It’s Not COVID Because I Can Taste Breakfast

November 3, 2024 — Day 24

White Tank Mountain Regional Park, Surprise AZ

Just a quick note. We’re staying an extra day, not for fun. The parts to fix the RV’s slides didn’t come in until Saturday, actually about an hour before the wedding started! The mobile RV Repair person offered to come by on Sunday to install them, which he did. We weren’t his only Sunday repair plus he was leaving for a week’s vacation on Monday so the repair had to be done Sunday afternoon.

We were all buttoned up around 3:30-4pm so we just had a leisurely evening. There was an amazing sunset!

And a rainbow sunset at that!

Paul’s brother has already hit the road, so he’s a day ahead of us. Once again we’ll have to play catch up.

Daily: 0 miles.

November 4, 2024 — Day 25
White Tank Mountain Regional Park, Surprise AZ — KOA Tucson, AZ

Susan had a rough night, she’s come down with something. (It turns out that the newlyweds are also sick, as are the groom’s parents and the bride’s mom). She can taste her food so we’re pretty sure it isn’t COVID.

The good news is that we have a short drive today. Paul drove it all, it was easy except for the I-10 in western Phoenix. (susan here: Think Mad Max with death meta music (aka heavy metal only heavier) playing and you get the drift.) We’ve both driven that section enough it doesn’t phase us anymore. Most of the time.

But first, grocery shopping! This was actually easy since Susan shopped online the previous night. We just parked in the big Safeway parking lot and had the order brought out to the Jeep. This was a real nice thing to happen when one of us wasn’t feeling well.

We pulled into our full hookups site at the KOA in Tucson, AZ and started tackling Mt Washmore and Mt Foldmore. Life maintenance happens no matter where you are.

Daily: 153 miles.

Total Return miles: 153

Return Driving miles/Day: 153 miles/day

Overall Total: 2,958 miles

Driving miles/Day: 296 miles/day

Overall miles/Day: 123 miles

November 5, 2024 — Day 26
KOA Tucson, AZ,

Susan is still not feeling well. Paul blogged, watched YouTube and just relaxed. But we do have negative news to report! So far she’s “just” sick. This is good news. The bad news is she’s worse than she was the day prior.

Oh, dishes laundry, and more groceries happed, we were low on snacks.. There might be something on the TV to watch tonight. We need snacks for that.

November 7th through November 22nd (?)

We stayed for 3 nights and then left to head home on Nov. 7th. A few stops and a couple more COVID tests (negative) but Susan still wasn’t feeling well when we got to Amarillo on the 10th. The decision was made to go to an urgent care place on the 11th. They did their fancy “swab your brain thru your nose” COVID test. (susan here: no really they stuck that thing in farther than I thought possible!) That swab tested for COVID, flu and strep. All came back negative. The diagnosis was pneumonia. She was sent on her way with some prescriptions to be filled. We stayed until the 13th to give her some time to recover. That was a big ask as we found out. It took her 5 weeks to feel better.

Basically the rest of the trip happened in 200-300 mile days as Paul was able. Susan did a good imitation of a blob, slept a lot, didn’t eat much and did more coughing than either of us thought humanly possible. We finally got home around November 22nd.

And that’s a wrap for the 2024 RV season. We’re looking forward to the 2025 adventures!