morning. Big areas of empty sites are developing in the RV park. The folks on my front side will be leaving for Wisconsin some time next week. The people from Oregon on the other side are waiting for word that their destination in Oregon is opening. The New York people across the street haven’t figured out what there doing yet. There are a couple of RVs that consider this park home near me as well. I’m still planning on staying here another month. What happens then is still a mystery, but I’m researching a little bit everyday.

Wednesday April 15th 2020

It was another cloudless day in the desert. A gentle breeze and a cool start kept the day’s temperature from reaching super high levels. The temperature topped out around eighty late in the day. The weather trend is on an upward temperature climb.

I was supposed to get up at 4:45AM this morning to make another Florida State Park reservation for next March. It didn’t happen. Sometime after breakfast I remembered that I what I should have done in the early hours of the morning. Nothing was available when I checked around noon local time.

Trying to figure out an alternative brought me back to thoughts about the uncertainty associated with future travel plans in the new COVID 19 filled world. I’m already reconciled to very different summer travel plans. I don’t know what they will be yet. As the country starts to open things up, I’ll start to figure out a plan. Who knows what will be possible.

For next winter I’ve been making reservations in state parks and other public campgrounds in two week increments starting at the end of October. If the virus necessitates isolation and closures next winter, these are very risky places to be staying. Particularly in Florida the State Parks seem to be the first things closed. I spent time today investigating private RV parks where I could spend a few months. I have a few possibilities, but the first two choices aren’t taking reservations until after they finish dealing with the current stay at home order. All of this planning is very much a waiting game.

My daily routine was again augmented with a third walk around the park. There were a few changes to the occupancy of the park today. A couple more RVs had departed and few more have been “abandoned” for the summer. The couple across the street from Alberta Canada brought in the slide rooms, disconnected the electric, water and sewer before driving away in their SUV. I don’t think leaving the RV here was part of their original plan, but some of the other unoccupied RVs are still here by plan.

Tuesday April 14th 2020

I don’t have much to blog about today. There was rarely a cloud in the sky today. The full sun was tempered by a good north breeze, so the temperature peaked in the mid to upper seventies.

My daily routine was broken by a third walk today. My first walk was a little earlier in the day than usual at about 10AM. I added another walk around the RV park in the middle of the afternoon before my final walk of the day at sunset.

Monday April 13th 2020

Today was a much better weather day than the forecasts seemed to be indicating. The bad weather to the north didn’t get this far south. Around here there was just sunshine and a lot of wind. North of Phoenix there were rain showers and in the mountains further north more rain and snow. I enjoyed the weather.

I didn’t have a lot of energy for a variation in my routine today. It was a little too warm in the RV last night. Rather than do something about it, I just tossed and turned all night. I took my two walks, did some reading and not much else today.

Sunday April 12th 2020

Happy Easter

Today was a beautiful weather day. It was sunny with a light breeze. The temperature peaked in the low seventies which is ten or more degrees below the normal temperature for this day.

The weather in northern Arizona hasn’t been as great. Yesterday’s storm dropped a few inches of snow at altitude. Another storm tomorrow into Tuesday will also impact the northern part of the state more than here. If the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t short circuited my travel plans I would have been at the Grand Canyon this weekend. Yesterday’s storm deposited three inches of snow at the Grand Canyon. Tomorrow’s will probably drop a similar amount. Touring around the paths and trails at the canyon would have been a slushy mess. I’d still rather be there than here.

Today was a standard two walk around the park day. People were back to walking their dogs on schedule. The usual “hi” or “good morning” were replaced with “Happy Easter” by some as we passed. Everybody is friendly, but appropriately keeping their distance. The park population is pretty constant. No one new is arriving and the departures are infrequent.

Saturday April 11th 2020

The sun made its first appearance of the day just before sunset. The day started cloudy and got progressively worse before it got better. The temperature only managed to climb into the mid sixties.

When I started my first walk of the day just before noon, the sky to the east and south was filled with white fluffy clouds. As I departed my site I chanced to look to the west. That area looked a lot more threatening. Once I was out of the RV park in the desert, the wind picked up and it became clear that the weather was going to go from lousy to downright bad. By the time I got back to my RV home the sky overhead was near black and the wind was blowing chairs around. It continued to blow for about an hour. A few drops of rain accompanied the wind, but not enough to get anything wet. Over the remainder of the day the weather gradually improved.

My second walk of the day at sunset was much nicer than the first. Most of the usual dog walkers and others getting their exercise were not out this evening. Everybody spent the afternoon inside with the windows and doors closed. I hope the dog walkers got out before their fur babies had accidents.

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.