Deb's Socially Distant Road Trip

[DGSquared]

During the month of April, I did some soul searching, likely brought on by all the poetry I was writing for NaPoWriMo.

I determined, with some coercion from my sons, I need to get away from certain toxins affecting my life that may be directly affecting my health. Although the toxicity has lifted, the need to get away for a while persists.

My former Western Airlines classmates, former roommates, since - lifelong best friends, live in separate homes in Montana by Glacier National Park. They both fly for Delta now and both are homebound and isolated during this international shut down. Tim just turned 60 and is ready to retire.

These two wonderful people are characters in their own rights, Lori and Tim, whom I also call Quigs, will pepper this thread as time goes by. At least that's the plan. I want to document this trip and share it with you if you care to vicariously journey with me through the desert of Southern California in Ocotillo, up the coast of California to the Pacific Northwest and home again.

I leave this Sunday to drive four and a half hours down to Ocotillo, on the California/Mexico border to stay with Lori in her trailer where we'll be until Tuesday afternoon. We will ride quads in the desert on Monday, take her friend to the doctor to get a shot on Tuesday, then go pick up our van rental. Lori is flying down to San Diego today to wave to her family in SanDiego from the curb. Everyone is super paranoid.

Originally, I planned to drive alone, up to Montana in two days and sleep in my car at a safe rest stop or truck-stop, stay for two weeks in Montana at Lori's house, drive down the main corridor home, and meet up with another best friend and her grown son in Lake Havasu for a day, but Lori called me two days before I was to leave and asked if I'd be game to rent a van or SUV and take a two-week road trip up through the Pacific Northwest.

She wants to keep me for five weeks! I'm coming home a few days after the Summer Solstice, hopefully, fit and trim. It remains to be seen whether I rent a car to drive home or will fly.

I got a stimulus check and the economy needs stimulation, so I'll do my part. 

I promise to be safe, I'm taking every possible precaution because I've got too many things to do before I die.

Hopefully, I won't have a problem posting my pictures but I'm taking a different laptop on the road with me because my laptop no longer closes. I haven't tried to upload directly from my phone before, so we'll see how well that goes.

One thing is for sure, it will be an adventure. You won't have as much fun as I will but perhaps there will be a few fun stories to share.

See ya soon.

~Deb

[Gyppo]

Have a good one, Deb.  And remember to keep the rubber side down ;-)

Gyppo

[DGSquared]

Where's the fun in that?  Ha! We'll be camping on BLM property or campgrounds with availability.

Since the covid-19 lockdown, people are getting out into nature more,  instead of staying home and killing their relatives or wanting to.

I'm testing my photo posting ability with this picture of a Matillaja (Mat-till-a-ha) poppy.

[DGSquared]

It worked from my my new phone! Yeah! This will make things a lot more fun unless the photography is blurry.

Also, I will be posting some of these with speech to text so if there's some crazy misspellings, or misheard words I'll go back and fix it when I'm somewhere where I can get to my laptop. Otherwise, have fun at my expense.

[Gyppo]

Blurry when enlarged, but okay otherwise.

[DGSquared]

Geez! It's huge when enlarged. I wonder, how much space do my pics take up on my phone?

[DGSquared]

Testing.

[DGSquared]

That's no good. I'll have to figure this out.

[Mark Hoffmann]

Are you uploading from laptop or phone?

If laptop with win 10 you can easily resize using then installed photos app. The feature is cunningly hidden behind the 3 dots on the far right of the menu.

For iPhone you can either download an app to do it or use the clumsy method of emailing it to yourself then sharing it back to photos.

For Android ... I have no suggestion.

[Spell Chick]

In the settings for your camera, you can change the sizing of your pictures. Yours are over 4000 pixels wide. You can select something smaller or even smaller. You might also be able to select something larger if you were hoping to use these pictures as framed art.

Have fun on your trip and stay as safe as you can.

[DGSquared]

Well, our road-trip may be shorter than 9 days. Everything I've researched remains closed. At least I can drive through a few of the towns we are considering relocating to.

I cannot find a function on my android camera to reduce picture size. I'll likely have to download some software and permission my privacy further away. Google reserves the right to use your photos now. Have you read Google's new Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies? You'll need at least an hour. 

[Spell Chick]

Open camera
touch two bars at top, might have to scroll down here
select 16:9 and then pick the smallest number which is what is the storage size or compressed size is going to be


I know lots of things are still closed. Is there a reason you can't do this in a couple weeks when things are a bit more settled?

[DGSquared]

Unfortunately, no. My girlfriend has time off from work, and she'll return to flying again after this. Plus, I'm going to help her plant a garden and we will be driving through a few towns Darren and I are considering for retirement.

We plan to sleep in the rental van as much as we can. I seriously doubt we'll stay on the road the entire 9 days. I'm leaving for Ocotillo, California at sunrise. We pick up the van in San Diego and head out on Tuesday. Enterprise Car Rental assured us they are being extra careful with cleaning rentals and allowing each one to sit for a few days to allow time for any virus contact to die.

I'll be in Montana until after the summer solstice, so hopefully, things will be less scary by then. I'm still not taking a train or flying to get home, as Lori suggested and she offered me a free flight home. I'll stay in my own little bubble, even if it does cost more, thank you very much. This annoys the heck out of my husband but I think if I got sick taking a free flight home, he would feel terrible about giving me grief about it.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I know it is unwise and socially unacceptable to travel now but we will take every precaution - more so than the immigrants here. The Hispanic people do not wear masks, for the most part, and we are about 85% Hispanic in Fillmore. We had 25 confirmed cases in our town as of Friday.

I figure if I am lucky and live to be the same age as my grandmother and mom were when they died, I have 13 good years left so I need to make the best of them.

I have already freaked myself out about it, but if bad lab Thursday didn't infect me, I think I'll be okay.

See y'all tomorrow, I think.

Be well.
~Deb

[Firefly]

Have fun Deb 

[Spell Chick]

Take lots of pictures and we will deal with the sizing here. Have as much fun as you can.