Sept 20-26, 2020 - St Petersburg, FL - Florida has opened up but pandemic is still going on

9-20-2020

US CASES 6,682,988

DEATHS 187,547

 

9-26-2020

US CASES 6,945,223

DEATHS 192,460

 

 

• Decided to do a time released video and went to Weedon on Sunday before dawn.  Hiking in the dark is weird.  Its not exactly dark, because of artificial light in the area, but its not a great deal of light.  I got set up on the observation tower shortly after 6:30am.  Then I had to sit and wait.  I felt weird not doing laps or something.  I was in the park and not moving, full of my morning caffeine and being stationary.  As the sky got a little lighter, I noticed that there was no sign of the sun.  Just lots of clouds.  I was hoping the clouds would thin out as dawn came, but it didn’t happen.  The video ended up in interesting anyway, just not as pretty as I’d hoped.  When I eventually got to download it, I had a hard time with GoPro Quik, and couldn’t figure out how just save it as a time released video.  In the folders, it was a bunch of individual jpegs.  The only way to view it was through the Quik software and it wouldn’t save as an ‘edit’.  So I finally used the Quik and had to add ‘highlight’ tags that made it choppy and weird.  As I was writing this, I came up with another possible way to do it, and I may try that later.
• After sitting for half an hour on the observation tower, I grabbed the GoPro and headed back to the car to drop it off and hit the trails.  I was meeting Gina at the zoo at 930am and I still had plenty of time to get some miles in.  I needed to keep up the walks consistently to ensure I was keeping up with my time line on the Camino de Santiago.  Unfortunately I’d worn my flip flops and I started to get a hot spot after the first couple of miles.  I also messed up my GPS and realized I’d done about a mile with my “Map My Walk” on pause.  Grrrr.  Around this time Gina texted to let me know that her husband had the car and she wasn’t’ going to make the zoo.  We texted back and forth and decided to meet later in the day.  I went home and changed my shoes and decided to do the zoo anyway.  I could get some steps in and get some footage on my GoPro to play with.  I got nearly 2 more miles at the zoo and headed to IKEA to meet Gina.  We wandered the store a bit before heading home.
• Tried the keto chicken pot pie again.  This time I used more of the chicken broth than I used the first time.  I’m probably letting it simmer, then bake, longer than I’m supposed too.  But it takes me awhile to get the biscuits done.  The extra broth gave it more to work with and it turned out really well this time.  I used a frozen vegetable medley that included broccoli, cauliflower and carrot.  I added green beans, mushrooms, onions and celery.
• Went and saw the doctor this week.  Got new meds and birth control.  I’m not sure how potent my heart pills are anymore, they are old and have not exactly been in ‘ambient’ temperatures while in storage or in my car.  So I have new meds.  I also found the meds I was stockpiling.
• Terry from Lorraine’s Beauty Academy called last week to let me know they were open for client services again.  Limited but skin care services were open in the evening.  And I booked a spa facial for next week!
• Bought my Asia shoes this week.  I had originally planned on taking my ON Cloud Runners with me, but that was a year ago.  And now its going to be another year.  I had to decide to either take them and replace them at some point soon as they were getting a lot of miles on them (especially with the run challenges I’ve been doing) or to choose a good pair of shoes and hope they last the deration.  I stalked the REI website for awhile and finally ended up with Salomon waterproof hiking shoes.  I’ve not had this brand before, but if REI is selling them, it has to be a quality shoe.  I didn’t test them this week, because of Gils Birthday, but I’ll take them out to Boyd Hill next Saturday and put them through the paces.
• The first day of Gils Birthday celebration started on the last day of this week.  I had a great weekend planned.  Saturday morning, we were up early and at the zoo.  I had planned a Penguin Encounter and Gil loved Penguins.  We spent a couple of hours there before heading to Lakeland to check out the Brew Hub – a central location that is shared with multiple micro-breweries.  They get to share the space and the expenses.  We got to try a number of different beers and took home 2 – 6 packs of beer.  From there we ended up at a place called C1949 Beer Gardens.  They had 5 pages of beers on their menu and Gil tried a new beer.  From here we ended up at 82W Distillery, where we tried lots of rum and ended buying a bottle before we went home.  I think I managed to stay Keto for the whole day, but some of the flavored rums may be pushing the limits.