The Best of Times

 It had been raining pretty steady here in King County, Washington for the past couple of days. Flood watch and flood warnings had been issued for the area, but the rain seem to be pretty gentle compared to some of the storms that we have experienced during our recent travels in the eastern part of the US, so we weren’t concerned with any flooding.

We had been over to our daughter’s house in the afternoon, at dusk we started toward where our RV as parked, having our youngest teenage granddaughter in tow. We were about 45 minutes from our RV when we left her place.

It was rapidly becoming dark out, the road barely reflecting our headlights on the pavement. The road was running parallel with the Snoquamish River. The river bank would almost touch the road at times, then sometimes disappearing into the distance. Unknown to us the river was filling rapidly with flood water pouring down out of the mountains north of us. 

The road, was very dark, very wet and very curvy. We were moving along at a decent clip, but not so fast as to be dangerous to our health.  We went down a slight incline, when suddenly we found ourselves hubcap deep in water.  This was very frightening. Were we in the river flood water? A car was on the supposed road in front of us, it just sat there, then with a touch of renewed confidence it started moving through the water, with water splashing high up its sides the car began to make headway.  Timidly, we continued to follow in its wake, concerned that at any moment it would be swept away. It seemed like the flooding continued on and on across the low lying  ground. It was so scary, not being able to really see, what we were dealing with. Gratefully after what seemed like an eternity, we followed the car in front of us on to higher, dry ground.

It turned out in the light of day, that the rain had flooded a low spot in the valley that the road traversed. The river was quite a distance from us and not involved with this flooding.

It really showed us how quickly, danger could occur;  someone could find themselves, being carried down the stream by the river’s current in times of flooding and put in extreme danger. 

Knitting, Crocheting and Loving my Girls

This afternoon a request was made by Mimi for me to teach her how to knit.  I attempted to teach her this skill a couple of years ago, but at the time, she was having a hard time concentrating on what she was doing, and also, if I remember right, was having difficulty getting her hands to follow what her mind was telling them to do. So the first lesson did not stay with her.  This was shortly before, her grandfather and I were leaving for the East coast so that was the only lesson I was able to give her at that time.  The few months before that I had begun to teach Kt how to crochet and to knit, now it is time to get out the needles and hooks again and continue what I had started back then. I am looking forward to once again teaching my granddaughters the fine old art of needle work.  There are so many wonderful yarns and pattern books waiting for young hands and minds to discover.

Years ago, my mother taught me how to crochet, and I had a lot of fun with it and took great pride in what I could create.  She didn’t know how to knit, so I had to find another way to learn that craft. I was able to become quite adapt with the use of a good beginners knitting book.  Years later, I tried to teach my Susan how to knit and crochet, but for some reason, she didn’t learn these skills. I might have to try once again with her as well.  I think that she told me once that I had never tried to teach her, but she must have been to young at the time and has forgotten, I must have been very eager to teach her. Then other things took up our interests. I do know that I did pass on to her, her love of sewing, which she has become quite good at. I do believe that she would attempt to make just about anything, and has made some very beautiful dresses, and gowns for the girls. Did I say how proud of her I am! 

Sexual Education at Home!

Late in the evening, grandma & grandpa, mama & daddy, and the, oh so lovely, most knowledgeable, teenager had all settled down at the dining room table, to feast upon the sumptuous chicken enchiladas provided by the extraordinary culinary skills of mama.

The conversation was pleasant, abundant, lively and sometimes spicy; topic after topic was tossed out and debated upon. Though sometimes, as in most families, some topics are taboo! Tonight it was a free night and all was discussed with an open mind, except for politics, this subject has been talked to death, so it was time to move on.

Oh, there were moments when grandma had to reach over and bop daddy on his noggin as he wanted everyone to hear how educated he was in the political arena! But, alas, he is a very slow learner, but I think he finally got the message! Then again, like I said, he is a slow learner!

The conversation turned to blogging, some how the topic of a prior blog of grandma’s was brought up. In the context of the story something along the line of ‘grandma was getting affectionate with grandpa’ entered into the conversation. Very softly I distinctly heard eeewwwww coming from the mouth of mama. At the same time, ‘miss teenager’ exclaimed eeewwwww and than promptly said; “grandma & grandpa don’t have sex!” Then while older eyes rolled back and forth around the table and looked up at the ceiling; she further stated, “That’s disgusting!” Then in a very knowing voice she continued to further enlighten us by saying, “mama & daddy don’t do that any more, because we (her & her sister) are always home”. Not a word was uttered by the grown-ups. Suddenly all of the adults had other things to do and left the table, hiding the snickers and repressed laughter. Smiles!

Surprise Surprise!

 

 We continue to have trouble from time to time getting our Satellite Dish for Direct TV and Internet set and working as it should. I am at Sue’s piggybacked on her system while I attempt to put out some sort of posting.

Due to a clog in our plans to spend the night at a RV park, we had to continue down the road. (on our way to Sue’s house)

For some reason, no one was home at the park to talk to us. They just left a note to put money in envelope and park some where. We were suppose to get a discount, but since no one was available — they wanted the full price, which of course we didn’t want to give them.

We had the pleasure of being able to surprise Meghan (and the rest of the family). Meghan has been hounding us for months to hurry up and get to her house.

And surprise her we did, she sure did squeal and scream! Sue quietly let us in and send her dad in to surprise Meg. Whether our arriving early spoiled Sue’s plans, we don’t know as she very tactfully kept that to herself.

After having dinner with the family and receiving all of our hugs and kisses that had been piling up for several months, we stumbled out to the car and drove back to our RV that was parked about a half hour away. I think they were all glad to see us.

 

Husband for sale, Cheap!

John is not much of a night owl.  He usually goes to bed between nine and ten pm. This is a good thing as this gives me the private time that I crave. With our life style of RV living, alone time is sometimes hard to come by.  So I treasure these moments when they are available.

The other night was different though. Around ten, he says good night to me and sleepily heads for the bedroom.  A couple of hours later, I wonder off to the bedroom with thoughts of cuddling up close and giving my beloved a few hugs and kisses.

I climb into bed and scoot up next to him. Of course, he has his back to me.  So I sort of bounce move around a little on the bed. Nothing! Now how romantic is that! I don’t like being ignored; sleeping is no excuse!!

So, next,  I kind of poke him a time or two (just to get his attention you know). Finally!  he snorts, or moans or makes some kind of sound as he rolls over to face me, reaching out to pull me closer, at which time I hear that sound again, and it is much louder. I know what it was!

I immediately start to slide to my side of the bed (to make my get away), but darn I was just not fast enough.  I was overwhelmed with it, the sound loudly reverberating in my ears, the smell, enough to gag a maggot. xzxzxzx  The horror of it!  Nothing could smell that bad!  He was rotten to the core!

I pull the door shut, to try to keep “it” contained! I could hear him mumbling something like  What’s the matter? I light a candle, wondering as I do if there will be a large flash fire!  Then, I grab the bottle of room deodorant and give it a good spray to create a barrier between me and the bedroom. I close the second door and think maybe I am safe. But, I think, that I can smell “it”

I could hear him in there laughing his fool head off, while I sat in the living room planning my revenge.

Look At Him Go

Back in August, we took a ride on the Needles Hwy in SD. That is where old Mother Earth chose to stand these huge flat rocks on their ends; they rose thousands of feet into the sky.

While we were wondering around the Eye of the Needle. (See photo below) we were pleasantly surprised to see three men engaged in the act of climbing one of the huge skyward bound rocks. One was sitting in his camping chair, one was holding the end of this yellow climbing rope that was attached to the top of the rock that held the other stupid brave soul that was climbing up and up and up. One of them had previously climbed the backside of this same huge stone and fastened this rope to the top. He had to climb up without the benefit of a safety rope. Wasn’t he another stupid brave man! And they do this for fun, now how cool is that!  Well it gave me a new experience to see first hand and lucky for him there was no blood.

A view from the distance. There were lots and lots of these packs of needles!

Getting there, as you can see, wasn’t always a relaxed affair. There wasn’t a lot of room in this tunnel, and you had to go around a curve as you were approaching the tunnel, which required the blowing of horns to assure that the on coming traffic wouldn’t run into us. 

This driver had folded his side mirror up against his truck to protect it.

The Eye of the Needle. I have seen these needles three times and I finially found the Eye. Something wrong with my eyesight I guess as it was right there in plain sight all of the time.

  Did I tell you just how huge these things were! Take a look at these.

 

What do you mean you are tired!

Who’s idea was this? I can think of easier ways to commit suicide!  Aren’t you suppose to wear a helmet for this activity!

    Hey, you down there! Where are you going?  Someone grab that rope! Please  Please

And he made it! See that extra bump on the top? Yes, that’s him.

Ok, I made it!  Now where is that helicopter! What do you mean? I have to climb back down!!!  Hey, I got to go pee! Where’s the bathroom?

What out below! Hey just give me a bit of privacy. Oh for the love of Pete, haven’t you seen a man pee before! 

Oh! No!    God Help Me! I just discovered that I am afraid of heights! Oh, where should I put my foot!  I think I will just stay up here!

Custer State Park

Hello Everyone,

August 2008,

Since I haven’t been keeping current with my blogging, I am just going to give a overview of our time in Custer State Park, SD.

First of all, I really love this area!  It costs $10 to get into this park. This ten bucks allows us to spend a week, coming and going from the park. We had planned on taking the rig and staying (camping) in the park, but we couldn’t get reservations for the Labor Day weekend, and besides that, the narrow, twisting road and the tunnels make following the shortest route to a camp site impossible.

 

Can you see a 36 ft Class A motor home driving through these. Nope! neither could we.

Modern day cowboy! A ranger with his bull whip, and could he ever make it snap!

The Ranger used the crack of his whip to move these “cows” out of the camping area. Sorry, I wasn’t fast enough to get a photo of that.

 

These are some of the road hogs bison that John was playing “chicken”with! Some of them was walking down the road right toward us. as we ever so slowly, approached them on the road.

There are signs along all of the roads, saying;

Do Not Approach The Bison/Buffalo,                                        They are extremely dangerous.

I was holding my breath and scooting lower and lower in the seat, just waiting and knowing that one of the big bulls were going to make mincemeat of us and our puny, little SUV.

No! I didn’t take a photo of that. I was to busy hiding. Actually, I thought I had taken a couple of pictures of this act of macho by my sweet brave husband,  but I guess, I just thought that I had.

 

This little guy is a wild burro looking for a hand out. This one was standing in our lane, blocking our passage; another car was getting the same treatment in the other lane. They are real beggars and they are good at their trade.

This one came up and put his head in John’s window. There was a whole herd of them beside the road.

We seen lots of antelope, different types of mountain goats & lots of deer and other unnamed critters.

This is a zoom shot of the Pronghorn “Prince” keeping track of his harem on the slope below him.

I could go on and on about this park, but I think you have seen enough for this trip.

Not Again!

Saturday, 8/23  

Thursday, John & I, were planning a long day, so we wanted a early start. We got up early and headed out about 7:30. We planned on having breakfast before driving north to see a few of the sights up near Spearfish, Lead & Deadwood. (SD)

We stopped at the Colonial House, which is nice restaurant a few miles down the road from us on SR 16 here in Rapid City. We were feeling fine and looking forward to a nice breakfast. We ordered and was chatting, waiting for our food.

About this time, I noticed that I had started to sweat, and I mean it was pouring off of me, I started to get nauseous, my guts started churning and I was beginning to think about heading to the ladies room,  I was feeling really bad. I laid my head back on the back of the booth, it was all about me now. John was getting very concerned.

Now our waitress brought our food to the table, of which I instantly pushed to the center of the table. For some reason, probably because she was busy trying to flirt with John, she didn’t notice that I was sick.  I hate her!  She walked off after aiming cheerful comments toward John. 

She left,  meanwhile, I sat up and immediately dropped my head onto the table, I groaned. I was beginning to hyperventilate, or rather, I realized that I was breathing very rapidly. My hands and feet were starting to tingle and I was having trouble thinking. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me! I came up with the conclusion that I was dying of some sort of drug reactions. Since I suddenly couldn’t remember what I had taken in the last 24 hours. I had no clue which over-the-counter drugs I had taken that might be causing the problem. All I knew for sure was that I was probably dying.

Somewhere during this time, John had gotten up and left the table, he came back and told me that there was an emergency room just down the street.  I told him that he would have to help me up, as I was feeling very weak and didn’t know if I could stand up by myself. He helped me to my feet, at which time, I realized that I had to get to the ladies room and in a hurry. As I scurried away down the hall, I realized I didn’t need help walking, I was doing just fine, just don’t get in my way.  In the restroom, I was taking care of business,  every few minutes, John stuck his head in the door, asking if I was all right. Finally, two ladies came in and checked up on me. I was really embarrassed, the room smelt really bad. Even as sick as I was, I knew that.

Finally, we were on the way to the emergency room. When we pulled up to the emergency dock, two security guys came running over and brought a wheelchair, which I sort of fell into. John said they probably came over because of the look of panic and confusion on his face.

The hospital turned out to be a teaching hospital, questions and more questions, first from the nurses, then a student doctor, who was very close to getting her papers, or whatever they call it when they graduate to doctor. Well she said something like that.,  She had even more questions. Why wouldn’t they just let me die in peace!

God it was cold in there! I kept asking for more blankets, of which they were kind enough to bring and cover me with. Finally, I had so many on me that the radiologist ask if there was someone under that pile of blankets. Why wouldn’t they just let me die in peace!

Finally, the real thing appeared! A real doctor, he seemed to know everything that I had told the student doctor (that’s what her name badge called her). After starting a IV, (of which it took two nurses and three sticks), lots of blood drawn for tests for all kinds of things, X-rays, much prodding and pocking, the doctor came back and told me that my heart was fine. Hey, I hadn’t thought of that! 

His conclusion was that I had had a small bowel obstruction caused by a intestinal kink and that it had suddenly released, causing the above mentioned symptoms. He wrote orders, giving me IV fluids, some medication to calm my roaring insides. Finally, he released me to go home, with the instructions that if my symptoms came back I was to come back to the hospital immediately.

Needless to say, we didn’t get to complete our planned activities of the day. Oh well, life goes on. What is that saying about the plans of mice and men…….

Keeping count…….   So far since March 3, 08, I have had five trips to a ER. Count them…  two surgery’s,  two more hospital stays for Diveriticulitis and now this last event. I’m done, its your turn now to support the medical community!

For those of you who care deeply, I still do not need anyone to come and take care of me! If I did, it would be my beloved little sister, who so happens to be a very experienced RN. And I can beat her up!!!  (Yes, I planned it that way, so I would have a very knowledgeable person to take care of me in my very old age, probably sometime after I turn 110) and if I didn’t like what she was doing I could make her stop!!!

Badlands of SD

Hi Ya all,

8/16 Saturday 

After seeing Wall Drug this morning, we went for a ride out in the Badlands of SD.  If you don’t know, it is just a short distance below Wall; Highway 240 cuts through it. 

These photos were taken in the late afternoon.  The sun was still pretty high.

You can see 240 here as it snakes through the area. 

 

  Here you can just see the pink layers of sediment from the long ago seas.

 

  This a good example of the prairie grass.  There is suppose to be in the range of 1500 bison/buffalo living in the badlands; eating this grass; but we didn’t see any (not a one) here. 

I wished our granddaughters were here. I can just see the four yr old twins running through the grass, squealing and laughing, swinging their arms about, with the two teenagers chasing after them. 

 

  The clouds were beautiful drifting across the sky.

 

  This was photo was taken at one of the many overlooks that looked down into the areas where erosion was very dramatic.

   A large cloud darkened the scene here.    

 

It is really very beautiful here. My lack of skill didn’t do justice to the color of these statuesque formations.

There are suppose to be Prairie Dogs, Black-footed Ferrets (which recently have been reintroduced to the area), Bison, Swift Fox, Big Horn Sheep, & lots of different birds. We failed to see any of these critters.

Sunday & Monday we are staying at home and resting up. You all come back for more!

Wall Drug Store in SD

Hello Sue, Rick    and all the rest of you out there

Monday 8/18/08  Boy! I am off to a good start today! I just finished putting a load of clothes in the washing machine, its located in the toilet area of this rig.  Anyway, I was pretreating one of John’s T-shirts and darn (that looks like dam, but it isn’t) – I realized that I was using room- deodorant to treat it with. I mentioned my treatment of his shirt to John and he wanted to know if I really thought he smelled that bad! Hee Hee – I ain’ telling!

As I said in my letter. yesterday , I will now tell you about the city of Wall and its drug store. If you kids and the rest of you are ever in this area, be sure to make a side trip to visit Wall, you will not be disappointed. We enjoyed it very much.

Sat. 8/16/08  We continued our journey west just as dawn was arriving or so it seemed; oh around, 9:00am on Saturday. I am having a terrible time adjusting to this changing in time zones. It should be easier going west, but it doesn’t seem to be, at least for me. My nights are all messed up. I have trouble getting to sleep,   it seems to early to go to bed and I keep waking up during the night.  I used to be such a night owl.

Sorry about drifting off again, now back to the trip. John drove the rig while I sat in my seat with the footrest up and my seat reclined.

I was doing my job of looking pretty; and keeping him on track! Its a good thing I was sitting there when suddenly I realized he was driving past the turn. All I could do was go ah ah ah,  as he was headed for parts unknown.  We had just taken a break and were looking for the west-bound entrance to get back onto I-90   I think his mind was drifting as he drove right by the turn. We had to make a detour to get back to it. Now can you imagine turning a 36′ coach with a vehicle towed behind it, around on a narrow street! Luckily we found a business establishment that had a large parking area, which sufficed nicely. We continued down the freeway for what seemed like miles and miles,  finally coming to the city of Wall. It is located just off of I-90 in the southwestern part of SD, just above the badlands. It is a tiny tourist spot.

We walked up & down the sidewalk, in and out of stores, and found that most of these buildings were all connected inside and were all part of Wall Drug Store. Sometimes, it was very crowded, we were bumping shoulder to shoulder with people up and down both sides of the little main road. I loved every bit of it.

I took lots of pictures. 

It is a huge place with lots of souvenir stuff and clothing of all sorts, lots of fun stuff to look at and touch. Lots of pretend people, and animals everywhere.

We walked out the back door of one of the shops and found another part of the store, called Wall Drugs Back Yard. This part was even more fun!

 

We went inside and about fainted when this creature roared at us, towering high over our heads. After watching it a bit, we found that it would sit up there in the jungle turning its head, its eyes followed our movements and then steam would blow out and it would let out this loud earth shaking roar. It was so fun, John had to drag me away, I wanted to watch it scare the people coming in.

There is a large cafe where they give away lots of ice water. You just walk up to the counter and ask for it. They will even fill up your water jugs for traveling. The story goes that ice water is what made the drug store such a hopping place.

Upon entering the cafe, we noticed these people sitting in a corner. The guy in green has a gun drawn and aimed at one of the group. I think he  is one of the famous gunslinger of old times.

This was the theme of most of the store, but with different items for sale in the different sections of the store.

We had such a fun time strolling around and looking at everything. We could have spent a lot more time here, but alas I got tired, and my butt was a dragging!

Keep tuned for our excursion through the Badlands of SD!