Crafted Thoughts

Well, Tim had his surgery on Tuesday, June 3rd. It was supposed to have occurred on May 28th, but he misunderstood the surgeon's instructions. He was supposed to quit taking his Celebrex and Plavix a week before the surgery, and he thought he was supposed to quit taking them a day before the surgery. Oops! I found out about the mistake on the 27th and told him he needed to call the surgeon to let him know about the mistake. As expected, Dr. Peebles postponed the surgery. Very frustrating for Tim, who wanted to get it over and done with, but necessary to keep him from bleeding out on the table.

Anyway, the surgery was a lot less complex than anticipated. The doctor said that it looked more like an pocket of infection than a tumor, but he sent a sample of tissue for biopsy anyway. We haven't heard anything about it yet, and doctors usually call if anything really abnormal shows up, so I hope that no news is good news. The doctor also started Tim on a broad spectrum antibiotic and took a culture of the infected area, and we haven't heard anything about the results of the culture, either, so I guess the antibiotic that he chose was one of the correct ones. Tim goes for a re-check on Tuesday, so then we'll find out all the details for sure.

In the meantime, Tim's not supposed to do anything very strenuous with his left hand/arm, and he isn't supposed to pick up anything at all heavy. Fortunately, even though he's left handed, he can do most things with his right hand, too, so that seems to be working out okay. But when something heavy needs to be moved or a lid needs to come off a jar, it's a team effort right now. I still can't do much with my left hand yet, either. That means that we've got no left hands and two good right hands between us. So far, the teamwork approach seems to be working, even though it's a bit awkward at times.

Since the surgery wasn't as extensive as expected, Tim hasn't been as miserable as we we thought he would be, either. We had planned to stay in a hotel for 2 or 3 days because our bed is up really high, and we thought he wouldn't be able to climb up to get into it. But he felt good enough after his surgery to stop at a good friend's house on the way home from the hospital and visit for a couple of hours, and he said he thought he could get into the bed okay, so we decided to save the money for something more fun, like food or electricity! LOL And he was right; he got into the bed just fine. He's had to take pain medicine only three times so far. In fact, he's hurt more from his arthritis (due to being off the Celebrex) than he has from the surgery.

My elbow is doing okay, I guess. I can bend it more and straighten it out more, and I can rotate it some if both directions; but it seems like I make progress in one direction and lose it in another. I've been out of the cast for just under 3 weeks now (just over 4 1/2 weeks since the surgery), so maybe I'm expecting too much. My elbow doesn't hurt much, even when I move it, so that's good.

But my left hand and wrist are killing me!! I've been telling the doctors since the night of my fall that it feels like something is wrong with my wrist, too, but none of them have seemed to really hear what I'm saying. Well, let me tell you, the doctor is going to listen and hear me tomorrow when I go in for my progress check!!! My wrist and hand are still noticeably swollen even though the swelling has gone down around my elbow. I can't make a fist or even bend my fingers halfway. So something is definitely wrong, and I want to know what! The worst thing is that the pain in my wrist is keeping me from doing as much with my elbow and arm as I'd think I ought to be, so that's not a good thing at all.

Other than Tim's surgery and my rehab efforts, we haven't done much this week except sit around the house/motor home. I've been on the computer a lot, and Tim's watched a bunch of TV, but not much more during the week. Boy, do I miss cable! When/if we can afford it, we're going to look into getting either Direct TV or Dish TV for the motor home. So if anyone knows whether one is better than the other, please let me know.

Yesterday, we did get out of the house in the afternoon and drove into Knoxville to go to the gun show at Chilhowee Park. Tim's selling a couple of his guns so that he can afford to buy a couple more; in fact, the ads started running online a couple of days ago and will be in the Bargain Mart issue that comes out on Wednesday. So, off to the gun show we went to see if they had the rifle he wanted. I couldn't believe it cost $10 each for us to get into the show! It used to be just $5.

We looked around for quite a while, asking if anyone had what he was looking for (a 357 lever-action rifle), but it looked like there weren't any to be found. Several people told us that there had been a man walking around with one, with a sign sticking up saying that it was for sale, but we never spotted him.

Tim also couldn't find the gunpowder that he needed. He found it in the 1-pound cans, but not in the 5-pound cans. And the price difference is huge, almost like getting 2 pounds free when you buy the 5-pound can. So we'll keep looking for that.

He did find some speed loaders for his little snub nosed revolver (can remember what it is right now--I'll edit this posting after I remember) and bought five of them. And he re-joined the NRA at a reduced price (saved $10) and got a NRA baseball cap for free. And he bought a 30-round magazine for his SKS, but when we got home he checked it out, and he tells me that it won't feed properly, so he's taking it back today. It seems like he got something else, but I can't recall for sure.

I was going to buy another clip for my Ruger Mark III, but they were $22 (actually a good price--I'd pay $26 plus tax in most gun stores) so I decided to save my money for now. I've got my eyes on a kit that let's you make your own clear polymer stamps, and I want to save up for it. Besides, I've already got two clips for the Mark III, and while another one would be handy, I can certainly live without it.

After the gun show, we went over to Toby's and put a load of laundry into the washer. Then we headed up to the Mexican restaurant in the Food City shopping center near there and had a surprisingly good supper. I had chicken fajitas, and Tim had a chicken dish with a tropical sauce and pineapples. Service was good, and the total bill, including a 25% tip, was only $30. We can't afford to eat out often these days, but I'm glad we gave ourselves that treat.

After supper, we picked up the laundry and brought it back to the RV park to dry it. I spent the rest of the evening on the computer, and Tim played with his new toys. No surprise at either of those, eh? We just don't lead a very exciting life these days. 8-)

I'm working at choosing the photos to print from our trip to Disney World last fall. Since we were there for so long, I've got a couple of thousand pictures to sort through. I think I'm up to the second week in October now, but I'll get through them eventually. Once they're printed, I want to get them scrapbooked. Plus I want to work on scrapbooking Rachel's wedding. I got out some of my scrapping and stamping stuff and put it into a 3-drawer cart and a couple of boxes, and they're in the living room now where I can get to them. I'm still not sure where I'll work, but at least I've made some progress.

Well, that's about it for now. At least I didn't wait 3 months again to post an update. Just a couple of weeks this time. We're hoping to take a couple of days trips around the area soon, so maybe I'll have something more interesting to write about if we do. Until later . . . . .

Labels: broken elbow, scrapbooking plans, surgery

Well, it's been a while since I took the time to write anything, so I thought I'd do an update. Maybe this will come in handy if I ever get around to scrapbooking all the pictures I've taken over the past several months.

Warning: This is a long posting since it covers more than two and a half months. It's also pretty boring. If I'd written it as we went, it might have been more interesting, but with it all in one big entry, it's pretty dry reading. Also, I've got more photos to upload, and I haven't added the links to this posting yet. but I'll get to it eventually, most likely, maybe, if I have time, etc. Anyway, this is mostly for me, the people in my immediate family, and a few friends who may wander over here from time to time. And all of those people know that I'm the great procrastinator, so the fact that this isn't finished should come as no surprise! LOL

When I last wrote, we were in Clanton, Alabama, playing Guitar Hero III and getting ready to head toward Florida to avoid the cold weather. Tim and I were both pretty tired, so we were more concerned about not getting too worn out rather than making great time in our travels.

We got up late on March 9th, and headed southward on I-65. When we got to Montgomery, we left the Interstate Highway system and started using more scenic routes.

This was SO much more relaxing and took a lot of pressure off me. When we're on the Interstates, I feel like I really have to push the speed to keep from holding up traffic. Considering that we're more than 60 feet in total length and pretty heavy, that's not always comfortable for me. My comfort speed is around 55 to 60 mph, so when the minimum is 50 mph, that doesn't leave much leeway. And the sound of a truck horn when the driver decides I'm not going fast enough!!! Just let me say that there are a few truck drivers out there to whom I'd like to give a piece of my mind! There's even more nice ones, I'm sure; don't get me wrong. But when I'm driving down the highway with a strong wind blowing at the side of the motor home and trailer, getting pushed almost into the next lane by the wind, already tense as heck, and going as fast as I can, it doesn't help to have one of those amazingly loud truck air horns go off in my ears as the truck passes! But enough on that pet peeve.


We passed through Montgomery that afternoon without stopping, hit US highway 231 and made it to Ozark, Alabama, just north of Dothan. We stayed, as usual, at the WalMart there. We walked over to the Applebee's restaurant across the street and had a late supper. We shared mozzarella sticks and tortilla chips with spinach artichoke dip for an appetizer. Both were pretty decent. Tim and I got a Chicken Broccoli Pasta Alfredo Bowl to share, Sierra got Chicken Fingers with steamed broccoli, and Cheyenne got one of their dinner salads. The pasta bowl was not good at all--very bland and not much chicken. We finally took some of the sauce from the mozzarella sticks and some of Cheyenne's salad dressing and added it to the pasta dish, and the pasta eventually became edible, but I most definitely can't recommend this dish.


After supper, we went back to the motor home and played Guitar Hero III for a while, then hit the sack. Well, everyone else hit the sack, and I hit the computer. I think I finally got to bed around 4 a.m.

Since we got to bed so late, everyone was late getting up on the morning of the 10th--or should I say, on the afternoon of the 10th. We finally hit the road around 4 p.m., and since it was so late in the day, we weren't going to make the Florida border before the Welcome Center closed for the day. So, instead of missing the Florida Welcome Center and its free orange juice, we decided to have a lazy day and stopped for the day in Dothan, Alabama, at the WalMart.


We got up earlier on the 11th and hit the road. It was raining lightly most of the way, but we finally made it across the border around noon and stopped at the Florida Welcome Center and got some orange juice and grapefruit juice samples, picked up bunches of brochures, took some pictures, and then hit the road again, heading toward Tallahassee. We stayed off the interstate most of the way and stopped at the WalMart on Tennessee Avenue. We were planning to go to the Mary Brogan museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, but Tim was feeling really icky around that time; I don't know if he had picked up a little bug or if the stress of traveling was getting to him, or what, but he was having a rough time getting up and doing anything at all. Although we don't usually spend more than one night at a WalMart, this location was allowing RVs to stay longer, so we spent the night of March 12th there, too.


The girls, of course, kept asking when they were going to get to see the beach. They had never seen an ocean, and they were, after all, in Florida, which is where people go to play at the beach, so they were very excited. Since Tallahassee is much closer to the Gulf of Mexico than it is to the Atlantic Ocean, we considered heading south to the Gulf; but in the end, we decided to stick with our original plan, which was to head to Florida's east coast and go south until we got to a good stopping point.


It was time for everyone to take a shower, so we found an RV park in Tallahassee for the night of the 13th, Big Oak RV Park, which was pretty decent. The layout was a bit strange, but there were lots of trees and squirrels. Rested and all showered, we were almost ready to head east on I-4, but Tim was still feeling really ill, so we spent one more night at the WalMart in Tallahassee.





On March15th, we finally made it to Saint Augustine, Florida, and that afternoon Cheyenne and Sierra, at long last, got to see the ocean and play at the beach.


A cold front was moving in, with high winds and much cooler temperatures, but that didn't slow them down. They wanted to go swimming in the ocean, but with the winds so bad, I only let them go wading. I told them that if they could prove to me that they were strong enough swimmers, then I'd let them swim in the ocean. The way they could prove it? Swim back and forth, two times, the length of the pool at our RV resort (four lengths total). I figured that if they could swim that long, then they might have a chance if they got caught in a rip current.


As it got cooler, we headed back home, had supper, and called it a night. We were staying three nights at Ocean Grove RV Resort, which was on Highway A1A, very close to the beach.

The next day, the winds were running about 20 mph at the beach, so we stayed at the RV park and the girls went swimming in the pool. Sierra could swim only one length of the pool, so there was no way I was going to let her go into those choppy waters without an adult attached to her. Cheyenne, on the other hand, struggled but made it the full four lengths. I wasn't really comfortable with her swimming ability, as she had had to work really hard to make it the full distance, but she had met the test. I told her, though, that she was going to have to wait until the winds died down and the rip current warning were gone, and she didn't complain. In the meantime, they had the pool, so they still got to be waterbabies.

We stayed in Saint Augustine the nights of the 15th and the 16th. We drove around and saw some of the historical buildings, but we didn't take any of the tours. The architecture was very pretty, and perhaps we'll come back another time to see the insides of the buildings. The girls made good use of the pool, and we got them some beach toys (shovels, buckets, molds and the like) for them to play with at the beach. Since the red flag warnings remained up, they still couldn't go swimming, but they had a wonderful time playing in the sand. The exhaust pipe for our generator had fallen off in Alabama while we were sitting in a parking lot (so we were able to retrieve it and put into the trailer, thank goodness), so while we were in Saint Augustine, we had it welded back onto the motor home. I was pleasantly surprised that it cost only $30.

On March 17th, we left Saint Augustine and headed to Deland, to spend the night at the WalMart there and then go to the Gillespie Museum the next day. Sierra just LOVES rocks. She keeps them for pets! So this museum was on our must-do list.


The Gillespie is a small earth sciences museum on the campus of Stetson University. It's a member of the ASTC, so we got in free with our reciprocal membership. They have quite an extensive mineral and gemstone collection. We were the only guests at the museum, so they offered us a free guided tour of the entire museum. Such a treat! The tour ended at a hands-on exhibit where the girls got to "dig" for some stones to take home with them. I also splurged and let the girls spend some money on souvenirs at the gift shop. Cheyenne bought a dolphin necklace carved from stone, and Sierra bought an assortment of rocks. To top it off, I was lucky enough to find a necklace that I liked, too. We all enjoyed this little museum very much, and if you're ever in the area, I highly recommend it. It's not big and fancy, but their specimens are high quality, and the staff was just wonderful.

After we finished at the museum, I got on the phone and started trying to locate an RV park in the Daytona area. The ones in Daytona Beach were out of our price range, but I found a nice little park in New Smyrna Beach, Sugar Mill Ruins Travel Park. It's about 7 miles from the beach and located fairly close to restaurants and shopping, yet in a wooded setting. They have a lot of permanent and seasonal retired residents, but it was a nice park, even for us transients.

We got the motor home all hooked up at the park by a little after 5:00 on the 18th, and by 6:30, the girls were on the beach. The temperature had dropped considerably, and it was in the 60s, but there was no stopping them from putting on their bathing suits and getting wet.

The winds were still very strong, and the red flag warnings remained up. While Cheyenne and Sierra played in the water and the sand and I took pictures, Tim sat and read his book in his heavy sweater and hat. I agree with him--It felt cold!! But the girls didn't seem to be bothered a bit by the cold, and I believe they would have stayed there all night if we would have let them.

We let them play for about an hour, then walked down the street and got ice cream cones and headed for home.




We took the 19th as a stay-at-home day and got some laundry and house cleaning done. The girls got to go swimming at the resort pool, though, so they didn't mind too much.

On March 20th, we drove the car up to Ponce Inlet, which is just a few miles south of Daytona Beach, to let the girls see the lighthouse there. The lighthouse was built in 1887 and has been restored to its original glory.

We toured the museum grounds and the girls and I were planning to climb the lighthouse. Tim couldn't climb it because of his heart problems. The lighthouse is the tallest in Florida, at 175 feet tall, and there are 203 steps between the bottom and the top. This picture that looks like a spiral is a view of the staircase from the ground floor.




I had climbed this lighthouse when our children were little, about 25 years ago, and the view from the top was spectacular. I could see the ocean and miles of coastline.


Unfortunately, this time my fear of heights got the better of me. I started up the steps, but I just couldn't make myself keep moving up. I made it to the first landing, and that was it.

The girls were disappointed, but they were pretty understanding about it. They still enjoyed touring the museum buildings and seeing the science exhibits, so it wasn't a complete loss.









After we finished at the lighthouse, we went over to a nearby nature preserve where they had pretty much kept the natural Florida swamp landscape and had put in sidewalks and raised walkways so that people could walk around the area and see what it was like before all the houses and condos went up.

We all walked out to the overlook where we could see the ocean. We noticed a couple of people who were doing something with a kite-like contraption, so we decided to drive over to the ocean to check it out.

It took us a while to find the correct road, but we finally did. There were two young men wearing something similar to hang-gliding parachutes and riding on ski boards. It was really neat to watch them catch the wind and ride the waves. We watched for about a half hour and then decided to drive up to Daytona to get something to eat.

As we entered Daytona Beach, we saw a public park with a playground and beachfront, so we decided to stop and let the girls play for a while. Unfortunately, Tim locked the keys in the car, so they got to play for almost two hours while we waited on AAA to come unlock the car. Even if we were freezing, at least they had a good time on the playground, and I got some photos of the full moon over the ocean. By the time we got the car unlocked, we were freezing and starved. So we scrapped the dinner plans and decided to just get some fast food and head on home. We got back to the motor home about 11 p.m., and everyone fell asleep pretty quickly.

On the 21st, we hit the road again, heading a little farther south. My aunt lives in Melbourne, and it was Easter weekend, so we decided to stop in that area. Unfortunately, we were moving far enough south that it was getting harder and harder to find a WalMart where it was legal to stay overnight. Most of the communities along the southern half of Florida's east coast have passed ordinances outlawing overnight stays except in RV parks. But Tim and I got on the phone and started calling the WalMarts in the area, and there were two to choose from: Titusville and Vierra. Since Vierra is closer to my aunt's home, we chose that one. When we arrived, we were fortunate to get permission to stay for two nights. We ate dinner that evening at Shells restaurant and had a great seafood meal. Sierra had her usual chicken fingers, Cheyenne had shrimp, Tim had scallops, and I had some trout. Yummy!

The next day we called my aunt and went down to visit her. She invited us to have Easter dinner with her and my cousin, and we happily agreed. After a short visit, we headed back to the motor home and played Guitar Hero for a while. Then it was off to bed for the girls, and Tim and I had to get busy putting their Easter baskets together. We finished about midnight and hit the sack.

Easter Sunday, the girls got up and found their Easter baskets and ate way more candy than they should have. Then we headed over to my aunt's house for a wonderful Easter dinner of ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, deviled eggs and other goodies. She even fixed a dessert that wasn't too bad for us and that tasted great. We spent the afternoon talking and nibbling on left-overs, and the girls played video games for a while. We were all able to take a real shower, too, while we were there--always a good thing when you're boondocking and trying to conserve your onboard water. After we left my aunt's home, we had a late dinner at Denny's, breakfast for supper, and then turned in for the night around midnight.

On Monday, March 24th, we moved our motor home to the West Melbourne/Palm Bay WalMart and took my aunt and cousin for a late lunch at Shells. After lunch, we stopped at the Best Buy and picked up a game for the Nintendo DS that we had already bought for Sierra's upcoming birthday. This was almost the last thing we needed to get; we just wanted to find a baby doll for her, and then we'd be through with her birthday shopping. It was a bit of a challenge to shop for her while she was with us, but with my aunt's help, we pulled it off. I also picked up an 8-gigabyte SD card for my camera--over 2000 photos without having to change the card or download!!! We thought about buying a shoot-and-point camera for Tim, but it looked like new models were about to come out, so we decided to hold off for a while.

After we were through with our shopping, we went back to my aunt's home and did a couple of loads of laundry. It was very late when we left her house, but we had reservations at Treasure Coast RV Resort in Fort Pierce for that night, so after the laundry was done, we hit the road and headed south.

We arrived at Fort Pierce around three a.m. on the 25th and pulled into the RV resort. The resort was so wonderfully Florida-ish looking, with palm trees everywhere and white rope lights twisting around the tree trunks. We had a pull-through site, and they left directions for us at the office building, so it was easy to get set up for the night. We hooked up the water and the electricity and hit the sack.

Later that morning, we checked in at the office. We looked around the resort, and it was very nice, so we decided we'd stay for a couple of weeks. The owner was an absolute doll, and since we'd arrived so late, she didn't even charge us for the first night. Since they have only four pull-through sites, longer staying guests can't tie up those sites. We were concerned about this, since we keep some of our stuff in our trailer and need to get into it often, but they told us to find a site we liked and they'd give us a second site next to it, where we could keep the trailer, at no additional cost. We drove around the park and finally settled on a site that faced the small lake. One of the owners helped us get the trailer into the site right behind the motor home, and we were all set. Treasure Coast was a little pricey, but this was most definitely the nicest RV resort we'd ever stayed in. I was really glad that we'd stayed at WalMarts so much on the way down and saved our money; otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to afford to stay at there.

Sierra's birthday was coming up on the 31st, and she very much wanted her mother to be with her on her birthday. At first, we had planned on driving back to Tennessee so that she could celebrate with her mother. But with the cost of gas rising like it did, we found that it was cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket for her mother and bring her down to us, instead. So a couple of weeks earlier we had purchased the tickets, and Kris was due to arrive on the 26th in Fort Lauderdale and stay a couple of weeks. The girls were getting both excited and nervous, so we tried to keep them busy and let them go swimming most of the afternoon. As usual, we played Guitar Hero for a while and then hit the sack around midnight.

On the 26th, around one o'clock, we got in the car and headed to Fort Lauderdale, about an hour and a half away. Kris wasn't scheduled to arrive until around 7:30 p.m., so we had plenty of time. We lived in Pompano Beach, just north of Fort Lauderdale, for several years, so we wanted to drive around the area and see how things had changed. And boy, had they ever changed!!! What used to be farmland was now covered with shopping centers. Our old neighborhood hadn't changed too much; it was a little rundown, but no major changes. We drove around for a while and showed the girls where their mother had lived when she was about their ages and showed them the beach.

Then it was time to head to the airport. Kris's plane was about 45 minutes late, but we found this out ahead of time, so we had to wait only about 15 minutes after we got to the airport. After loading up her suitcases, we headed to The Clock restaurant for a late supper. Cheyenne was a bit frustrated with her mother, so she was cuddling up with me and doing everything she could to make her mother jealous. Sierra, on the other hand, couldn't have been happier; she finally had her mommy with her.

For the next two weeks, we mostly hung out at the RV park, making a excursion every now and then to go shopping or see the ocean. We hit the Bruno Chocolate factory and got some fudge and found a good (but cheap) pizza joint not far away. While Kris was in Florida, Tim and I finally got to spend some "alone time" together for the first time since January. We went down to the clubhouse and learned to play dominoes, walked around the park, went on a few drives and just hung out together.

The kids had a great time having their mother around, and they got to go to ice cream socials, pot luck nights and other events at the RV resort. Cheyenne learned how to use her mother's digital camera and became quite the little shutterbug.

We had a little party at the clubhouse on Sierra's birthday, with pizza, ice cream and a princess birthday cake. She got a Florida straw purse, a Nintendo DS and the game Nintendogs, along with a case to hold them, a sticker book with lots of stickers, an art set, a doll that makes realistic crying and cooing sounds and moves like she's breathing (it's amazing what they can do with microchips these days!), some doll clothes, an Uno game, some color by number sets, some Pretty Ponies, a sequin-by-numbers set, a WalMart gift card and some tape and a stapler (okay, she kept borrowing mine, so it was in self defense, but she did like them, LOL). She definitely made out like a bandit!

The morning of April 7th, I was getting dressed and bent over to pick something up and hit my mouth on a plastic storage box. No big deal, except that I already had a loose front tooth that I needed to either have removed or get fixed. Well, the decision was made for me that morning; the tooth, after I hit my mouth, was left so loose that I thought it would fall out very soon. There was no doubt I was going to be missing a tooth, but I really didn't want to have to pay a dentist to remove a tooth that was that loose already. So I told Tim that I was going to wait a few days to see what happened.

On April 9th, we took Kris to the airport for her return flight. We dropped her off around 2:30 and then headed to the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, in an attempt to keep Cheyenne and Sierra busy so that they wouldn't think so much about their mother leaving. They saw some fish, snakes and spiders; got to fly all sorts of flight simulators; made lots of soap bubbles; used a robotic arm; got to ride a Mars Rover simulator; and just had an all around good time. We all really enjoyed our time at this hands-on museum and wished we could have spent more time there. On the way back to Fort Pierce, we stopped at the beaches in Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach and let the girls collect some more shells. We finally made it home a little after dark. The girls were really sad that their mother had left, so they were glad to get to talk with her on the phone that evening.

We decided to extend our time at Treasure Coast RV Park to a month since there were activities for everyone and the park was so clean and neat, with a great laundry room and a good pool and clubhouse. Again, they were really great and let us just pay the difference between what we had already paid and the monthly rate. You can't beat that!

On Saturday, Tim wasn't feeling good and wanted to stay in bed, so I took Cheyenne and Sierra to a nearby u-pick strawberry farm, Dekker Family Farms, where we were able to get some tomatoes, lettuce and strawberries fresh from the fields. It was definitely a new experience for the girls, and we got some good recipies, too.

By Monday, April 14th, it was obvious that my loose tooth wasn't going to come the rest of the way out on its own, so we drove arond the area to see if we could spot a dentist's office. We found a billboard for a dentist that wasnt' too far away, but when we called them, they said it would be at least $500 to pull my tooth, maybe more--this for a tooth that was 90% already out all on its own!!! We told them no thanks and kept on looking. Finally, we gave up and started heading home, and on the next street we took, I spotted a sign for a dentist. We stopped, and she was able to take care of me right then, although it was 5:00 and they were getting ready to close, and the total bill, including x-rays, was just $200. She was very sweet, too. I'm somewhat dental phobic (and, thus, the neglected tooth that was already loose from being hit previously before I hit it this time), but she was very reassuring, patting my hands and explaining everything she did. It turned out that I had a bad infection, and that was what had been pushing the tooth out, so she put me on antibiotics for ten days and that was that.

Tim had been wanting to get a guitar for a while so that he could learn to play, but we had been holding off because we had two guitars at home that we could get when we got back to east Tennessee. But on April 16th, we decided to buy him a beginner's guitar since we weren't planning on being home until sometime in July. So off to Best Buy we went, and we came home with an inexpensive Gibson acoustic guitar. We spent the rest of the day with me playing a little and then showing Tim and the girls a few chords. Tim quickly found out that it's harder than it looks to make your fingers reach the right frets. But I think that, with practice, he'll really enjoy it.

The girls were still missing their mother very much, and Tim and I were beginning to feel the need to spend some time alone together, in light of his health problems, so on the 17th we talked with Kris, and she said she felt like she would be able to take care of the girls okay at that point. So we spent the rest of that day and the next day packing up all of their stuff and arranged to meet their father in Perry, Georgia, which is about halfway between Fort Pierce, Florida, and Bristol, Tennessee. We weren't sure this was the right thing to do, but we were really feeling the pressure from not getting to spend time together like we had planned; that was, after all, the reason I'd retired early/temporarily in the first place. And during her visit, Kris certainly appeared to be doing a lot better. So on April 19th, we got in the car and started driving north, and around 10 p.m. we met up with Jimmy and the girls continued north from Perry with their father, and we headed to a hotel to rest for the night, feeling a little guilty, but hoping things would be okay.

The next day we got up and drove around the area a little bit. Just before noon, the car got really loud, like a car without a muffler. I thought I'd noticed it sounding a little funny the day before, but Tim (the deaf one, we call him) couldn't hear anything unusual. Well, it turns out that the exhaust pipe had come loose. We stopped and asked for recommendations to a repair shop, and we finally found a local place that could take care of us that afternoon. We were very lucky that they were able to weld things back together, so our total bill, including new windshield wipers, was only about $50. Thank goodness for small miracles!

We headed back towards Fort Pierce that afternoon, truly alone for the first time in months. On the way back, we stopped at Ellis Brothers Pecans in Vienna, Georgia. We try to stop there every time we go through Georgia on I-75. They have a great sales floor, with oodles of samples; and their nuts are very good and reasonably priced. We always leave there stuffed from the samples and with a bag of goodies to take home, and this time was no exception. Tim's favorite this time was the Coffee Coated Pecans, and mine was the Pecan Praline Crunch. We got to the Orlando area around 8 p.m. and decided to stop for dinner at one of the Panda Express (Chinese fast food) restaurants in the area. We thought about staying in the area and going to Walt Disney World the next day (we have annual passes, so tickets wouldn't have been an issue), but our plan was to spend a couple of weeks at Disney after we left Fort Pierce on the 25th, so we decided to head on home to Treasure Coast.

The next couple of days, we just hung out around the resort, enjoying the Florida weather and relaxing. I was a bit shy about getting out in public with my missing tooth, so we didn't go down to the clubhouse much. On the 24th we started packing up so that we could leave the next day. Let me tell you, it's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate during the course of staying in one place for a month! Our trailer was piled high with boxes--a complete mess--and we needed to straighten everything out so that we could put the car in there. We don't move as fast as we used to, so we decided we could use a couple of extra days to get things ready to go. Since the resort was running a weekend special that allowed campers to check out at 6 p.m. on Sunday, we decided to take advantage of that and leave on the 27th instead of the 25th. We didn't have reservations in Orlando, our next stop, so we weren't on any special timetable. Despite my missing tooth, we went to the potluck dessert party on Saturday night and enjoyed all sorts of goodies, including two servings of strawberry shortcake.

On Sunday afternoon, we made our final preparations, got the car loaded into the trailer, and said goodbye to Treasure Coast around 7 p.m., heading north to Orlando to see Mickey Mouse. We stopped at the Flying J truck stop in Fort Pierce to check the air in the tires. Tim had a low blood sugar episode, so he stayed inside and drank orange juice while I checked the tires. I was all through with the motor home and was going around to check the last tire on the trailer. I decided to be lazy and go over the trailer's tongue, and my foot got caught in the cables that run from the trailer to the motor home. Down I went, onto the pavement, landing on my left arm. I banged on the back of the motor home from where I was sitting on the pavement, and Tim came out and helped me get up. He finished putting air in the tires while I went in to put ice on my arm. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew that my arm wasn't right, so it was off to the hospital in Fort Pierce, with me behind the wheel, no less. Fortunately, I'm right handed, and the hospital wasn't too far away.

A few hours later, and I had the bad news. My arm was broken, and not just an ordinary break. I had managed to break a pyramid-shaped piece off the elbow end of my radius (forearm bone), and it was going to have to be repaired surgically. The doctor said I needed to see an orthopedic doctor within the next week, so I had two choices: have surgery in Florida or head back home to Tennessee and have surgery. At the emergency room, they put my arm into a fiberglass splint, wrapped it in padding and stretchy bandages, told me to keep my arm in a sling all the time. There was no way I was going to drive a long distance that night, so we decided to head back to Treasure Coast to rest for the night and try to sort things out the next day.

On Monday, I called the local orthopedic surgeon to whom they had referred me, and I called Knoxville Orthopedic Clinic. I don't have medical insurance, so I was referred by the local surgeon's office to a clinic for person's without insurance; KOC, on the other hand, was willing to see me and let me make payments. Tim and I talked about it for a while and decided to go ahead and head back to Tennessee for my surgery. I made an appointment for the next Monday, May 5th, and we made plans to leave Fort Pierce (again) as soon as I felt I could drive the motor home.

I took pain medicine Sunday night and all day Monday, but by Tuesday morning I wasn't hurting as badly, so we decided to hit the road that afternoon and I switched over to ibuprofen. Surprisingly, the ibuprofen helped about as much as the Vicodin had.

We hit the road around 2 p.m. on April 29th, heading up Florida's Turnpike. I stopped at just about every service plaza (rest area) on the turnpike, and by that evening we had made it to the Okahumpka service plaza near the north end of the turnpike. The turnpike authority normally doesn't allow overnight parking in the service plazas, but we pulled into the truck parking area and decided that we'd leave if someone asked us to leave or when we woke up in the morning, whichever came first. I was really tired, and I needed the rest, and I really didn't want to have to leave to turnpike to find a spot to park the motor home for the night.

We were very lucky and got to spend the whole night in our space at the service plaza. We pulled out around 7 a.m on the 30th and headed toward I-75. We made it up to Cordelle, Georgia, where we slept at (no surprise here) the local WalMart parking lot. On Thursday, May 1st, I was determined to make it to Tennessee if at all possible. I would have been satisfied with Chattanooga, but I was able to make it to the WalMart in Clevenland, Tennessee. Friday morning I got up and started toward Knoxville. I called KOC to see if they could move my appointment to that afternoon, since I was going to be back in town sooner than expected, and Dr. Calhoun was willing to go ahead and see me that day.

We pulled into the WalMart in Lenoir City, parked our rig, got the car out, and headed into Knoxville to meet Dr. Calhoun. He took x-rays and confirmed that I definitely needed surgery, so he scheduled me for 4 p.m. the next Wednesday, May 7th, when he was going to put me back together with some screws and maybe some metal plates.

After my doctor's appointment, Tim and I went over to say hello to our grandchildren before heading back to Lenoir City and really enjoyed getting to see them (even if the dog did pee on my shoe). We stayed at the Lenoir City WalMart again on Saturday evening while we checked out some RV parks in the area, and on Sunday, May 4th we checked into Soaring Eagle RV Park again.

Our children and grandchildren came out and visited us on Sunday, and we had a nice family day. After dinner, we headed to the Weigel's and got Icee's for everyone. We're still not exactly sure how she did it, but my 11-year-old granddaughter, Tabitha, managed to spill her strawberry Icee on our ceiling!!! But even with that, it was great to be back with family.

I had my surgery, as scheduled, on May 7th. I didn't want to have general anesthesia, so the doctor did an axillary block that numbed my entire arm and then gave me some sedative-hypnotic drugs so that I wouldn't remember the surgery. The drugs must have worked fine because I remember them telling me that the doctor was ready to get started and then I remember the doctor standing next to my bed with x-rays of my repaired arm in his hand, and I don't remember anything in between. Dr. Calhoun told me to keep my arm in my sling and gave me a yellow block of sponge-like foam with holes in it, that looked sort of like Sponge Bob SquarePants, for me to keep my arm in to help support my arm and keep me from bumping it.

My arm was still completely numb from the block when I left the hospital (with Tim driving this time), but the doctor had given me a prescription for Demerol with phenergan (to prevent nausea) for when I needed it later. Since I wasn't hurting at the time, when Tim suggested that I go ahead and fill my prescription for the pain medicine, I told him not to bother, that I'd get it filled when and if I needed it. I just wanted to get home and try to relax. The doctor had said that the block would wear off gradually, so I figured I would have plenty of time later to fill it. Of course, it was around 8:30 p.m. by this point, and most of the pharmacies were either already closed or getting ready to close, but in my drug-influenced state, waiting until later made complete sense to me. Tim hesitantly agreed, and we headed home.

Well, the doctor LIED!!!! The pain block did NOT wear off gradually. Around 9:30 my arm all of a sudden started to feel like it was ON FIRE. In a big way! So stoic little me, who doesn't usually need pain pills, was sitting on the couch in tears screaming at Tim to, "Go now! Go to the pharmacy. NOW, NOW!!!!" So, off to the 24-hour Walgreens he went, and he returned home with the meds. My hero! I immediately took a dose, and about 45 minutes later, I was asleep on the couch. Our bed sits up very high and has a thick memory-foam topper, so we decided that I would sleep on the couch for a while since it would have been very difficult to maneuver into and on the bed. Tim, the sweetie, slept on a cot next to the couch, even though he has a bad back and I know he was miserable. But he really hung in there for me.

Thursday was pretty much a series of (1) wake up, (2) take pain medicine, (3) go back to sleep, and (4) wake up four hours later and start the series over again. I took my evening dose of Demerol on Thursday and, surprisingly, when I woke up on Friday, I wasn't hurting nearly as much. I was very tired of sleeping all the time, so I decided to try skipping the Demerol and seeing how the ibuprofen did. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked pretty well.

My wrist, however, was killing me by Friday afternoon, hurting far worse than my arm and elbow. I called KOC, and all the doctors were in a meeting, but I spoke with a physician's assistant who told me that I could come to the office and they would bend my splint/half-cast out so that it didn't rub on my wrist so much. We started to drive into town, but I decided that we could just as easily do it ourselves, so back home we went to dig out the pliers. A few gentle pushes and tugs on the wrist end of the splint, and all was much better.

I took it pretty easy for the next week or so, mostly just hanging around the house, not doing too much. I did a mystery shop at a fast-food restaurant, with Tim's help, on May 15th. Then on May 16th, our grandchildren came to visit us for the weekend. We have Dollywood season passes, so we took them up to Pigeon Forge and let them ride some rides on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, we drove down to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga for the afternoon. We had a fun time there, bought some pizza for supper and hit the Publix supermarket before heading home (love their buy-one-get-one specials). I really wish we had a Publix in the Knoxville area. Maybe someday. We didn't get the kids home until around midnight, and they had school the next day so, not surprisingly, their parents were somewhat ticked off at us. Can't say that I blame them, though. Bad grandparents--bad, bad, bad.

On May 19th, I saw my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Calhoun, and he took the cast off my arm. Goodness!!! My arm is SO stiff and I can't bend my elbow much in either direction. I'm supposed to do some range of motion exercises for my elbow, trying to straighten it, bend it, turn my hand palm upward, and turn my hand palm downward. All that sounds simple, but it's amazing how hard it is to do after having surgery and having my arm in a cast for a month. I go back to see him on the 9th of June, and he says he'll decide then whether I'm doing okay on my own or whether he'll want me to go to physical therapy. I'm definitely working at getting my arm working again, but I have no idea how much improvement he'll be looking for on the 9th. Of course, it really doesn't matter; since I don't have any medical insurance, I can't afford physical therapy anyway, so he'll just have to keep on giving me exercises for me to do on my own.

On Tuesday, May 20th, it was off to the Tri-Cities so that Tim could see his doctor in Johnson City and so that we could pick up a few things from the house in Bristol. We got a late start and were late for his doctor's appointment, so he had to see the on-call doctor instead of his regular doctor. He's been having some pain in the muscles of his chest, and we found out that he has a lump that has to be removed. It turned out that having the on-call doctor see him was a good thing because that doctor had worked in Knoxville for a while and knew the doctors in the surgical group that Tim had used previously. So he'll be able to have the surgery in Knoxville instead of going all the way up to Johnson City. His surgery was originally scheduled for May 27th, but he forgot that he was supposed to stop a couple of his medicines (Plavix and Celebrex) for a week before the surgery, so it's been rescheduled to the afternoon of June 3rd at St. Mary's hospital in Knoxville.

On the 22nd, I was lucky enough to get to go with Rachel to her obstetrician appointment. Since she's diabetic, they're doing ultrasounds frequently to check the size of the baby. They did one during this appointment, and I got to see his tiny little hands, feet and face. The doctor estimated his weight at 2 lb. 6 oz., so he's right on track and not overweight at this point. The doctor said that he was going to start doing the ultrasounds weekly before long so that he can track the baby's progress closely. It looks like his name is going to be Alex unless Rachel and Jym change their mind between now and August.

So for now, we're staying put in Lenoir City, about 15 miles west of Knoxville. We went up to Bristol on Friday and picked up my van, so now we're a two-car family again. Our grandchildren are out of school now, so they're spending a little time with us whenever their schedules allow. I go back to the doctor on June 9th, and Tim has his surgery on June 3rd. I'll do a little mystery shopping every now and then so that we can eat out without having to pay for it, but other than that, I'm going to try to stay retired for a while, if we can afford it. With all my medical bills and my having no insurance, our budget is stretched to the limit, so I'm not sure that I'll not have to work at least part time. But Tim and I would like to take this time and spend it together, if we can, since with his health problems we may not have a chance later on. In the meantime, we'll just take one day at a time and see how things work out. If I'm lucky, I'll get to do some scrapbooking and rubber stamping and Tim will get to do some shooting and reloading. And we'll eagerly await Alex's birth in August. With the price of gas these days, we're certainly not going anywhere in the motor home. Our last fill up cost almost $400! So maybe we'll be able to stay here, stay busy and, hopefully, stay out of trouble.

Well, I set up this blog back in 2005 and haven't done a thing with it during the two years since then. I'm amazed that I even remembered that it was still here. Well, to be honest, I didn't really remember the details; but I knew it was here, somewhere, and I was lucky enough to find it when I searched for it.

Anyway, I'm still not sure what I'll use this space for, but I think I'll update it every now and then as to where we are and what's going on now. So, here goes.


My dad passed away March 25, 2007, and my husband Tim had another heart attack 6 days later. The doctors told him they can't do any surgical repair this time and that all they can do is treat him with medications. After the last heart attack, he was a lot weaker, and none of the doctors can tell him exactly what his prognosis is. We had planned to travel after I retired, but with his health, who knows if he'll be able to travel at that point. After discussing it for a while, we decided that I would "temporarily retire" so that we can travel now while he can still enjoy it.


So, I closed my law office at the end of September 2007, and we hit the road in the Allegro Bay motor home that we had bought in July. Our dog, Cherry, had been diagnosed in August with multi-centric lymphoma and had started receiving chemotherapy treatment immediately, so we arranged for her to have chemo at various vet schools while we were on the road. I loaded up my scrapbooking supplies, and we gathered a few clothes, some food, and other goodies, and we hit the road.


We spent October, November and most of December in Orlando, Florida, mostly at Walt Disney World, with Tim ending up in Florida Hospital three times during out visit. Fortunately, no new health problems and no more heart attacks, but his health has gone a little more downhill, and his heart function has declined so that his ejection fraction is only 20 percent now. (That's about 1/3 of what it is for a healthy person's heart.) I'm really glad we decided to go ahead and travel while he can enjoy it. I hope things stay stable long enough for him to see the sights that he has always wanted to see, especially those in the western part of the country.

After our stint in Orlando, we headed back to the Knoxville, Tennessee area just before Christmas so that we could be with our kids and grandkids for Christmas. We rented a lot for a month at the Soaring Eagle Campground west of Knoxville, just outside of Lenoir City. We had a wonderful Christmas Day with our family at our daughter's house, then started making plans to get back to traveling, planning to head south the second or third week of January.

We had hoped to see our children and grandchildren a lot during the time we were in the Knoxville area, but that didn't work out very well. Tabitha got to spend a week with us during Christmas break, and we loved that, but we didn't get to spend much time with William or with our children (both working adults). They have a life of their own and didn't have much time to spend with us, which we should have expected; but we had hoped that somehow they'd find more free time. I did get to go with my daughter to the Babies R Us store and help her pick out the items for her baby registry, and I really enjoyed that time with her.

Did I mention that I'm going to be a grandmother again? Well, I am. Yeah!!! Rachel and Jym are pregnant, and the baby is due on August 17th. I really wish that I could spend more time with her during the next few months, but if we're going to travel, we need to do it while Tim's still strong enough to enjoy it. We plan on going back to Knoxville in July so that we can help Rachel out during the month before the baby comes, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull myself away from there after the baby is born. Time will tell, but we're keeping our plans flexible for now.

Cherry, our dog, did pretty well with her chemo for a while, but none of the protocols put her into complete remission. When we came back to Knoxville in December, we ended up working with a great doctor at U.T. College of Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital, Dr. Stephanie Schleis, and she really tried hard to find a combination of medications that would help Cherry. Dr. Schleis was wonderful about listening to me when I had concerns or worries, and I really appreciate that.

We got a call on New Year's Eve day, letting us know that my sister-in-law was having some problems with her health and needed us to care for her children. So, off to Bristol we went to pick up the kids and started the year off with our 8-year old and 11-year-old nieces in our care. We enrolled the kids in homeschool, Tim went to see his doctors, and then we headed back to Knoxville to get ready to hit the road.

Dr. Schleis placed Cherry on the MOPP protocol in late January, and her lymph nodes went down considerably--not full remission, but much better than they had been previously. This was the fourth protocol that had been tried for her, and it looked like it might be the one that worked, at least for a while.

On February 2nd, we headed south--well, a little bit south--to Chattanooga. Our plan was to go to Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile and New Orleans during February and March, homeschooling the kids and getting chemo for Cherry at the university vet hospitals along the way. I hated, though, to leave Dr. Schleis at U.T., so we stayed in Chattanooga longer than planned, driving Cherry up to Knoxville when she needed to see the doctor.

While in Chattanooga, we got to visit Rock City, Ruby Falls, and the Tennessee Aquarium, and we bought annual passes for all of them so that we can visit again when we get back to Tennessee. We're hoping that our grandchildren will be able to go with us back to Chattanooga in the summer, but we're not sure yet what their plans are for the summer. At the very least, I hope they'll be able to join us for a brief trip to see the sights in the Chattanooga area.

Unfortunatly, the MOPP treatment was more than Cherry could handle, and she got so ill that she couldn't keep anything down and completely quit eating. She soon became so weak and tired that on February 15th, after much thought and many tears, we made the difficult decision to euthanize Cherry, and she took her final breath in my lap late that morning with my husband and our nieces there with me to say goodbye to her. I miss her so much, but I know that we made the right decision. She was the most faithful, smartest, and most protective little friend that I've ever had, but she was just worn out and we couldn't let her continue to suffer. We'll remember her always, and will have lots of great memories of her running up and down the hill at my dad's house, her cuddling up with me every night, and her "protecting" my dinner plate from the cat, the kids, and anyone else who came near it.

We left Chattanooga on March 3rd. We decided to skip Huntsville for now, and go there when it is warmer, so we headed south towards Birmingham. As usual, we hit the road late in the day, despite plans to get going much earlier. As I began driving across the mountains in northwest Georgia, the winds started coming hard and heavy, pushing the motor home and trailer sideways. After I was almost pushed off the road by the wind, I decided that it was time to stop, so we got permission to park overnight at the Pilot truck stop at exit 4 off I-59 in Georgia. The winds reached more than 40 mph that night, and one tractor-trailer was overturned on the highway by the wind that morning, just down the road from where we stopped, so the decision to stop was definitely the right one.

By the time we got up on March 4th, the storm had passed us (after a night of the motor home being heavily rocked by the winds while everyone else slept and while I lay awake most of the night listening to the wind blow and feeling the home sway back and forth), so we hit the road and headed on into Alabama.

We stopped in Birmingham so that we could take in the local attractions and history. We'd been reading the book Students on Strike on our way from Chattanooga, to help the girls understand a little about the civil rights movement. Our planned stops were the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the Southern Museum of Flight, McWane Science Center, Sloss Furnaces, and the Birmingham Zoo.

We went to the Southern Museum of Flight on the 5th and bought a family membership there. The museum belongs to the Association of Science-Technology Centers, so with the museum membership (just $45), we get free admission to more than 200 science centers and museums around the country with the ASTC Passport program that comes free with our membership. Woohoo!!!

That evening it was off to Circuit City in Hoover, just outside Birmingham, where I had finally located a Nintendo Wii Wi-Fi USB Connector so that we can connect the Wii to the Internet through my computer. Nintendo has discontinued making them, and we'd been looking for one for about a month, so I was excited that we were able to locate one close to our location. We hadn't unloaded the car, so I was driving the motor home and trailer around the Galleria shopping mall--not their usual traffic!

I had parked at the side of Circuit City, so we decided that going around the building would be easier than trying to back out of the area or trying to turn around. Little did I know. We had gotten almost all the way around the back side of a long strip of stores when we came upon a "Road Closed" sign. We were near a loading dock, so I thought I might be able to back into the dock area and turn around. I tried repeatedly, but there were 2 semi trailers in the docks, and there just wasn't enough room for our total 62-foot length to get turned around, despite Tim's and my best efforts. There was no going forward, so that left me with the option of backing all the way back around the buildings while Tim guided me. Did I mention that there were two large curves in the roadway around the buildings, it was late at night (very dark), the pavement was not all that wide, and there was a sheer drop-off on the other side of the guard rail?

Finally, with much patience and guidance from Tim, I backed the motor home and trailer around the buildings and we were able to get turned around. And it only took, oh, probably 30 to 45 minutes. LOL Unfortunately, after we got turned around, I kept smelling something that smelled like hot, burnt oil, and then I noticed smoke coming out from under the motor home. Tim checked, and thank goodness we weren't on fire! I figured that the strain of all the backing up (and pulling forward, and backing up and pulling forward, and backing up, etc., trying to get around the buildings and the curves) had over-heated the engine, but the temperature gauge was reading normal.

So, we headed out of the parking lot, planning to pull into a Wal-Mart parking lot to sleep for the night. As I started around the corner, I thought I heard the transmission slipping, and after I stopped for the first red light, there was no doubt. Fortunately, there was a wide shoulder on the road, so I pulled off to let the transmission cool off, thinking that all the backing up and pulling forward had made it too hot. By that point, I had figured out that the burnt oil odor was transmission fluid. After we let things cool down for a little while, I tried to move the motor home, but it wasn't going anywhere. It was obvious that the transmission was having some serious problems.

Thank goodness, we have AAA Plus RV, so we called for a tow to the nearest Wal-Mart, with plans to do what they call a "continuation tow" in the morning after we found some place that could work on the motor home. It was about 10:00 when we called AAA, and they sent a heavy duty truck out to us. Since they needed the big truck for us, they had to call its driver in, so it took a couple of hours before the tow truck arrived. We ate a late supper while we waited, and we finally arrived at the Wal-Mart (3 miles away) around 1:30 a.m.

In the morning, I called a local RV dealer (Heritage RV, I believe), and Mr. Condry, a very nice gentleman, told me that they don't do major transmission repairs, but he recommended two local transmission shops. I contacted Barry's Transmissions, and Barry said that he could repair it but that he didn't have any equipment large enough to get the transmission out so that he could work on it. He made a few phone calls, and, shortly thereafter, Wes from Passmore Towing and Recovery called me and said that his company could take the transmission out and take it over to Barry's.

So we called AAA and had them take the motor home over to Passmore to start the repairs. Barry told me that he thought he could have us back on the road by the next afternoon, even if he had to completely rebuild the transmission, so that was good news. The bad news was that if it was "just" the front transmission seal, it would cost about $1000 and if it needed a complete rebuild, it would be $2500 or more. Ouch!

Did I mention that, when I talked with Wes at Passmore, he assured me that they had equipment that could handle the motor home? When we arrived, we noticed that there were no lifts large enough to handle a motor home, but we figured that they would have some heavy-duty floor jacks that could raise the RV high enough to get the transmission out. Next thing I see, after we parked the motor home, was a mechanic trying to put 2 small jackstands (3-ton capacity, by the way) under the front of the motor home to raise it up enough. No way that was going to work! So we all started brainstorming, and finally Tim came up with a possible solution. Using the jack stands, they got the motor home up high enough to slide a wheel, lying on its side, under each front tire. That elevated the RV about 6 to 8 inches. But that, of course, wasn't enough for removal of the transmission. So then the mechanic got some wood pieces, placed them underneath the motor home's leveling jacks, and had me lower the jacks onto the wood to raise the RV some more. Then he got a floor jack and moved our home up some more. By the time all was said and done, the RV was up high enough for him to get under it to take the transmission out, but the mess that was holding it up reminded me up a Rube Goldberg contraption. I really wish I had taken pictures! I can't believe I didn't--I even had my camera in my pocket! Even with all that, he had to raise one side of the motor home some more, tilting it over quite a bit, in order to actually get the transmission out. Finally, about 6 p.m, they had it out!

Since our home was perched so precariously, we decided to head to a local motel for the night. After much deliberation over prices and many phone calls, and thanks to the coupon book that Cheyenne had picked up at a rest area (after I told her not to bother--that we wouldn't need a motel since we had the RV--famous last words!), we ended up at the Comfort Inn that was two exits down the road in a very large, comfortable room. Tim did a couple of loads of laundry in their laundromat (we were almost out of clean underwear, oops!), and we all took showers in a regular tub with as much hot water as we wanted. I thought that Cheyenne was going to pass out from pleasure! Don't get me wrong, the girls do great in the motor home, and they take showers with plenty of hot water at the campgrounds where we stay, but it's just not quite the same as hoping into the bathroom and turning the shower on and staying as long as you want to.

I checked the weather, and a very cold front (at least for that part of the country) was moving in, with temperatures in the mid to low 20's expected by Saturday, with possible snow. Hadn't we been moving southward to get away from the cold? And now it was following us. Tim and I discussed the situation, and we decided that we could come back to Birmingham when it was warmer; our final decision: Now is the time to head to the beaches in Florida. The girls' reaction: Yeah!

The next morning, the girls and I got up and went downstairs to check out the hotel's continental breakfast. They both had Belgian waffles, boiled eggs, and milk. I made a Belgian waffle for me, too, but it was too sweet, so I ended up eating tuna and crackers when we got back up to the room.

Barry called around 10:30 that morning and told us that our tranmission was repaired and that he would be taking it back over to Passmore right away. Fortunately, it didn't need to be completely rebuilt. He put in a new forward clutch, new middle bands, new seals and gaskets, and a new torque convertor. Total bill for his services was around $960, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

We got packed up, checked out of the hotel around noon, and headed back over to Passmore. When we got there, they were trying to figure out how to get the transmission back into the motor home. Everything had to be lined up more carefully to put it back in, and the mechanic was going to need more clearance to get it back in than he had needed in getting it out. He got a floor jack and tilted it up quite a bit so that it was listing pretty well to one side.

At that point, we decided that our smartest move was to head somewhere else and hope that they had good insurance if things went wrong. I found a $25 gift card that I'd been saving, so off to Olive Garden we went for their all-you-can-eat soup, salad and breadsticks. We got there a little before 3 and didn't leave until after 4:30. Our waitress was a little ditzy, but she was really nice; and the girls most definitely enjoyed the meal. We all left the restaurant over-stuffed and decided that the meal would count for both lunch and supper.

Back to Passmore at that point, and the transmission still wasn't in. We were afraid to watch, so we headed back out in search of a Coke Icee for me. (Did I mention that I have a Coke Icee addiction?) We finally found one at a Burger King near the motel where we had stayed the night before, and then we headed back to Passmore. It was around 6:00, and they finally had the transmission back in the motor home. They were in the process of trying to get the transmission fluid at the right level. Unfortunately, after they got the right amount of fluid in it, when we tried to shift gears the gear shift indicator was out of whack: low was where second should be, second was where drive should be, drive was where neutral should be, neutral was where reverse lived, reverse had found a new home at park, and park was nowhere to be found. I told them that, prior to taking the transmission out, all the gears had shown up at the right place on the indicator, so they decided they'd check the cable. Thankfully, they found that it wasn't on quite right, and a small adjustment put everything back where it belonged.

Then it was time to get the motor home off the leveling jacks, the wood blocks, the jack stands, the floor jacks, and the wheels. By that time, I was so tired that I can't tell you the details of how it was accomplished (thank goodness, you say?)--all I know is that I stayed at the wheel and when they told me to put the jacks up or down, I did what I was told to do, like a good little girl.

Eventually all 4 tires were back on solid ground, and it was time for a test drive. No one wanted to take the motor home for a spin, so I said I'd drive it if one of the mechanics would go with me (in case something went wrong). The head honcho, Dave (I think), said he'd ride with me, so off we went, down the road. The transmission didn't seem to be shifting right, so Dave asked me if I had the emergency brake on. I checked, and it wasn't on. Still no shifting. Finally I looked at the gear shift indicator, and I had put it into "2"nd instead of "D"rive. Arrrgghh! After correcting my error, I drove a few more blocks, and it shifted properly during the rest of our drive.

Finally, around 8 p.m., they pulled our trailer around so that we could hook it up, Tim got everything re-attached, and we pulled out, heading to the Wal-Mart in Pelham, about 15 miles down the road. I drove the motor home, and Tim drove the car; since we weren't going very far, we had decided it wasn't worth the effort to load the car into the trailer. As we got closer to where I thought the exit should be, the less sure I became about where it really was. I called Tim on his cell phone, and we decided that if we came to I-65 South before we came to the exit for the Wal-Mart, then we'd just head south and stay at a different Wal-Mart. The next exit turned out to be I-65 South, so southward we went. We stopped briefly at an Alabama rest area (where we were able to dump our holding tanks and take on fresh water--always a good thing) and finally stopped for the night at the Wal-Mart in Clanton, Alabama, which is about halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery.

And what was coming our way? More storms with high winds! So, we decided to just stay put at the Wal-Mart all day today (Saturday), playing Guitar Hero III and relaxing. It turned out that the winds were around 20 mph, so I think we made a smart decision. We had a fairly relaxing day, cooked some hot dogs and french fries for dinner, and planned to turn in early tonight so we can get on the road again tomorrow. I think that a "day off" every now and then is good for all of us.

The winds have died down, and it's supposed to be calm all day tomorrow, so I hope we'll make it to Dothan, Alabama, or maybe even into Florida. We plan to stop at Tallahassee to see the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science. It sounds like it will be a good field trip for the girls, with lots of learning experiences, and it's a member of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, so we'll get in free. The girls haven't been to the beach before, though, so we'll be heading further south pretty quickly to get into warmer weather and to be able to hit the beaches. If the weather's good, we'll probably head over toward Melbourne and drop in to see my aunt while we're in the area, then maybe spend a little time in Orlando and then head to points further south (and warmer).

We've learned many things during our travels so far. Among other things, we have learned that, although we read several books about motor homes and RV travel before we hit the road, we knew next to nothing about living in a motor home (and still have lots to learn even now, six months later). We have learned that homeschooling at 9 p.m. works just as well as homeschooling at 9 a.m. We have learned that it's really hard to say goodbye to a faithful, loving canine friend, even when everyone knows that it's the right time to say goodbye. We have learned that there's no such thing as privacy in a motor home, that there's no such thing as too much warm shower water, and that there's no such thing as too many hugs. We've learned that kids understand a lot more than the grownups think they do, but also that they don't understand some things that we grownups figure they should understand; and for both situations, that a little patience goes a long way.

I'm sure there are lots more lessons out there to be learned. In the meantime, we'll keep rolling down the road, finding new places to see, learning new things, and trying to have a good time as we roll along.

It's getting late now, and we want to get on the road early tomorrow, so it's time to end this missive. Maybe I'll be back to write more sooner, without waiting more than two years for the next entry. Who knows?

Until then, remember:
"All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost."
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Labels: motor home, musings, travel