We’re in route heading back to Albuquerque to get the topper installed on our truck. This is a long time coming because we have rescheduled this appointment a lot of times. The hard part initially was that we needed a truck so that we could haul water and diesel, but now that we’re hotelling instead of camping, it’s better timing for us. The beautiful thing is the last week we’ve really been able to do a lot of healing because we haven’t had as many nasty hits of mold. Traveling is always risky of hitting an outdoor plume of mold, but so far it’s going well. We’re planning to go to Albuquerque tonight, stay there, and take the truck in tomorrow at 9. We’re hoping we can borrow a vehicle from Ford that they’ll let us drive down to camp so we can check on camp while they’re working on the truck. The hope is to make it back to Amarillo tomorrow night, but then there’s reality so we’ll see how that goes.
Yesterday while we were out exploring, we headed on I-35 south down towards Dallas. We know that the Dallas Fort Worth area is terrible area for moldies so we were being careful how close we got. It was a north wind so we took the gamble of driving down to Gainesville, Texas. We barely got over the Oklahoma/Texas line before we had to quickly turn around and go back. I felt like my body was so heavy I couldn’t move in my seat. We stopped in decontaminated at a rest stop a few miles down the road, and it wasn’t a terrible hit. I felt that same sensation one more time heading north a little bit further up the road so we stopped and decontaminated again. The second hit seemed to of been more than what Wesley‘s body could tolerate well, but thankfully time in the hot tub really turned that potential disaster into a minor hiccup.
I forgot to post this yesterday so I’ll update a bit more. We made it to ABQ last night and tried a new hotel in a totally different part of town than we normally stay in, and it was a great hotel with an amazing manager who really gets hospitality despite the epic level of Covid hysteria in NM. We had slammers get in line behind us for breakfast and had to get out of line, let them get their food then go get our food and sit as far away as possible, which was just enough distance. For non-moldies, slammers are people contaminated with mold who cause reactions like an outdoor plume, building, or contaminated object can. I wanted to get a second yogurt, but it was too close to the slammers so I asked for a garbage bag from the front desk, bagged our stuff up, handed it to the lady with an apology that I couldn’t go over to the garbage can bc I was reacting to a chemical on the people, we hurried down the badness they left hallway, skipped the elevator, went up the stairs, and I took a quick shower to decontaminate. This has given me a second experience to consider with checking hotels- a not great lobby might be due to a slammer, not mold in the building or coming in from outside when the door opens. Because the area often dissipates once the slammer leaves, it’s something to consider. We know that to be true at our last hotel too bc we struggled with the guys who work in the oil fields, but once they left, we were fine. Because of that, I really think it was the oil funk, not mold related toxins.
We’re heading down to camp and apparently there was significant precipitation here too. I bet the Rio Grande is more full than usual. Our truck is in the shop getting the topper installed, and hopefully a replacement key being we lost one a few days ago. I knew getting that addition on our warranty plan was going to be a really good idea with this crazy lifestyle we’re living.