When did a single, completely avoidable death become okay?
Editorial heard on the radio: University cancellation of sports is wrong. Justification: COVID-19 mortality rate is only 1% among the college-age demographic.
Google tells me there are 460,000 collegiate athletes in the USA in 2020.
Apparently, this man is okay with up to 4,600, so he can watch football.
What’s your number?
Amarillo, Texas, is in the central time zone. Tucumcari, New Mexico—the location I planned to have breakfast on the second day of my trip is in the mountain time zone. You wouldn’t think this is an issue, and it isn’t really, but I’m an early riser and had to plan accordingly. On a previous road trip, that I may one-day blog about, I didn’t change my watch from central to eastern time—and I missed the tour bus in Gettysburg, PA.
I arrived in Tucumcari just as the restaurant opened and had corned beef hash for breakfast. There will be more on corned beef in future blogs. Two local police officers took a liking to my rental car and asked if they could look it over. I tossed them the keys and told them to take it for a spin if they liked.
From Tucumcari, I took I-40 west to Clines Corners and took U.S. 285 north to Santa Fe. I’d visited Santa Fe once before, and I enjoyed it. Of course, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to visit the state capitol.
Currently, the nation–the world–is in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic. Up to this point, I‘ve been blogging about my road trip. The road trip will return, but this week I am going to relay an event that occurred this morning.
My day job is in telecommunications, a vital utility. In an attempt to limit possible exposure, my day job has become a night job.
After work this morning, I went to the grocery store to collect supplies for the coming week. 3/4 of the folks at the store — mostly older people, were wearing masks and gloves. I wasn’t. I wish I had been.
The store was having technical issues, and only two of the checkouts were working. While waiting to check out, some guy came right-up behind me, so close that I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.
In the best of circumstances, this would have still garnered a reaction — strangers invading my personal space is something this Dude doesn’t abide. But today, I could have competed in the long jump at Olympic level. I jumped away and demanded, “What the hell?” And then something along these lines (I covered all these points but not necessarily in these exact words): Are you not aware of what’s going on? Do you not know there is a disease killing hundreds of people every day? Do you think these people wearing masks and gloves because It’s dress like a surgeon day?
An old-timer–waiting in line for the other checkout, wearing a WWII Veteran — USS Essex hat said, “Yeah, what the f***, man?”
The man had nothing to say for himself except “Uh, Uh, Uh.”
The manager had the security guard remove the man from the premise and apologized profusely to me. Upon reflection, I realized the guy was huffing and wheezing like he had shortness of breath — a symptom of Covid-19.
Of course, it could have been any number of other ailments. For example, overnight, Mother Nature had covered everything in a yellow-green layer of pollen. My allergies are going nuts. But, still, I’m not happy right now.
After about 600 miles of driving, I made the first overnight stop of this road trip in Amarillo, TX. For years, I’ve seen billboards along Interstate 40 for a particular establishment called the Big Texan Steak Ranch & Brewery. Their signs proclaim if you can eat a 72oz steak in an hour, it’s free. So, naturally, I had to check this place out.
The menu, along with the food list, also had a brief history of the business. The original Big Texan was established in 1960, next to the famed Route 66. Unfortunately, when Interstate 40 bypassed them, the customers did too. So they moved to the business to the customers, relocating in 1970 to be next to I-40.
Did I have a go at the 72oz steak? No. I settled on a 12oz Ribeye, and that suited me fine.
The Road Trip: Part 3
Driving westward from Oklahoma City, Interstate-40 took me to Weatherford, OK. In Weatherford, I stopped at the Thomas P. Stafford Air & Space Museum.
Mr. Stafford, now a retired USAF Lieutenant General, flew in space four times: Gemini 6, Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. It was a great place to renew my Space Nerd credentials.
The very first point of interest programmed into my GPS for this road trip was a state capitol, Oklahoma City, OK.
Recently, as opportunity has arisen, I started taking pictures of state capitols. I call it my capitol collection. I’m no photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but some of the photos have turned out nice.
I’ve visited Oklahoma City a few times but had never taken the time to look at the capitol building. This road trip seemed like the perfect opportunity to stop by, have a look around, and snap a few pictures.
I recently attended the San Francisco Writers Conference. But I didn’t just attend a conference — I took a road trip — A roundtrip journey of 5005 miles.
In 13 days, I crossed twelve states and visited eight state capitols, four National Parks & Forests, three State Parks & Beaches, and a County Park.
I saw natural and manmade wonders of every shape and size. The altitude along the way ranged from 240 feet below sea level to 9,100 feet above. The temperature ranged from 16 degrees below zero to 81 degrees above.
I saw deserts, forests, prairies, lakes, mountains and the Pacific Ocean. I drove in sunshine and I drove in ice-fog and heavy snow.
Yes, I did attend the conference, but, it was sandwiched in the best vacation I’ve ever taken. More to come.
