A volcano...

No, that isn't the next catastrophe for 2020... well, not that I know of.  That's how I described our current situation, as we trek north from the Tropical Tip.  As I told our sweet daughter: "It is hotter than a volcano in the Gates of Hell!"  More on that in a bit.

We were up and out early.  A few last minute things to load into the car and the last things to shut down the house.  We got to the storage unit and loaded this morning's haul into the motorhome...

The coach looks pretty skinny inside with the slide-outs in...

We pulled the cargo trailer out of the storage unit and hooked up the CR-V and trailer behind the coach.  Time to roll!

With 40 miles ahead of the game (the distance from our house to the storage unit), the GPS said we should get to our first stop-over around 2:30.  The palm trees along the Interstate are the visual that you are leaving the Tropical Tip...

It may not look like it in this photo, but traffic was as heavy as I've seen it in a long time along this stretch...

Mostly, I took that photo to show the changing clouds.  It wasn't long before...

You can see where it was coming from in the upper left of that photo.  It didn't rain long, and an hour after we left, we came to the Border Patrol checkpoint...

We zipped through ("Yes, we are US citizens") and continued our trek north.  Rufus was a good boy - he is not a fan of riding in the car, and he did great with the trip from home to the motorhome (about an hour).  He settled in right away in the motorhome.

He did some lap time with Joan (above), before plopping down for a nap...

Once again, the clouds looked threatening...

Joan pulled up radar: "Yeah, we are going to get wet."  An understatement - it came down with a fury... as in: wipers on full speed and still having trouble keeping up.  Flashing lights from emergency vehicles let us know that a couple drivers didn't slow down for the conditions.  We did slow down.

During a dry portion, I stopped at a parking area to do a walk around to check that everything is looking good on our rig.  Yep.  A trucker parked next to us said, "I think you are longer than I am."

Our low profile makes it appear longer, but we are well under the 65' limit in most states.

We made reservations a week or so ago, and rolled into this RV park right at 2:30, with a stop to top off fuel before pulling in.  The folks in the office are wearing masks, I had mine on.  While I took care of the check-in, Joan unhooked the car from the coach.  We will be down for a couple nights here, so we will probably want to get out.

What about the heat?  Thanks for reminding me.  It was comfortably cool in the coach.  Hotter than Hell when I went outside to get all the utilities hooked up.  I came back into the coach, and we had no water pressure.  I went back outside, unhooked our equipment from the water connection, and my filter was packed full of ugly green crap.  I tried running the water without out stuff hooked to it, and... nothing.  I found a worker a few sites over who was working on a hose bib... "Are you having a problem with your water?" I asked.

My new friend Angel said, "I should have this fixed in a minute."

This is not my first BBQ -  I asked, "A minute?"

"Well, maybe a half hour."

In the meantime, I had Joan pump water from our fresh tank into the black tank, to get out the bleach water I had put in there to sanitize our water system.  I am counting on fresh water flush it all out.  It was hot.  And humid.  I think the "feels like" temperature was: surface of the Sun.  I was amazed that it was hotter and more humid than home.  And I was stuck outside getting a new filter set up and dumping tanks as they filled.  I had to go inside to get a break from the hot wind.

When I went back outside to dump the tanks (the gray tank uses a macerator, and you have to hold the pump button the whole time it is dumping), it started to rain.  Not that big of a deal, because I couldn't get any wetter thanks to the sweat pouring off me.  No photos.

On the bright side, with that done, we are comfortable in the coach and I enjoyed making the transition from packer and carrier to driver.  We are both (well, all three of us) happy to be on the road again (there's a song in there somewhere).

New Covid-19 cases in the small town off our island are up over 100%.  All those people not taking precautions.  As of today, masks are required again, to go into any business.  As we head north, I hope people are taking this more serious.

The guy at the park who escorted us to our site told me, "Something new since you were here last: there is a food truck that sets up in the parking lot across the street - best tacos I've ever had!  They will be here from 5:00 to 11:00 this evening."  Sounds good, but I think we'll be dining in the coach tonight.  In air conditioned comfort.  With no crowds.  And Rufus, because he is a good boy!