Free range.....

7:51 am - Tuesday - March 17th - Wittmann, AZ - 53° F, 78% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the north......leaden skies this morning with a forecast high today of 68° F.....rain in the forecast for Wednesday.   The view this morning.......↴

Before I recap Monday I'll update the local Chinese Coronavirus stats for Arizona.....18 cases reported, and as far as we can determine, zero deaths.  Five of the cases are in one family.  Half of those 18 people had traveled outside the U.S. in the recent past.  We are still asymptomatic.

We've been ordering, as I previously intimated, a lot of things online to avoid going into town and large crowds.  We are not the only ones, coincidentally, doing this (what a shock), so it would not come as any surprise that shipping times from Amazon are beginning to slow.  It is currently taking about 5 days from the date an item is ordered to the item arriving at our doorstep.  It would seem Amazon is experiencing 'Peak Season' about 8 months early, and is currently rushing to hire on an additional 100,000 workers nationally to keep up with the pandemic induced demand.

All that being said, we did need eggs, and they are not available in our area through Amazon. I also had a few things left over from my Girard Tankless water heater project to return to Home Depot for refund, and TLE needed a new glass screen protector for her iPhone.  We drove into town around 11 am, and while I returned the Home Depot items TLE walked across the parking lot to the local Verizon store to get her free replacement glass screen protector.  After procuring my refund I bought one electrical 'work' box, and a new roll of packing tape......

.....the 'work' box is for the installation of the switch I will use to turn off our charger/converter when we are dry camping.  I will no longer have to go outside to the electrical bay to unplug the charger/converter.  I should receive the new switch from Amazon Wednesday, at which time I can install it.

From there we headed down Bell Road to the local In 'N Out Burger to get  'protein style' cheese burgers......aka: lettuce wrapped.  We started a  modified 'Keto' diet about a week ago, and TLE is doing very well so far.  I'm still awaiting results.  Normally the outdoor dining tables are little used, and most people are inside eating, but Monday we found exactly the opposite....very few eating inside, and most outside, or in the drive through line. The spacing of the alfresco tables complies nicely with 'social distancing' recommendations.....

......we made a quick stop at Trader Joe's to pick up some eggs, and a few other items to find the egg shelf stripped clean, as well as the fresh meat counter, and the produce section.  Why people are stocking up on eggs to the point they are gone from the store shelves is a mystery to me, because eggs are perishable, and have a short shelf life.  Maybe they're going to hard boil all of them?  Who knows.  Anyway, that leads to the next anecdote.....years ago when we began coming to Wittmann annually I joined the Facebook group called 'Wittmann Breaking News and Community Information'.  Tom's daughter, Laura, who lives a short distance away with her family put up a post about everyone in the community working together to help each other.  One gentleman posted that he had free range eggs to sell for $2.50/dozen.  I contacted him after our disappointing TJ's foray, and arranged to meet him at the front gate of his property around 5 pm to buy some eggs.  We paid $5.00 for the 2 dozen unwashed free range chicken eggs.  I learned that until the 'bloom' is washed off the eggs they do not need to be refrigerated......

Two dozen unwashed free range eggs

Just washed free range eggs

....when we arrived home I found that the two seatpost mounted bike racks I ordered from Amazon had arrived so I proceeded to install them......

.....we'll be ordering two new sets of panniers so when we ride our bikes to the store we can bring our spoils home.  Also arriving from Amazon was my MulWark  ratchet which will be used to remove that 9th screw on the Thetford dump valves.....I tested it and it worked perfectly, so now I can proceed with the repair as soon as the new Thetford rubber gaskets arrive......

....we had another interesting sunset courtesy all the clouds which arrived in the afternoon....

....and that was our Monday.  Things are changing rapidly on the pandemic front.  As of Monday afternoon the Canadian border was still open to Canadian citizens, and U.S. citizens. Of course, that can change, and we are actively discussing with my brother and sister-in-law (Glenn and Laureen) alternate summer plans should the Canadian border be completely shutdown.  We heard from a local Canadian who winters here in Wittmann that all Canadians not currently within the Canadian borders must return within 10 days, or lose coverage for the Coronavirus, should they become ill with it.  We also realize that some state borders may become closed at some point, and that will further complicate our summer plans.  All we can do is see what happens over the next 3 weeks, and then come up with a plan 'B'.  

Finally, my fourth and final Seiko Automatic watch sold on eBay Saturday.  I packed it up and delivered it to the USPS for shipment.....so, at last, the end of an era has come to pass.  It was a little bittersweet dropping that final Seiko in the mail receptacle.

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