Let the Party Begin!

Hello, All:

To those of you who have followed our adventures traveling around and about this wonderful country of ours, I offer apologies for the long time between posts.  For those of you new to us, welcome, and stand by for a not so interesting introduction to our status.

Donna and I returned from our Summer '13 journey with high hopes of spending a bit of time with family and friends in NorCal, and then exiting in January '14 for points south (and warm).  Well, sometimes our paths take an unexpected turn.  We joined some of our good friends for a trip to Phoenix for one of the years last NASCAR race weekends, and thoroughly enjoyed the trip, however, somewhere along in there I developed a cough that would not go away even with a trip to a "Doc in the Box", and a couple of trips to our family Dr. when we got home.  Finally the situation got so bad that a trip to the E-Dept at one of the local hospitals was necessary, where they found some heart failure issues.  Short story long: the cause remains unknown, as it may be a hereditary thing, or a virus attacked my heart and did some significant damage.  I now enjoy the company of an electronic device called an ICD that not only paces my heart, but stands by to defibrillate if necessary.  Through the excellent care of a number of physicians: our family doc, the cardiologist, and a specialist who is called an "electrophysiologist" (we call him the electrician, because the cardiologist is the plumber, and our family doc is the contractor), I find myself almost as good as new.

This all was not possible without a huge number of friends, family, and professional staff.  Our children and grandchildren who visited the hospital, friends that were a huge support during and after the "procedures", and the staff at the Cardiac Rehab Facility.  Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.  I cannot express the gratitude and love that I have for all of you. You all pitched in when I couldn't do normal tasks and supported Donna through a number of life-changing events.

So here we find ourselves, after spending six months at home waiting for Doctors' visits and tests, in beautiful, downtown, metropolitan Yreka, CA.

 We received the last approval last week, our Grandson Devan graduated from High School yesterday (Yay, Devan!), so today we skipped town.  Yreka is 313 miles north of Sacramento, CA, and the first stop on a trip that should take us to Seattle, Idaho, South Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, and perhaps south into the Gulf Coast before returning home in the Fall. We hope to make new friends, see old ones, and report to you-all what we've seen and done.  This is our first trip without our faithful canine companion of 7 years, Priscilla.  She suffered a massive brain issue (stroke? hemorrhage?), where she completely lost her memory, even forgetting who we were, and shortly thereafter lapsing into a convulsive coma. Thank you to our longtime friend and Veterinary doctor, Randy, who took care of Pris at his personal home, even taking her to bed with him, over the Christmas holiday. This all happened while I was in the hospital, so it added another huge layer of stress to Donnas' life.  So anyway, we are a bit lonely, but hope to find just the perfect pup somewhere along the way to keep us sane.

We're staying at a nice RV Park called……wait for it…….The Yreka RV Park!  It's a great place catering to people traveling up and down I5.  We've stayed here in the past and found it reasonably priced, clean and with friendly staff.

Our good friends Ed and Rosemary, whom we met in Cardiac Rehab, met us along the road as we left Sacramento this morning with "Bon Voyage" signs, fresh cantaloupe and Donuts!  What a sendoff!  Thank you Ed and Rosemary…you're the best!

Now you're all caught up!  Follow along to see where we end up….as we've seen, it may not be where we've planned!