Saturday, September 29, 2012

Your life can change in an instant.

Yesterday evening we were having dinner at a friend’s campsite in this RV Park.  Rosie was going up the stairs to enter their fifth wheel when she (apparently) blacked out and fell over backwards falling to the ground, but must have hit her back on the bottom step of the 3 steps going up into the RV.  I called 911 and paramedics were on the scene in about 4 minutes.  They transported her to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center here in Idaho Falls.  After CAT scans and X-Rays we learned she had six broken ribs and two broken vertebrae.  The tips of the vertebrae were broken so the spinal column was not affected.  She is not paralyzed, nor are the injuries life threatening.  She is in a lot of pain and was admitted to the hospital for pain control and observation.  We do not know how long she will be in the hospital.

If there is a “good news” side to this story, it is that it happened last night at this campground instead of sometime next week when we would have been in a very remote location in eastern Oregon where Emergency Response would have been longer and the quality of medical services might not have been so great.   She might have had to be air lifted from such a location.

Our plans to visit the Oregon Coast are on hold until she is well enough to travel.  It may be months before these injuries will heal.

This scenario is something all full timers must keep in the back of their minds.  The simple act of walking up the steps of a fifth wheel can have tragic results.  We are grateful the injuries were not worse.

I will post an update in a few days.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Fall Is In The Air

And leaves are on the ground.

IMG_5840

Yes.  There is a crispness in the air and the temps are down in the 30’s in the early morning.  Unfortunately for all of us in the RV Park this evening, the wind is just right to bring us a lot of smoke from a forest fire over a 100 miles away near Salmon, ID.  The smoke is heavy  in the air and irritating to the lungs.

So what have we been doing since I last logged on? 

Rosie has been going to Yoga classes.

I have re-arranged the office in our bedroom by placing the wireless printer in the TV cabinet and bringing the 19” flat screen onto my office “desk”.  Now I have enough room left in the TV cabinet to build some bookshelves over the printer. 

We have had our friends Spencer and Karen over for wine and a campfire. 

We had a great dinner hosted by our new friends, Gary and Teresa Morris, at their site in this RV Park.  They are fellow full timers and we will be joining them at the Caravan Oasis RV Park in Yuma, AZ this winter.  It will be our first winter as snowbirds and we will appreciate their help in showing us all the amazing things to do in Yuma in the winter.

We have had some good conversations with a couple across the way.  Gary and Julie Butler are here for an extended stay while Gary works on the erection of a tower for wind power generation near Idaho Falls. 

We celebrated Rosie’s birthday with friends Joe and Ann Hayes at Jaker’s, a local fine dining establishment.  We always try to go to Jaker’s for birthdays because the birthday person gets 50% off on their meal and we get a free dessert to share.  By the way, they serve fine food and the service is top notch. 

We met a couple from Coos Bay, Oregon and picked up information about the Oregon Coast (where we will be in two weeks from now).

We both read our daughter, Michelle Sathe’s, latest book “Pit Stops 2”, about her journey around the US with a rescued pit bull dog.  Michelle is a fierce advocate for dog and cat rescue and adoption.

I got the major power steering leak in the truck fixed.  It turns out that same leak was affecting the power brakes.  The truck handles remarkably better now and no puddles under the engine compartment.  Richard’s Diesel and Auto Repair in Idaho Falls did a fabulous job on the repair, even hunting down a used part to save me over $100 on the final bill.

Nine days to departure for points west.  Thanks for stopping by.

Friday, September 7, 2012

A Brief Update

Since we are camped for a month in Idaho Falls doing pretty mundane stuff like medical and dental appointments and socializing with old friends, there is not much exciting to write about.  We did make some new friends here at the Snake River RV Park and Campground;  Brian and Teresa Morris are full timers that lived most of their lives here.  Now they summer in Idaho Falls and winter in Yuma.  Rosie and I told them we were looking for a nice winter spot at a reasonable cost (about $500 a month).  They highly recommended their winter home at the Caravan Oasis RV Resort in Yuma, so Rosie and I will give it a try in January 2013 for a few months. 

Here are some archive photos of the “falls” in Idaho Falls.
04-06-07  Idaho Falls on the 4th of July 012Idaho Falls on the 4th of July 016        04-06-02
Unless something exciting happens, I probably won’t post again until we hit the road for the Oregon coast on the 29th of September.

Thanks for stopping by.