My Feet Don't Hurt A Bit

A couple of evenings ago I was about my usual tasks. I did the supper dishes then decided to replenish the supply of bottled water and soft drinks I keep in the refrigerator. Our stash of extras is stored in our "basement" that is accessible from outside the camper, so I went out to get some.

I collected a small variety of bottles and cans, clutched them tightly to my chest, and headed back inside the camper.

Now I've done this many times, so it is one of those motions I go through, almost daily, without giving much thought to what I'm actually doing. I seldom have problems with this task, though one time I did drop a can of Coke and it landed just right on a tiny little rock...The ants loved me and the sticky mess I created. Since that time, I do pay a little more attention to how tightly I clutch the drinks.

As most of you know, I'm vertically challenged. Not enough to be disabled, but enough that I have to partially climb the steps of the camper to reach the door's latch, especially when my arms are full of drinks and I can't reach above my head without dropping something. And as some of you might know, camper doors swing out when they open. So, my normal MO (method of operation) is to step up on the first step (if my arms are empty) or the second or third step, (depending on how tightly I'm having to squeeze my armload of carbonated, artificially colored and flavored, high fructose corn syrup) unlatch the door, then step back down the steps while leaning backward to allow the door room to swing open. Then I climb the steps once again and, whew... I'm inside, safe and sound.

This particular evening, just before I attempted the "open door with arms full" trick, it rained. I'm talking a downpour. Even though the awning was out, the wind had blown the rain in under the awning and the steps were nice and wet. And slick! And I, in my typical fashion, had bare feet.

I was really concentrating on not dropping any of those cans or bottles, so this was a "climb to the third step" trip. In one smooth motion, I unlatched the door, stepped down to the second step, and swung my body weight backward to clear the door. I looked down just in time to see my foot slip on the wet step, thus sending the lower half of my leg all the way through the steps. Being the quick thinker that I am, I thought to myself, Oh no! I'm going to fall!

I must have the gift of prophecy too. Sure enough! My head hit the ground first, and bounced. I've not gone to the doctor but I'm positive that whiplash is the term I'm looking for here. Then my body, thinking my head was having so much fun, followed. When a middle-aged, Dodge-Ram-seat-shaped hunk of fat, muscle, and bones flings itself off a flight of steps head first, the neck connecting it to that head is bound to get jammed. And, at the exact time I started my "down-to-earth" trip, the gravitational pull experienced a power surge! I guess I hit with such force the earth shook because my dear hubby came to see what was going on. He had to gather up the drinks because the impact popped them out of my grip and scattered them.

I have not hurt like this since my van was T-boned by a crazy lady trying to make it through an intersection on a red. I've still got a headache too. My mom thinks I gave myself a concussion. I don't think it is quite that bad, but you can bet I might use it as an excuse the next time I have one of my mental moments. Parts of my body that never touched the ground, including the gross squishy parts you can't see, hurt. I scraped my elbow, bruised my shin, my back, my ribs, and did who-knows-what kind of damage to my neck...but looking on the bright side, my feet don't hurt a bit!

Among The Unfamiliar

Epsom, New Hampshire. That's where I am, but I really don't have a clue where that is. Well, I know it is in the northeastern corner of the U.S. of A., but I've not taken the time yet to take a good look at a map to know where I am exactly. Near Concord is all I can tell you at the moment.

I'm still trying to recover from road fatigue. We drove (not counting stops) about 35.5 hours. My backside is looking more like the seat of a Dodge Ram every day. And girlfriends, that ain't pretty!

I'll tell you what is pretty. Vermont--what bit of it we saw passing through--is pretty. In fact, pretty won't quite due. This description calls for the Texan vernacular. Folks, let me tell ya. Vermont is down-right purdy. REAL PURDY!

As I'm able to get out and about in New Hampshire I'll let you know what I think about it. I don't know how long we will be here. Rick doesn't have very many claims, so I only paid for two weeks here at the campground. I have reserved our space until the 29th of August because he hopes to get more claims as he gets some of these closed out. Just one day at a time we make our plans, knowing that they will probably change before the sun goes down.

One thing I hope to see while we are here is a moose. As we drove through Vermont and into New Hampshire we saw "Moose Crossing" signs along the highways. How cool would it be to see a moose crossing the road? I think it would be VERY cool! I did see a swan floating on a little lake along the roadside, but I've seen a real live swan up-close before. I've never been up-close to a live-in-the-wild moose before. I'll be sure to take my camera with me when I go to Wal-Mart, just in case a moose walks by.

Speaking of Wal-Mart--well, this really doesn't have anything to do with Wal-Mart, (or as the Yankee keeper of the campground calls it, "Waw-Mawt") it has more to do with being thankful.

I've titled this post Among the Unfamiliar. That's where I am. I remember a time when I thought I was in the middle of a spiritual growing spurt because God had taken me "outside my comfort zone." I did experience a growth spurt, and that made me glad, many times later, to have opportunities to be outside my zone. But I'm tellin' ya now, it has been so long since I've been "inside" my comfort zone, I don't even have one any more. If getting outside one's comfort zone is all it takes to grow spiritually, then I ought to be a giant by now! I'm not, so I guess there is more to it. Ya think?

Anyway, this uncomfortable feeling I always have when we go places I've never been before made me think of you, my readers. Especially those of you who are, at this moment, wishing for something like a moose to cross your path. I want you to live with a heart of thanksgiving. Here are just a few things that crossed my mind (like a moose crossing the road) that come with living inside comfort zones.

1. If you can find your local Wal-Mart Super Center without a GPS, be thankful.
2. If the word "local" puts the name of only one town or city in your mind, and if the word "community" stirs an emotion, be thankful.
3. If you know the best route to take to get to work or church or school, thank the good Lord.
4. If you can go into a store where you are accustomed to buying your groceries and find the Velveta Cheese without walking every aisle three times and asking the stock boy for assistance, then you have a lot to be thankful for.
5. If you go to the mall and see at least one person you know or have even seen somewhere before, be very thankful.
6. If you know your address without having to look it up, say "Thank you, God, for my comfort zone."
7. And if you have a place you call your "church home" and people there who are "like family" to you, who insist on knowing all your business--because they care and want to pray for you, drop to your knees and give thanks to the God who has given you all good and familiar gifts.

Stopped For The Night

I don't know where we are... somewhere in Ohio about 20 or 25 miles from the Pennsylvania line. We've been rolling well over 21 hours and that doesn't count rest stops, fuel stops, and overnight sleeping time. That's more than 21 hours of moving down the highway. If I ask myself, "Are we there yet?" one more time, I'm going to make myself sit in the back seat with a rag stuffed in my mouth!

I'm getting a little buggy!!!!! I've tried to read, sleep, and played a few games on my Palm Pilot. Every time I dozed off today, Rick turned the radio over to NASCAR talk radio. All that loud belly-aching grates my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. So my naps were short. Maybe I should ride in the back seat with rags stuffed in my ears!

We are stopped for the night---and hopefully a few hours sleep. If all goes as planned we will get to our destination tomorrow evening. We are just under 600 miles away. Just in case you were wondering, New Hampshire is a LONG WAY from Amarillo TX!

I'll let you know when we get there! Happy trails!

Something Changed

So do you remember the last line of my last post? "I'll see ya' in Atlanta--unless something changes."

I guess I had that funny feeling--something changed. Last night one of Rick's managers called him with new instructions. In the morning we will hook on and head back to New England. This time we are bound for New Hampshire. He will be working there and in Maine.

Wasn't it just a little over a week ago we left New England? Sometimes circumstances are beyond crazy. If we could have known that we would be deployed there again, Rick could have just flown home for Granny's funeral. But, since we are not able to know those kinds of things, we will spend the next four days and about $1,000.00 driving almost 2,000 miles. Sounds like fun?

Now, if I don't get back to you in the next four days, I'll see ya in New Hampshire--unless something changes.

Riverboat Ride Up The Connecticut

Well, did you give up on the riverboat ride? I'm really sorry about this taking so long for me to post. As you know, there have been a few interruptions in my life, and when we are home (as we are at the moment) I find myself spending all my spare time playing with the granddaughters. Who cares about blogging if you can play in the sandbox?

Finally, as I promised, here are a few of the pictures I took as we went up the Connecticut River. You can see more of my Connecticut pictures by clicking here. I don't have all my Connecticut pictures there yet, but I intend to get them there in a few days. This is a picture of the boat we rode on. I took this picture a different day, but thought it would go good with this post.This is just a bit of the view. In the picture below, notice the dead tree to the right side. I don't know if you can see it or not, but there is a little dark speck on a dead branch that sticks out to the left...That dark speck is a bald eagle. It was a little shy and would not look at us. It was way on the other side of the river so I had to zoom in to get its picture. That's why it is a little blurry. The guide we had said that the eagles nest in the dead trees along the river.

Below is a picture of the school house where Nathan Hale taught before the Revolution. This was one of the places that I wanted to visit before we left, but things don't always work out like we would like. So I'll settle for a picture of it from the river.
If you want to see the school for yourself, it is in East Haddam where we stayed. Just a little way up the river from the school is the Goodspeed Opera House. It was built in the 1800s. (pictured below)Some famous Broadway shows, like Annie, got their start at this opera house.

This is a photo of an old inn and restaurant. We ate there one evening, out on the patio under the striped roof. It is really nice because you have a good view of the river.

Below are some pictures of a swing bridge connecting Haddam and East Haddam. We drove across it many times. It was cool watching it in operation as it opened to let a boat pass. The bridge has been there and operating since the 1800s as well. More pictures that I plan on putting on my Flickr page include our time in Essex. I took pictures of buildings that were built in the 1700s and early 1800s. We also made it back to the Gillette Castle and I'll post those pictures on Flickr as well.

Now that we are no longer in New England, I figured I wouldn't keep yacking about it here. Life moves on and so do we. I'm sure most of you are expecting my next posts to be from south Texas because of Dolly. I hate to disappoint you, but we are headed to Atlanta instead. Go figure.

When Rick got the rig home last Thursday, we started discovering some big maintenance issues: The brakes on the trailer were not working just right. The oven door broke so we are having to have the frame of it welded before I can use it. Some little doohickies that hold the axles to the springs were about to wear in to, and in the process of replacing them, we discovered that the frame was broken in two places and cracked or about to break in several other places. When Rick opened one of the slides, it hung up and messed up the rubber roof of the slide and tore up the gasket that seals it off. Man! What a mess! To top it all off, Rick had a cap come off a tooth that he needed to have stuck back on. Because of all our repairs, and because Rick really wanted some time off, he didn't take the Dolly job. So, they tried to send him to South Carolina. Again he said no-can-do because we still didn't have all the repairs made on the camper.

Yesterday he was called three times. Finally, I guess, his manager was persistent or insistent to the point that when Rick told him that we could not go anywhere until Monday, or the weekend at best, his manager said okay. So to Atlanta we will go, to "clean-up" some old storm claims. Just for the record, clean-up is not Rick's favorite thing to do, and Atlanta has not been our favorite place to be. But such is life. So if I don't get back here in the next day or two, I'll see ya in Atlanta --- unless something changes.

Granny

I last posted here Monday morning. Monday evening Rick took me to Hartford where I spent the night in an Econo Lodge suite, (there's a How-Stupid-Can-I-Be story there that I'll have to tell you about later) then I caught a 7:50 flight out on Tuesday morning for Amarillo. My itinerary had me to arrive in Amarillo at 6:45 p.m., but God's goodness and rushing through airports in St. Louis and Dallas allowed me to fly stand-by on earlier flights. I got to Amarillo just a bit before 3:00 in the afternoon. (Rick left Connecticut Tuesday morning and drove long and hard to arrive at home Thursday night.)

My sister and mother picked me up at the airport and took me straight to Hospice. My hope was to see Granny before she passed away. As one of my cousins later reminded me, Granny never waited on anything or anyone if she was ready to do something. And I guess she was ready to see Jesus face to face, for she took her last breath as we were pulling into the parking lot at Hospice. I didn't make it in time. That was tough for me, but fine with Granny.

When a beloved family member dies, it is never easy. I will miss my grandmother very much. I have only good memories of her and I know that she loved all her children and grandchildren very much. She always bragged about how good-looking all her children and grandchildren were. She would say, "There's not an ugly one in the whole bunch!" I believe she loved the Lord even more than she loved her family, and for that I am thankful. She left a wonderful legacy.

Now I have to tell you a story. I really don't want to, but my Aunt Laveta told me she expected to see it in my blog, and I love her, so---

After Granny made her escape to heaven, the sweet hospice servant straightened her stooped little body in the bed, placed a red rose in her folded hands, and then called the family back in to the room. Along with the hospice spiritual director, we all gathered in a circle around the bed to pray, remember, cry, and just honor the memory of the woman we all loved so much.

Now I need to tell you a couple of things about Granny. She wore dentures, but you'd never know it because she saw to it that no one ever saw her without her teeth. And she had a dowager's hump on her back. That hump complicated things a little because when they put her on her back, she couldn't exactly lie flat. The hump made her head tilt back more than just a little. When a person passes away, the mouth has a tendency to open and the jaw sort of locks. So here is Granny, without her teeth, head back, mouth open, and all of us gathered around her bed at this solemn yet undignified moment.

After we prayed and my dad spoke some words of comfort and reassurance, we all stood in an uncomfortable silence, so much on our hearts but without words to adequately express our feelings. My Aunt Laveta leaned over the bed, looking into the face of my grandmother's body and said, "You'd be really upset if you knew we were all standing here staring at you without your teeth, wouldn't you?"

Then I, the "Talkin' Texan," with mouth in overdrive and brain in park said, "Oh Granny would just die if she knew, wouldn't she?"

In the split second it took for my words to hit the bereaved brains of the family, Aunt Laveta replied, "Yes, I think she would!"

Instantly tears and gentle sobs were transformed--laughter filled the room. Loud, till-tears-filled-our-eyes-again laughter. Oh, I could have just died! My dad offered to help me pull my foot out of my mouth.

I felt terribly about my blunder, but everyone else said that it was just what we needed. If Granny was watching, I know she laughed harder than any of us. She was cute when she laughed.

What a wonderful thing it is to know that these bodies we inhabit are earthen clay, formed by the hands of God to serve us for a short time here on earth. And we can laugh and rejoice when we, or our loved ones, are released from this earth and imperfect bodies to a glorious eternal existence in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ!

We buried Granny's earthen vessel, teeth and all, on Friday. We all rejoiced in her 90 years here, and I look forward to seeing her again.

More Reality

Again, today has been one of those days when reality jumps up and slaps me in the face.

I've been working for two days trying to get our riverboat ride posted. Between slow connection, blogger problems and flickr foul ups I'm frustrated to the extreme.

Then my mother called me this morning and told me that my grandmother is in the hospital. It looks like she will be going home--to that glorious eternal rest in the arms of Christ--very soon.

I need to start getting things situated so I can go home. Rick is almost done here, so we can start home as early as tomorrow with at least a four day drive ahead of us, or I can fly by myself...

I hate making decisions that are necessitated out of the unknown. For now, I'll take a shower and do some more laundry...while I wait.

I'll keep working on getting those photos uploaded, but we may be gone from Connecticut before I get it all done! Oh how nice is high-speed Internet!