Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Corona Virus - What are we doing



This post will be pretty basic. I don't have pictures and am not sure they would be appropriate anyway.

If you have been following us you know we were heading to the NE after a brief stop in the Rio Grande Valley. That has all changed now.

We have decided to extend our stay here in the RGV for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that as of today there are still no confirmed cases of the virus here. The RGV is an area of about 1M people spread across a wide swath of deep South Texas. The fact that we have no cases so far is a pretty amazing fact.  So being Thousand Trails members affords us the ability to hunker down here and not break the bank.

There are so many unknowns with this virus. There have been some reports that the higher temps here are limiting the time the virus can live. We have been in the high 80s into the low 90s. But who knows if there is any science behind that.

We have learned to love Walmart's online grocery and pick up service. We have been placing orders online and then having them loaded into our car without ever entering the store. That would be a good thing anytime but is truly incredible in virus times.

Of course like most areas of the country, we too have issues finding hand sanitizer, bottled water and toilet paper. But with some imagination and searching we have found all of the above. Both our local Walmart and Costco have been reliable sources for water if you want to be there when they open. We have an RV dealership one exit away who has mounds of RV toilet paper. And hand sanitizer is back with reasonable ship times from Amazon.

We have done multiple trips to Progresso MX. A part of the reason we came to the valley was to have some dental work done. Cindy needed a root canal and a cap which we started when we first got here. But it requires multiple visits which had us concerned. But we got it all done and behind us before the border gets closed which seems inevitable.

While we were there I asked one of the larger pharmacy's if they had any hand sanitizer. The pharmacist handed me a 750 ml bottle of 195 proof alcohol. He chuckled and said this will kill anything and it's only $6 a bottle. Funny, right?

We also ventured into the local Walmart because I neglected to include DEF in my online order. I was blown away at all the empty shelves. Almost every area was completely decimated. No soup, no rice or pasta, no cerial or oatmeal, and on and on. It was something that made me feel like I was in a 3rd world country. BTW, I got the last of the DEF. Yup, it was all gone.

So in summary, we are laying low in the RGV unless something changes. We are well, the weather is wonderful, and other that the stock market trying to bankrupt us, we are doing ok... Today at least.

We hope all of you are as good or better. These are crazy times without any history on which to base our actions. We all just have to be smart.

Before I close out I want to mention a couple of occurances that renewed my faith in humans.

First, I saw my oldest son post on Facebook that he was temporarily out of work, and was offering to help anyone who might be hesitant to run errands or shop. Pretty cool TJ!

Then I received a text from an amazing lady I worked with almost 20 yeas ago. She said if we needed a place to hunker down and ride this out, she had room and we were welcome to come up. What a wonderful gesture Laura!

And last but not least, our very best friends have been shopping for us, feeding us, and doing their best to entertain us while laying low. Claudia and Don, you are amazing.

So thanks for reading. I hope you are well.

Cindy and Terry

Wanna see a map of where we have been?

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