Here we are, on the road: Still in the Bay Area

Sunday, December 27, 2009 Lorraine’s report

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! We did! We spent the day with our little family here in Sunnyvale, CA. The day was sunny, bright and cold. Susy, Mark and Kaitlyn, we thank you for such a great Christmas Day.

Well, last Sunday, I woke up not feeling well. Little did I know that I was at the start of a bout of either stomach flu or food poisoning. I was reminded of when I went through my chemo treatment. Chuck took me in to the emergency room at 5 am on Monday morning, I just couldn’t stop the throwing up and diarrhea. They did a bunch of tests, but the doc couldn’t say what it was for sure, they just gave me an IV for fluids, a shot of morphine for the pain and sent me home, after six hours in the broken bones supply room, where they put me when we checked into the hospital. My bout of being ill lasted until the morning of the 23^rd, when I woke up feeling a bit better. I wasn’t able to eat solids until the 26^th,and I’m still cold, having a hard time getting and staying warm. This wasn’t how I wanted to spend the pre-Christmas holiday.

I had plans to do other things before Christmas, but that didn’t happen. I was happy to just be able to go over to our daughter’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

We had a great time watching our little granddaughter, Kaitlyn open her presents. She had a blast, and we greatly enjoyed watching her.

After the presents were put away and Susy’s home was cleaned up, Mark took us to a movie. Susy, Mark, Kaitlyn and I went to see the Frog and the Princess. It was a good movie; Kaitlyn wants us to buy it when it comes out, she enjoyed it so much.

The only problem was Mark lost the car keys with a bunch of other keys on his key ring at the theater. He doesn’t know where or how they got lost, but they did, so he spent Saturday afternoon at the dealer to get the car retooled for new keys.

Saturday, Susy and I went to return a couple of presents that were not quite right. We came home just as it started to pour here; it sure did dump on us.

Not too much more to write about; it’s been nice to slow down a bit. Anyhow, I want to wish all our family and friends a belated Merry Christmas and many Blessings and a Healthy, Happy New Year! May God be good to you and yours!

Until next time…..Lorraine

12/27/09 Chuck’s report

Well, I’m glad that week is over. If you read our blog from last week, you know Lorraine wasn’t feeling well and didn’t write her part. Well, on Monday I took her to the emergency room at 5:00 in the morning. Actually a good time to go to the ER, we got right in but had to wait for the doctor. Anyway, they ran a bunch of blood tests, had a Cat Scan and X-ray but could find anything for sure. They think it was either food poisoning or a stomach bug that has been going around. She sure was one sick gal for about 3 or 4 days there.

She was released about 3:00 with a couple of prescriptions and a “I hope you feel better” comment. I got her home and put to bed then went out to fill her prescriptions. Boy was that fun, first one wouldn’t fill it, second was closed, third didn’t have one of the pills, fourth filled one but not the second, finally got what I needed at the fifth one.

She was still down on Tuesday, but started feeling a bit better in the afternoon. She has been feeling a bit better each day so I think it was the bug but not sure. Main thing is she’s getting better and able to spend time with Kaitlyn before we leave. She didn’t leave the coach until we went out to dinner on Christmas eve, only had soup however.

I’ve been searching for a set of tires for our car, they’re pretty big at 19”. I checked the normal places and got prices ranging from $950 to $1500. I checked on line and found I could by them for $95 each. I then called and tried to get price match from a couple of places. Discount tire said they would match the internet price and only charge $20/tire for mounting/balancing and tire disposal. So I got a set of new Goodyear tires for a pretty good price, an early Christmas present.

We spent Christmas morning at Susy’s, really enjoyed watching Kaitlyn open her presents, she was so excited. Lorraine, Susy, Mark and Kaitlyn went to the movie house to see a matinee, I came back to the coach. Later we went out to Christmas dinner where Lorraine was able to eat a little bit of solid food.

Mark and Susy both graduated from Stanford University, both of them work there now. The Stanford football team in playing in a bowl game at El Paso, Tx. on Thursday. They want to drive over, taking a much needed vacation. They leave tomorrow, we leave for Palm Springs on Tuesday. They will stop by and see us on their way home after the game, it’s on the way. That may be the last time we see them until Kaitlyn’s birthday in April. Once again, thanks to Susy and Mark for sharing their time and home with us, we sure appreciate it.

We’ve finally made our minds up, decided we will go to Red Bay, Alabama for some coach repairs at the factory. We plan on being there on March 4th. I spent a couple of hours working out our route and schedule so we at least have an idea of when/where we will be going on the trip. We are also working on getting all our items on the work list, want to make sure we get everything done while we are there.

We will probably spend the spring traveling around the SE states, we’ve never spent any time there except for a two weeks stint in Atlanta a few years ago. We haven’t worked out any schedule or even made a wish list for the spring yet, will need to work on that. We are thinking about Georgia, N&S Carolina and Virginia. We’ve never been to Washington DC so we may head that way too. So if anyone has any places you think we have to see, please let us know.

Our short range plans are to spend the most of the next two weeks in Palm Springs. Susy will be stopping by on their way home, there is a FMCA rally we plan to attend plus we really like the area and weather. Afterwards we will head for Quartzsite, Az for the annual RV week boon docking with our friends from the RV America group. After that, we start our trek to the East.

We are well into our third year of full timing and don’t see an end in sight yet, YEA. We don’t know where the road will lead us this year but we are more experienced about what we do now. We don’t travel fast or far like we are on vacation, rather we try to see and explore the area more.

I would be remiss is I didn’t wish everyone a Happy New Year. Here’s hoping you had a great ‘09 and wishing you a better one for ‘10!

And now for some pictures.

Here are some oranges on the tree, some ripening, some still very green.