So Far Behind

2012 June 27

In spite of intentions to keep up with the story of our travels, I am very, very far behind. 

Here goes:

When we left Grand Canyon National Park, our original plans included staying two weeks at Verde Valley Thousand Trails, where I had thought to rent a car and use VV as our base camp while seeing Sedona and other Arizona sights, including the Salt River and the wild horses there. Unfortunately, Raymond was Arizona'd out and wanted to go anywhere that wasn't AZ. I was disappointed, as I had hoped to meet up with my FB friend Mychal while we checked out Phoenix, but I understood, as I had felt the same way in Texas. So we decided to head to Hoover Dam, after a one night stay at Blake Ranch RV and Horse Resort in Kingman, AZ. We stayed there simply because it was easy access from the highway and because we liked the name!

Hoover Dam is a marvel and I love its art deco style. I had been there in 1971, but Raymond had never been there, so this was a first for him. Where I am awed by God's creation, as in the Grand Canyon, R is awed by human engineering. He took tons of pictures at Hoover Dam, although he didn't want to take the official tour, which I thought he would enjoy. I was surprised by how different everything was, compared to my first visit so many years ago; and, of course, the changes that have evolved since September 11, 2001. It was an incredibly hot and sunny day, so for much of the Hoover Dam visit, I stayed in the RV with Greyla, with the A/C running.

These pictures are Raymond's. You can tell by the date in yellow in the corner. He refuses to turn that feature off :)

From Hoover dam we traveled to Las Vegas Thousand Trails, as that was Raymond's choice. Las Vegas was another place that I had visited in 1971, but that Raymond had never been. We spent two weeks at TT Las Vegas and with the exception of four to fives days early in our stay, the weather was akin to hell. The daytime temps were often in three digits. Not much cool down at night, either. Our nighttime lows were generally around the high 80s. We spent a good bit of time in the pool, until we both began to react to the chlorine. Because we don't have a tow vehicle, we explored the public transit option for visiting the Strip, but in the end, R decided he didn't really care if he got to see it, so we didn't go. He did go to a casino within walking distance of TT to get his brief gambling fix. What to do with Greyla, also played into the decision, too. If we took public transit, we would worry about her being alone in the RV. If we drove to the Strip, I would have to stay with her in the RV anyway, to keep the A/C going. In the end, the Strip seemed unimportant. 

One really cool thing about the TT in Las Vegas, is that it is next door to a great Salvation Army Thrift Store. I spent an afternoon there perusing their huge book section and came away $6 poorer, but at least 9 books richer. 

After much discussion and research, we also tabled plans for California at this point in our travels since it would put a hit on our budget. Additionally, R seemed to want to head toward South Dakota because we planned to register our RV there and our current PA registration was valid only until July 30. I think all the heat of the places we'd been since late April, also contributed to a desire to head north :)

So, to recap, Blake Ranch in Kingman, AZ  on May 18, followed by Hoover Dam on May 19. Then two weeks at TT Las Vegas, from May 19 through June 2.

Off we went to Utah...

Lake Whitney Thousand Trails

2012 Apr 6

Our time here at Thousand Trails in Whitney, Texas, so far has been wonderfully relaxing, after the excitement of our travel day. The park has lots of amenities, like a basketball court, tennis courts, a pool table, library and computers. There are some things that aren't open yet, like the pools, and hot tub. WiFi is available at most sites in Sections B & D. There aren't many people here; quite a change from Florida where we were sometimes too close to our neighbor. We love hearing all the bird song and the coyotes. According to the map, there is also a horse corral, but we haven't seen it yet, nor do we know if there are resident horses, or if some folks actually bring their own horses. That's on our list of things to find out. One really nice feature here that we have only seen at one other campground, in a small "supply post", a little store. This one happened to have the sewer hose connection piece that we needed. YEAH! 

The only negative we've encountered is very, very tiny, but only with regard to its actual size. The negative is the lone star tick! It is a very tiny tick, approximately the size of half a rice crispy kernel. I'd give a size in millimeters, but my metric recognition is poor. They are reddish colored and the females have a white spot of their backs, hence their name. They are not indigenous to Texas, but do live as far west as central Texas. We have, so far, removed three of these creatures, with great difficulty. None appeared to be female. All have seemed to be immature. They have not been found on Greyla, nor on me. For some reason, they have all been on Raymond. Two have been on his neck, just below his hairline and last night, on was removed from his underarm. That one was the most difficult to remove.

They are carriers of lyme disease, as well as erhlichiosis, and STARI(Southern Tick Associated Rash Infection).

My concern now, is to communicate to Raymond how important it is to track his physical reaction and any symptoms he may develop in the next 2-14 days. His initial reaction, after being grossed out that he had been tick food, was to say, "I'll be fine", as if by shear power of will he could avoid any ill effects! This is his response to most illness, even his bouts of pancreatitis. (Well, during pancreatitis, not so much, but after and before, always!) I have read him information from the CDC, NIH, and a couple of Universities. They all say the same thing: monitor reaction, save the tick in alcohol, see a doctor. We flushed our dead ticks, but only after fully identifying them. Now we have the dates of the bites on the calendar and I am trying to monitor Raymond. There is a medical center in Whitney, and I would like him to see a doc before we leave here next Thursday, just for peace of mind (and maybe prophylactic antibiotics), but so far, he's still in "I'll be fine" mode. I pray he's correct.

For information about the various types of ticks and the diseases they carry, check out the link below.

tickinfo.com

Lake Tawakoni, Texas

2012 Mar 30

We arrived at Thousand Trails Lake Tawakoni, later than we had planned, due to poor directional skills, some on my part, some on the part of various locals. We had a reservation and an itinerary number. What we didn't have was anyone to meet us. Nor did we have any information left for us. There was a phone at the entrance, but no one answered when when Raymond called the number beside it. There were, however, some campers very nearby, who hollered over to us that we should just pick a spot and see the manager in the morning. That sounded like a plan.

                                                            OUR VIEW

From right

to middle

to middle

 to left.

This is our "yard".

The park itself was huge, total of 480 acres!  In the center was an open field, which was apparently used for a driving range. We drove around, through mature trees, along the lake shore, and back toward the center again. Let me just say that neither Raymond nor I are very decisive people. Consequently, we drove around again.  We considered the lake front, but were concerned about mosquitoes, since lake front in MS had been infested with them. And since we didn't have a map of the facility, we really weren't sure where anything was located. We ended up basing our decision on where R could set up the satellite dish for best reception, and turned out to be wrong, anyway! The park seemed very empty, and many sites had their hook ups wrapped in plastic.  Later we learned that the "official: season for this TT starts on April 1. I guess that would explain the swimming pool being locked, the general unkemptness of all the grassy areas, the dirty floors in the laundry facility, and the general lack of staff. The TT app on our phone says they have cable and WiFi, which they do not.

The morning after our arrival, Raymond walked up to the office to firm up our arrangements. Turned out that the site we had chosen was just two sites away from the camp host's RV. Since we were only staying three days, we owed $9 for the resort fee, which R was unable to pay, due to their computer being down. In addition, the woman was training a new employee, so she told Ray they would come by later to collect the money, when they made their rounds of the park. 

About this time, I started to feel funky. I was having some abdominal discomfort and felt a 

bit puny. As the day progressed, the discomfort bloomed into pain. It was all left sided, middle and upper quadrant. Eventually, R suggested that I just go lay down and try to rest. The pain seemed to be affected by position, and when I found a way to lay that limited the pain, I feel asleep. When I got up, I was still painful and remembered my last doctor visit when I mentioned a "tightness" in my left abdomen and Dr Ebbert thought that it may be diaverticulosis. The pain was the energy sucking kind, that makes you feel like all the energy in your body is being sucked into this black hole of pain. 

Needless to say, I did not get our massive amounts of dirty laundry washed. Thank goodness my husband is a patient man. We had a quick and easy dinner, and before bed I decided to take a couple ibuprofen. That was a good decision, since it killed the pain, as well as allowed me to sleep all night.

Today I finally got around to the laundry. Yeah! Four loads, but now it's done and we have a good idea of the maximum amount of time that can lapse between laundry visits, which, amazingly enough is about four weeks! Granted, that means wearing nearly everything we own, and NOT changing shirts daily. But, a lot of that time was spent in state parks, which is different from RV resorts. And we're not nearly as active as we were in, say, our forties. Plus, we do monitor each other for bad odors :)

As to the abdominal pain, it is much less than yesterday and I am checking out what measures I should be taking to curb this from happening again. Seems that high fiber in the diet is helpful. As if I needed yet another smack upside my head regarding changing our diet! More fiber, less junk, more fruits and veggies, less processed food. The good news is that Raymond is all for changing our diet if it will help me. If, however, I suggested changing it to help him, he'd be all, "No, I'm fine. Don't worry about me."  So, with this episode, I can change our diet, for both of us, and he's onboard because he doesn't want me to have any issues. I guess that's a win/win.

We will be moving on tomorrow, headed to another Thousand Trails, this one in Bridgeport, TX. I hope it's in better shape than the one we're currently in. I'm thinking we got spoiled at all those Encore Resorts we stayed in in Florida, as well as the great state parks in Mississippi and Arkansas. We'll soon get a better handle on whether the Thousand Trails membership was a boon or a bust.

On the Road, Again

2012 March 29

Our time recently, has been spent getting lost, finding the Thousand Trails, at Lake Tawakoni, in Texas and waiting for me to feel better.

When we left Arkansas, our map app on our phone, combined with my lack of direction, and Arkansas's lack of directional road signs, made for an additional 90 minutes, driving in a huge circle. When we finally managed to get ourselves righted and headed to I-30, we were aware that this leg was not going to be the easy hop we had envisioned. 

We made it to Sulpher Springs, Texas, where we had earlier located a CVS Pharmacy using the internet. We needed to pick up my prescriptions, as I had been without my anti-hypertensives for a few days. Even when we thought we knew where we were going, we got turned around, so we added a bit extra to the driving time, again! (In our defense, people gave rather poor directions. No specificity. Anyway…) We needed to pick up just a few items at a grocery store, and I saw a Super Walmart, so that's where we stopped. Raymond took the cart, to go in search of beer, while I managed the rest of the list: paper plates, dog treats, bread, laundry soap, and a snack. When I had finished finished and Ray was nowhere around our designated meeting spot, I went to where I thought the beer would be, figuring I'd hook up with R and be on our way. Only, there was no beer anywhere in the refrigerated area. I spotted I guy who looked like he might know the answer, and asked him, "Can you buy beer in grocery stores in Texas?" His response: "You can, but not in this one." He elaborated, "Sulpher Springs is dry. You need to go down the road to Emory to get beer, they're wet."  Well, OK, then. Off I went in search of my husband. 

After locating Raymond, we checked out of Walmart, double checked the map and realized that Emory was on our way to Lake Tawakoni. What we didn't count on was how small Emory was and the lack of stores on the road we were traveling. Still no beer for Ray.

As we came upon the intersection where we needed to turn for the last couple of miles to Lake Tawakoni, we saw a quickie mart, where R found out that if you want beer, you drive, "Down the road to Doc's". Seriously, those were the directions he got! I suppose they must've included some pointing, because Raymond indicated a direction. About a mile further, in the opposite direction from where we wanted to go, we did indeed find Doc's. Raymond got his beer and all was right with the world. For now.

We turned back and made the correct turn for the Thousand Trails on Lake Tawakoni. We were glad to make it there before full on sunset. But let's just say, nothing was as we expected.