Carolina In My Mind

One of the things I really love about Penny is her sound system. Talk about surrounded! And since she is Bluetooth enabled, I can curate the music from my phone. Only in the highest elevations or the most remote areas do we have to switch to Sirius. So, a little James Taylor on the way to South Carolina seemed apropos. We chose our last stop this trip to be Folly Beach, SC. We have learned that no more than 5 hours of drive time is best for us. Folly Beach was a little longer than we liked at 6 ½ hours, but it was about halfway home and we had never been there. Again, the scenery was great. As we entered the low country, the trees covered with Spanish moss became prevalent, and many roads were canopied, almost as if we were being welcomed.

We had a reservation at the Tides in Folly Beach and it was a great choice. Our room faced the ocean and the Folly Beach fishing pier, which stretches over 1,000 feet into the ocean. The town is very old-time beach town, full of small gift shops and some really terrific restaurants. We can strongly recommend Rita’s Seaside Grill and the Lost Dog Café. Our plan for this part of the trip, after all the walking at Disney, was to chill out in beach chairs and let the sounds of the ocean relax us. The weather was beautiful, sunny and a good twenty degrees cooler than Orlando, in the low seventies. We walked across the street from our hotel to Rita’s, and scored a table outside.

Do you ever get those coughs when the weather changes? You know, the hacking ones that hurt your ribs and seem to go on forever? Well I got one of those at Rita’s. And although that is not unusual for me when the weather changes, I could not help but notice the stinkeye from numerous other diners. In the age of the coronavirus, prolonged coughing in a public place can get you run out of town on a rail. I recovered, and we finished our meal, but we didn’t stay as long as we would have liked.

That night, I woke up coughing several times, and the cough was joined by a sore throat. We masked up and went to a local drug store, buying cold medicine, cough drops and a thermometer. I was happy to see that I didn’t have a fever, nor any other symptoms, but that cough was rough. Now if this had happened at any other time in my life, I would have chalked it up to the weather change, and dropped it right there. But these days you can’t help but wonder. So, I called the Medical Clinic of SC and set up a virtual visit, assuming they would tell me to get tested. I talked to a nice PA who said I didn’t need a Covid test, and prescribed an albuterol inhaler. We picked up the puffer and went to lunch at the Lost Dog Café with plenty of outdoor tables. Where I became overcome once again by a horrendous cough, and again received the glares of other diners.

I’m 67 years old, and have a few health issues, but nothing serious. I am in pretty good shape, watch my weight and my diet, and exercise almost every day. But the pandemic is about respecting everyone by being reasonable about a virus that spreads before it declares itself and often is asymptomatic. And while 99% of people seem to weather it, over 200,000 people have died from it in the last few months. We decided to cut the vacation short and head home. The hotel was nice enough to refund our unused time, and while Bob seemed fine, I was worried that he might catch whatever I had.

Our trip home was uneventful, and we had the usual Penny admirers at rest stops and gas stations, but I stayed in car in a modified version of isolation. Our daughter, Leigh, works at Sentara Leigh’s Emergency Department and offered to facilitate an appointment for me to get a test the next day. The staff in the ED were awesome and had me in and out in about a half hour. And the Q-tip up the nose was not nearly as bad as I had heard, although having had sinus surgery a few years back I have had much larger things than that up my nose! So then to wait for results.

While we’re waiting, a few words about the ED. Did you know that violence is a serious problem in ED’s across the US? This has been going on for some time, and has been widely studied. Physical violence, verbal assaults, insults, threats, and verbal harassment are common and on the rise. The healthcare system is often confusing and despite what our president might think, many people cannot afford the high-quality healthcare available to others. People go to the ED for a number of reasons beyond an emergency, sometimes because it is the only option for them. Wait times can be long, and often people don’t understand that a minor problem will be triaged behind people with true life-threatening emergencies. Family disagreements and social issues often erupt while waiting. The staff are often overwhelmed and threatened when all they want to do is help people who are ill. So, if you know someone who works in an ED, offer a little love to them. We would all be in trouble without them.

Within 24 hours, my test came back negative. No Covid. What a relief. Sometimes a cough is just a cough. I'll lay low for the next week just in case. So that concludes our trip number two. Over 3,000 miles for this one and we have put a grand total of over 5,200 miles on Penny since we got her in June. Later this month we will fly to Parump, NV, where Bob will attend the Spring Mountain Performance Driving School for 2 days to learn the next level engineering and performance of the C8 Corvette. I will be staying at Club Spring Mountain, and hope to get a massage! Truman is going to join us on this trip and after Bob becomes a C8 expert, we will head to the Grand Canyon and Red Rock Canyon for a few days. We’re taking this Go, Go, Go thing seriously!

Thanks for reading, and See Ya Real Soon.