I Could Not Figure It Out.......

I arrived home on 2/8.  Today is 2/26, so I have been home 18 days.  I think the pneumonia is licked.  I was discharged from the hospital in Chiang Rai 1/11.  Have felt good enough to ride my bicycle 3 times.  No more coughing.

However, another malady surfaced and manifested itself much quicker than the pneumonia.  Instantaneously, just when I felt I was getting better, my feet started itching uncontrollably on Sunday 2/23.  It was terrible.

I was watching parts of the over 6 hour rain delayed Daytona 500.  It was just 6 hours of babbling and showing clips of races - even last year's 500 race!!!  They made all kind of WAG's about who was a favorite for the race next Sunday in Phoenix.  It was unbelievable to me!!!!  They were talking about the second race of the season in Phoenix, AZ and  they had not finished the Daytona 500- or even the first 50 miles of the 500!!!!

Thank goodness some really smart engineers figured out how to design and build a DVR.   With one, I could skip all the garbage - and there was 6 hours of it  - because it was pouring rain in Daytona for 3 hours.

So I went back to thinking about that itching.  At first I thought it was because of my  socks, so I changed them.  The itching was worse with the fresh socks.  OK, I thought, I will take the socks off.  That was tried with no improvement.   I put on some leather moccasins  - no noticeable change.   Then I tried my cold weather slippers with the sheepskin lining.  They were much warmer than the pair of leather moccasins.

There was no racing and it looked like at least 2 more hours of rain in Daytona on weather.com, so since it was nice out, I thought I would go for a walk on the levee and see if that helped my itchy feet.  

I took the sheep skin slippers off then put on another pair of fresh socks.    Then I pulled out of the closet my travel  shoes that I wore while on walkabout.  (All I wore for 7 weeks was a pair of sandals or my travel shoes)

As soon as I put those travel shoes on, instantly my feet stopped itching.  I thought for a moment and I thought - yes,  I wore these shoes for 7 weeks almost every day recently, no wonder my feet feel better.  Then I thought about how LONG it has been since I had worn those shoes.  It was like.....15 days!!!

I sat in the lounge chair for 10 minutes and sure enough, the itching had stopped.

 

Laying in the lounge chair, I looked at my blog on the iPad and suddenly realized I was just laying in my lounge chair.   And have been for 15 days.

• Walkabout: A spontaneous journey through the wilderness of one's choosing in an effort to satisfy one's itchy feet, a need to be elsewhere, the craving for the open road, that space over the horizon...yes... something like that... you can't quite touch it so you have to go find it because it's you just know it's there.   Or maybe it just feels good to go walking around ...  

Within several hours the outline of the plan was complete.
 

Depart PDX at 6:00 AM tomorrow for PHX to watch the NASCAR race there on Sunday.   Layover in DEN for several hours, then arrive PHX at 3:45 PM.

Will stay 5 nights and check PHX out.  A rental car was over $400.00 since it was the race weekend.  Light rail should be a few bucks.   A public transportation walkabout in PHX!!!.

Frontier wanted $25.00 to take a single carry on bag larger than 18" X 14" X 8".  $20 if it was the first piece of checked luggage.  And the costs of baggage just went up from there.

I thought "I can fit everything I need for 5 days in PHX in a bag 18" X 14" X 8"." I did that in  Myanmar.    

Everything fits in one 18" X 14" X 8" bag.

Hasta la vista.