Day 9 of Quarantine

 My last post we were in day 4 of quarantine.  Boredom had set in but now in day 9 we are starting to get a little stir-crazy.  400 sq ft of living space in our 5th wheel is pretty roomy as far as RVs go but not so much for extended periods of confinement.  But we do what we must and yesterday that meant we did our covid-19 test.

To stay in quarantine and get tested without breaking quarantine we ordered a home sample collection kit.  One has to go online and request the kit, we used a company called EverlyWell.  The kit is sent to you by United States Postal Services.  It should arrive in 1-3 business days but with all the shipping/mailing services being overwhelmed our kits took eight days to arrive.  That had our kits arriving on Thursday the 17th of December.  On Tuesday the 15th, EverlyWell sent an email telling us that we had to get our samples taken and sent back to them no later than 5pm the 18th.  Between shipping delays and a backlog of testing they had to have it on the way to them by Friday afternoon if we were to get our results before Christmas.  So on the 15th when EverlyWell sent the email saying the drop-dead day to return kits was going to be on that Friday we had no idea if our kits were even going to delivered to us by then.  The tracking number just returned a message that the package was in transit and that it was arriving late.  No estimate of delivery day.  Ugh!

But late in the day on the 17th the Post Office came through and delivered the kits.  Now it was time to coordinate with the kids for us to all take our samples and get the kits to a UPS drop box.  So, if you didn't catch that, the kits came to us by USPS and they are going back by UPS (overnight express).  The instructions were explicit, the kits were only to be placed in a drop box.  You could not take it to a UPS affiliate, a UPS store or anywhere other than a drop box.


The kids and we took our samples and then they found a drop box that was on the way back from our campground to their house.  You should have seen the pick-up of our samples by the son-in-law.  I laid the sample kit packages on our picnic table and backed off about 30ft (this is outdoors).  The SIL told me to go back in the camper while he retrieved the samples with both hands gloved and a full-face gas mask.  The samples were in by 2pm and by 7pm Friday night they were showing up on the UPS tracker.  Mid-morning Saturday, the 19th, the tracker showed "delivered".  It seems like we're in business.  Only thing now is that the lab has to get their thing done and then we'll be good to go for Christmas with the grandkids.

The grub and household supplies are holding out well.  It was a lot of work planning almost 20 days of menus but so far so good.  I do admit I am hankering an all you can eat hotwings at a place I like in town.

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