New Day, New Issues

I woke up Tuesday morning, looked over at the Blazer and noticed one of the tires looked low. Sure enough, it was down to 15 pounds. Good thing we travel with a small compressor just for such problems. A local tire place took a look at it right off. Turns out it was just a bad valve core and a quick and easy fix. While there the mechanic pointed out the tires were due for rotation. Sure enough, it was time. They did everything for $20, which I though was a bargain.

News out of China is looking worse all the time. Even my home state of New Hampshire is dealing with a couple of suspected cases. Face and appearances are more important than public safety in China, Doctors had been instructed to keep silent about the disease instead of warning the public. Right now the they are closing the barn door after the horses have left.

How severe the disease is going to be will depend on how virulent it becomes. Health care systems are not prepared to cope with a major outbreak. In the United States there are too many people like me -without health insurance. We don’t go to the doctor’s unless we are dying as it causes financial ruin. That will delay treatment.

Then there’s the issue that people can’t afford to take time off when they are sick. Instead of staying home and getting better, they go out in the public and spread whatever they have.

I guess I’m going to have to pay more attention to the news instead of blissfully ignoring most of it. With that in mind, it’s time to shop for a new cell phone. Mine is randomly dying and unreliable. Odds are it won’t last us the next couple of months. Such is life.

My lovely wife and I are looking at possibly moving back on the boat for the next part of our adventure.

-Sixbears

St. Lucie Lock

My lovely wife and I are set up at the campground at St. Lucie Lock, Florida. It's a small campground, eight RV sites, three tent sites, and a handful of marina slips. The RV sites are very hard to get into. In fact, we are staying in our tent. It's funny, as most of our stuff is staying in the van, which is just across the road from the tent site.

The tent sites are probably the prettiest, as they are right along the river. They have nice covered picnic tables, fire rings, and grills. There is no electric. I've set up my small solar electric system to provide power for things like the computer I'm writing on.

The day started with a minor problem. One of the front tires on the van was low on air. Those huge tires take about 80 pounds of pressure. My little air compressor was able to bump it up to 65. I was able to drive to a PEP Boys about 15 miles away. The tire guy found a nail in the tire. It cost less than $13 to fix.

My lovely wife picked up some breakfast sandwiches from a nice little Cuban place. We had just enough time to finish breakfast before they took in the van and quickly fixed the problem. It was less than twenty miles to our campsite so we were not rushed at all.

We had the spaghetti Mountain House dehydrated meal for dinner. We really enjoyed it. All the Mountain House meals were good. My assortment bucket contained the spaghetti with beef, rice and chicken, and chili mac, a bean, beef, and macaroni noodle concoction. I think our favorite is the rice and chicken. However, a lot of people praise the chili mac. One thing I noticed on the spaghetti, the ingredients say it may contain up to 2% soy powder. For those avoiding soy, that's something to keep in mind.

One big advantage of the Moutain House is the ability to prepare it in the bag. We discovered it keeps the food warm for quite a while. One time we could not get to the meal right away, and it was still piping hot thirty minutes later.

After some primitive camping we really enjoyed the hot showers. We are booked for three nights, but I'm told if the government shuts down again,this park will be closed and everyone kicked out. There will be a lot of people looking to make other arrangements, at a time when all the campgrounds are full.

Let's hope for the best.

-Sixbears