~Friday, January 14, 2022~
Day 579
The highlight of my day was getting back among the living. Since January 1st, I have been a hermit trying to get rid of this awful virus. I’ve never been so tired and congested for so long. Other than that, the other symptoms were short-lived. 13 days later, it feels good getting back in the swing. So, to the grocery store, I went. The tricky thing about shopping in new cities is not being familiar enough with the layout. The outing always seems to take twice as long. At least I was able to find a Fry’s which has both general grocery items and household goods so I could kill two birds with one stone. If you’ve never been in one, they’re absolutely HUGE (a little bigger than a Costco). Maybe it equates to a Winco which I’ve only been in once. As I was in checkout, the clerk asked me if I had a Kroger (Fry’s) card. I didn’t. But the gentleman behind me offered his phone number so I could get the savings. Wow, what a guy. Another “paying it forward” situation. In the end we saved $35.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get back until 6:15 which only gave us 45 minutes to use the generator……not good planning. I thought the generator was already unloaded from the truck so Jeff could run it while I was out shopping. Well, that wasn’t the case and generator hours are from 5:00-7:00. At least we had a little time. The items that need frequent charging while we’re boondocking are laptops, cordless vacuum cleaner and the cordless drill. If you’re wondering why we need to regularly charge our drill, it’s because it’s the fastest, most efficient way to fill the freshwater tank when we’re without hookups.
All of these require A/C power to charge up. Now if we had an inverter, we could plug these items into a regular outlet, where the power would come off the solar. And there’s plenty of that here. But the fact that we’ve gone this long without needing the inverter has proved an unjustified $2,000 expense. Honestly, I’d rather spend it on a trip to Hawaii! Hmmm. Come to think of it, Jeff has a birthday coming up!! Don’t be surprised if you read a blog post soon from the islands. 😉