Travels with Kris

Corona US Cases April 12 -  554,849 Corona US Cases April 18 - 724,895 Corona US Deaths April 12- 22,000 Corona US Deaths April 18 -    34,178 Interesting things that happened this week - I started putting applications...hospitals, grocery stores etc - We got our 1200 stimulus checks and we both went and got work done on our cars. - We took the dog to the dog park.  Liberal use of hand sanitizer after touching the gates, but it was empty, so pretty low risk. - I tried to make pesto-parmesan pasta and it was a failure - we've had to turn the air-conditioning on, which makes me sad.  I'm grateful for the lower temperature, but I love hearing the rain with the windows open. - I got my first viral answer on Quora.  I make no money off of that.  I wish I could think of a good question that would go viral. - Liberty University decided to close their doors and move all classes to on-line.  Students are suin...

Corona US Cases April 5 -  331,000 Corona US Cases April 11 - 524,903 Corona US Deaths April 5 - 9,400 Corona US Deaths April 11 - 20,389 Interesting things that happened this week - Walmarts are starting to limit the amount of people that can enter - I taught Gil about the joys of Sloppy Joe, we made sloppy joe sandwiches, sloppy joe omelets and sloppy joe tacos. -  trump told everyone to go to Easter services, even though the whole rest of the world is on lock down and attending services violates multiple city or state bans in many areas. - Animals are taking back nature.  Dolphins have returned to the Venice canals, camels running on the beach and the sky over Los Angeles is clear for the first time in years. - Gil and I are ok on toilet paper for the next month, but I feel like buying an extra pack, just in case.  I haven't seen toilet paper at the store in weeks.  We do go to the store more often than we should.  We always forge...

Corona US Cases March 29 - 142,356 Corona US Cases April 4 - 311,301 Cases more than doubled in a week Corona US Deaths March 29 - 2400 (reported at 7:30pm) Corona US Deaths April 4 - 8291 (reported at 8:18) Interesting things that happened this week - Liberty University opened up for students to return to classes on the 25th of March.  Within a week, 12 students have the virus. - The US has hijacked shipments of facemasks on their way to German and France.  Some unknown official from the US met the pilot on the tarmac of the runway in China and slipped him(her) some money to ship to the US instead. - Florida set up checkpoint along I-95, I-75 and I-10 to block travelers.  All those infected New Yorkers coming here are getting turned around now. - A Florida megachurch opened for services and the church leader got arrested for violating stay at home orders. - I created and ordered a "50th Anniversary" book from my Aunt Pam and Uncle George.  Their anniv...

Day 2 of lockdown. Coronavirus US Cases: 124,377 Reported cases are increasing at about 20,000 per day Coronavirus US deaths: 2010 (as reported at 9pm) Coronavirus deaths have doubled in 48 hours.  I'm watching a lot of tv in lockdown.  its nice taking a couple of days to do very little.  Eating lots of Publix groceries.  Tried to clip the dogs nails, as she keeps walking on my flip flopped feet and punching holes in my toes.  We broke the clippers on her nails and I ordered a better version from Amazon. Favorite meme of the day (or viral photo as a better description)

First day in lock down.  Re-establishing a relationship with the puppy. Coronavirus cases in the US are up to 104,142 and 1588 deaths.  For that are countying, that is a 50% increase from yesterday.  Took us a little over a month for the first 1000 deaths and it'll take 2-3 days for next the thousand.  Yesterday, the US passed China and Italy to take the #1 spot in cases.  We have a larger land mass than Italy and a larger population, so Italy is still beating us per capita.  But we have more overall cases than they do.  Most of our hospitals are handling the case load, but New York is starting to struggle.  They have a very large population and nearly everyone depends on public transportation (in the city, not the state).  The hospitals are overwhelmed and New Yorkers with Rv's or Condos in Florida are leaving the state and heading elsewhere.  Many are already infected and they are trailing the virus all the way down I-95 or to RV p...

Up early and went to the car mechanic.  They weren't very busy, but that worked well for me.  I waited for my service, which I don't always do, but the theater was closed and restaurants were closed...so waiting was my best option.  If it was a long service, I'd have Gil drop me off.  It was quick.  Found out my tires are on their last let and the boot around my axle joint is cracked.  Got the estimates for those. Headed to the laundry mat and did lots and lots of laundry.  I hadn't done laundry since Lancaster in late February.  Did my sheets and pillow cases and all the clothes.  It was a very long day at the laundromat.  Once I'm washing once or twice a week, I can wash at Gils, but his dryer doesn't work and trying to do 20lbs of laundry and have it air dry in the laundry room or run on the air cycle on the dryer with no heat element, its ridiculous.  But I'm 100% caught up after the laundromat and I have lots and lots of c...

I was trying to drive slow and enjoy the scenery, but it was hard.  I was only about 5 hours away from St Pete, so I call Gil to see if he wants to host me.  The last high risk location I was at was the Carlsbad Caves in New Mexico and that was 7 days before.  I'd still been out in the world since then, but mostly in my car.  I did still need public restrooms and gas stations along the way, and although limited exposure, I was still being explosed.  He didn't seem real worried about it and said I could come.  I would stay in MC's 2nd bedroom aka The Office.  We would limit contact and such until I was deemed safe. Gil's brother was at the house in the morning helping with some house work.  Once I showed up, he would stop coming by.  His father in-law was in very poor health, and he couldn't risk exposure.  So I slept late and took the scenic route down US19.  I was scheduled to get to St Pete around 5pm-ish.  Once I got clo...

I woke up and headed towards the beach.  I remembered this drive being really beautiful the last time I was here and I couldn't wait to hit it again.  I drove south from Walmart hoping I would just run into the beach.  Nope, I ran into a military base.  I pull up the GPS and I can see the beach on the map directly on the flip side of the military base but I didn't know how to get there.  So I followed on a parallel road until I could get to the water.  Turns out my memory is a little faulty and there isn't a beach road that runs the entire length of the panhandle like it does on the east coast.  There are a lot of intercoastal islands that are closed to everyone except residence and police checkpoints to make sure people adhere.  I was able to drive some of it but mostly it was through a main road that was a mile or two away from the beach.  I did find some really nice resort towns that I expect are very expensive, but I need to take a clos...

This day was mostly all driving.  I got to New Orleans very early and it wasn't as headless as I'd hoped  If I could have parked the car and walked around I could have got some good photos but all the parking spaces were filled by residence of the Quarter and traffic was slow but just enough to where stopping in the middle of the road was an issue.  I drove around for a bit, was able to get a couple of photos, but I was got bored and wandered off. Enjoyed the drive in Mississippi and passed the Aircraft Carrier in Mobile.  I'd hopped to be able to tour that on this trip, but it was no longer possible.  Found a Captain D's in Mobile and followed the GPS all over town until I got to it.  They were on a limited small menu and didn't have my favorite foods.  So I went to Zaxby's and enjoyed lunch Kept driving until I hit Pensecola.  I know Im close to home now, but I decide to hang out here for awhile.  The last high risk place I was in...

Coronavirus cases in the US today are 32,722.  So its up 6x in 6 days.  I messaged Laura and school has been closed in the Dallas area.  I think at this stage it was closed all over the country, but I'm not sure when it kicked in nation wide.  All sporting events and large venue concerts were closed.  Theme parks were closed.  Everything non-essential is closed.  I had planned on doing things on this leg of the trip, but I'm not going to be able to do any of them.  The state parks in Florida closed.  New Orleans was being talked about as an epicenter due to spring break and the entire French Quarter is closed. Her kids have the regular flu and her house is in chaos. Laura and I meet at a local park by a lake. Its pretty close to where she lives.  When I get there, its like a ghost town.  There is a single car with a boat trailer in the parking lot, but the boat and owner are somewhere out on the water.  There are some bi...

Woke up and hit the road.  Happy to see that bush toilet right past the entrance.  There was a lot of fog.  Something I didn't expect to see in the desert.  It made some fantastic photos though.  I drove through a section of the park that I skipped the day before, working my way through the winding foggy roads towards the entrance of the park. I spent close to two hours on that slow drive taking photos of the mountains and the flowers.  On my way out, a coyote ran across the road in front of me.  It was about 200 feet in front, so moved my car to about where I thought it was.  Grabbed my camera and started scanning the desert.  Little roadrunners can hide around the short shrubbery easily, but a coyote wouldn't have a harder time.  I scanned hard.  Moved forward a little bit and scanned again.  Kept moving forward, looking for any movement or anything that isn't a shrubbery.  Finally I found him.  He was standing ...

I ended up about halfway to Big Bend the night before and crashed off the expressway where I would have to turn off to get to the park.  I still had a few hours of driving left but I'd have a harder time finding a place to park at night, so I chose a place heavy on hotels and truck stops, so I knew I'd be good. I enjoyed a great drive to the park.  Found a family of prong horns in a field.  Found a Prada store in the middle of no where that is actually part of an art exhibit.  Found a s imilar Target Store.  They aren't really stores. The visitors center at the entrance was closed, this was expected.  The indoor bathrooms were closed.  They had outside bush toilets that were open.  They were out of maps.  I really wanted a map.  I'd already pulled up the map on google and I knew this would be a huge park. I decided to follow the main road and hope there is signage.  Hopefully I would be able to find a map somewhere else....

Headed to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  This park was also free.  I figured out once I got back to El Paso that the entire park system was suspending entrance fees.  They were keeping the parks open so people could hike or kayak but they they are closing most of the visitor centers, museums and educational centers.  There was a park ranger in the visitor center and when she saw someone coming down the walk, she'd walk out and give them a brochure/map, provide the expected weather for the day and provided hiking advice based on the expected weather.  All in about 120 seconds.  I expect there was probably wi-fi service available at the visitors center as there were two campers under blankets in camp chairs with computers plugged into the outlet between the vending machines,. I went back to my car and reviewed the map.  I had hit some side locations on my way to the park and found a few more.  It was one of the best sky days I'd seen,...

The drive from El Paso to Carlsbad Caverns was a couple of hours but the drive was pretty and I drove through the Guadalupe Mountains National Park to get there.  I was happy to see a rest area in between the two parks since I wasn't sure what my other sleeping options were going to be.  There is a small settlement outside Carlsbad Caverns but not really big enough to be a town.  Mostly a motel, a restaurant, gift shop and a gas station.  I was surprised when I got to the visitor center how full the parking lot was.  the RV lot was completely full and the regular car lot was 3/4 full.  It was crazy.  It was just coming up to noon and I wasn't sure what time the tours were scheduled.  I thought perhaps if I could catch an early tour I'd have time to drive about Guadalupe Mountains NP on the same day and head back to El Paso before it go too late.    I grab my wallet and my parks pass and I go to the ticket buying line.  My parks p...