North Carolina - "Day" 3 - in and around Murphy

Murphy KOA, Murphy

Tuesday, 2 June through Saturday, 1 July 2023

Before I came here, I'd made reservations only for 5 days.  But once here, I realized I was really tired - from the driving, and the heat (it got up to around 80° on the drive here, which I know is nothing compared to the baking southwest US but it was warm for here), and from just being tired.  At the campground office they said they didn't give a discount for being here a month, only a free day for every week I stayed.  So I extended my reservation for 3 weeks to give me time to get my energy back.

Weather

While we were here, the weather fluctuated to a surprising degree.  Well, it was surprising to me because I expect fairly constant summer weather in the month of June.  But that's not what we got.

Instead we had periods - days, even - of heavy rain and thunder.  Followed, sometimes within an hour, by sun - sometimes very warm sun.  We'd have quite chilly mornings when all 5 of us wanted the heater on, then days with temps in the low 80s.

One night we had a bad storm start about 10:30 PM, and it went on for hours.  Heavy rain, thunder, lightning.  I counted from flash to sound and found most of the lightning was about 8 miles away, but one bolt was only 2 miles.  

That night Dext was a mess from fear.  I gave him the CBD treats, but their active ingredient expired 6 months ago, so I doubt if they actually do anything for him.  Still, he knows he gets them when it thunders and he asks for them, so I hope for at least a placebo effect.  But that night he refused to go back to his own bed to sleep and kept trembling back by the bathroom door next to my bed, so I finally dragged one of the dog beds back there to give him a more comfortable place to be.  When I got up the next morning, he was sleeping there.  I do wish he'd learn from experience that we're always still in one piece after those bouts of thunder so there's nothing to be afraid of, but I guess the fear is overriding the message.

Twice in the early mornings, Dext refused to go out for the 4 AM walk because it was raining.  Labs are supposed to be great with water - enjoy swimming and so forth.  But not Dexter.  He hates the rain and never even tries to stick a toe in any body of water.  He likes to drink it (and he likes snow), and that's his sole relationship with water.  On these mornings I waited till 6:00 and the rain had abated to get him outside.  It's not that I'm dying to wander in the rain, but it's just that he doesn't have the access to indoor bathrooms that the rest of us do.

One afternoon at 3:00 I realized it was so dark in the RV that I needed to turn on the lights.  I was just thinking of taking Dext out when it started raining.  We tried to go out anyway and got caught in some very high wind and strong rain, so we hot-footed it back to the RV.  The rain stopped at 3:45 so we went out real fast, but later we got more strong rain and thunder/lightning.  It scared Dext to trembling again.  Poor little guy.  And when we got the rain, we also got a sudden drop in temperature.

One morning we took our first walk at 3:30 and both of us were apprehensive: Dext about thunder and me about lightning.  While we were out the wind increased from a breeze to a very strong blow.  We did our usual route and made it back to the RV about 2 minutes before the rain came.  Pelting rain.

I started noticing that many mornings we'd have a heavy fog down in our valley.  It would show up about 6:30 and stay until around 8:00.  Sunrise was officially before 6:30 but the sun didn't hit this valley until after 7:30.

One morning the weather forecast said possibly damaging weather not only from rain, thunder and lightning, but also from dangerously high winds and hail.  That seemed odd because the previous day we'd been promised no rain for the next 2 days.  Couldn't they see this coming?  And sure enough, by 9:30 AM we started getting rain and thunder, which continued for the next 5 hours.  Then the sky cleared, the sun came out and the air was nicely warm.

That day Dext wanted the heat turned up - and up and up.  It got up to 90° before he was satisfied.  But he was feeling punk anyway, and he wasn't the only one who thought it was getting chilly.

With so much rain in a short period, the ground got very soggy - too much liquid for the soil to absorb it all.  The roads in this campground seem to be made of dirt with a bunch of gravel thrown on top, except that over time the gravel's gotten buried down in the dirt so much the roads are reverting to their original component.  It can make for some surfaces so muddy my shoes seem to be sucked in.  But although that's an accurate description, it sounds much worse than it is, especially compared with other campgrounds I've stayed in.

One time the power went out; my main surge protector (plugged in at the outdoor power source) has an automatic 120-second wait period before it cycles back on.  When the weather - wind or lightning - starts to pick up I also plug everything into a power strip with an automatic shut-off in a surge, so I feel doubly protected.  But I find that main surge protector very reassuring.  And I find being in the RV in a storm feels very secure and cozy.  Sadly, Dext doesn't feel that way and gets really nervous, even with the CBD treats.  I doubt if they actually do anything for him, other than being part of a ritual.  And rituals can be very comforting - most religions are built on rituals, after all. 

What I got done

When I first came here, one of the reasons I wanted more time to rest is that I still hadn't even finished my posts for Georgia, let alone those for the entire month in South Carolina.  The whole time I was traveling in SC, I was feeling confused, somewhat disoriented, because my mind was still on what I'd seen in Georgia which made it hard to see what was in front of me in South Carolina.  So I was getting confused between Charleston and Savannah (which actually have a lot in common) and Atlanta and Columbia (ditto), not to mention the smaller towns.

I didn't want to add to that confusion by trying to see North Carolina while writing about South Carolina.  The wifi here at the campground was fairly decent most of the time, so I managed to get a lot of writing done.  Bit by bit, I finished Georgia and then, on the last day of this month, I finished all of South Carolina too.  That's reassuring that I can drive in North Carolina and see it as itself, and not in comparison to something else.

While I was writing the post for Columbia (SC), suddenly something in the computer went whacko.  The McAfee Vault icon showed up and took up quite a bit of the working space I needed on the screen.  I've never put anything in the vault, didn't even know it existed, and have no idea at all why it popped up or how to make it go away.

I remembered my amazing computer teacher Janice showing me there were online sites that would help with problems, so I started looking.  And I found an online chat that was no longer active but still had information about this.  It said McAfee was "incredibly hard to remove" from a computer's files but told me how to try.  I did what it said, the vault stuff disappeared, and what also disappeared were all the incredibly annoying reminders that my McAfee coverage had expired and I needed to renew it.  I didn't want to renew it but those pop-ups never took "go away" for an answer.  And now they're gone.  Like magic.  So though it took a lot of time out of my day, it all turned out to be a really good thing.  I guess that's the silver lining in every cloud they talk about.

Besides doing the blog posts, I figured out what I wanted to see next month when I travel North Carolina and then tried to cobble together places to stay.  And that got really really hard.  Surprisingly hard.  Okay, I get it that campgrounds on the ocean will be at a premium and so will their prices.  But I had trouble all over the state, both in private campgrounds and in state ones.  Many campgrounds were priced way out of sight.  The cheapest campsites I found at some KOAs were $72, $76, $83 and notably the KOA at Cape Hatteras/Outer Banks was asking $145 as their cheapest site.  To add to the problem, NC doesn't have many state campgrounds that are equipped for RVs - only 9 to be exact.  Not enough for a sizeable state like NC.  Plus I was hampered by the 4th of July holiday, a time when half of America wants to go camping (at least, that's the way it seems).  With all that, I had to jettison visits to several places I'd hoped to see, but eventually I got reservations done for the month.

After that little dose of reality, I spent some time thinking about my plan to go from NC to the Washington, DC, area.  Actually, I did more than think - I checked prices and availability in campgrounds near the capital in both Maryland and Virginia.  What I learned is that though there are still some sites available, I can't afford them.  On the other hand, the prices plummet in October and November.  They go down to about half.  (Vacation tip for anyone interested in seeing the nation's capital: don't go when every family and schoolkid in the country is going.)

I was anyway planning to spend some time filling in some of the gaps in my blog - there are still a few posts from several years ago I haven't finished - some even dating back to 2019.  And I want to finish those.  Following that, I wanted to review my whole blog, my whole trip.  I wanted to try to get a view of the Lower 48 as a whole.

I'm truly sorry I couldn't make it up to Alaska, and I expect the state has seen so many changes in the 20+ years since I was last there that I can't say I still know it well.  And I may be one of the few Alaskans who never made it to Hawaii: the 50th state was the primary vacation spot for those in the 49th state.  So it's an entire part of the Union that I've never even seen, and I can't help but wonder how much my view of the country would change if I had.  But I still haven't figured out a way to get my RV to the Islands - even to one island, let alone all of them - so that visit will have to wait.

So with wanting to complete the gaps in the blog, and with wanting to review all my posts, which I expect could take quite a bit of time, and with not being able to afford the in-season campground prices near DC, I decided to postpone that visit till later in the year.  In the interim, I figured I'd go where the campground prices were bound to be lower because nobody else would want to go there - i.e. the extremely hot southern states. 

I made reservations for the first part of that trip where I'll stop to see my cousin near Jacksonville, FL, before leaving the east coast, then head over to Mount Pleasant, TX, where I've stayed several times.  It's hot there, and the campground prices are about $30/night because of it, but east Texas is often cooler than the rest of the state, so I'm hoping to escape at least some of the misery.  The folks there are very pleasant and helpful, the wifi is pretty decent, the campground is comfortable, and it's hard to beat the price.  And I'll play it by ear from there.

But all of that reservation making took a whole lot more time and effort than I'd have expected.  Still, I've got places to stay and things to see in NC guaranteed, and that's reassuring.

I spent all of one day getting the driving directions to campgrounds and sights-to-see for nearly the first 2 weeks after I leave here.  I'll go first up to Boone, which advertises itself as being at nearly 4,000' altitude in the mountains, so I figured wifi up there might be iffy.  Then from there I'll be spending the following week between 2 state parks, and I didn't want to count on being able to get an internet signal at either of those.  It took, as I said, a full day to figure out what I wanted to see at the various points along the way, and to add in visits to grocery stores and recycling drop-off centers and so forth, and then to argue with Google about appropriate routes, and then to write them all down.  But that's done now too.

Animal life

Birds

During this month, I several times saw a Bluebird - always when Dext and I were hanging around the dog park.  Usually we'd both be sitting (me) or lying (Dext) in the sun and a Bluebird would fly across the dog park and perch on a fence pole for a while.  Always a welcome sight.  I think there's a pair here.

I saw several Cardinals from time to time.  But the most common bird was the Song Sparrow.

Song Sparrow

Of course, I had to look it up and, to me, a whole lot of sparrow species look a whole lot alike.  But I'm fairly sure about this one because the bird book described their song exactly like what I heard, and it also said they could be fairly small (4¾") which these were, and that it would have red on its crown that might show as stripes.  This photo doesn't quite look like what I saw, but none of the others that occur in western NC look like this.

Once, also while we were at the dog park, I saw a Cooper's Hawk fly overheard.  Of course it was too fast for me to get an identifying look . . .

Cooper's Hawk

. . . but I'm guessing the species based on its call and the length of its tail (longer than other hawks).  They prey on small songbirds and are in this area year-round.  So that's my guess.

One day when Dext and I were out (not going to the dog park) a woodpecker flew only about 8' in front of me and landed on the trunk of a tree about 20' away.  My guess here is a Red-headed Woodpecker . . .

Red-headed Woodpecker

. . . based on it being common in this area, having a lot of red on its head, white on its wings, and a black back (not a ladder-back like other woodpeckers with those same characteristics).  The process of elimination is frustrating for me but better than not having any idea at all.

And on a walk during the morning one day I saw a hummingbird stop to drink out of some flowers on a Hosta near the office.  I hadn't realized before that those trumpet-like flowers were a perfect shape for a long bill to poke into for nectar.  The day was overcast which made things seem darker than if they'd been in the sun, but with that caveat, what I thought I saw was a bird that was overall shades of green.  The bird book says I'm wrong, even for a female.  It says the only hummingbird on the entire east coast of the US is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

female Ruby-throated Hummingbird

 

male Ruby-throat

It couldn't have been a male because there's no way I'd have missed all that red they've got on them, so it had to be a female or juvenile.  They've got white and buffy underparts with plain green topsides.  I wouldn't have thought that's what I saw, but the bird book insists all the other US hummingbirds aren't any closer than central Texas.  Which is a ways west of here.  So Ruby-throat it is.

Mammals

This campground is bordered by the Valley River, with houses, crops and cows on the other bank.  Almost every day, Dext and I saw 4 or 5 or 6 cows standing in the shade - in the river up to their knees.  I never figured out what they were dong there.  And I couldn't tell whether their numbers varied or whether I just couldn't get a good look at them across the river in the gloom of the shade.  The level of the river fluctuated with the amount of rain we got, and one day when the level was considerably higher than usual we walked by that way and saw no cows there at all.  Water was too high for them, I guess.  I had wondered how those cows got down to the river and wondered if they could get back up the riverbank, which looked very muddy and quite steep.  Well, one day we passed by and saw the cows, in a line one by one, walking up that steep riverbank.  I couldn't believe my eyes, because I know both Dext and I would have had a really hard time getting up it, but the cows seemed to be having no trouble with the climb.  I wished I could take a photo but kept forgetting to take my camera with me on walks.

Many days I saw (usually Dext didn't) one, sometimes 2, critters that I guess must have been marmots.  My first guess had been muskrat because each time it caught sight of us it disappeared over the riverbank.  It seemed to be living right by the river.  But I met another camper who mentioned having seen a pair of marmots in that area and that they had a nest there.  Still, the internet said muskrats depend on living by water bodies, especially rivers, where marmots where definitely land animals and always lived in upland areas (upland from water bodies).  But then I found these online photos.

marmot

muskrat

The muskrat is no question much smaller than the critters I saw, while the marmot is just about the right size.  So marmot it is.

Also, several rabbits seemed to be living in the upland area where I'd have expected the marmots.  Dext and I would see them on walks, usually when they were running across the road to get away from us.  Several times we'd see them crouched down in the grass pretending to be statues, and I'd watch Dext stare at them for a while to see if they moved, because he's learned that's the difference between a statue and a live critter.

Miscellaneous

And for a different kind of critter, a fly got into the RV and the kittens failed to catch it for 2 days.  I finally got tired of the fly failing to figure out how to go out the door when I opened it and swatted it with a flyswatter.  I explained to the kittens that it was their job, but they ignored me as usual.

And twice I found a tick on my head.  On the top of my skull.  Really creepy feeling to find them, because it becomes impossible not to imagine having them everywhere on my body.  Every itch, every bump I can't see presents the specter of another tick.  I heard from several people that this is a very bad year for ticks, so always something to look forward to (i.e. Fall, when the risk level might go down).

On another walk, I suddenly noticed that a stick near Dexter moved . . . and turned out to be a snake.  There was another couple and their dog nearby (Dext was focused on the dog), but the couple both reacted when I said "snake."  She was nervous and he was interested, came over to look and said it was a Black Racer and not likely to hurt us.  I wondered if this one was the same as those Black Rat Snakes at a South Carolina state park, but it wasn't.  Per the internet, a Black Racer has shiny skin and a Black Rat Snake has dull ridged skin.  So this was a Black Racer. 

Dexter

The last few days we were here, Dext started having digestive problems.  On the 29th he vomited both his breakfast and his lunch.  Then about 15 minutes after I'd gone to bed I head him vomit his supper.  Luckily I was still awake and really relieved he did it on the floor and not on one of this beds.  But that meant no food stayed down all day.  

The next morning he vomited his breakfast on a towel in the passenger seat so not as easy a cleanup but still much easier than for a dog bed.  That day I thought he'd kept down his lunch and supper, but the following day I found where he'd vomited a lot beside the passenger seat - it was all over the floor beside the door.  He started showing me he was tired, not wanting long walks but instead taking the short route back to the RV.  He enjoyed lying in the sun in the dog park but wanted to go straight back home after that.

Of course I thought at first he'd just eaten something bad, but that always shows up in his stools (very soft) and he rarely vomits.  But with whatever this was, his stools were fine and he was vomiting up almost all his food.

I usually feed him Purina ProPlan dry food but I can only find that in pet stores.  When I last ran out of it, I was in a pet-store-desert and instead got Purina One in the grocery store.  So on the off-chance this had something to do with his food, I looked for a pet store in Murphy.  Did I mention this is a small town?  Only one pet store (combined with a business creating water gardens) and they didn't carry anything as lowbrow as Purina.  So I got a brand called Natural Balance that claimed to have only a few ingredients and those were fresh (they said), including chicken and sweet potatoes.

He threw most of that up too.  Gradually he seemed to be keeping some of his food down, but it was worrying, especially seeing him lose energy.

Kittens

In early July they'll be 10 months old, which is still definitely kitten territory.  And it shows in their faces that they aren't adult cats.  I feel completely confident that, if I let them stay out overnight, they wouldn't be able to sleep through the night even though they can do that now with no trouble.  Dexter and Lily and I are all senior citizens and need our sleep, so I'm not yet willing to let the kittens spread mayhem all night long.

Jimmy is still biting me and I don't know how to stop him.  Bucky does it too now and then, but with Jimmy it's a regular thing.  I couldn't even find much help online.  One person said her husband blew in the cat's face when it was in biting mode and that seemed to work, so I tried it a couple of times but without much luck.  I'm not always in a position to do that, since my hands are attached a long way from my face.

Trips to town/s

I made 4 trips to Murphy and 2 trips to Andrews during this month.  

Trips to Murphy

Usually these trips were just to get groceries and stir up my waste tanks so I could dump them more thoroughly.  But the first time we went to Murphy, I discovered the Murphy River Walk, and Dext and I went there each time we went to town.

sign I found at the walk -
enlargements below

The walk covers a good share of the town of Murphy.

The town is proud of the trail and it's heavily used.  It's a 4-mile trail, some of which is paved but most of which is gravel, though we found a section that was dirt - and pretty muddy from recent rain.  The trail follows both the Valley River and the Hiawassee River after they join.  The town promotes its canoe trails as well as walking trails.

Dext and I went on different portions of the trail, though one section ended up being off-limits for us because it was used by a resident flock of Canada Geese which left their droppings, which Dext thinks are candy.  Yuck.  In that area there's a nice veterans' memorial.

But a sample of the walk looks like these:

The walk also includes an audio tour, if you have a smart phone, which of course I don't.  Apparently you can learn about the local history and legends that way.

I guess it was the 2nd time we walked along the paved part of the trail that I noticed a rock beside the trail that had been painted green and had googly eyes.  When I stopped to look, I realized it also had something red coming out of one side - red and forked.  And then (finally) I realized I was looking at a snake.  Someone had found a good-sized rock with a sort of ridge in one part of it which, with the green paint and eyes, became the snake's nose.  The snake had to have a tongue, of course.  And behind the head rock was a string of other rocks, some painted and some not, ending in a little string of small rocks like a rattlesnake trail.  It was really clever and I wished I had my camera with me as I'd missed seeing the snake on the walk when I had it.  Very creative.

One day, driving into Murphy, I was passed by a silver Corvette with a license plate that said "QWIKSLVR."  Clever.

One trip I stopped at the local Walmart because I was desperate.  My computer mouse had stopped working, I find it hard to function without it, and in this small town electronics stores aren't standard.  Even the Walmart had only one mouse that connected to the computer by a wire; all the others were wireless and I didn't want that.  But even one choice was better than none.

At a store in town I saw this sign: "How did Sam win the talent show?  Sam sung."

On one trip I went to a liquor store - apparently the only one in town.  It was called Murphy ABC Store.  And I learned that in North Carolina, the stores that sell hard liquor (stronger than beer and wine) are owned by the state, so competition wasn't a big deal in a town this size.  And oddly in NC, liquor stores don't sell beer and wine.

Next door to the ABC store was a gas station selling regular for $3.19.  That was much cheaper than it had been a week or so before, so I bought it, learning later that several stations just down the road were charging $3.10.  Gas prices seem to be coming down, which I think is great.  Though I'm surprised the Republicans aren't claiming Pres. Biden is artificially lowering them now (as opposed to when he was making them so high a year or two ago) to distract us from the treasonous allegations against him.  But maybe they're still so busy trying to find proof of those allegations they're afraid to try to capitalize on them.

At the pump next to mine, gas suddenly started running out of the woman's tank and down her car - the automatic shutoff didn't work.  What a mess and the smell was terrible.  I suggested she go tell the folks inside - and I think they might have given her a bit of a refund.  After she left one of the staff came out with a big pail of kitty litter and scattered it all over the area, which helped the smell.  I just got worried about static electricity maybe setting off all that vapor, so I moved very carefully.

As I was leaving, I saw a billboard nearby for Cherokee Guns, which I'm assuming is a local gun store.  The sign said "Pray for Peace/ But Be Prepared" with a picture of an assault rifle between the 2 lines.  It must be exhausting to be living in constant fear of impending violence, as some people seem to be doing.

Trips to Andrews

route map to Andrews

Along the road to Andrews, I discovered a place to drop off at least some of my recycling.  They accepted only glass, plastic bottles, aluminum and cardboard.  So I still had all the mixed paper and other plastics, but at least I got rid of some stuff.

There are several veterinarians in Murphy, and all of them seem to be so busy they barely wanted to talk to me about clipping the kittens' claws.  But in Andrews, a town about 10 miles away, I found a very pleasant vet's office that was willing to work us into their schedule.  I went there twice, once early in the month and again near the end.  The kittens seem to grow their claws faster than any other cat I've had and need them clipped every 3 weeks - or I get shredded and punctured.  On both visits they got weighed.  The second time they each weighed 8.4 pounds, which is as much as many full-grown cats.  (Note that Jimmy's completely caught up with Bucky on the weight.)  

And I'm pretty sure they're not done growing.  When I put them in their carrying case each night at bedtime, they're really starting to look squashed in there.  I keep thinking it's getting almost cruel to keep them like that for 7 or 8 hours each night.  But it's all they've ever known, sleeping together, and so far they don't seem to mind it.  Every 3rd night or so I heard some squealing and squirming, but they always settle down really fast so I guess it's not a problem.

Both times we went to Andrews, I stopped at an official highway rest area so Dext could have someplace different to walk in.  It was very pleasant, on the banks of maybe the Valley River, with huge flowerbeds full of wildly blooming daylilies in many colors.  It was quite a display and many folks were taking photos of it.  I tried but they didn't begin to show how spectacular this sight was so I'm not including them.

They also had several signs about the Trail of Tears that apparently came through very near here.

parts enlarged below

parts enlarged below

Cherokee history in this area

parts enlarged below

Life in the campground

A few days after I got here, quite a few people came in who all seemed to know each other.  That weekend the whole campground was full - every space and cabin taken - and I heard this was a family reunion.  Naturally I expected they'd stay the weekend and then leave, but they didn't.  Most of them kept staying and staying - and I finally asked one of them about their group.  He said it was the Craig family, that they meet every 2 years, and this year they had 44 people here.  They had 17 RVs and all the cabins and several of the tents.  I noticed that even 4 picnic tables pushed together weren't enough to seat everyone.  It was a loud group, though mostly just because it was a lot of people, not because they were particularly rowdy.  They included all ages from people older than me down to young children, so it wasn't like they were all retired and had extra time.  Most of them were there for more than a week and I guess it was a vacation time for lots of them.  A shame that it rained for a good part of the time, but these folks just seemed to move under awnings and inside RVs.  Each evening they all gathered in the campground's outdoor but covered eating area.  A really chummy group.  Once these folks finally left, the campground really cleared out.

I was surprised at the number of campers who wanted campfires - several nights it seemed like most of the people here had one going.  I saw them even in the daytime and even when the temp was well into the 70s and people were wearing tank tops and shorts.  It was really smoky around here when they wanted campfires in the rain, which was surprisingly often.

As my asthma has gotten worse, I've learned one coping skill is to avoid campfires.  Both the smoke and the particulates are tough on my lungs, I guess.  So I spent much of this time with the RV's windows closed and the fan or the AC turned on.  I'd rather have enjoyed the fresh forested air, but I also prefer to be able to breathe, so it wasn't really a choice.

I take 2 types of pills to deal with my blood pressure.  One night I knocked one of the bottles of pills off the table and, of the original 90 in the prescription, I had 51 left (I counted the ones in the non-knocked-off bottle) and 49 of those were scattered all over the floor.  I knew Medicare wouldn't pay for replacement pills and I couldn't afford to buy them myself, so I had to pick them up and clean them off.  Of course the kittens thought it was a new game and tried to help me - in fact, Jimmy found the last one.  What a mess, though thank goodness they were pills and not liquid.

When I talked to folks before coming here, I hadn't expected them to know where Murphy is because it's such a small town (about 5,000) out on the edge of far western North Carolina.  But I've learned that "Manteo to Murphy" is a common phrase - I first heard it in Florida.  Manteo is the town farthest east on the NC mainland, right before you cross bridges to the Outer Banks.  The distance between the two is 544 miles, almost the full width of the state.

One day I got a miscellaneous call from someone claiming to be named "Bruce," who said he was calling because of reports I'm experiencing pain in my lower back.  I hung up but thought it was creepy - what triggered that?  My blog?  That's the only one I've gotten like that.

Mail

I'd given this address to David for sending a batch of my mail, but when I checked with the office, they said they hadn't seen it.  So I checked the tracking number and learned it had been delivered to the campground's mailbox up by the road ("up" because of the campground being down in a valley).  I told the campground and they looked and I helped them, but no mail.

At first I thought they'd just gotten careless, maybe stuck it somewhere for safekeeping because it came a couple of days before I did, but they told me they'd searched and found nothing.  And after a while I figured even if it had been stuck out of the way somewhere, they'd have found it - because I stayed here for a month, plenty of time for it to surface.  Then I saw on the internet that the post office is getting concerned about mail thefts recently and decided that's what had happened to my batch.  That mailbox is easily accessible to anyone with the nerve to do it.  So I called my bank and credit union and credit card company just to generate a notice in their records, though they all said no problems so far.

I guess I've been lucky regarding the mail.  I've been living this way for nearly 5½ years, and this is only the 2nd batch that's been lost.  The other batch was in that post office in far northeast North Dakota and was the only batch that David didn't get a tracking number for.  I'd always ignored those tracking numbers before that, but with this batch in Murphy, I found it really useful to know exactly when and where it got delivered.

Inspiration

I heard on an NPR program an interview with someone about a playwright, now dead.  I don't remember the program, the interviewee or the playwright, but what the person said really stood out to me.  The NPR person said something about how much more the playwright could have done had she not died young, and the interviewee said something along the lines of: It's not reasonable to speculate about what someone would have done if they'd lived longer because they might not have done anything else.  But they have done the things they already did and should be celebrated for those.

I thought that was a great dose of reality - why glorify a hypothetical future if you've got something already here that's worth celebrating.

And along the lines of inspiring people is the Miss Texas who has just finished her one-year reign.  I was stunned at the depth of her fearlessness.  She's the first Asian-American Miss Texas - born and raised in McKinney, which is north of Dallas and just as thoroughly Texas as can be.  And so is this young woman.

She's had the nerve to be herself instead of being just like all the previous beauty queens from the last 50 years - and for instance is very active on various social media.  She holds the views of many in her generation on social and political issues and isn't shy about saying so.  

She made it a point to visit hundreds of schools in Texas during her reign and leaned in on the fact that she's not a blond Caucasian.  The pageant folks were nervous at first - Texas is trying to rival Florida in banning allegedly controversial subjects like race - but this Miss Texas told students what it was like for her to be the only Asian face in her school and how for years she hated her appearance because of being different.  And she told them to recognize that we all have differences and to be kind to each other.  That shouldn't be a controversial position, but this is a strange time.

She did some active lobbying among the state legislators on diversity and inclusion programs, and though they voted differently than she'd asked, she still thinks they listened to her.

My favorite story was about the time she was in the capitol rotunda celebrating the annual rattlesnake roundup in west Texas.  Somebody had brought a big sack of rattlesnakes and let them loose and handed her one.  She was a good sport and videoed the whole episode and posted it on Instagram or TikTok or something with the caption: "Another day, another snake in the Texas state capitol."  I laughed till I cried over that one.  

Here's an article with a lot of other information about this truly fearless young woman.  Miss Texas Averie Bishop's controversial platform: Diversity - The Washington Post  She really gives me hope for this country, if this is a sample of the generation that's coming up next.