Made in America

This morning on FOX News, it was reported that in Biden's first State of the Union Address to Congress. in addition to pushing his extremely bold and costly spending agenda and not really mentioning the crisis at the boarder, he articulated in no uncertain terms that his administration was going to push made in America or purchased in America which is somewhat redundant; however, it is the same rhetoric that was originally used by Donald Trump about which the Democrats and the liberals would not support...

Many of us should find that ODD INDEED.

Destin, Florida

I am watching FOX News in the breakfast room of Days Inn in Montgomery, Alabama because my wife and I are on our way to a vacation at a private condo with a private beach in Destin, Florida... and driving from TN to this location took us about 5-1/2 hours instead of the 8-1/2 it would have taken if we had driven straight through.  As we get older we understand and respect the fact that we can no longer drive long durations without stopping.

I awoke first and decided to have breakfast while my wife continued to sleep which brings me back to the origins of this post.

My breakfast consisted of several cups of coffee which always seems to taste better away from home than at home and a couple of tiny bran muffins that were sprinkled with oats on top.  The bran muffins were perfectly cooked and tasted better than most that I have had as I recall...  and, while I ate my breakfast, I watched FOX News on the screen mounted on the wall.

The trip to Montgomery was for all intents and purposes uneventful except for a couple of areas where driving through congested cities slow the traffic down a "tad," but for the most part, the vehicles on the interstate drove no slower than 80 mph and most of them were clipping along at 100 mph and wanted you out of their way immediately as they approach you from the rear.

Since we were not in a hurry, I maintained a speed of 75-80 mph which was still 5-10 miles over the posted speed limits  while most of my fellow drivers took those posted speed limits to be a suggestion rather than the law.

No matter where we stopped...  either at a rest area, a fast food, or a gas station, NO ONE was wearing their facemasks...  except us...  even though my wife and I have had both our COVID shots and it has been a month since our second one.

This morning we are going to remain at the Days Inn until we have to check out because the rest of our journey is only going to take 3 hours and we cannot check in until 5:00 pm so even if we left at noon, we would still have a 2 hour wait until we can get settled in...  knowing that, we decided that we would probably do our grocery shopping while we waited.

This is our first vacation in over a year due to COVID, the 3-4 maybe 5-6 that we normally take each year were cancelled or not booked because of COVID.  We are hoping that the weather will be nice on the Gulf Coast.

A Meditation Paradise

It has long since been believed by many that spending time on the beach of any large body of water and providing the the outside temperatures are warm enough to get into that water that this is the MOST RELAXING time that anyone can have...  and, while I suppose that this is true...  it is not as easy to get there...  at least by many of us who want to go...  because we simply do not have the excess money to spend on a trip like this....

Many of go to public swimming pools in the warm summer months and many of us travel to nearby recreational lakes where there is camping, cooking, fishing, swimming, and hiking...  and, there are still many of us that travel a little farther to public beaches all along the coastlines of our country...  but none of those are really anything like what it might be like to travel to Hawaii...  although, it is possible if you are living on our eastern side to get to the Caribbean fairly easily or even past our Gulf Coast down to Cancun.

But, if you want to travel to destinations in Europe, along the Mediterranean, or to Indonesia, Asia, India, China, Japan, or Australia...  you will either need to save your money for a while...  borrow the money using a credit card to pay off at a later date...  or be one of those fortunate ones THAT ARE WEALTHY...

A New Month

2020 has seen 5 months pass by and needless to say these last 5 months will not be forgotten any time soon in our minds, our actions, our behaviors, and by the historians who will document us and at some point-in-time will write about us...

What do you think JUNE will be?

• more of the same
• a little different
• another direction

These last 5 months I only left the house if I had a doctor's appointment or a chemo treatment until the last 2 weeks in May where I went to a restaurant and also to a wedding.  This month, I have just as many doctor's appointments cheno treatment in two weeks that I had in 4 months...  plus, we are going to Myrtle Beach, SC for two weeks.

Regardless of how we find our apartment, my wife and I will enter the room with gloves on and will clean the room again...  that is to say all surfaces that could be touched and make sure that we put the remote in a zip locked bag....  we will request that are room not be cleaned everyday but that towels be delivered everyday...

As far as the beach chairs are concerned, we will not worry about that because of the exposure to the UV rays of the sunlight...  and, will probably go to restaurants and dine-in rather than take-out because that part is being well managed.

I fear this will be our new normal...

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