The youngest member of our family,
Charlie, has a birthday today...she’s one year old and seems to be the center
of attention from her siblings.😊 We were on our way home from Arizona last year when we received the news and it
was two more days before Marshal and Callie settled on a name. Our birthday video today was extra special
because Grandma Hall was singing with us.
We all huddled in the corner of the yard and tried not to wake up the
neighbors with our singing. 😉
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The length of the frontage road that wasn’t included in the remodel of
I-10 was resurfaced over the past 7 days.
A big Yay! to that because it was
in need of repair. They employed a technique called ‘Fog Sealing’. Never heard of it so it’s Google time! According to pavementinteractive.org:
A fog seal is a light application of a diluted slow-setting asphalt emulsion to
the surface of an aged (oxidized) pavement surface. Fog seals are low-cost
and are used to restore flexibility to an existing HMA pavement
surface. They may be able to temporarily postpone the need for a surface
treatment or non-structural overlay.
I’ve ridden on it a couple times since it
was done and basically when ‘fog seal’ is applied to the road it simply molds
to the existing contours of the road surface.
Outcome is that the roughness of the road hasn’t changed; it just looks newer and apparently has more flexibility. 😐
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Kim and
I took a walk down the frontage road this morning. On the way back we decided to count eastbound
vehicles on I-10...Kim counted the private vehicles and I counted
commercial. To give us a definite
distance in case we do a comparison count next week, we started at the new road
surface and ended at the corner stop sign.
I clocked the distance on an app...it was .78 mile. However, I didn’t record the amount of time it
took us; we walked a steady pace. And I
didn’t note the time of day except I know it was before noon. Today’s final tally on that .78 mile stretch
of road: commercial 145, private
116.
When we arrived here on March 1st, the traffic was so
constant that it would have been impossible to count the total number of
vehicles in 100 yards, let alone ¾ of a mile with different categories. And if we’d had enough hands we could have
added an interesting third category...RVs.😏
Kim’s general assessment is that the number of commercial vehicles
rolling down I-10 probably hasn’t changed; it’s the private vehicles (cars,
pickups, RVs) that have dramatically dropped in number. I would agree with that.
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On the front end of our walk we encountered George Aros coming out of a
gravel road. He stopped and we talked
for a bit. He was checking on some
cattle he has in a field along the frontage road...he leases the land from the
state. He thinks that the removal of the
underpasses between exit 211 and 219 in the remodel of I-10 was the best thing
even though there is some extra driving involved in getting to the exits. Amen to
that, brother! Kim also asked him
about the habit of throwing glass out in fields. George attributes that to the fact that
people seem to throw their garbage wherever they want and back 30 or more years
ago there wasn’t much in the way of plastics like there is now. So garbage thrown out would have had glass in
it. Well,
that might be but ‘they’ are still doing it in the present day...in large
quantities.
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We have been diligent in our efforts to avoid COVID-19...hand washing,
using wipes after touching anything in public, distancing, hand washing, etc. I was feeling somewhat comfortable with the practices
I’ve developed around the campground also. That all changed today when the man
that been had described as a sort of ‘adopted dad’ rolled up on his motorcycle with
a passenger aboard to visit Jason, Angie and their kids. Jason told me a week ago that his ‘dad’
thought that all the stuff going on because of COVID-19 was crazy...he wasn’t
going to change what he was doing and if he caught it...well, he’d lived a good
long life. So today I’m watching
everyone getting hugs from the newcomers and I start thinking that nobody knows
what precautions these people have or have not been taking. Maybe these two
have been the model of self-isolating and my concern is for naught, but the
point is that nobody knows. A show of
concern for others in the form of social distancing would have lessened my
level of concern, that’s for sure. And later I saw Esther Ruth over
there...Esther Ruth’s dad has Parkinson’s.
Come on, people! Think! There’s a
reason you’re not going home to Washington and there’s a reason Arizona has a
Stay Home, Stay Healthy mandate...it’s called COVID-19! Why expose yourself and therefore everyone in
this campground by not abiding by the rules? Stay six feet away...that’s
all...six feet! Am I the only one who sees this disregard for the rules as a problem?? Aghhh!! I will
now redouble my distancing efforts from everyone around here...not in an
unfriendly way but in a self-preservation way.
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 |
| Kim's new camera |
Kim’s got a new toy today and with a smile he said, “I’m not gonna
lie, I’m pretty excited about this”. ‘This’
is a new camera specially designed for astrophotography. His other cameras have been modified to do
the job; this one has been factory built to do the job. He’s been eyeing it for some time and ordered
it when the income tax refund came. For months, the company had it listed as backordered
so he wasn’t worried...he’d be home before the camera arrived. Then he got notification that it was getting
ready to ship...he made phone calls and got the shipping delayed because he
didn’t want it sitting in the garage.
Then we decided to extend our time in Arizona so he called to see if he
could have it shipped here because Michigan’s night sky is unpredictable and Arizona’s
is usually clear. It was some crazy back and forth but the company was so
accommodating. Today it arrived, he
downloaded the drivers etc. and now he’s out at the scope trying to make it all
work. The learning curve is real.
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We’re usually gone on or before
March 31; now we’re starting to see what wonders Mother Nature performs after
we leave: the leaves on the pecan trees
are really starting to show green, the prickly pear are growing new paddles and
rattlesnakes are coming out of wherever they go for the winter. I’m hoping to see some baby ravens in the
next week or so. 😎
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Kim and I took a ride today to Coolidge...had to get more sunscreen and
grapes. He came back to camp and I made
the Tom Mix/Park Link loop. Just me and
the open road...it was a gratifying ride.
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Bike miles today: 104
Total miles: 2249
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| Thursday's route... |
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