With everybody distancing themselves and re-learning how to wash their hands, it would be refreshing to read about something that didn't include a bug named after your favorite Mexican beer or the mass "Go to your room and stay there!" orders going around. But, alas, the current state of affairs has driven us in directions that no one could have predicted.
Florida has been our home now for the past couple of weeks, but it came at a cost. A traffic accident on the Florida turnpike brought the momentum to a halt and, as luck would have it, while sitting in the jam, a rear tire blew out on our trusty beast. Its percussion was heard three car lengths ahead where Tez sat idle in the thick of this slow-down. Since the tire did not blow off of the rim, we limped about ten miles to a parking lot where we could assess the damage and call one of our numerous member plans to send for assistance. As the next couple of hours unfolded, we found that our roadside assistance was lacking in the assist and full of frustration. To add to our frustration, 85% of the garages we called on a Saturday afternoon didn't answer their phones. The remaining garages that "specialized" in the heavy duty work that we required didn't seem to have the motivation to work or were painfully troubled by our phone call. Only one individual stepped up to the plate in our field of delusions. His name was Brian. His company was Holy Moses Emergency Roadside Mechanic. He was in Tampa Bay, nearly two hours away from our location. Even though he struck out in the end, he put in the most effort for someone who, in good conscience, couldn't charge us for a new tire and to travel two hours to put it on our vehicle. But we'll get back to him in a moment. With no one to help, we continued to limp down the road doing half the speed limit so as not to shred the tire that was was still clinging to the rim. Initially, our first assessment revealed no visible holes or steel belts protruding from the wounded tire. So it was our intent to get to a truck garage, 20 miles away, to have the tire looked over and remounted to the rim. By now it is near 5:00 pm and the kids over at Loves Travel Plaza service center have discovered that the sidewall did, in fact, burst and that a new tire would have to be procured. However, as we were finding out, the Michelins that are on the beast are hard to come by. It's the size that seemed to twist everyone's brain. There was no matching the three other tires on the rear of this rig. Remember Brian? Even he was looking for a tire for us. Almost four hours later, he was still swinging; looking for a tire for us. He was even searching Craigslist and OfferUp for used tires. We traded phone calls and text messages for several hours in search of the squirrely Michelins, but we, including Brian, were coming up empty and the following day, Sunday, was not going to lend well to our search. By 8:00, we were stressed, tired, hungry and just needed to quit, find a place to rest and re-group in the morning. Our luck hadn't run out, as we found a host on our boondocking site that allowed us to come late and settle in for the night.
The following day brought a wealth of research and an understanding in the Winnebago/Michelin relationship. Low and behold they cut a deal to supply these oddly measured tires, with a big ticket price, to Winnebago. It took some forums and a few Winne owners to discover that a select few tires would measure up to the Michelins at half the cost and they were much easier to come by. Though the sidewalls were 4.25 mm shorter, they still held the same load capacity and rating that our big baby needed. We opted for the Toyo tires rather than the Sumitomo tires based on better tread wear. Our boondocking hosts accepted our extension of a couple of days and, by Monday afternoon, we had a tire in hand and our trusty steed was fitted with new rubber as we headed down the road to Peace River.
The lesson here was almost unlearn-able without real life experience. But take it from us, even though you may think you have paid for the coverage you need with that roadside assistance plan that has all the marbles, it is most likely not a full bag. Also, believe it or not, there are still kind and caring individuals out there who go the extra mile for you in one way or another. Brian was an awesome human being and even though he didn't get to service us, he will be the one we call first when we are in the area. He made our stressful situation a little better.
So, here we sit in Wauchula, Florida among many other RVs and full-timing campers. We go about our daily routines as the pandemic reaches every corner of the nation. As more mandates are added by local and federal authorities, several questions arise:
Will we be asked to leave or forced to stay in one place?
If we continue onward, will we be turned away by states that are in "lockdown"?
How will our travel plans change to accommodate the travel bans?
Aren't we concerned about catching the virus with all of the traveling we're doing?
Why don't we just stay in place like everyone else?
If we have the virus and don't know it, aren't we just spreading the virus around when you travel from place to place?
That last one is a doozy of an insinuation that we read on one of our "Full-Time RV-ing" group sites and all we could say was, "Good grief, Becky, we're not driving around in a giant petri dish, growing the virus till it's bursting out of the seams of the RV as we ooze down the highway! Give us a freakin' break and a little credit!" As someone with an already compromised pulmonary system, I can honestly say that I am concerned, but not to the point of having an anxiety attack over it. I already wash my hands and face constantly to prevent sickness, so this whole washing your hands problem is a bit perplexing. We both work within the confines of our motor home and the space provided to us, so we're not rubbing up on our neighbors or trading cool handshakes. We're giving everyone the space they need and, for the most part, we are getting ours in return. All of the public attractions and venues are closed and about the most travel we get are the daily drives, confined in our personal vehicle, to the park for Chase's exercise routine and the rare grocery store visit.
Essentially, we are limiting our movement and staying longer in our campgrounds and the campgrounds are making exceptions to their usual rules to accommodate the situation. Due to the varying restrictions that the different states have regarding travel and venturing out, we have adjusted our travel plans over the course of the next month. We will delay our return to the home state by a month and remain in Florida until some of the restrictions are loosened up. This means once we head back North, it will be a mad dash to make the most of our Summer travel plans. Of course, all it takes is one super Idiot in Chief to send these plans to the waste basket, so we're calling them tentative at best. Our plans did include picking up grand-children and attending delayed funeral services and these are all lying in limbo while we see what the next day brings.
In the meantime, we stay put in the Florida sun and await official orders based on the the daily outcome. We sit on our temporary pad at Peace River watching the daily travel on the highway, a hundred yards away, waiting for the occasional traffic to disappear quietly. It is a surreal time in our lives and we wonder, what will life be like in a year or so when tens of thousands of lives have been snuffed out by politics, mis-information and apathy. We hope all of those who follow us, and those who don't, stay healthy, safe and smart. Now we must go wash our hands.... once, again.
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