Each evening, Steve and I sit out in the yard, enjoying our gorgeous weather, sometimes completely alone, sometimes with friends on FaceTime. I enjoy it for about an hour, and then I get anxious and feel the need to move. Tonight, Steve was really into it, and we sat here for almost 3 hours. At one point, I asked him how he could just sit and do nothing for that long, and he said "I'm pretty proud of myself, I never thought I be able to do this". So I sat there a little bit longer with him, so he could be proud of himself.
But by then, I was starting to feel like a slug, and was getting in a bad mood, so I said we needed to go do something. He got a smile on his face and said, OK, lets go get water. So we grabbed our two, two gallon jugs. But instead of getting in the car, we started walking. It's about 1.25 miles to the machines where we get our R.O. water and then 1.25 miles back, which isn't far, but I thought, this could get pretty heavy by the time we get home. But I didn't say a word.
We filled up our bottles, sanitized our hands and headed back home.
I had to help Steve out with his water a few times, because he just couldn't handle it. 😜
It was actually really good exercise and made me feel much less like a slug. OK, I really enjoyed it. But be careful admitting that you're bored to your husband, you never know what he'll come up with.
For the last two weeks, Steve and I have been doing a voluntary quarantine in our motor home. We're getting good at hiking and walks, but we still need more activity, so we have now added morning YouTube yoga to our days. It is a great way to get up and get moving, and it makes us feel so much better. We always reward ourselves with lots of morning coffee when we are finished!
The corona virus finally hit our little town, with our first confirmed case, so they are now becoming a bit more strict on what we can and can't do, but we're still not in a stay at home mandate like a lot of states and cities are. Either way, Steve and I will continue to do exactly what we've been doing, which is to just stay away from everyone, for our good and theirs.
Lake Havasu is behind the curve on the Corona Virus. Large cities are so far ahead of us and are showing us what is still to come. We certainly don't need to panic, but we definitely do need to pay attention.
Some of the things that are happening around the U.S. and world are really interesting, and unprecedented of in our lifetimes.
The U.S. has now passed all other countries in it's number of cases. We are now at 85,000.
Two days ago, on Wednesday, March 25th, there were 64,000 cases in the U.S. and 900 people had died from the virus.
- Louisiana now has 10x more cases than 1 week ago, they believe due to Mardi Gras traffic.
- A 2 trillion $ relief package has just been passed by congress.
- The department of defense has ordered no domestic travel for active duty and their families until mid May.
- For high school, college and university students, proms and graduations have been canceled. Some of these students will be able to walk at a later date, but still it's not the way they wanted all of their hard work to end.
- Couples who planned their weddings for this spring are having to cancel, but rather than wasting all of the money they have put toward their weddings, many of them are doing drive by weddings as a way to share the day with their families and friends, but not break the 6 foot social distancing rule.
- The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics have now been postponed until 2021.
- The tax filing deadline has been postponed until July 15, 2020.
- New York, Washington and California were the first states to enact stay at home mandates, with many other states now following in their footsteps.
- Shortages of necessary hospital equipment such as gloves, masks, gowns, and ventilators are making the effects virus so much more critical.
- Most of our youngest daughter's clients are in Europe, so she is getting daily reports from them. The virus is incredibly bad there. And if you think about it, Europeans don't have outdoor space like we do. The ones that are lucky enough to still be healthy are stuck completely inside.
I will continue to document some of the effects of this virus as they unfold. We're starting to get better statistics on the news, showing both the recovery and death rates around the world. The death rate seems to be staying at about 1.3% world wide, but what makes it so bad is how contagious it is and how quickly it spreads.
We live in different states from both of our kids, so we don't get to see them in person very often. Of course, this virus hasn't changed that, but it has given all of us a bit too much time on our hands. So tonight, our oldest daughter set up a family game night...virtual style.
It was set up on Jackboxtv.com, and allowed all of us to interact on our computer screens (one per location), and one phone per person on which we would each play the games. They had several games to choose from, so we tried three of them.
We felt like we were truly spending time with our kids, although some of the locations had planned better than we did, so they had great snacks to enjoy while we played. It was the most fun we have had in a long time!
We were so inspired by our daughter's thoughtfulness that we have now started doing virtual happy hours with our friends to reconnect face-to-face (almost).
We have really been enjoying our hikes the last few weeks as we attempt to get some exercise and still maintain our distance from everyone else. Today we drove down to Sara Park, where there are a lot of hiking trails. Two of our favorite hikes are Sara's Crack and Picnic Table Mountain. As we approached the parking lot for those trails, they were packed with cars, so we quickly decided they would not be good choices for us. So we drove a little further south to the next parking area and decided to start our hike from there. This was a completely new trail for us, so we decided to just see where it would take us.
With so many states under stay at home orders, it's easy to lose hope and start feeling defeated, but the desert is a great place to get some perspective on resilience. Look at this little plant growing directly out of a rock in the hot arid desert. Now that is resilience.
Our choice of trails appears to be a good one. Looking across the valley, we can see many different groups going to Sara's Crack and Picnic Table, but our trail is nice and quiet so far.
Lichen seems like any unlikely sight in the desert, but we are seeing it on rocks all over today.
Our trail took us into a wash that we followed down a ways, then we took trail 4465 off to the left out of the wash.
The lizards are out again today, but there aren't as many as on our Cattail Cove hike a few days ago.
Trail 4465 dropped us into another wash, where trail 4466 took off, so we turned right into the wash on 4466 and followed it toward the lake. A nice shady spot to rest for a minute.
About three miles into our hike, we could tell that we were getting close to the lake. We could hear boats go by periodically, but still couldn't see the lake at all. We found this nice shady spot under a salt cedar bush, with fine, soft sand to sit and enjoy our lunch.
Peanut butter and banana on a hoagie roll. Yum!
Several months ago, with help from our local BLM (Bureau of Land Management) office, we downloaded the Avenza Maps app and loaded some trail maps that work even if you are offline. They are great for hiking and keeping tack of where you are. Our car is parked at the top of this map, and you can see by the blue dot (us) that we are very close to the lake. We thought it would be fun to get a glimpse of the lake before heading back, so after lunch, we continued on.
But it didn't take long to realize that our trail was turning into a jungle of bushes, twigs and creepy crawly things that maybe we didn't want to be around. So, without our glimpse of the lake, we turned around and headed back. From the map we could tell we were less than 200 feet from the lake!
On our way back, we saw this bird up in the tree eating something. It had somehow hooked it's prey on the branch and was slowly tearing off little pieces to eat.
We couldn't figure out what it was eating. Maybe a lizard. We never realized that birds could use a tree branch as a tool.
We completed our whole hike without seeing a single other person until the very end, where we had to step off the trail twice to let people pass us right near the trail head.
As we waited for one family to pass us, I looked down and saw some these tiny yellow flowers. Each fully opened flower was about 1 mm in size, but zooming in I could get a picture of them. It's amazing what you can enjoy if you just slow down and look around.
Our hike today was a total success. Lots of beautiful sights, a few lizards, the tiniest flowers, no people, and some great exercise!
We rewarded ourselves with a super yummy dinner! Cajun cod, grilled asparagus and creamy polenta. Now that's hard to beat!
Until next time...Happy Trails! Be safe everyone and please honor the distancing/isolation!
Today's outing was to Buckskin Mountain State Park, on the Parker, AZ Strip. I have to start out by saying that the park got both a pass and a fail from us when it comes to Covid-19. The pass was that they were disinfecting all of their restrooms while we were there, and had the doors propped open so you didn't have to touch them after washing your hands, but the fail was the volunteer ranger at the entry gate. He walked right up to our car window, grabbed Steve's ID and pass out of his hand, and took them inside to make sure they were valid.....WHAT? Since we are practicing social distancing to an extreme, we had to disinfect everything after he handed them back. We're not sure what he was thinking, but in our eyes, that was a definite fail.
Anyway! After entering, we headed to the hiking trail, which starts climbing immediately in the park.
Kind of a creepy looking guy. He was at least 1.5 inches long!
All of the trails started out together, but once we crossed the highway, they split up in different directions, so we had a choice of here to hike. We chose the orange trail which was only about 1.5 mile loop.
As you can see, we had the trail entirely to ourselves, which was an unexpected treat.
We had the gorgeous views all to ourselves as well.
It felt so good to get some fresh air and exercise today! Again another shout-out to the rangers doing such a great job cleaning and disinfecting the restrooms!
The sale of our home in Lake Havasu closed about a week ago. It's kind of a weird feeling, living in our motor home, and trying to stay away from everyone, knowing that we don't have a house that we can go back to if things get crazy. We're pretty sure that this is just the beginning of it, yet we're already seeing some signs of stir craziness from family members but everyone is doing a great job of being creative. Our kids in Washington sent us a video of their Friday morning dance party. Just trying to get the wiggles out before sitting down to work from home. Everyone got involved and did their version of a home dance party!
It was cold and rainy again yesterday, but today is a new day. The sun is out and it is warming up, so I was able to spend some time outside. I took Steve's brother's dog Zelda on a nice walk/run in the field across the street from their house. It was great for both of us!
Steve and his brother polished jet skis and tried out our new masserator (a portable waste pump) for emptying our holding tanks on the motor home . Thankfully it worked great!
Since our house sold, we are now getting our mail at a P.O. Box, but that makes it a bit difficult to get our mail without going out in public. So we signed up for "informed delivery" through the US Postal Service, and now they notify us of what mail we will be getting each day. Now we won't have to go down and check for mail unless we know that something important is there.
Yesterday, Arizona announced a state wide state of emergency, asking that restaurants increase use of take out, people keep groups to less than ten, and continue to practice social distancing. As soon as a county has a confirmed case of the virus, all restaurants must provide take-out only, and bars, theaters and gyms will be closed. Havasu located in Mohave county, has no confirmed cases yet, so at this point we have a hodge podge of reactions. Our gym is limiting people to 25 at a time, and you have to have an appointment to go. Restaurants are still open and encouraging people to come. Some meetings have been cancelled, but there is still a concert scheduled in Bull Head City on March 28th. Restaurants seem to be getting quieter, but bar parking lots are still full at night.
California announced a shelter in place for the entire state, which means that you can leave your home only for groceries, essential employees and emergencies. I think there are now 4 states that have taken this precaution.
We will just continue to hunker down in the motor home and avoid contact with anyone. It sure is nice to have a phone in times like these. Face time does a pretty good job of replacing face to face contact. Steve's brother and our sister-in-law are leaving us in the morning to head back to Colorado, so now we will be by ourselves again. It's been so much fun hanging out with them, enjoying our evening sun-downers and dinners. We will miss it. Back to phone contact only.
I've been telling Steve all winter that Lake Havasu is the new Seattle. It has been an incredibly wet winter here, and definitely cooler than usual. Last week we had four days of rain in a row (unheard of), while we were trying to move out of our house, and this week, we are back to rain again. And on the days that it hasn't rained, still not much sun. But what I want to know is what will Seattle become, when we become Seattle?
I took this picture while we were enjoying a little outing this morning, to go to our storage shed to pick up a few packed items that we were running short on. We hadn't planned on the fact that we would be limiting our trips to the grocery store as much as we are, and we didn't plan ahead.
And then, the highlight of our day, reuben sandwiches for lunch!! The best part of St. Patrick's day to me is the left overs! Oh so yummy!
The rain has not let up all day. We took a nice walk around the neighborhood between thunderstorms this afternoon, and enjoyed a wonderful vegetable curry for dinner. Other than that, it was cross stitching, television and YouTube for us as we were stuck inside the motor home today. All in all a decent day, but we're ready for all this rain to move on for good.
Things are a bit different this year. I'm not trying to spread the hype of the corona virus, but just to document it from our point of view as we watch it unfold. It is something that we have never seen in our lifetime, that could potentially have an impact on all of us for a long time, or could pass as quickly as it came, with only a small impact.
Since I talked about us trying to stay away from people two days ago, things have already changed. The president has now asked that all restaurants officially close their dining rooms and provide take-out only, and all schools nation wide are officially closed. I know that working parents are scrambling to find daycare for their kids so they can continue working, and people in the service industries are starting to see business taper off as people cancel their appointments. Nevada officially closed all casinos and nonessential business, and the stock market is a roller coaster. Everyone' situation is different, with different priorities and concerns. But the thing to keep in mind is that we are all in this together.
With all of that in mind, tonight we celebrated St. Patrick's day with the corned beef we bought during our last shopping trip, and a Kilt Lifter beer for a St. Patrick's Day toast. We are with Steve's brother and our sister-in-law who are also hanging low during this uncertain time. It was a quiet, but very fun night.
We decided to get out today and get a little fresh air and sunshine, so we drove down to Cattail Cove State Park, which approximately 15 miles south of the town of Lake Havasu, for a hike. Usually when you go through the gate of the state park, they take your parks pass and your ID and examine them before letting you in. But today, the routine was a little bit different. We held up our pass and ID, and from 6 feet away, she looked at them and let us in. We thanked her for not touching our pass, and we went into the state park.
We headed to the south on our hike along the lake, and enjoyed all of the spring wildflowers along the way. We ran into about three different groups of hikers on the trail, so we stepped aside, and gave them room to pass by us, and continued on our way.
The thing that really amazed us on our hike was the number of lizards we saw out today. I think they were soaking up the sun, just like we were, after all of the rain we have had the last few weeks.
We stopped at the halfway point for a quick selfie.
As we were hiking back, we watched a white heron circle and land out in the dessert. Such a strange place to see a heron.
This is the largest lizard we saw today. It was about 12 inches long. We're pretty sure that it is a desert iguana, which can grow up to 24 inches.
Our hike was amazing today. The weather was perfect, and the views were beautiful! While trying to stay away from people, we will have to be creative about how to get some exercise and enjoy our days. We ended our day with a really beautiful Havasu sunset.
2020 is the year of the Corona Virus. It started in Wuhan, China on December 29th, 2019, and within 90 days has spread world wide. Of course, the news hypes it up and maybe even blows it out of proportion, but there is the other side of it as well, and that is that any virus that is capable of spreading that quickly and has a 1% - 3% death rate needs to be taken seriously.
Throughout the United States, they have started taking some pretty drastic measures, closing public spaces and canceling events. Disney Land has closed it's doors, along with major league sports, college sporting events (yes, even March Madness), theaters, schools, universities and libraries. Many companies are also asking their employees to work from home if possible.
We are also starting to see the results of public panic, in the stock market and stores, like stores having to close their doors because their shelves are empty.
But the thing we are not seeing yet in our little town is people taking reasonable precautions. We live in a tourist town, so people come and go from all parts of the world on a regular basis, and yet all of the restaurants and bars in town are still packed. It isn't that hard to just stay away from crowded places for a few weeks to let this thing die down, but so far, we just aren't seeing it.
Our nephew who is getting his PhD from a university that is now closed, is calling it a social experiment to see how much we can do remotely or on the internet, and what the impacts will be, and if we do things remotely, and it stops the virus from spreading, will we then think we over reacted? I really love the way he's thinking.
Being cautious doesn't mean you have to be cooped up. Get out and enjoy some sunshine, play a game of golf, or take a hike, just don't hang out in large masses of people. It's pretty simple, if we all do our part, we can stop the virus from spreading any further and be back to our normal activities in no time.
It's been a crazy few months for Steve and I, so I'll fill you in on our most recent adventure.
We have loved Lake Havasu City since we started coming here in 1996. It has been an amazing vacation spot, and for the last four years, it has been a great home. But as with everything in life, our perceptions and priorities change.
Paradise for us used to be a warm location with a lake, where we could relax and boat. But with changes in our lives, and our love for travel, our new paradise is defined as a warm location with an airport, where we can relax and move around more easily.
So late last year, we started looking around the Phoenix area to see what it might have to offer. We eventually found a spec home that meets our needs, and put down earnest money to hold it for us until it is complete. Since then, we have once again been purging our lives of anything we no longer need or use. I love simplifying. It just makes me happy!
On Tuesday, February 25th, we put our Havasu house on the market, hoping not to have to move twice, but knowing that might be a possibility. And today, Friday, March 13th, we are completely moved out and closed on our house. 16 days from start to finish. Apparently we like living in a whirlwind, because we just keep doing it to ourselves.
We are once again temporarily homeless, with our things in storage, living in our motor home, but what better way to spend spring in the beautiful desert.
