Back in the US of A…

Went to Nogales WM at 6:30AM Tuesday (1st week of April) because they open early for us old folks on Tuesdays. They had the entrance roped off, every employee at the entrance wearing masks and gloves, and sanitizing wipes at the ready. Saw many customers walking the aisles with face masks too but too many without, especially after they opened the store to the public at 7. I wore my homemade mask and found I had one pair of Nitrile gloves left from when I stained some wood not too long ago so I wore those the entire shopping adventure. Lucky WM had a bag of 10 Nitrile gloves for $1.50 so I restocked.

Got all I needed to restock my larder (when down in Mexico, I try to deplete it for a couple of reasons…1) so aged items in my pantry get recycled, like canned soups, sauces, canned veggies fruits, etc.. 2) and because there are some items people are not allowed to cross back over the border with like fresh unfrozen foods).

Pretty full basket when I was done. Got a rack of beer too. Don’t want to have to leave the house too often right now. All came to $155. So $55 more than normal. The only thing I realize I didn’t have on my list was alcohol for hand wiping. I’m low. I do expect to replenish for the first major shopping trip after leaving Mexico as a matter of course. And there weren’t many ‘extras’ for the virus either.

While in the store, I did see a number of items not on the shelves is if they were sold out, but there were always substitutes nearby. Then as I passed the paper products aisle, saw that all their TP shelves were empty for the most part. A few minutes later saw one guy pushing a cart full of TP, probably the last few from the sales floor. I doubt this little town of 3850 finished off that entire row of TP in a buying frenzy so I suspect that WM had most of it shipped to one of the other stores in the US that’s had actual runs on TP. OR, this store just didn’t put all their stock out. I saw signs all over the store that customers could only buy one of these or one of those. Stupid, that whole hoarding thing. Sure, have enough in your pantry to survive a crisis for at least a month, two would be better but why would you need a decade’s worth of TP is what I’m wondering?

After getting home from that shopping adventure, I noticed an article about something that happened in Mazatlan. So we’re going to backtrack to that…

This happened on March 28th in the RV Park Punta Cerritos at the northern end of Maz on the coast. It’s around 4 miles from where I’m staying. The park has been there for years, I’ve stayed there myself. But it’s turned into a co-owner sort of place with people buying their site, improving the property with palapas and RV garages and stuff. The wind is stiff there every day in the afternoon say around 4 pm. It usually dies down around 6 or 7 but this particular day it didn’t. Someone was probably messing with a BBQ in the RV park and it flamed or sparked and caught some dried palm leaves and eventually, engulfed most of the RV park. Here’s some pictures:

I’ve shown pictures of this place before but it’s all ashes now. Pretty sure they’ll rebuild but I doubt they’ll stuff property owners so close together with huge flammable buildings on every lot. Well, no one was hurt, but hundreds were displaced and lost everything through no fault of their own. Whoever started the fire though…shame.

Exactly two weeks had passed since the above and on shopping day drove down to the  Nogales Walmart, this time arriving at 6:15. Had my gloves and mask on and since I was there earlier than last time, and the deaths from the Covid-19 virus were by this time in the US up into the 30 thousand area with 600 thousand contracting it, there seemed to be many more shoppers wearing the same. Just yesterday, Walmart told all their stores that all employees needed to wear masks and gloves and I saw that too.

Since this time I’d arrived pretty close to 6 am, there were few shoppers and I was done pretty close to 7 am. On the way home, stopped at the Tubac deli and got radishes again as WM just doesn’t seem to be carrying them right now. So that’s how it’s going as I hole up here in Amado. Shopping every two weeks, then occasionally just driving around the countryside looking at things. Here’s some shots of one of those short trips…this trip was a visit to Tubac. This little town is historical, apparently it’s been here for a couple centuries or something. It got popular with the artistic crowd and they’ve been working on getting it all gentrified ever since. And that’s been decades now.

I stopped by this pioneer home that’s for sale. The freaky thing is made from mud bricks! Not my kind of project to refurbish a mud brick home/business. It was probably both back in the day. But I’ll never know unless I look it up I suppose.

There’s a horse ranch just on the edge of town. I like horses but couldn’t get any good shots from the road. Did get a picture of the donkeys though.

Hmm. Across the RR tracks were these cops just sitting. I stopped to take a picture of them and of course a few minutes later one of them was right behind me as I slowly wandered around the town taking pictures. Eventually he figured out I wasn’t a threat and turned off. I was interested in taking that road into the brush but these guys scared me off.

And soon back at Mt. View RV Ranch.

I’d paid for a month here and that was a bit strange…see that notice on the door there? When I arrived, it said the office was closed. I tried the door but it was locked. However, the camp host, wearing a mask and gloves came to the door and helped escort me to a space with a bit of shade in the mornings as I anticipated heat soon. I planned on staying a week and he told me they would send me a link via email and I could pay at that link. A week past and the link never arrived. I could image this place never realizing I’d never paid, but I’m not like that so after the week, I had decided to stay the month so contacted them via their email, and that’s when they finally sent me the link.

Here’s where I was parked at first. Note the tree provided some nice shade in the mornings, but it didn’t help in the hottest part of the day. You can see the spot looks a bit sun baked already. It was pretty nice most days until late afternoon sun hit the front windows.

And then it got hot, way hot in the afternoons. And I’d already paid for a month with 2 weeks left and my 50 amp power was clugged together and one leg was mixed in with the mostly 30 amp RVs in my row. My site actually shared the power meter with the trailer right next to me. So I was reading 103 Vac on one leg of my power and 108 on the other during the hottest part of the day. My Progressive power monitor would shut me down to prevent damage when the voltage supply got that low. Got bad as it got up to 100 F and power would drop out as much as 5 times per afternoon. Gah!

So I complained and the host and I wandered around the RV park looking for a better spot with 50 amp until I found an empty spot with afternoon shade, two trees, and solid 50 amp. On an electrical supply line NOT shared with any 30 amp trailers. So I moved over. That tree on the right in the picture below gave lots of good morning shade, then the RV and the tree over on the other side shaded me in the afternoons. It was getting so hot during the day though, that I parked in the space with my nose pointed North to keep the front of the RV cooler. Worked great. I wouldn’t have minded the 108 F it started getting to every afternoon for a long stay but it does kind of wear on ya. I’m going to try to remember to ask for this spot in years to come. Oh, and the Wifi is fast at this RV park. I can stream movies all day and night if I want.