5C's Que Pasa

I am doing two posts tonight in one, so that my next nightly post will be for that particular day.   I think that as we head home it is a good idea to be in real time. So this post is for yesterday, Sunday, and today, Monday.

We did not drive down the Las Vegas strip but Sam’s Town is just down the road from us. Their sign says ” WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS & LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU SOON!”

The words in the black part read ” We continue to be #Vegas Stronger”.  The words below in the white area read ” DOORS CLOSED, HEARTS OPEN, STAY SAFE. WE’LL BE BACK. WE LOOK FORWARD TO SERVING YOU AGAIN”.

The entrance to the Boulder Casino as in all other casinos have been blocked off so that no one can drive into the property.

We have some  fresh produce, no idea how long it will last but we will enjoy every bite as long as we have it.  My Everfresh green bags help keep it last longer.

The guard at the Las Vegas RV Resort gatehouse made up this sign to give folks a chuckle. Very creative.

In a nutshell we did a few errands yesterday ( Sunday ) and then started to pack up for the trek north. Our freezer and fridge are almost as full as when we left in October to travel south to the Isla.  You may recall that we had three floods due to the toilet over flowing ( clean water ) shortly before we left Mexico last week.  Erik diagnosed it as a valve issue and he replaced that valve just a few days before we left.  Guess what?  You guessed correctly.  We have a slow leak from the foot pedal for the toilet.  Seems like we got a faulty valve.  It will have to be replaced yet again.  Meanwhile we just deal with it.

We had rain showers last night and yet again this morning.  Good thing Colin was ready to travel except for storing the electrical cable.  This has been a very cool stay ( as in cold ) here in Vegas. It might have gotten up to 60 – 62 F at one point. We were hooked up and driving by 10:15AM.  A late start as we were not going too far today.

Just got onto I15 from I515 when this toy hauler came up beside us.  He came right up to that white car in front of him.  Colin was concerned that he was too close which he was.  We simply moved ahead to get out of the way.

As we drove past the exit to the Nellis Air Force base I caught these two coming in for a landing.  They were moving as we were and I only had a a few seconds to react. Not a perfect photo but a fun one.

We stopped at Loves just off of I15 and HWY 93 where they are charging 3.089 cash per gallon for diesel.  We did not stop for fuel but to have the Love’s tire shop check our front tires.  Colin has been hearing a different sound, something abnormal  since we left Mexico.  Sort of like a bump, bump , bump.  The Love’s guy checked and said that there were very very slight bulges on the tire treads ( not the  sidewalls ), which were creating the sound, but added that they were just fine to drive with. He said that truckers normally drive until their tires are almost bald before replacing them and that this is a very common problem.  We do need our tires replaced and have normally done so in the US but right now tires are significantly less in Canada.  We will get all the RV tires replaced once we are out of isolation. Colin is not exceeding 55 mph for our safety.

While fuelling up Colin noticed that the hydraulic fluid reservoir box was covered with oil and that the screw lid was loose.  He could not tighten it nor remove it, it just went in circles.  Hmm, so are we short of hydraulic fluid?  He thought that the slides and jacks had been making an unusual sound of late.  So yet another issue to resolve.

Not too far out of Las Vegas. Some snow up there.

Approximately 25 minutes down the road we stopped in Alamo to fuel up at the Sinclair.  For the third year in a row we saw diesel prices so much lower than anywhere else.  We fueled up for $2.699 per gallon, either credit or cash.  This was .39 cents per gallon less that Love’s. We saved $17.78USD/$25.63CAD on this fill.  Last year we saved around $12.00.  Excellent fuel stop with lots of room for RV’s to manoeuvre.

Ely, Nevada is just beyond those nasty looking clouds.

We were getting some snow showers as we drove closer to Ely. Ely is at 6435′ elevation.

Our view outside our front window.  The mountains are so majestic. The Valley View RV Park in Ely also has longterm residents.  Good for them, how else could they stay in business?  Most of us are just stopping for the night. They have great pull thrus for a reasonable price.  However this time their wifi is down.  Fortunately we have our own ATT hot spot device which for $50.00 we get 10 GBs of data for one month.  I only activate our account twice per year, once heading south and once heading north through the US.

We got here about 4:00PM and set up. Colin decided to not put our jacks down nor put out the slides due to a potential hydraulic issue.  The sun was shining through our windows and it was lovely and warm. That lasted about forty minutes and then the wind came along with heavy low clouds and some icy rain showers. It certainly was snowing up on the mountain tops. It is supposed to go down to 30F/-2C tonight but we are toasty warm with our new HearthRite propane heater, which according to Rick, from It’s About Time, only sips propane.  I really like that thought, about sipping!!  Yes we could use our electric heater here but are really enjoying the warmth and quiet of our new propane heater. It was a short 256 mile day today.  Tomorrow will be a much longer day. Thanks for taking the time to read my posts and to comment when you can.  So looking forward to getting home.

Sleeping was my priority and I slept for eleven hours, I was rather worn out and now feel somewhat better.  But I am more than ready to be in my home.  I spent Saturday doing laundry and odds and ends while Colin did some inside and outside things on his to do list.

Once the laundry was in the washer I went for my walk. Interesting set up.

This unit is in the storage area and they are from Alberta.

A huge vehicle towing a huge trailer.  I’m sure they enjoy their RV but not our thing at all. I think that both the first photo and these are racing fans.

A very special set up for their three pups, both the upper patio and the ground one as well.

Colin was working very hard to get the duct tape off the paint.  This goes back to our first day on the road back in October when he had to tape the fender in place because of the huge winds we encountered. We repaired it in Mazatlan but the tape still needed to come off and today was the the day.  WD-40 worked the best.

It’s not a hibiscus but is is still beautiful.

On my walk I noticed that there were only two RV’s here from Alberta, one from Saskatchewan and us from BC.  I guess all the Canadians heeded the request to head back home.  We see them coming in at night and leaving again the next morning.  I heard that the Walmart at Omak which is a popular overnight spot before using the border crossing that we do at Osoyoos was filled with RV’s the other day.  Many others from the Isla have returned to the US in the past two days.  We talked to Erik today and he said that he is very surprised at how all of the RV’s in Mazatlan have cleared out so quickly.

This is the first that I have heard about closing the internal borders within Canada.

We are so very very happy that we left Mexico early.  Posted on Facebook March 21st.  What a zoo.

 Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry made clear today, March 22nd, that while everyone is encouraged to get outdoors for fresh air — if people don’t start following her voluntary directives, she’ll have no choice but to impose orders.  Here is the link to the the DO’s and the DON’Ts about your responsibilities to stay home.

This is a link to explain the difference between self- monitoring, self – isolation and isolation for Covid-19. My understanding is that we are able to take a daily walk as long as we stay away from everyone. Truly a different world that we are now living in and it is up to each one of us to do our part.  We just opened our last bottle of Italian wine 😐  The world truly needs Italian wines.  Do your part and stay away from others.

Friday we were up early at 7:30AM with the plan to be at the Vegas Costco by 9AM for their 10AM opening.  We were there by 9:15 and the store was open with a line to get in.  Turns out that they decided to open the store from 8 to 10 AM just for seniors.  It did not matter anyway as there were no paper products other than paper towels and we already have a large package of that.  Turns out that there was not very much we could purchase that we would have liked to have had.  We did get some cheese, two veggie quiche and muffins for Colin.  We waited in line to check out longer than the entire time we had been in the store.

Next stop was Walmart just down the road.  It was packed with shoppers and was pretty much cleaned out.  We got a few things.  I had read that both Walgreens and CVS pharmacies had good paper products for now.  We stopped at both and there was nothing in those stores to buy.  There are few photos in this post as it is impossible to take pictures when you are wearing gloves which are now ‘dirty’ because you touched push cart or even the door to the store.  No way did I want to go into my ‘clean’ purse to get my camera out and then contaminate both the camera and my purse. We are even sanitizing our credit cards once we get back to the car.

Inside the CVS pharmacy there is a large table between the pharmacy window making sure that you are staying a good six feet away from the staff.  At the front of the store there is a well marked area as to where you need to stand to see the cashier.  Including standing a distance away from the till.  Very well handled in my opinion.

Most stores have sanitizer ready as you enter ( but not all ).  We carry gloves, masks and sanitizer with us.  Our third stop was another Walmart where we were able to get instant decaf coffee.  This store had no fresh nor canned and very very very few frozen veggies and no lettuce at all.  I fear that we will be going through romaine withdrawal soon. Next stop was Walgreens and they had nothing that we wanted. No shortage of junk food, candy, chips or soda pop. We asked the manager to recommend a grocery store.

So our sixth stop was at Smith’s just off of Flamingo.  Here people were lined up outside as they were only letting folks inside as others came out.  Plus everyone was  appropriately distanced from each other in line.  Well done!  Wonderful place, no paper products though but we managed to do well here.  I got a few cans of diced tomatoes for soups, etc and they did have a lot of soup on their shelves.  First store we have seen with soup but I prefer to make my own.  We were able to pick up some canned goods as well as two boxes of frozen eggplant parmigiana and another box of disposable gloves.  Still no rice and no potatoes however they had a very full produce section including romaine. Our seventh and final stop was the Dollar Tree which had nothing.

We were happy with what we were able to find but seven stores is about five too many.  It was cool here in Vegas and I had a long sleeved fleece on as well as a sweater and then my rain jacket.  Another long day.

Later as we talked about the day we both commented on how many Asians we saw in all the stores and they were the majority wearing masks.  Each one of them, including infants in strollers, all had the very fancy N-95 masks ( on my shop list for the future ).  Of course they also had gloves.  We did see a young man ( 19 -21 years of age ) tie a bandana over his nose and mouth as he entered Walmart.  Good for him.

This is what the N95 looks like as offered on Amazon but of course were all sold out a few months ago.  Those Asians were very clever to think ahead.

Another observation is that with the casinos, restaurants, bars and schools closed down there is very little traffic on the roads.  We are happy to have been able to get at least two things in every store.  All of what we purchased was only available in that particular store.  One store was selling vegetable seeds for your garden.  We purchased a few packages just in case we would not find any once back in Canada.  It is going to be so wonderful to get our garden planted and the sooner the better. One other thing we did  was make sure to stay a good distance away from others and I wasn’t shy to tell a few people to get stop crowding me and to remind them of social distancing.

Once we got back and put everything away I was surprised to see that I had walked 7000 steps, not as pleasant as walking on the beach but I got my walk in.  I then spent the next two hours trying to and finally succeeding in contacting Shaw to get our wifi turned on for the day we return home.  I always put it on suspension when we travel in the winter but we were coming sooner than our normal arrival time and it needed to be dealt with.  Good, one more thing crossed off the long to do list.

I also iced my knee and later did my daily set of exercises.  Dinner was easy, cooking one of the frozen meals ( that we can only get in the US ) we had  purchased as well as a lovely Caesar salad. At this point we plan on shopping again at Smiths before we leave Vegas.  I think some fresh produce would be lovely.  I use those green bags and produce lasts a long time.  I am thinking that we might even need to get a few more bottles of wine 😀

I had Colin take this as I wanted to see how far I could bend my knee.  As you can see my right knee ( top foot ) is not bending as much as the other.  I guess I have all summer to get it back to where it should be.

Below is from our daily provincial update earlier today.  Note that they are calling it a 14 day quarantine now as opposed to self isolation.  There is talk of enforcing the quarantine time.

Thursday morning we left at 7:15 AM heading to Las Vegas. It was a cool 46F.  We had an appointment ( moved up a week ) to get our carpet and all upholstery cleaned at 1:30PM so we had to make tracks to get there in time.  About 7:55AM the phone rang and it was the carpet cleaner letting us known that he could not come.  Turns out that he had run out of supplies and his vendor was closed because of Covid-19.  He was in shock and had no idea what to do. Fortunately by reading the news we personally know the que pasa of what is happening in the world and locally.  So no carpet cleaning 😕

That gave us time to stop in Parker at Walmart so see what we could find.  We actually found few things on our list.  Some are more important than others but we are getting whatever we can and not being fussy at all.  We spent 90 minutes in the store and we even got eggs, first time we have seen them in a store.  They only had about 20 cartons left but we got one and a few frozen items that will help with our dinner meals.  There are no paper products to be found anywhere.  We have been told that it would be best if we could bring with us the food that we need for our two week self isolation as there is not much to be found in the grocery stores back home.

Yes we are wearing gloves in a store.  Actually we are only going to be in grocery stores and are self isolating the rest of the time.  Once we come out the gloves come off and we sanitize.  Back at the RV we put everything away and then sanitize yet again.  In addition to the eggs we got one large and one small container of sanitizer, the last two on the shelf.  We picked up ready made potato salad,  fresh coleslaw, a head of lettuce, some frozen and canned items.

We then headed across the road to Safeway where we picked up a few more frozen dinner meals.  Because we don’t eat meat, the veggie stuff is still there in the freezer, lucky us.

I am having a good deal of knee pain.  I think my knee does not like all the bouncing around in the RV even though we have airbags.  Also keeping it in one position is not good.  I do try and move it about.  Fortunately I can ice as we drive.  And I am still doing my exercises once per day.  Once I get back to Canada I will go back to twice per day.

Vegas is right up there in those dark rain clouds. A very cool 59 when we arrived at our RV park.  We were checked in in the driveway to the RV park.  They are stopping people from going into the office and doing everything as remotely as possible. If you need to go to the office only one person is allowed in at a time.  Fortunately all of our parcels had arrived  so we only needed to go in the one time.

Apparently Tres Amigos RV Park on the Isla is emptying out rather quickly.  There are only three RV’s left in the front row and two in the back row and those two are leaving very soon. When we left on the 15th there was only on other site open.   So much change and upheaval.  Even here in Vegas it is a new world what with the casinos and restaurants and bars all being closed.  So many out of work. We are in site #280 at the Las Vegas RV Resort and it is lovely with lots of space around us and a nice warm afternoon sun coming through the windows.  It was nice to only drive 229 miles in one day, a real treat for us.  Once set up we caught up on the lastest news and set about organizing ourselves for the next few days.  I am so looking forward to my 14 days of isolation.  What with taxes being delayed I won’t have to rush once I get back home.

Vegas was cool for us in early November and it still is. Now we have our lovely new heater to keep us warm.

Now here is a thought for those who are having to stay put at home.

Here is a link to something very very special and positive and totally a result of this Coronavirus situation.  I would love to be there to see this myself.

I am so very tired of being up early every morning.  Like from 4:30AM to 6:00AM.  I can hardly wait to get back to my home and into a 14 day self isolation period where I can sleep as much as I want to 😆  Read what I want to, do what I want to and even go for a walk away from everyone else.

Meanwhile we had rain overnight and woke up Wednesday morning to very very wet shoes.  We had become so used to leaving under a palapa and forgot to take our shoes and doormat inside.

We purchased an item back in November at RV Lifestyles but they did not have time to install it for us before we left Q.  So yesterday was the day.

We finally purchased our version of a Mr. Buddy.  This is a HearthRite, 10,000 BTU per hour.

This is the model that we purchased.  We chose the unit that emits the heat all over the room as opposed to the model that directs the heat directly to you. So this one heats the room instead of just an area.  It was a 2 – 4 hour install be we were done in two hours, mostly because there was only the one area that it could be installed in, which we were very happy with.

They did have RV toilet paper for sale but with a limit of 3 per customer at $4.30 US per package of four.

Next stop was to top up our propane.  We use electric to run the fridge and to heat our water while in Mexico.  So we only used 6.52 gallons all winter.  Good deal.  We paid .16US per kW that we used.  As you can see it was a dreary and wet day.  I was in the Jeep as we thought that we might take off and do things while the install was happening but ended up staying in case of a location change which did happen.

We returned to the RV park and set up yet once again.  We took a break for lunch and then some music for Colin and of course more computer time for me.  At the moment I am checking the CNN live updates re the coronavirus situation.  That site can be found here.

We thought that we should check out the five small food stores in Quartzsite as there might be more of a choice.  Not true!

Slim pickings but we did score 8 double rolls of toilet paper and some canned veggies.

Dollar General was where we did the best although they did have a three package maximum on paper goods ( they were the only one with pair good in the town ). However there was no milk nor eggs to be had. We did check out the other four stores but we found nothing else to buy.

Our next stop was to fill a low tire on the Jeep.  Poor Colin ended up getting sopping wet due to a cloud burst about 2 minutes after I took this photo. It was truly a miserable day between the rain and the wind. In the end he refilled all four tires.

Once back at the RV, the thing we did was hook up the car so we could make an easier departure in the morning.  At 7PM Colin went out and put our satellite dish away after our last show taped. Of course it started to rain yet again.  Colin ended up totally wetting two fleece tops.  Why did he not wear his waterproof jacket 😯

There was some good news today in the Coronavirus situation in that the Canadian government has delayed the due date for personal and business taxes plus the date that the monies are to be paid by.  A very small personal victory.

$75.60USD scored us eight double TP rolls, a large package of paper towels ( which can be cut up to use as toilet paper if needed ),  a large bottle of bleach, hand soap, Kaboom ( some sort of cleanser but not sure if antibacterial ), seven tins of tuna, four cans of veggies, two cans of diced tomatoes, two jars of pasta sauce ( I have lots of pasta onboard already ) and someone managed to snag a package of chocolate chocolate cookies.  I plan to steal a few eventually.

Not a lot of items but a start of what we need towards our 14 day self isolation period. What a long day.  We now know Quartzsite more than ever before.  Another long day with a very late dinner of salmon burgers ( had those in the freezer already ) but a treat with a real burger bun and tomato and pickle and lettuce ( all purchased in Mexico before we left ).

So happy to get to bed for close to six hours of sleep as Thursday was going to be another long day.  Stay tuned.

The virus jokes are starting to appear.

A very detailed and informative article on the Coronavirus but be aware of the source. Definitely worth a read, click here.

Here is yet another explanation regarding this virus.  Easy to understand the que pasa of it all. This is a copy paste from something I was sent. I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with all of the articles that I share here with you but it is food for thought.

Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than Seasonal flu? Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this to others who don’t understand…

It has to do with RNA sequencing…. I.e. genetics.

Seasonal flu is an “all human virus”. The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year… you get immunity two ways…through exposure to a virus, or by getting a flu shot.

Novel viruses, come from animals…. the WHO tracks novel viruses in animals, (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1) (birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once, one of these animal viruses mutates, and starts to transfer from animals to humans… then it’s a problem, Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity.. the RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it so, we can’t fight it off.

Now…. sometimes, the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human, for years it’s only transmission is from an infected animal to a human before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human… once that happens..we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, thats what decides how contagious, or how deadly it’s gonna be..

H1N1 was deadly….but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. It’s RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too.

Fast forward.

Now, here comes this Coronavirus… it existed in animals only, for nobody knows how long…but one day, at an animal market, in Wuhan China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person… But here is the scary part…. in just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability, “slippery”

This Coronavirus, not being in any form a “human” virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity). Took off like a rocket. And this was because, Humans have no known immunity…doctors have no known medicines for it.

And it just so happens that this particular mutated animal virus, changed itself in such a way the way that it causes great damage to human lungs..

That’s why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1 or any other type of influenza…. this one is slippery AF. And it’s a lung eater…And, it’s already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain s, and strain L….which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.

We really have no tools in our shed, with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places has helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu.

Factoid: Henry VIII stayed in his room and allowed no one near him, till the Black Plague passed…(honestly…I understand him so much better now). Just like us, he had no tools in his shed, except social isolation…

And let me end by saying….right now it’s hitting older folks harder… but this genome is so slippery…if it mutates again (and it will). Who is to say, what it will do next.

Be smart folks… acting like you’re unafraid is so not sexy right now.