Saturday, May 18, 2013

On the Road for a Year - Part Ten

SPREADING WING -  Eight days before we fly out. I will arrive at Tegel at 12:00 noon Monday, May 27 Lufthansa flight # 3373. For my Berlin readers, if you meet me at the airport, hold up a sign saying "Forever a Hillbilly" so I can recognize you, I will give you a card enabling you to get a free Kindle edition of my book, Spreading Wing. I will be wearing my usual brown hat. This trip, we have family members along who do not like to travel as Barbara and I normally do, on our own, so this is a group tour, so we will just be going where our tour leaders tell us to, most of the time.
I hope to meet some of you there!
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We went to a Camel Farm next. We saw four day old camels, fed them, etc. They had a rare species of wild cats. Once, one of these paired cats just could not get along with his mate. The mate was moved far to the other side of the farm, out of sight. Some way, they must have been able to communicate, though. When one of the cats suddenly died, the mate went into depression and quickly died also.
The Yuma Rodeo was a good show, complete with the best of the cowboys, very bad bulls, precision skydivers, and little kids riding bucking sheep. The skydivers were the most amazing. They all jumped out very high up, ten or so. They gave off smoke from their shoes, so we could follow them. Each knew exactly when to pull the cord, so that they came gliding in, the first one landing exactly in the center of an X in the center of the arena, and just had time to get his chute out of the way before the second landed perfectly, and so on. None failed to land standing up, and none messed up. It was totally unbelievable.
Again, there was no room for us at the park. They set us up, right on the edge of the swimming pool, again with a long electrical cord.



Crossing into California, Gas jumped up 12 cents a gallon, and we needed a fill up in both vehicles. Wouldn't you just know it?
Behind San Diego, the desert is at sea level. It rises 10,000 feet very quickly. I started noticing barrels of water on regular pull offs, and I knew we were in trouble. We had to stop, cool the motor off, and add more water, several times before we reached the top. That had never been a problem before. I knew we had a lot more Rocky Mountain crossings ahead, and I shelled out several bucks to get a raised, topographical map, so I would know what was ahead. I could then pull the car off and drive it up separately on those long pulls. Turned out, all the other high Rocky Mountain crossings were cold, and we didn't need it. San Diego was a neat place, especially the Zoo. They had four pandas, which were rare at zoos, and Barbara was in love with them. There was a long line by their cage, and the pandas were treated like royalty. Everyone had to be really quiet, enforced by four security guards. She went through that line four times. San Diego also had a very large naval presence, along with ships, and that was interesting.



We found our friends Patty and Dwight's house at Temecula, and we parked our rig right out front. They just never fully understood why we slept in our RV instead of coming in their house, But it was our home, now. And, Barbara builds a great bed. It sometimes gets so tall, before she gets it right, that she has to have a step stool to get in it.
They showed us around Southern California royally for a couple of days, The J. Paul Getty Museum, and lots of other wonders. The Cafe we ate in specialized in being crass and rude. A large sign, right up front, said, “Eat and get out.” The waitresses had a really big chaw of bubblegum, and, between bubbles, greeted us with, “Yeah, whatta' ya' want?”
I drove our 53 foot road train right through LA. After that, I knew no big city driving could scare me again. Later, Europe was a totally different story.



We parked just north of LA near Hollywood, in Van Nuys. Barbara was not doing well. Her abdomen hurt. It got worse. She said she felt like she was full of gas, so I tried pushing on her belly to help get it out. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. She got even worse. Finally, I walked across the park to a pay phone and called the police, asked where the nearest hospital was. He said he didn't know. It depended on where I was.. I had not the foggiest, and I had to go back and ask Barbara. I didn't even know the name of the park. Kinda illustrates yet once again, just who the brains of this outfit is. Even when she's impaired. After waiting half the night (literally) in the emergency room, the diagnosis was gall bladder problems, and it had to come out. Right now. And it's infected. I sure hated to see Barbara being wheeled down the hall, waving and looking back at me, all the way to the OR. The surgery went well, but her infected condition required several days in the hospital. The Kids were ready to load up and head west, but I told them it was too far, and there was nothing they could do for her here. Being away from family in a crisis is just part of being a traveler, and we both accepted that. When I went to check Barbara out of the hospital, I knew our insurance was handling it. But they said they preferred to get $1000 down in cases like this, being travelers and all. Okay, that sounded reasonable. A long way and weeks down the line, they sent us another copy of the bill. The $1000 had just disappeared. We had befriended the hospital's Patient Advocate lady, who was also an RV'er, and we called her. She said she would take care of it. A few days later we got a check for that $1000. When insurance is involved, never pay up front. Let it go through the insurance process. Early payment always gets confused, and the confusion is always in favor of the hospital.



After she recouped for a few days in our RV, she wanted out of it. So we took a few smaller trips, seeing the area. That old strategy of seeing a large city on Sunday just didn't pan out in LA. The traffic was as bad at daylight Sunday morning as any other time.
After ten days, she felt like she could travel, so we headed for Arkansas in the car to let her regain her strength before continuing on with our travels. In moving the RV to storage, that thing about the back end sticking out far right on a left turn finally got me. I left a long deep scratch in someone's car. I never talked to the owner, but the Park Director and our Insurance fixed it while we were in Arkansas.
I made the long drive home as easy on Barbara as possible, but it was still hard on her. Corey, the rising “Next man of the clan,” took us aside. “OK, now, you've had your trip. It's time to end it, now.” We thought otherwise. Barbara and I decided long ago, as long as one of us was capable of wiping both our bottoms, we are in charge of our life. Of course, if we live long enough, the time will come when we both are very appreciative that we have caring children


 
 

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