Isn’t it amazing how quickly life changes? Three months ago I was in Austin, parked at my friend’s house, enjoying flying to Seattle to visit for the holidays and preparing for my Gulf winter.
Today I’m back in Austin at an RV park, getting ready to move to the next park in Texas tomorrow, loaded with groceries and wondering what the future holds. Traveling in an RV is an effective isolation station, but the traveling is what I worry about.
New Mexico closed all its state parks until April 9 and Pennsylvania closed several parks. Georgia created corona outposts at some of their parks where people with the virus could quarantine themselves. Uh – what? Texas has their parks open for now, but they are adding changes to how people visit and get their reservation tags, trying to cut down on people needing to be in the office at each park. I have reservations at a TX park in March and in April. I hope they don’t close.
I am traveling each week for the next three weeks – an itinerary I created pre-Corona. I’m trying to tell myself it will be ok and that I won’t have to interact with too many people doing that. I have a jumbo container of Clorox wipes that travel in the car with me because I have no hand sanitizer. I blame the knuckleheads that hoarded the stuff thinking they would sell it on Amazon, only to be thwarted for exploiting and price gouging during a pandemic. My sanitizer sits in their garage.
They say most of us will get the virus. I hope when I do that it’s a mild case. Traveling alone is daunting during a pandemic. I want to stay close to areas that have hospitals in case I come down with this. I don’t have anyone to take care of me, so I have to be prepared with my own plan for action or inaction as the case may be. I have a potential space for a month near Dallas that would take me deep into April. Fingers crossed on that one. If not that space, there are others I can try for. But there are a lot of full-timers out there and I don’t want to lose my seat in a game of musical RV spots.
I have a lot of ability to sense emotions and energy or vibes. Some people call that being empathetic, which stems from empath. I don’t claim to be one, but I’ll tell you about my grocery run and you decide.
I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery, a big H-E-B outside Austin where I thought I had a good chance of getting the alternative vegan food I eat. It looked like Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I parked at the end of the parking lot where there were still a few spaces. I knew I was in for something. I got a cart and inside it didn’t seem very crowded – because the store was so big. Lots of fresh veggies available and I got what I needed there. But my main purpose was to get dry goods and frozen food to last a month. Holy moly. The shelves were bare.
Every aisle was like this. Fortunately, not too many people wanted Dave’s 21 grain organic bread. I could have bought a dozen. Nor do they want organic black beans or garbanzo beans. I scooped the up. Tofu crumbles – check. I got the last box of unsalted saltine crackers. Everything and I mean every other box of crackers and cookies was gone. I did catch the man restocking the Doritos and there was an instore coupon! Hey, you gotta satisfy the cravings. Plant-based milk – yep, available. Thank goodness so many people are conventional. Frozen veggies were GONE. Not a one. Oh well. I did get some canned corn. All other canned veggies were taken already.
What I noticed, and I have made a lot of pre-hurricane grocery trips, was the concern from most people. Panic was in the air. I could feel it and had to keep it at bay, lest I get caught up in it. People made faces – like half smiles or did not want to engage at all. A few others were literally whistling or singing as their own calming device. People scanned and dug on shelves hoping to find something and not finding an item or any item in that category. Some people were carrying arm baskets and had one or two items in them. I had to wonder if they were spoofing by being there or couldn’t find a cart.
Of course people had as much toilet paper and paper towels as was available. I saw people in the parking lots with it as I came in. I did not see anyone leaving the store with it – so they must have picked the store clean.
I literally can see and feel the panic and fear that people had. It’s like a steam rising from them – not that I see steam, lol. I can feel it and sense it on people. Some people were cool, others were white hot. I noticed myself trying to protect my face with my grocery list around the hot people as if that would protect me from the virus and/or their drama.
I actually am going out today to see if there is any ground coffee at starbucks. I’m almost out and I can’t imagine going through a pandemic without the ability to make coffee. I may also forage for frozen veggies, though I think I missed the boat on that. Otherwise, I’m set and plan to hunker down in my aluminum home and enjoy life.
I hope everyone reading this has a plan, stays as healthy as possible, and if you have to go to work that you take the necessary precautions – wash hands and wipe down surfaces, and keep your social distance. Don’t chance it by flying or going to large gatherings if you are over 60 or health compromised. As this pandemic passes through it will spike – or be flat and save the health system, and people will start generating immunities. We have none right now, so that is why so many will become ill. Just need to keep the level of infection tolerable without it turning into pneumonia. I’ve had pneumonia enough times in my life to know what it is and when I’ve got it. Yeah, I’m over the age limit and I have health issues š¦
Spring will come and hopefully the worst will be behind us in a few months. Till then, I’ll keep Airstreaming and hopefully, have less traveling until we see what’s what.
This message is Inky approved. She’s rather nonplussed about it all. She’s napping, y’all.
coast 2 coast and then some 