Monday, 23 May 2022
Of course, I goofed. I forgot that two of the inns I stayed had already charged a deposit. The result is the lodging was $2114 vs. $1530. That brought the total of the trip to $3,400. I knew I was thinking it was a cheap stay at Beechwood Inn.
It’s taken me two days to unwind from the trip. I had scheduled another massage upon my return and got it today. The therapist is Tom Marten at 5Points Massage. He’s been in the business over 30 years and does an excellent job. What I particularly appreciate is he works my butt – literally. The Gluteus Maximus is the largest muscle in the body and yet so many massage therapists ignore it. Trust me, after you have driven over 2100 miles, you appreciate a little butt massage.
Tom also stretches you out. He takes each leg and lifts it up into your body and holds the position for 20 seconds. He always seemed pleased with how far he can go with me and never fails to compliment me on it. There’s something about how he does the massage that really gets the blood circulating in my muscles.
After I left his studio, I was limp as a noodle but headed to get my jeep washed. It is love bug season and I had a great sample on the front of my car plus all the dust from the dirt roads to which I was routed. I usually wash and wax the jeep myself but I just don’t seem to have the energy to do it and I wasn’t looking forward to the scrubbing of love bugs. The car wash charged $5 extra to “de-bug” the jeep. They do an OK job with the wash so it was worth it to me.
Next up is to see if I can reset the head rest on the driver’s side. It accidentally deployed during the trip and according to YouTube, I can pop it back in place. I suspect if I am successful, when I next take the jeep in to be serviced, they will have to reset the computer. The head rest deploys mostly in accidents to help prevent whiplash. I somehow triggered mine accidentally.
I got back into my physical routine today. I walked 1.4 miles this morning, did my yoga stretches, and swam laps in the pool. I had enough energy to rake the leaves in the side yard. After being away for 13 days, the mango tree had shed enough leaves you almost couldn’t see the sidewalk. It took me a good hour to rake and clean and wash down the patio and pool decks.
As you might also guess, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Date counties have been upgraded to high rates of Covid. It seems someone failed to report compete data to CDC and we went from mild to high rate of infection after CDC discovered the failure.
Not to be outdone, the first case of Monkey Pox was reported in – get this – Fort Lauderdale. It seems the person was an international traveler. I used to tell my students that physicians these days needed to be well versed in all the diseases of the planet because with the advent of jet travel, any disease, normally isolated to a particular area, could now be spread through jet travel. You can’t just be an expert in tropical diseases when you are in Miami. Physicians in New York may see tropical diseases in their patients who flew up from the tropics.
A practical example is what happened with barnacles. Barnacles, at one time, were species restricted to particular locations. One species would be found in the waters off Japan, another species endemic to the California coast, and yet another species endemic to the waters off Brazil. You get the idea. With the advent of exploration by sail, barnacles hitched a ride on boats and have been spread worldwide. Species restricted to Japan, for example, can be found in most waters of the world with similar temperatures. We are now seeing it with diseases.
Hopefully, I will continue to add to the blog over the next few days. Stay tuned!