Moving to Kansas - and we're fever free!

 After eight days at Prairie Creek Campground near Rogers, Arkansas, it is time to break camp and be on the road again. 

We made our reservations here because we wanted to spend some time kayaking on Beaver Lake. But we would only get to view the water from the shore near our camp site. We will always remember this as the place that we fought and won against COVID in 2020.

It was raining this morning, but we were glad when the showers stopped so that we could get hitched up without getting wet. It's a long drive today, and we're not as strong or fast as usual.

Just to prove that she's not feeling as good as usual, Denisa forgot to take a picture as we crossed the state line into Missouri -- and then into Kansas. It was a long four-hour trip for a couple of weary travelers. We enjoyed the autumn leaves and some beautiful scenery on our drive today. But with blustery winds, it made the trip seem longer and feel harder. COVID causes body aches, and Mark's hip was hurting from running the gas pedal as we made our way through the busier traffic near Kansas City. While Mark took us down the road, Denisa cut up vegetables and started a warm soup in the crock pot for supper when we arrived. We were glad when we got to our new campground at Suncatcher Lake outside of Leavenworth, Kansas. With blustery sharp winds, we didn't exactly get a warm welcome to our new home!

Mark has lost more weight, and he doesn't have any fat left to insulate him from the cold. To make it worse, he didn't know where his winter coat was. He was shaking from the low temperatures after being outside to hook us up to electricity. Denisa noted on her long list of fever readings, that Mark was running a little warm at 100 degrees. But she also noted that he ate ice cream this evening. That's his usual evening snack, but up until tonight COVID has even removed his appetite for ice cream. It's a mean virus!

The temperatures continued to drop as we got caught up on household duties. We have full hook-ups, so Denisa did five loads of laundry. We will be here a month, and we are expecting cold weathers before we leave. But we really didn't expect it in October! With overnight temperatures in the 20's we are already in the uncomfortable position of worrying about our water pipes freezing. Sure enough, the weather's forecast came true. We woke up to a covering of white snow all around our motor home.

We were welcomed to Kansas with record-breaking LOW high temperatures. The normal high temperatures are supposed to be in the 60s, and we struggled to get up to 32 degrees in the warmest part of the day. The bad news is that the snow continued all day. The good news is this is the first complete day that neither of us ran a fever. While the temperatures around us were uncomfortably cold, our body temperatures were just right--finally! Mark had been running temperatures over 98.6 for eleven days!

Because of the length and severity of Mark's symptoms, we had been encouraged to have his lungs checked. So we found a near-by urgent care and called for instructions. We were surprised to find that he was instructed to come into the main entry and wait in the waiting area even when he told them he had tested positive for COVID nine days earlier. We were a little under-whelmed with his medical visit, but they deemed his lungs clear. They gave him a medical order to get a chest x-ray at the local hospital. Again, we were surprised that a patient with a positive COVID test was not separated at the hospital.

We're glad to report that we both continue to be fever-free as we settled into our new camp site at Dreamcatcher Lake. We're still isolating from everyone, as we're counting our days without fever. We're still coughing, but we've heard that symptom can continue for weeks. So for now we're snuggled against the snow, playing games and watching movies and staying away from everyone as we bide our time against COVID.