We both woke up early Sunday morning, about 3 am, some 15 hours after receiving the injections with sore muscles and joint pain. Interestingly, all of my reaction was on the left side from shoulder to ankle. Kay’s reaction was not so discriminatory. In fact she said even her toenails hurt. Fortunately, her reaction was gone fairly quickly. 

Since we were all packed up, we left for home at daylight. Kay was over her Moderna 2nd injection reaction, except for a sore arm at the site of the shot. Early in the drive my reaction worsened. We took turns driving through eastern Arizona and New Mexico. However, we experienced 45+ mph winds and dust storms most of the way; fortunately it was a tailwind. Kay reported, “We stopped to fill up and it took both of us to shut the door on our coach!  We stopped a little earlier than usual because of the gusts.  These plains must have been brutal years ago.” We opted to stop at a nice rest area near El Paso to overnight. Reaction to the 2nd injection continued to worsen with a temperature of 99.9° (normal is 97.2), headache, and joint and muscle aches and pains. A couple of Tylenol helped. Reactions began about 15 hours after injection; it was now 30 hours post injection. Kay is doing great.

Thank goodness for Mondays. On Monday, March 15, reactions to the 2nd injection have ended, about 25 hours after they had begun. We are both now feeling great (except for the aches and pains of age). Thanks to all of you who went before us and provided a timeline and reactions as we had some idea of what to expect. We drove through wind gusts of 58 mph, with blowing dust. It’s supposed to be worse tomorrow. If it is in fact worse along our route, we’ll hunker down! We stopped at another rest area along Interstate 20 in Texas, just west of Fort Worth.

Despite the close proximity of the highway, and nearby semis, Kay slept reasonably well, and I slept great last evening. The forecast for today, Tuesday, for the portion of the route home indicates less wind than the previous two days. Consequently, we opted to continue eastward. Again taking turns, we drove the 400+ miles home, arriving around 5:00 PM. We unhooked the old Honda CRV at a nearby shopping center, and parked the RV at the boat launching ramp parking area adjacent to our house. There, we loaded all available cars, including Sue’s (Sue is Kay’s longtime friend and our FABULOUS house sitter), and returned the near empty motorhome to it storage garage. We were both exhausted and swore to never RV again (same old story after every long trip). A long hot shower welcomed us home!