What virus?

We arrived here in north Georgia on Thursday before Memorial Day weekend to a completely full campground.  People were milling around, the pool was crowded, kids were playing and riding bikes all over the place.  And later many, many get-togethers barbecuing, visiting, drinking and eating together.  Not a mask in sight, and really no distancing that we could see.

We were able for the first time in a long time, to do some road trips with a picnic.  Man, it's been awhile!  We took a ride up the Nantahala river in NC, and to a stream where we have fished a few times, then around to Hiawassee GA, then another day we drove down to Seneca, SC and Lake Keowee, then up to Lake Toxaway in NC.  And if it hadn't been pouring rain and foggy, I'd share some beautiful pictures with you:-)  No, Mother Nature has not been cooperating, we have had rain, thunderstorms, and fog every day.  

But Jan has been outdoing herself cooking, we've had amazing crab cakes, and awesome scallop and shrimp chowder, among other delicious meals.  All while I'm learning to cope with a missing tooth.....

Oh yeah!

Delish

The campground here has actually worked out better than we initially thought on arrival. It is Willow Valley RV Resort, but it is a stretch to be called a resort.  It is nice enough, large sites and paved roads, but gravel sites, and the picnic tables are sitting on muddy grass with all the rain and the fact the campground is still quite new.  But now that the holiday weekend traffic has left it about a third full, it is nice and quiet and very spaced out from one another, just right for cooling our heels.

The view from our site, hills!

So, we have a few more days before we move west, still supposed to rain everyday, but we're getting a lot of reading done, and a few little chores here and there.  We'll go grocery shopping, then off for Oregon.  

What to think?

We are rapidly closing in on our two weeks here in Atlanta.  We've managed to get some things done we were unable to do in Florida.  Jan has gotten her hair done, after weeks and weeks.  I managed to get my permanent crown put on, and we both were able to get our second Shingrix shot.  Unfortunately Jan due to scheduling was unable to get her dental implant done.  But mostly we are doing the same thing here in Georgia that we were doing in Florida, hunkering down, walking, reading, etc.

Our site in GA

We did some Chinese take out, and ate in the car.

It was yummy

We even had a nice distanced evening with a fire with John and Diane.  And are planning on another distanced get together before we leave.  Feels odd, no hugs, no hand shaking, no contact.  But we have been observing also.  Our campground here, Allatoona Landing, the same campground we stayed at for years while I was still working is unique in the fact the land is owned by the COE, but it is run by a private company.  It looks and feels a lot like a state park right on the lake.  By that I mean the sites are fairly well spread out, they are mostly just water and electric, very few full hookups, and it has the feel of a state park in which every weekend it is crammed full with families having fun and enjoying the lake, visiting, boating, campfires, etc.  And if you closed your eyes and popped in here, there is no way you would ever think there was any social distancing, no awful virus lurking, people are eating together, visiting, hugging new arrivals, kids playing together, just carrying on like normal.  But if you go to the grocery store, you do see signs of distancing, employees and maybe half the customers wearing masks, one way aisles, and plexiglass shields.  Of course Georgia is one of the states that has started opening up, and I'm sure a lot of what we see is a result of that.  At first I was amazed and a little appalled that people seemed to be ignoring the threat, but then I thought, man if all these people are doing this and there isn't a huge spike in cases, which there is not here in GA, maybe it's really not as bad as we are led to believe.  I don't know.  We, personally are still distancing, still respecting the situation, but getting more frustrated with the dictatorial lock downs that some governors have imposed without overt justifiable reasons.  Are they feeling the power?  I resist politics on my blog, but it is troubling and a bit frightening that the reaction to this pandemic appears to be turning more and more political by the day.  Okay enough of that.

We have made a vet appointment for Bert and will do that on the way to our next stop, yes we have to take him in the motorhome:-)  We have been fine tuning our trip to Oregon for the paint work, and had a moment of panic when we got word that the VRBO we had booked to stay in while the work was being done cancelled out on us.  With some scrambling we found another place on AirBnB that should work out.  Then we made it a point to check in with every campground on our way west to be sure they were definitely open and if there were any unique virus protocols.  Most are doing a faceless check in, and a pay before you arrive.  Appropriate enough.  So we plan to cool our jets another week and a half in northern GA at a new RV resort, Willow Valley, before our trek to the west coast.  We have several windows on the coach that are fogging up.  This is a common problem with the dual pane glass that is installed and is now more than 12 years old, especially being outside all the time.  There is a company in Arkansas that specializes in repairing them and we have an appointment to take care of them on our way west.  I will make another post describing the process and if all is well and I can recommend them, give out their name at that time. 

Well, a big PS:  Just when you think all is hunky dory, you get bit.  I broke a tooth eating a take out pizza, not just broke it, split it in two!  So I had to have it pulled out and was hoping to have an implant put in, not expected by far, and a bit crazy.  Unfortunately they weren't able to do the implant and had to do a bone graft and wait on the implant.  And then the absolute icing on the cake, as I am coming out of sedation somehow, unbelievably I break yet another tooth!  So back to the dentist and thankfully it can repaired instead of another crown.  Here we come to GA to have Jan get her dental implant, it turns out they can't schedule her in our time here, so just to make up for that, it turns out it is my time to shine:-(

The new normal, constant change?

After we left the coast we headed inland to Albany, GA, little did we know it was a hot spot in GA for the virus, not that knowing ahead of time would have changed our plans.  A lot of people don't seem to realize this mode of travel pretty much keeps you isolated.

Our very nice spot in Albany,
well except for the biting bugs:-)

Our next day was short so we decided to deal with the love bug issue before we left.

Before

And after

Next we went farther north to Pine Mountain, GA, near Calloway Gardens, shut of course, for the virus, but we spent 2 leisurely days there.  We, as I said, got the word that Oregon had extended their stay at home until July 6th, so we spent a lot of time on the drive talking about what we might do instead thinking our paint appointment would be canceled.  And we'd have nowhere to stay.  Thought maybe we could find another reputable paint shop somewhere else that was open, or, or, or.  Once we settled into our very nice site at Pine Mountain, I decided that rather than keep guessing, I would contact the Oregon shop directly and find out the real skinny.

We'd highly recommend Pine Mountain!

I called the paint shop and I was told he was open for business, had been open for business, and expected to be open for business, and in fact, he and his family had just taken their motorhome out for a weekend to a private RV park and he had no trouble.  What?!?!  So again rather than speculate we contacted 4 different private rv parks in Oregon, and all said they were open and busy, but had instituted virus protocol, mostly involving a no contact registration and payment.  Oh wow, our trip to Oregon just got reinstated!  On the other hand Karen and Tom had planned to stay in a state park in Indiana to visit family in Louisville and got a call their reservation was canceled due to the state park closing, and then were informed that all campgrounds were closed until the end of May in KY.  There is no consistency from state to state.  We are finding that no matter what you read in the news about the various lock down rules, it definitely pays to call individual campgrounds and get the latest data.

We are now in the Atlanta area for 2 weeks, and our regular campground here on Lake Allatoona is busy and almost full and are completely booked for the Memorial Day weekend.  People are mostly social distancing, but families are out enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, camping together on the lake.  Jan is getting her hair done today, she says yippee, ki yay!!  And both of us have dental appointments, me to get my permanent crown, and Jan to get her implant, and it looks like we'll also be able to get our second Shingrix shot while here.  Life is slowly returning to the valley.  We are continuing to be careful and distancing, as we also know the end is not yet here, if ever.  Keep safe and well.

But life does go on, virus or no virus

Last post from Florida, finally

We have made up our minds to move.  Jan had made a hair appointment for Tuesday, so we planned to leave Wednesday.  Well, on the 1st of May the governor decided not to include hair salons in his slow opening of Florida, so we looked at each other and said, okay, we'll leave Monday instead.  On Friday, we moved a lot more of our stuff, the grill, a bunch of chairs and tables down to our storage unit in anticipation.  Then Saturday morning when Tom and Karen were in the process of leaving, we looked at each other and asked why are we waiting until Monday?  So Saturday we moved our rugs, patio mats, and almost everything else to storage, leaving just the satellite dish for Sunday morning.

We were off Sunday morning.  We have been blessed with very nice weather these last few days, lower humidity, a nice breeze, almost cool in the evenings.  So we will make our way north to the Atlanta area where we will sit about a month while we watch and see how things play out with this virus.  

But before we left we saw a very cool thing.  We have a gopher tortoise preserve in our park, and on most warm days you can see between 1-7 tortoises.  Occasionally they make their way through the park and may come walking through your campsite.  But the day before we left we saw something we had never seen before, a momma laying eggs.

Life goes on, virus or not

I made good use of some of our down time and tied some more flies, we are starting this season with WAY more flies than we ever had before:-)

Clockwise from the front left, scuds, Shiney Hiney caddis pupa, San Juan worms,
and stimulators

Then, of course, since we were getting ready to leave by washing the motorhome one last time, I pull in the front driver side slide and, BANG!  What?  Turns out one of the slide locks that we replaced last year for $1800 broke.  So I had to pull it off, open it up and found the wire that operates the lock had broken off.

This is the pivot that engages the lock when you bring in the slide

You can see the wire that separated

I called the place where we bought it to see if the manufacturer had any warranty, and after sending in a bunch of pictures, they are looking into it.  We're keeping our fingers crossed.  In the meantime I put the now inoperable slide lock back on, we still have the front one, and we are pressing on.

So since we were leaving early we decided to go to Port St Joe, FL to Presnell's RV Park right on the water for one night.  It was so nice to be moving again even with all the uncertainty, and then the love bugs arrived.

Pretty bad

Even worse

We were hoping we'd miss them, but no......  By the time we pulled in, I could hardly see.

But it was worth it.  We got a nice waterfront site.  The campground is busy and full, families having a great time uncooped, but maintaining distance.  It was a nice relaxing evening.

Happy Hour, of course

Capped off with an excellent sunset!!

We had set up an appointment in Oregon to have some paint repair done in mid June, but on the way here we heard their governor just extended their lock down until July 6th!  We have no idea what we will do or whether it might get shortened or what.  We'll keep you posted as we learn more and more.  But for now we are headed to the Atlanta area for a month, and then?????