The "adventures" aren't always the fun ones you expect!

The knock on our door came at about 10:30pm.  It was our friend apologizing, asking us if we could take her and Bob to the hospital.  He was experiencing nausea, shortness of breath and dizziness.  It could be just his inner ear - but it could be a stroke - she didn't want to take the chance.  Judy's an RN and I trust her judgement!  I told her to give me a minute to put on some street clothes and Jack to find out where the nearest hospital was and we would be right there.

We had all just arrived at Lake Havasu that afternoon from a week in dusty, dry Quartzsite.  We had spent the afternoon enjoying the day washing off the dirt, walking around the lake and kicking back just relaxing.

The staff in the ER were super.  They took Bob right in and immediately attended to him.  Throughout the night (and early morning) they would ask me if I would like a blanket, as I "looked cold".  Somewhere around 2am they gave up on me saying "no thank you" and brought me two heated ones anyway, ohhh, they were nice...

Finely around 3am, Judy said they had run most of the tests, but wanted to keep hm overnight and do an MRI so were going to move him into a room and we could leave soon.  He was doing much better now tho.

As we drove back to the campground we spotted the moon hanging so low and so pretty, we all thought it was a picture on a billboard at first!  Guess we aren't used to seeing it at 4am!  ;-)

After a few hours of sleep and fresh showers, we were back at the hospital to see what was up.  The cell service here in the campground is awful, as we are in a canyon and all you get (if you get) is "I can't hear you" from the other end.  We found Bob sitting up and having lunch, feeling just fine!  ;-)  He had taken all his tests, but no one had been in to tell him any results.  We called for the nurses to find out what was going on and soon learned that this staff was very different from the ER staff!

Hours went by waiting on the staff Dr. to show up to tell us the results...but the good news was that it wasn't a stroke!  It was his inner ear exacerbated by not moving for a long time (computer games).  All is well now. 

It was 5 o'clock by the time we left - in time for all of us to go out and celebrate at our favorite hamburger place in town, Mudsharks Brewery!  Phew!  Not the way we intended to start our week here, but a great way to begin again!

Looking forward to showing our friends around the lake and enjoying some sunshine together!

...kicking back in Arizona,  Marie

Welcome home!

Although San Diego CA is not our "legal" home state, it is where we spent the last 40+ years (husband) and 55+ years for me.  So, every January we come here to visit friends and family and to "thaw out" from the last couple of months of the cold, damp weather of the north.

We don't usually drive an 8 hour day, not our style.  If you follow my blogs, you know it's all about enjoying the day, so usually we drive about 4 hours, settle in and see our surroundings.  Well, we were a bit anxious to get there, so we pushed it - 8 hours!  We were familiar with the drive, reminded of the traffic (ugh) and determined to get into town in time for the sunset.  We weren't disappointed - it was beautiful!  I didn't bother taking my camera, I just dashed to the water's edge (we always stay at Mission Bay RV Park) and just enjoyed it.  I leaned against the fence and said to myself "welcome home Marie".   It was warm, the sky was orange and for the first time in weeks all I had on that evening was a long sleeve shirt.  Lovely.

Don't get me wrong, Southern California isn't "perfect", it's crowded, over-priced, noisy, has crazy politics and probably a bunch of other problems, but...the weather is heaven!  After driving all over the country, enjoying low gas prices, "normal" traffic, reasonable food prices, etc, coming back into California, especially through Silicone Valley for three weeks, it was almost a shock to our system!  There were times when the traffic was so bad that I had to close my eyes for fear of screaming - and I'm the passenger!  My daughter told me to stop grimacing and scaring her, that this was "normal" here!  I'd forgotten how awful the drivers were here!  Last night, in San Diego, there were a couple of small accidents and all of the side roads, freeways, etc were bumper-to-bumper for hours! For hours!  I remember those days, yuck, no more, thank you.  Yep, it has lovely weather.  Keep reminding yourself of that. You don't even want me to get started on the price differences on food and gas!  ha ha

But...our wonderful friends and family live here, so we get the luxury of visiting and enjoying this great weather, in January when the rest of the world is freezing (I'm so sorry).  Seeing the Zoo, seeing how the progress is going on the San Salvador with the Blacksmiths, going to lunches and dinners, seeing all the changes in the city since last year (and in our previous jobs).  Then there's always the job of weeding all the "stuff" out that we've collected along the way (how does that happen?) and taking it to storage.  Good ol' spring cleaning!  Then...we're off for the next year's adventure!

We are so excited for 2014!  Several of our friends are getting back into RVing and I think that we will be seeing them more this year, which we are really looking forward to!  We've also made some new friends along the way, who are making plans on meeting up with us as well, so that will be great too.  It's always nice to have company!  After we leave the San Diego area we are heading to Quartzsite AZ to one of the largest RV shows there is.  About 150,000 folks converge on this tiny desert town for a week to see every possible thing that you could ever even think you might want for your rig, or maybe a brand new or a used rig to buy!  We are meeting 3 other couples there for the week!  I'm really excited - both for the experience of the show, but also for the first time of being with friends camping for the week!  Cool!

This is last year at Mission Bay, it always looks the same!

Our day at the Zoo!

Jack catching up with his Blacksmith buds at the San Salvador site

 See, 2014 is going to be a great year!  Glad you are coming along with us!

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/