Saturday April 4th 2020

It’s a balmy 36 or 2 degrees here in Tulsa OK, this morning at seven o’clock, it has been a cool night but our boiler kept us warm enough. The forecast for the day has us still in a cloudy cool day but the temperature is on a upward swing, with our travel speed should put across the border mid next week, if all goes well.

As we try to catch up on the state of the Covid-19 virus from both Canadian and American sources, all I’m going to say is that after watching both reports, some people seem to have a much better grasp of the severity of the situation than others. And it certainly appears that we are headed in the right direction, there seems to be cooperation between the federal government and the provinces as opposed to the bickering and put downs between the states and the federal government here. I just hope that some of our American friends remember how this pandemic was handled when it comes time for the next election, because when we compare the handling from the other side of the border it looks like there are some state officials that have failed to take action to protect people and the Whitehouse is still busy just firing anyone that questions the anointed one. But in true Trump fashion now he is stealing medical supplies purchased by Canada, like seriously Mr. Hoax who has everything under control has stooped to a new low even for him. But if the pulp and paper industry in Canada shuts down then there would be no material to make the masks, but of course the Mr. Shortsighted hasn’t thought about that. Some leaders rise up when put under pressure and others just fold up like a wet tissues … just saying

Today has us heading east to Missouri, we have no particular destination in mind for today, just to cross the Mississippi by Sunday and if we can make it work pick up some takeout from one of Miss Laurie’s favourite restaurants “Sauce on the Side” which are based in the St.Louis area. Then we are just three states away, Illinois, Indiana, them Michigan. So with a little stop for a quarantine restocking we will be on Ontario for Easter either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.

So we have shut it down at an empty Cracker Barrel in Springfield Missouri, the day was dreary with a miserable light misty rain which was just not nice to drive in so we stopped after only covering 175 miles (281 kilometres) today, we did stop for fuel and purchased 24.4 gallons (92.5 litres) of diesel at $2.22 per gallon. I need to change the fuel filter again as our stumble worsened as the day went on, so I had picked up extra fuel filters when passing through Texas and I will be donning the rubber gloves and switching that out either later today or tomorrow morning … I have it down to a ten minute exchange … just saying I haven’t lost my touch … lol

According to Navi (that is Miss Laurie’s name for the lady that lives in our Garmin) we are now less than 900 miles (1400 kilometres) to cross the border which is great, now I just need to lock down where we are going once we cross the border to avoid any infraction of our mandatory quarantine, so that will be my task to confirm on Monday.

Friday April 3rd 2020

We are trekking across the country at a little faster pace than normal, there are a number of reasons for this, but the multiple reasons all come back to one main reason. Covid19 … let’s just say it has upset the whole world for lots of different reasons, but our first and foremost are concerns for our health, we don’t need to catch this virus, so along with being very careful with our social distancing and avoiding compromising situations we have decided to head back to Canada a little ahead of schedule. Also the hoarding that still seems to be very prominent is becoming a concern, we follow a number of full timers on a variety of social platforms and as most are American we find it very enlightening how they view the many different arising situations, here are a few examples, one Facebook friend who is maybe wound a little tighter than most to begin with, is actually looking for a conspiracy theory for the cause of the virus and the trillion dollar bailout package, at the same time friends from a YouTube channel are actually worried about their fellow Americans acting badly toward people from out of the area, possibly for taking their limited available supplies and then we remember that America has more guns per capita that any where else in the world, it could be a possible concern, it really could make sense. After all one of the hoarded items is ammunition, and gun shops are now being reclassified as essential services, and Thursday the Govener from Georgia has just now somehow realized that the virus can be spread by asysyematic people carrying the virus, and this is the kind of dummies in charge of a whole state, like seriously what rock has he been hiding under? All these things have influenced us to speed up our travel plans, along with the fact nothing is open. So add to that the fact we will be treated to a 14 day mandatory quarantine once we cross the border, it just makes good sense to move along. All and all 2020 is going to be a year for the books, and the sooner we get this whole mess in our rear view mirror the better. So as we look forward through the windshield, even if the park is not allowed to open as scheduled there will still be lots of things for us to do, we are driving through Oklahoma today I noticed the grass still seems to be growing and will need to be cut, along with lots of regular maintenance items at the park, so we will all just move forward and see how this turns out.

So this morning had us running the boiler for heat and the generator to power an electric space heater to get us warmed up, today finds us heading east across Oklahoma, we had been hoping to make Tulsa or further today, but it’s a cold blustery day so we will get what we get, we will be taking I-40 to Oklahoma City and then we will be catching I-44 which is a toll road as we head toward Missouri. I have no great desire to drive in any rain and we could be driving into some as we move east so we may be hurting our travel average today.

We made it to a Flying J just east of Tulsa OK, so checked off another 241 miles (388 kms) through a heavily overcast day, I topped off our fuel tank again today 41.2 gallons (155.9 litres) @ $2.16 per gallon for a total of $88.89. A lot more than yesterday but this cold snap had us running the boiler all day for heat, and 3.4 hours of generator operation time to support the electric space heater earlier today. The solar system had a limited harvest today but with the coach alternator we topped the battery bank off again today. One last thing all these time changes are playing havoc on this old guy, as we are now in Central time zone so two down, just one to go…

Here is my observations from the drivers seat for today, it is very obvious that the state of Oklahoma is not a “shelter in place” state as traffic from passenger vehicles was the most we have seen so far on our journey. Today’s drive had us running through the rolling hills of Oklahoma, we have dropped down in elevation to less than 1000 feet (305 meters) as we work our way down to the Mississippi River valley. With today’s travel we have passed the half way mark and should get down under 1000 miles (1600 kilometres) on our journey.

First of all Oklahoma stay home and everyone else stay safe!