Time does fly. . . .

When I last wrote, it was before the closing. The closing went off without a hitch on Tuesday. It helps that we know the buyers. . .  they have been friends for many years and they bought the other four duplexes, so it wasn't our first rodeo. They have been great to deal with and even helped us get stuff out of the basement of the house. They have made no demands on us and required no inspections. In turn we gave them a great deal on the house. So everyone was happy.

We never went back to the house after that. No need to. We did go by one day when we went to see Uncle Dan one last time. The buyers have not started to do any of the changes they mentioned because they are busy correcting some major concrete work with one of the other duplexes. They do plan on updating the interior and changing some of the landscaping. When we return to Indiana next spring, we will see what things look like then.

We finished out that week at Elkhart Campground and said goodbye to all our friends there. We then moved over to the Goshen fairgrounds. We were still finishing up some doctors for the summer, closing a bank account, and visiting Mom when we were able to. After a week there, we moved on down to Warsaw. We spent every day then with Mom. She sleeps late, so we usually went in to see her in the early afternoon and then stayed till after dinner. Sometimes we went out and sometimes we cooked. Brandon flew up to go to a Purdue game and while he was here, we took Mom and went to Lafayette and had dinner with him at Red Lobster. It was great to get together again.

At the end of our time there, we moved on down to New Castle and stayed at Summit Lake State Park. This is near where we lived when I was working and the kids both worked summers at this park. We were there to see our internist. Everything is well and we left there yesterday morning.

Yesterday and today were driving days. We stayed last night at a small park near Grayson, Kentucky, where we had stayed one time before. It's called Valley Breeze and I do remember the park once we were in and set up, but I hadn't remembered going there. While there, we met a couple from Ontario who were going to Gilbert, West Virginia, for a trail riding event. I read up on it and it is quite a fanfare. It seems they have events and things to do for everyone. Lisa and Larry visited us in the evening to talk about fulltiming, boondocking, and trail riding! It was great fun and we enjoyed visited with them. Happy Trails, Lisa and Larry!

Today we left Kentucky and are settled in a "new to us" park in Wytheville, Virginia. We will be here two nights and then we move on to Charlottesville. Our reservations there start Monday and we will be there for a week. We are really anxious to see the kids and grandkids.

So that catches you up with us. Now that Terry is more stable and we have the landlording business behind us, I hope to keep up with the blog better.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Back to traveling!

A week or so ago, we closed up the house and took off in Phaeton Place for the Warsaw fairgrounds. We stayed there for a couple nights and visited with Mom and sister Nita and husband. We enjoyed a great visit. Mom is in great shape for 93 years old with no real complaints.  She is living in her own house, a park model in Nita's woods, and is as independent as she wants to be. Nita visits every day and sees to it that she has what she needs. All the same things we did for her when we would be with her in Texas for the winter. But Mom has decided she will not return to Texas anymore. Our job is to sell her place when we get there and we hope to get that done pronto.

After leaving Warsaw, we went to New Castle and set up camp at Summit Lake State Park, near our former home in Mooreland. We stay there and do the rounds of our doctors which we kept when we went fulltime and travel all over. You gotta' be somewhere for doctor's appointments, so we stick with our old providers.

We managed to have some fun at the same time by visiting with a colleague of mine. They have a Scottish Terrier, Baxter, and he and Duchess got to visit. Didn't really do much together. . . they are like two ships that pass in the night. But it was a change of scenery for Duchess and she does enjoy their back yard!

Our yearly doctor appointments went well. Terry's doctor reinforced our thinking on his medical problems, particularly his heart issues. He confirmed that Terry can build his heart back up from where it is now and perhaps get back into the same physical condition he was in prior to getting sick last winter. That illness really dragged him down and reduced his heart function, but he is already doing better. It will just take time and we are working on getting his stamina back. Walking daily has already improved that, so we are hoping to continue.

We then saw his cardiologist in Indy. He made a couple med changes which we hoped he would. One med he takes is a rhythm drug and the doctor had scaled back on it. Other doctors have tried that, but it seems they all want to give it a go. But it doesn't work for Terry. So they are increasing that again. At least we know from the tests they did this summer that the med, previously suspected of causing lung problems, has not in fact done anything to his lungs, so they were okay with increasing it again.

So we are back on the road and heading toward Virginia to see the kids. . . at least the first round! We will get into Charlottesville on Sunday and visit with Jocelyn, Tom, Ronan, Aenea and Pepper for a week! Whoo hoo! Can't wait to see them. It's been a long summer without my grandkids fix.

We are currently camped at Camp Creek, West Virginia, which is a neat little state park we found a couple years ago. We even have a full hookup site and it's paved. There are streams and waterfalls all around us and it's quite loud when we step outside. I was concerned about the level rising as these streams are raging pretty good right now what with all the rain they have had here. But they assure us the worst is over. The picture on the left and the picture on the right are the same MashFork falls, two years ago and yesterday.


We will go make a supply run today before leaving tomorrow. And do a little hiking.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Fall fun!

The fall routine in full swing.

We have left northern Indiana and are now in east central Indiana at Summit Lake State Park. We left Goshen last Friday and spent two nights at the county fairgrounds in Warsaw, Indiana. Got in some time visiting with Dale's family before our 6-7 week trek to the Rio Grande Valley in extreme south Texas.

Monday started off with a visit to the vampires in New Castle for blood draws for both of us in preparation for our annual check ups with our internist. Duchess the traveling Scottie got to see her vet Monday also. Monday evening was a play date for Duchess with Baxter, Blanche and Rudy at Dave and Mark's place in Muncie. Dave fixed a very nice taco salad for dinner and we enjoyed seeing them again and taking a tour of their new motorhome. I must admit that the fit, finish and equipment on their Jayco Precept impressed us. Not bad at all for a 33 foot class A.

Tuesday was haircuts for both of us and our annual exams in the afternoon, which went as expected with no major surprises. We then stopped off to see Doris, a retired teacher colleague of Dale's to have the Christmas card Dale received from relatives in Germany translated.

Today is a day to be spent in Indianapolis, I have a fall check up with my cardiologist at IU downtown this morning and Dale has her 6 month post surgery visit with her back surgeon at St. Vincent's on the north side. Tomorrow is the last doctor's appointment with Dale's dermatologist in Muncie. Friday we travel about 100 miles over to St Paris Ohio to see friends Tab and Deanna for the weekend.

Till next time. . .

Terry and Dale

Finishing up with doctors!

Fortunately, we are about to finish up with doctors today. We will be leaving for Indy in another hour or so and seeing Terry's primary cardiologist. We don't anticipate any problems as everything has been going well and he has been doing fine since the implantation of his new ICD in Houston in December.

Yesterday afternoon we headed to Muncie with the girls and visited with friends Dave and Mark and Baxter, their Scottish Terrier! The girls get along well with him. They don't really interact much but the girls love roaming the yard sniffing out squirrels. They were so busy checking everything out, I really didn't get many Kodak moments but did get a shot of Butterscotch sniffing around.

After it got too cool to sit outside, we moved indoors and had a really good dinner. We had chicken pot pie and Cesar salad with sugar cream pie for dessert. Yum yum! Thanks guys! It was a great evening!
 
This morning we had a beautiful sunrise. Hard to photograph it, but it was gorgeous!

Till next time. . .

Dale

Time to rest. . .

When I last wrote, we were at the rally and were suffering through a multitude of problems with Phaeton Place. I guess she didn't like sitting in storage for four months while we were in MinnieMee. As it turned out, the problems I wrote about were not the ONLY ones we were going to have. Later that same evening after sorting out the water leak, etc., we discovered our toilet was leaking as well! Fortunately for all, it was clean water, but parts were not available locally. Grrrr. RV Capital of the World and not really a good RV parts store in town. Whouldda' thunk? So Terry got on line and ordered everything he could and we made a trip over to Factory RV Surplus where they also didn't have the last part he needed, but offered to order it.

So now all is fixed. The solenoid was installed before we left the rally, the toilet parts and the sink faucet all arrived the same day, so Terry got all that stuff done. I don't know what we would do if he couldn't fix this stuff himself. . .  well, yeah I do. We'd be paying someone to do it. We did luck out (sort of) on the faucet. Terry called the manufacturer, Price Pfister, who told him the faucet had a life-time warranty and they would send one out. Which they did, but all the hoses, etc., that they sent with it were too short for the application, so we had to run to the hardware store. Still, a better deal for us.

Wednesday of the rally, we got up early and drove to Indy for Terry's cardiology appointments. We left the girls at the house and our manager and his wife let them out two times. They were thrilled to help out with them. They really like dogs and they even invited a friend over to see them. Terry's appointments went very well and he continues to amaze the doctors. His ICD is working well and we verified the one instance where he knew it was about to shock him, but didn't. It's always preferable for the device to pace your heart out of a bad rhythm.

Last week we went to central Indiana for our regular doctor appointments and that all went well, too. We even had a "meet and greet" for our dogs and our regular vet so they now have them in their system. I bought more of the heartworm meds they have been on, so I don't have to deal with a different vet unless they should become sick at some point.

While we were there, we visited "Baxter," the Scottie owned by friends Mark and Dave. They wanted to see our new girls, so we visited one day. We were fearful that our girls wouldn't get along. . . they don't seem to like other dogs, but they got along great. We were able to let them run around the fenced in yard while we were there. Baxter was the perfect host and the girls got in a lot of loving with Dave and Mark.

Now we are finally back in the rig over at the campground. I feel like I am at home. This is where I prefer and we are enjoying our time here. We will go to the apartments daily to work. . . we have some windows being put in and a tenant moving out, so we have to get that rented.

Tuesday we head down to Wabash to watch the Moody Blues. We have seen them twice before, but we really do enjoy their music. We are taking the girls with us down to my sister's where Mom says she will let them out while we are gone.

We will stay here till the end of the month, then we are headed south. I'm ready.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Welcome Back to the Blog. . .

It's been a while, but we haven't been doing much of anything interesting. Just trying to get some doctor and dentist visits out of the way.

I was a bit bummed out by our family doctor who decided I had some mysterious ailment relating to my "dry eyes and dry mouth." He insisted I see a rheumatologist and an ophthalmologist. I don't mind seeking second opinions, but with a month before departure on the Great Alaskan Adventure, it wasn't exactly on my calendar. He accused me of "recreation over health." I guess what really aggravated me was that whenever I suggested testing for something, he blows me off. Then out of the blue he comes up with this strange diagnosis when I was certain (and still am) it was the result of taking an OTC acid reflux pill on a daily basis, which is when my symptoms developed.

But I did see a rheumatologist Friday and he agreed with me. He did order a lot of bloodwork, so if anything strange pops up we will know. But most likely the problem is related to the pill and the fact that those symptoms occur as a natural part of the aging process. He did also indicate that my arthritis is more likely the early early stages of psoriatic arthritis, since I have been plagued by psoriasis for 53 years. He talked about some of those new meds, the biologics, which I will totally resist taking. We talked about my love of a cortisone shot twice a year and at that "infreqency" he agreed I was likely to suffer no side effects from that medication. And because of that would consider it much safer than the biologics. At least for now. Whoo hoo. He injected my aching bursitis plagued hip, too! So I'm feeling much better than I did when my doctor heaped all that on me.

Tuesday I see the opthamologist, but I'm not worried about that. Never a bad thing to have the eyes checked out.

We have found a new dentist and we really like him. Thanks to sister Nita who recommended him to us. We have two trips back to see him and get all our work done before leaving for Alaska, but we will be fixed up then and shouldn't have any worries about having problems on our trip.

Last week Tab and Deanna, fellow Alaska travelers called and wanted to get together, so we are camping at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds here in Goshen. They brought their little motorhome and we could have brought MinnieMee since we just got her out of storage. But we did need to dump the tanks on Phaeton Place and decided this would be a better place to do that since we have full hookups. Terry will be able to dump and rinse the tanks and get things really clean before putting her in storage for the summer. And I had a few cupboards I wanted to clean out, foodstuffs, etc. Easier to do here with the slides out and on level ground. So we have a working morning ahead of us. And. . . wouldn't you know. . . it's raining! But no matter. . . not raining hard, so we will "get 'er dun. . . "

Yesterday we spent running around to the rv surplus places for a few spare parts Tab and Terry wanted. We actually found everything they wanted, then celebrated by having lunch at Essenhaus in Middlebury. Afterwards we came back to the camp and built a fire. Eventually we put on some hobo stew and cooked it over the fire.

The real treat last night was that here at the fairgrounds there was a "training session" for teaching people how to safely set off fireworks. Apparently it was for people who put on the big professional type displays. So we got to see fireworks! Pretty cool. I got my new camera out and took some shots. I got some pretty impressive shots, but afterwards doing the editing, I found I had a "FIREWORKS"

 

 

 

shot setting on my camera. Whooda thunk? Guess I should have been learning more about my camera, eh? Maybe practice a bit more before trying to shoot wildlife on the trip. LOL

Today we will return to the condo, park Phaeton Place beside MinnieMee to make the final transfer of stuff. Then when it stops raining, we will wash PP and take her over to storage. We have three weeks to go. We have moved our departure date to May 20, provided the satellite phone has arrived by that time.

Till next time. . .

Dale