We passed 100,000 Total Pageviews :), and the Final Ride

I noticed a couple of days ago that we passed 100,000 views.  That's pretty exciting - thank you all for stopping by to check my posts, and helping to bring us over the 100K mark.  Never when I started this blog did I think I'd have so many readers and followers. 

Welcome to our new followers:

Kerri, who is a single mom, and hopes to someday become a fulltimer - she's looking for the right rig.
Michael and Dee, who have a beautiful Jayco Seneca 35GS motor home.
Lana, who is planning a move from Houston to a life on a farm, with a cabin in the woods.  Sounds good to me!
Jim - who doesn't show a blog or any other information.  Jim, if you've got one, let me know, okay?

Because it's been so uncomfortable to use my computer in bed, I've just lately gotten caught up on my regular blog reading, and haven't had a chance to read much past your most recent posts, but I will, I will... 

Welcome to you all - I really appreciate you following along with Katie and me as we continue having adventures in The Palms. 

Today I drove The Palms down to the Kaiser building in San Diego, to the Plastic Surgery department, where a nurse took out my 16 staples.  I've never had that done before, and was a little apprehensive about it, but it didn't hurt at all.   The nurse said everything looks good, so I'm almost done with check-ups.  I have an appointment with the surgeon who did the operation on Friday, January 27th, and assuming all goes well, I should be released after the 27th.

It was really nice to get back into The Palms.  I had gone shopping after I left the ER in Blythe, and rather than putting everything away (except for fridge and freezer stuff) I put the grocery bags in the shower to keep them safe, and today I finally went through them to see what I had. I cleaned up a little clutter - I had stored my hats, mittens, gloves, and assorted other things in Katie's crate on the passenger seat of the rig, and when my son, Tom, brought Katie home, he put all those things on the couch so he could bring Katie's crate with them.  So I got all those things put away, and The Palms is again in good shape.

I enjoyed driving her again, 1/2 hour to Kaiser and 1/2 hour back.  Pretty short trips for The Palms.  On the way home I stopped at a Super Cuts. I was already weeks, maybe months, past due for a haircut, and after laying around in bed for two weeks, boy! did I need a haircut!  It was driving me crazy.  Luckily I got a good hairdresser, and I was really pleased with the cut she gave me.  Nothing like a good haircut to make you feel better, right, ladies?

When I first got here to Tom and Trish's house, Tom told me about a friend of his whose father had died, and he asked Tom if he could borrow one of his cars for the funeral.  Tom was getting it ready, polishing it up, etc. for Reese to pick up the next morning.

I thought it was a really touching story, so I asked Tom to e-mail me some photos of the car.  He also sent along an explanation, which just touched my heart.  I've edited Tom's text just a little, and here it is with the photos:

1968 California Special Mustang

 
"This is the car that my friend, Reece, drove his Dad's ashes in to the funeral service at Point Loma this week. Full military honors - he fought in the Korean war.

"He and his Dad had restored a 65 Mustang fastback when Reece was 15. It was his first car, so he thought it would be fitting to give his Dad his last ride in a vintage 60's Mustang. (Reece regretfully sold the 65 about 14 years ago).

"This is a 1968 California Special Mustang. A rare one-year, California Ford dealer-only limited production Mustang with only about 4000 being produced in 1968. There are said to be less than 2,000 left today.

"This car has the original 302 motor with a C4 automatic transmission, power steering, disc brakes, air conditioning, power door locks and a whole lot of chrome under the hood!"

Isn't that a sweet thing for Tom's friend, Reese, to do for his father's last ride?  A really nice "human interest story."

Tom was going to sell the car on E-bay, but after getting it ready for Reese, he's decided to keep it for a while.  Tom has been an entrepreneur since college, currently owning and operating five different businesses, one of which is restoring classic cars.  Most are 67-68-69 Camaros, but he does have other cars he's restored through the years, including some Mustangs. 

As a side note, the morning of the funeral, Tom was driving along the freeway with one of his employees, and the guy said, "Do you still have the California Special?"  Tom said, "Yes, why?"  The employee, who had worked on that car for Tom, said, "I just saw one driving in the opposite direction - it just passed us."  Then Tom explained that the car he just saw was his California Special, and explained the situation.  Weird, huh, that with all the freeways in San Diego, they would actually pass each other?

I was showing Tom some of the blogs I read, and when I showed him Denise's blog, and her Harley, Tom said, "I have the same one."  (I think the handlebars are different, and maybe some other things, too, but it's the same model?)

I asked him to send me photos of the motorcycle, so Denise could see it - here it is:

These are taken at the shop in his office building - he "stages" the vehicles, usually in front of his house, when he puts them up for sale.  He's not ready to sell the Harley yet.

Denise, Tom thought your Harley was beautiful!  And of course, IT IS!  :)

See?  Even if you're in bed all day, there are still some interesting things that happen.  (Well, I'm doing some walking at least a few times a day to get back some strength, not laying in bed ALL day.)

From Me and My Dog, have a great Wednesday evening, everyone!  :)

Quick update - Happy Birthday to Me :)

Just a quick update - thank you all for your caring and concern!  I was discharged from Kaiser Hospital Wednesday morning, and I'm recuperating at my son and daughter-in-law's house, here in San Diego.  I couldn't have better care, and each day is a bit better than the last.  Still somewhat difficult doing normal things, but that will all come soon, I'm sure. 

Also, today is my 67th birthday!  Sure glad I've made it this far, and I can honestly say I'm healthier today than I was last week.   I'm happy to have this episode in my rear view mirror, and now it's all forward to smoother sailing.

As a side note to my hospital stay, I was so fortunate to have for one day as a room-mate a woman I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking to.  Her name is Dawn, and at 73 years old, is married to Paul who will be 90 this year, and they have been volunteers at Yosemite National Park for more than 19 years.  They are entering their 20th year of service and were recently honored by the park for their work.  He does the camp hosting duties and she does other volunteer work.  And get this:  they don't have an RV.  They TENT CAMP!  It was a chance meeting, and when we left, I felt like I had a new, good friend.  I'll be curious if any of you know Dawn and Paul.

Katie is doing great, happy to have me home, and won't leave my side. 

I probably won't blog for another few days, but wanted to let you know things are moving forward, and getting better.

From Me and Katie, have a great Friday, everyone!  :)

I'm finally on the mend-in the hospital

Thank you so much for all your caring comments and e-mails.  You will never know how much they meant to me.

Right now I'm sitting in a Kaiser Hospital in San Diego. I called the Kaiser Nurse on Monday and she said to drive to the closest emergency room, so I went into Blythe.  I was there all night, from around 8:30 pm to 7:30 am Tuesday. I had a weird diagnosis that I won't go into, because it was wrong. I stopped at Quiet Times to pick up a package, dropped off my library books, dumped tanks and filed the water tank, and was driving out toward the 95 to go back to La Posa West when my phone range.  It was my doctor from San Diego. She said the radiologist at the Blythe ER had gone over my CT scans again this morning, and he had misdiagnosed the pictures, and my doctor wanted me to drive to the nearest Kaiser ER right now.

I told her I was in Arizona, the nearest Kaiser ER was in San Diego, but I'd rather be there, because that's were I'm from and my son is there with his family, and they can take care of Katie.  I never went back to my campsite, just left everything there and started driving.  I called my neighbor Hazel, who has been great, and she will take care of things for me.

It took five hours to get to San Diego and I was still feeling okay.  My doctor said if I started to get ANY stomach pain I was to drive to the side of the road, call 911 and have an ambulance drive me immediately to the closest ER.  That gave me more confidence - to have her permission to do that, and still try to get to San Diego.  There was some worry about an intestinal rupture.  We stopped once for gas and potty for Katie, and Arrived early evening in the ER check in, where we waited for hours to be seen.

Kaiser Zion ER is the only Kaiser ER in the entire San Diego area, so, although it's large, it's really busy and constantly moving people in and out.  From what I was told, they planed to build another hospital with an ER in South San Diego, but were not allowed to, unless the opened up the ER to the people in the area that don't have insurance, and let them use it.  Kaiser declined. You can imagine what would have happened - but I don't want to be political on my blog, so...

I was finally seen, they did another CT scan of my abdomen, and scheduled me for immediate surgery, where they took out a foot of my lower intestine, which was incorrectly shaped, or something weird. (While they were in there, the doctor told me later, they also removed my appendix.)  I'm just now feeling pretty "with it" so I need to get more info from my doctor.  Nothing else wrong, no cancer or anything like that.  So, surgery around 1:30 Thursday night (Friday morning) and it's now Monday at 8 a.m.  I'm still having a problem getting around, but MUCH better than before.

I think I'm going home tomorrow, and I'll be at my son's house in their guest room.  I'm thinking when I feel better I can live in his front driveway in The Palms - using the couch as a bed - until I'm back to normal and then find a place to stay around San Diego for a while. I know it can take up to a year to totally recuperate from major surgery and I want to take it easy.

So that's it.  It really was something, just not appendicitis, and now - thank goodness - it's been fixed.

Again, thank you for all your concerns, I'm definitely on the upswing now and will post again soon with another update.

From Me and My Dog, have a great Monday everyone!  :)

Feeling a bit better - Santa photos

Just a quick update - thanks for your concern and comments, I really appreciate every one!  I made it through the night pretty easily, and this morning I'm feeling a little better.  I'm still going to keep the wait and see plan for now, though.  I won't take any chances, if the pain gets worse, I'll pack up and start driving,  but so far, so good today.

I was walking over to the dumpsters last week, and who should I see?  A man with a white beard and a red RV!

He said his name was Santa.

 

Santa's Post-Christmas hide-out.

Katie likes her orange squeaky toy guy right in the middle of her chew toy.  She gets them together, then starts chewing on the chew stick.  Maybe she thinks she's sharing it with the little orange guy?

 

Bless us, O Lord, and these our gifts...

Oh, Man, I love these seeds!

 

Quit taking my picture!  Let me eat in peace!

 

 Sweet Katie, resting outside on her rug.

From Me and My Dog, have a great Wednesday, everyone!  :)

Hair Hat, and Starting the year off sick. :(

WELCOME to our new followers, LilNomad and Richard.  I don't see any info on either of you, but if you have blogs, I'd like to check them out, let me know.   Thank you for following along with me and Katie on our adventures.  I'm expecting 2012 to be a wonderful year for us, and I'm glad you'll both be along for the ride!  Welcome aboard!

Not a great photo, I took a million shots, but this is the best of the hair hat.  This is with the grey hair.   (I don't know how people take those great pictures of themselves, extending their arm and snapping the pic. It sure doesn't work for me!)

 Hair Hat - it works best on me if I brush all my hair out of the way.

I took the hair out (it's attached with Velcro) one day and wore just the visor, which I really liked.

New Years Eve was a quiet evening, spent around the fire with the Dingbats.  We have a few new people who have arrived - the more the merrier!  One of the women organized a little gathering and some people brought wine, champagne and nibbles for everyone.  I'm not much of a wine drinker, and champagne is too dry for me, so I brought along my Irish Coffee in my traveling mug.  It was perfect for drinking around the fire.

We had clear skies, with the moon making it's way across the sky as we sat outside.  Katie and I were in bed early, but I read one of my library books until after midnight, so we heard the noise at midnight, and were awake for the beginning of the new year.

I like the sound of 2012.  Do you say 20-12, or 2000- 12?  I keep saying 2000-12, but I'm hearing it pronounced in the media as 20-12, and I like that.

On January 1st, the Dingbats gathered around an afternoon fire and shared BBQ hot dogs, potato salad, beans, etc.  It was a beautiful day, and the food was delicious!

On Tuesday morning I woke up early with bad stomach pains that lasted all day (and I felt like I had also come down with the virus going around). I was worried about the pain, and finally I checked on-line for  appendicitis symptoms.  It was kind of a toss up - I had the symptoms, but they could have meant other things, too.  I decided to adopt a wait and see attitude.  Most people that listed their comments on the MD.com site waited at least two days to head off to the doctor.

I was awake most of the night, not in great pain, but not completely comfortable, and finally dropped off to sleep.  Katie and I woke up at 11:00 this morning, and although the stomach pains have decreased, they are still there, maybe 30 percent of the pain the day before.

 Same site, but I moved the rocks way out - now it's quite a large area.

Turns out, we are REQUIRED to have AT LEAST 15 feet between rigs, 

and you can pretty much mark off what you want to be your campsite.

Finally in the late afternoon today I went over to talk to Hazel, who is a retired nurse, to check my symptoms with her knowledge.  I also wanted her to know that if I took off in the middle of the night, or sometime tomorrow, I was heading to Kaiser in San Diego, and I wanted her to know I'd try to be back for the Big Tent show.  If the pain is worse, I'm not going to be walking around the campground saying goodbye!!

I did nothing today but sleep and lay on the couch reading.  The funny thing is, I don't seem to have the virus - I guess it was just allergies after all, because it's not bad at all today.

I'm pretty confident I'll feel better tomorrow.  Hazel gave me some Pepto Bismo, and I just started taking it.  Cross your fingers for me.

David, one of my followers, and whose blog I follow, was going to stop by for meet on his way through Quartzsite to Mexico, but unfortunately I had to cancel.  I was more worried about giving him the virus, but as it turns out we were probably okay there, but my stomach pains would have made for an uncomfortable visit.  Sorry, Dave, we'll meet again down the road.  

Our moon rising late this afternoon:

A little earlier these machines flew overhead - it's so fun watching them power themselves across the sky. 

 Close-up of one of the flyers. 

Santa Claus is here - I guess he doesn't go directly to the North Pole after Christmas.  But, heck, he needs some R&R after all that hard work, and the long flight, right?  I'll post photos of him and his rig next time.

From Me and Katie, have a great Tuesday evening, everyone!  :)