We extended our stay in Yuma

 

Sunday, January 31, 2010                                                                                                     Lorraine’s report

Well, you won’t believe this past week for us. Last Sunday, Chuck took me out to breakfast at the Cracker Barrel for a great breakfast. We went on over to the Yuma Swap Meet for a few items. Then, Rick, our son, called and said his time off was over and he was headed back to the North Slope in Alaska, for more Ice Road work. All in all, it was a very nice day, especially hearing from my son.

Monday morning found us busy as always. Chuck was working around the coach, while I was making up a salmon pasta salad to take out to the “Yuma Lights” that evening. I used canned salmon from this summer’s adventure to Alaska. In the pm we continued running errands, then met up with Mike/Linda, Virgil/Sharon, Sue, Mike/Kathy, Earl/Lynda, and Bill/Sandy to go up to the “Yuma Lights”. We’ve gone every year, starting our first year out when Joe/Alice took us. This is the first year we went out in the desert and did not see the lights. But, we took hot dogs, snacks, salads, marshmallows, Hershey’s and graham crackers for Smores. We had a great fire with the copper pipe after we had the Smores. Everyone had a great time visiting, especially since we were shorted our 5 o’clock times at Q.

Tuesday, Chuck had the water guys over to see what was needed to install a new system in the Bus. I took this opportunity to go check out several local shops for birthday presents. We then met up with Bev/Jag at the Quechan Casino for the two for the price of one buffet. We had a great visit with Bev/Jag and some really good food.

Wednesday, it was back to Algodones for the dentist, Dr. Ramos. I forgot to tell you that on Monday night my second tooth that I broke, my upper left one started hurting really badly. I had to take a Tylenol 3 to get it to quit hurting so I could get some sleep.

I told the doc this and he cancelled my appointment with him and sent me over to a specialist who did root canals. I hadn’t planned on this happening.

We got there, I described this to the female doc and she says I should have a Root Canal. So we started it. She got about a half hour into it when I started to feel a lot of PAIN, like white hot shooting pain. She gave me another pain shot and kept going on; except this pain shot didn’t help, it’s like she was jamming a brush down my throat and kept scrubbing it until it was raw. She kept working until she got to a place where she could stop. She explained to me that if she went on, the next day I would be in such pain, I wouldn’t be able to do anything; I don’t think she realized I was already at that point. She told me that in my tooth, the root was calcified, swollen and very infected, and that was the reason for all the pain. She put me on an antibiotic and some strong pain pills. She told me to go back over to Dr. Ramos’s office for him to put a temporary on, except he didn’t; so home I went with an open tooth and two prescriptions and a lot of pain.

Thursday was a quiet day for me; I rested all day, taking my meds so I could go back Friday morning. Chuck had the water man coming from another place to install a new water system. They got that done and the Bus has a new water system.

Friday, it was back to Mexico at 11:30, where my doc set the new permanent bridge, that he had worked on last week. He then went to work on getting the teeth ready for making caps for my bottom front teeth. He finished that and we had about an hour for a bite to eat.

We then headed back to the specialist. She said we needed to finish the one tooth she started Wednesday. It went well, no pain, but when she finished she said we needed to do the last tooth on the top left, my back molar. Now, I have had that tooth capped in gold since I was in my 20’s. I did not want to do this, but it needed to be done.

The doc took the gold crown off and started working, but she ran into the same problems she did on Wednesday with the other tooth, so she stopped about half way through. She would finish the tooth on Saturday, since she put some softening medicine on the inside of that tooth before she closed it up. Chuck took me home. We were out at the two dentists from 10:20 to after 5:30 pm.

Saturday, we were back at the specialist at 8:45 am. She started working, trying to find the roots to do the root canal. She found only one, and then called the other female doc to help her try and find the other two. This other doc found one more; my doc said if the tooth starts hurting again, I will need to find an oral surgeon to fix this last root canal, since she could not do anything more for me.

It was back to Dr. Ramos for repair work to my upper left back teeth so my caps would fit, since work was done on two more teeth there. I forgot to say that the female specialist doctor, who worked on my two teeth, did so without putting in any pain shots to deaden the teeth. Dr. Ramos put in two shots to help deaden those back teeth so he could take impressions. He finished and we headed home, getting there by 1:30 pm.

I rested a while, took a pain pill, then Jag came over for a short visit.

When this is all said and done, I will have had a new bridge put in, ten crowns and two root canals. I hope I do not have to see my dentist for a very long time after all of this, and I hope none of my teeth hurt for a long while.

Till next time…….Lorraine

1/31/10                                                                                                                                Chuck’s report

Let’s see, this week Lorraine had a bad week with all her dentist’s visits, it was a bust for our trip to see the Yuma lights, we got our coach washed/hand waxed and had a new reverse osmosis water system installed on the coach. 

Once again, our third year in a row,  we got together with some friends and drove out into the desert to our usual area to see the eerie Yuma Lights.  We were a little worried about the “road” conditions due to the heavy rains we’ve had but except for a couple of spots, it was dry and in fairly good condition.  We got there in plenty of time to get set up with all the food, get our chairs set in place, start the fire and visit will all the folks.  Everything went as planned, everyone had enough food, desert and smores.  We visited in groups and set around the fire watching all the colors produced by using a copper tube with rubber hose.  It might have been because the moon was too bright but this year the lights never appeared for us.  The folks who had been there tried to explain the lights to the first timers but I think we left there with a few non-believers.  We had a good time, none the less.

Lorraine had talked with her dentist and knew what to expect for her dental work this year.  She wanted to have her bottom teeth capped, her top ones were done two years ago.  We had made plans to stay around here for a week before heading East but with all the work she was having done, we extending for another week.  One evening after a dentist trip, her tooth, one that had broken while we were in Alaska this summer, started paining her.  The next day, the dentist sent her to a specialist who said she needed a root canal done on it.  This turned out to be a painful visit for Lorraine, thank goodness for pain pills.  She ended up having two unexpected root canals plus her already scheduled crown prep.  I don’t know how many hours she was in the dentist chair, I just know it was a long week for her.  But we are down to, hopefully, one more visit and she will be done.  Not a fun week for her, that’s for sure.  And once again, she proved she’s much tougher than I am!!

For those who have been down to Algodones before, you may remember the long wait to get back home through the border.  Last year, it wasn’t uncommon for the wait to be over three hours and it was usually hot as well.    Well, they’ve remolded the border crossing, now have four border crossing guards instead of two.  The lines this year have been way down, the longest we’ve had to wait was 45 minutes one time, most times the wait was under 20 minutes. 

Pretty harmless Mexican border town here, not like others we’ve all heard about.  I think they could almost have an open border here as most of the folks in line are gray haired and went over to visit the dentist or get medication/glasses/booze or trinkets.  They ask a couple of questions per person, check our passport then wave us on. 

The day we checked in at this park, we were handed a flier from a guy who washes and waxes rigs here.  We made an appointment to have ours done last week and had to put it off a couple of times.  Finally we got it scheduled and complete, looks good once again.  The water down here is very hard so they bring their own water supply and with four guys it doesn’t take them long.  Later, one guy comes back to wax it, in our case it was cloudy so he didn’t have to do it in the sun, good thing.  The guy that waxed ours said he has hand waxed 6 rigs in one day, no wonder he is skinny.  It takes me three days to finish ours by myself and even then, I’m sore for a week. 

As I said, the water down here is very hard, lots of minerals.  Most of the folks who live here or even spend most of the winter here have some sort of water treatment system.  We’ve been looking at different types and decided to go with a Reverse Osmosis filtering system like TJ/Sharon have on their coach.  They told us where the guy who they dealt with  was located.  We stopped by there and talked with them and the owner came by a couple of days later to check out our rig and give us an estimate. 

We decided to go ahead and have the system installed.  Ours consists of two filters, one to trap particulates, the other is a carbon filter that removes lots of minerals.  The water then goes thru two membranes that removes most all the other contaminates.  The water then goes to our fresh water holding tank and we use it as needed.  Although it isn’t that hard to install, I’m glad I had him do it, he had all the fitting, hoses and valves we needed.  I would have made no less than three trips to the store to get parts while working on it. 

Anyway, it’s all in and works well.  The water coming out of the shower and other fixtures is now soft, doesn’t leave spots and has no taste.  Boy, what a difference it makes down here.  Not that the water wasn’t fit to drink before, it is just too hard with all the minerals.  We’ve only used it a couple of days but so far we are satisfied. 

At this point in our blog, I usually put down our plans for the upcoming week.  Last week we got our spring plans finalized, we are going back to the factory in Alabama on March 3rd.  We usually have a destination in mind and sort of wing it to get there.  This time I wanted to schedule a couple of stops along the way.  I’ve had a couple of requests for our proposed route and schedule so I will include it here.  Remember, this is firmly chiseled in Jell-O and will likely change but it’s the best we have today.  So instead of our next week’s plan, here is our next month’s plan:

Stop                        Arrive                 Depart

Yuma, AZ                                               2/3

Tucson, AZ                 2/3                      2/6 

Vado, NM                   2/6                      2/7

Fort Stockton, TX       2/7                      2/9  (taking an extra day to rest up)

San Antonio, TX          2/9                     2/16  (Manuel/Connie offered for us to stay at their place)

Houston, TX               2/16                    2/23  (no plans yet, working on visiting friends)

New Orleans, LA        2/23                     3/2  (any ideas of a good park to stay in for a week?)

Jackson, MS               3/2                       3/3

Red Bay, AL                3/3                     until done with repairs and upgrades.

We plan to stay a week in San Antonio, Houston area and New Orleans, the other stops are just that, one night stops along the way.  Once again, we are probably traveling too fast through the area but we have to be In Red Bay on March 3rd.  At this time, we aren’t sure where we will spend the rest of the spring/early summer but are looking at staying in the Southeast until the weather gets too hot.  So with that, if anyone has any information for us about places you suggest we have to see, please let us know. 

And now for some pictures, we didn’t take too many this week.

 

The gang at Yuma lights area.

As usual, we ate good.

Fresh made apple crisp and cookies.

 

A copper pipe and rubber hose makes for lots of color in the fire.

I always say, a picture never does the sunset justice but here are some anyway.

Full moon rising over the hills to the East of us. 

So here’s hoping Lorraine’s dentist visit on Tuesday is the last one for awhile and we get on the road.  But if we have to change out plans, so what - - - WE’RE RETIRED!

Thanks   Chuck