A Hospital Stay in Hollywood

Note: Much of the next few posts have been posted recently. (Florida, 6/20/16) and The Big Trees, (6/15/16)  I skip over here to avoid repeating myself so quickly.

    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 emergence 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.

     After two nice weeks with family, Barbara was pretty much her old self, just with different eating habits. No grease. We made the long trip back leisurely, seeing the sights. At Zion, I was amazed at the very tall cliffs. We saw a tiny figure, two thirds of the way to the top. Binoculars proved it was a climber, carrying his bed along. An overnight trip. In Death Valley, we saw a giant black cloud just rolling across the sands to us. A huge sandstorm. Back in Hollywood, we saw Paramount Studios. The emergency brake on our car just would not release upon leaving, and we had to be towed. Again. A big comedown, after just meeting Goldie Hawn, and seeing the other stars.

     Back home in our RV Park, we were awakened one morning by a young woman, knocking on our door. When I opened up, she said, “I'm Cindy.” She started to sidestep me, and come on in. I cut her off, saying, “I don't know you, Cindy.” She looked puzzled, then walked back to a man who was waiting for her across the street. They talked, he made a phone call, then she walked to the RV next door, knocked, and was let in with a smile. She stayed there about half an hour, then her and her Pimp walked off.

     We headed up the coast. We were on our way to the Hurst Castle, and being early, I stopped at Moonstone Beach. The trail down the cliff was so steep, and it was so windy, Barbara stayed in the car. The beach below was hidden from the parking area. I really got into this moonstone hunting, and stayed a good while. I found lots of pretty rocks, surely at least one was a moonstone. When I finally walked out to where I could see the top of the cliff, Barbara was waving her arms and shouting, but her words just floated off with the wind. Her face told me a lot, though, and I quickly climbed up. She was scared, thought I had just disappeared. I caught it pretty good over that. We may have been a few minutes late for our appointment at Hearst Castle, but we still caught the bus and headed up.

     Hearst Castle was built by William Randolph Hurst, the Newspaper Magnate. He went way over the top on everything. The grounds had many exotic animals roaming about, from all over the world. The swimming pool was lined with gold, and the castle itself was monstrous in size, and contained exotic furniture and paintings from all over the world. William Randolph Hurst was a man who could not be denied. In his travels, if he found something he wanted to put in his castle, the price offer just kept going up until he had his way. A big portion of the bus top blew off on the way back down. It can be windy in California.

     The Remington Mansion was huge. The Remington Arms Company financed it. Mrs. Remington, haunted by the ghosts of all the people killed by their product just kept building on it as long as she lived. Stairways to nowhere, doorways with no opening, On and on. As I was typing “Remington” the first time I wrote this story, one of those ghosts must have came after me, because I just hit a normal key, I thought, and the whole story just disappeared from the screen, never to live again. I'm not a fast writer, and that was two day's work for me. Believe, me, I am now typing this paragraph very gingerly, not wishing to anger anybody, or any thing.

     The Big Sur coastline was magnificent, and we even walked on Pebble Beach Golf Course. Years later, Corey and son-in-law Mickey paid in advance for a trip for us to Pebble Beach. A week before, Corey hit his drive a mile at a course in Florida, and as always, I felt I should swing as hard as I could to try to stay somewhat close to his. My back went out, bad, maybe my worst. But there was just no way around it. I had to play Pebble Beach. What else could I do? The course of a lifetime, the chance of a lifetime. I left a lot of pain lying about on Pebble Beach, and my scorecard overflowed. But I played it.

      Next stop, San Francisco. As with many cities on this trip, with time not being a limiting factor, we just jumped off into the city and quickly lost ourselves. Actually, one cannot truly get lost if you have no destination, as long as we eventually met back up with our RV. At lunch time, we stopped at Little Orphan Annie's. Turned out, once we were seated, we realized it was really “Little Orphan Andy's,” and we were the only straight people about. I was trying to decide whether to stay or not, and my legs were out in the aisle. The waiter walked up, looked at me, and said, “Are you STAYING?” I stammered out, “Just long enough to eat.”

     Once we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, we stopped, debating about whether to take safe highway 101, inland a ways, or tackle highway 1, in the RV, along the cliffs. An old full time RV'er  told me once on Prince Edward Island, half a world away, that driving an RV on Highway 1 north of San Francisco was the ultimate test for driving an RV in the world. “If you can drive it, you can drive anywhere.” Well, that was too much of a challenge to pass up. After we started up the winding road toward the cliffs, we stopped at a station. I asked the operator, “Have you seen many people driving RV's past this point?” “Well, I have seen a few, but they almost always come back in a few minutes.”

     When we went on up, It got bad quick. I had to sling the car off in the ditch on a hairpin curve to avoid bikers coming down. Once out overlooking the ocean, the road was just a tiny shelf along a high cliff, and if one is brave enough to look ahead, it was the same for many miles. At least, I had the inside, going north. Barbara tells me that drive was beautiful, but I didn't see it. All I ever saw was ten white knuckles over the top of my steering wheel. After 50 miles, I was done in. We went inland to 101 and eventually parked it, driving out to see the good view in the car. I began to realize Barbara was right. The scenery WAS breathtaking.