Big Tent show is over and we can relax

We are still in Quartzsite until tomorrow morning. We have reservations for a full-hookup RV park in Yuma where we have friends staying. Laundry will be first on the list!

Back to what we did in the last week. We did take a nice day trip to Lake Havasu City. Kevin had finally ordered a telescope and some accessories, and the only place we could find for Amazon to deliver it was LHC. Odd but true, due to the size of the package. He got excited, and when the app showed the package was out for delivery, we headed up. LHC is about an hour and a half north of Quartzsite, and we wanted to get dinner and do some sightseeing too, so we thought the timing would work. It didn’t, and the package didn’t get delivered until around 8:00 pm after we left! We did enjoy the trip though.

We saw this Osprey take off from the LHC airport! He flew right over us.
Sand dunes on the north end of the lake
The small community of Havasu Lake across the Colorado
Lake Havasu City from a peninsula into the lake
Another view
Looking kind of north-ish across the lake.

We also went looking for boondocking opportunities in the area. We had stayed before in Craggy Wash, a BLM dispersed camping spot, so we went there first. Way too crowded for me, and the spots suitable for bigger rigs were mostly taken. The rocks are cool though!

Pointy craggy
More rounded craggy

There were some promising sites closer to I-40 that we might use some other time. The advantage of these sites is that there is good cellular internet service, a big plus in my book.

Poor Kevin had to return for the telescope on another day, but we enjoyed the trip back to Quartzsite. These were taken from an overlook along the Colorado River north of Parker.

And the telescope did finally show up, though Kevin took another trip to get it. It works well, but a control board in his tracking system is having issues. He can do some pictures, but it requires more manual work than he wants to do. You can see how close we are parked to our friends in the fifth wheel. Just for the rally, we all parked 30’ or so apart, awfully close for dispersed camping. The sites allows for much wider distances most of the time.

The new toy

Speaking of cellular data, the reason I haven’t updated is because there has hardly been any until yesterday! When the hundred thousand or so people show up for the big RV show, service goes to hell. You can generally make calls and text, but internet access becomes almost nonexistent. Now that the show is over and the masses are gone, I have good service. I even streamed some television tonight. Our nearest neighbors, rally friends who also stayed put, are about 100’ away, just about the right distance LOL! I don’t like being right next to even friends if I can help it. One of the major advantages of dispersed camping is you can space yourself out.

Most of the folks left Monday or Tuesday morning ahead of the bad wind storm we had today. It had gusts of 50+ mph and sustained winds of 30 mph for a long time. We just hunkered down and brought in some of the slides. It wasn’t that they were in real danger, but the slide toppers were making a big racket! Before the storm we had some visitors nearby. Quail are my favorite desert bird.

There were actually 7 in the bunch

Another picture before the storm.

Moonrise

We also have a Gila Woodpecker making busy in a nearby saguaro, but I never did get a good picture of it.

I visited the Quartzsite Quilt Guild a couple of times on this trip. Nice group of women, and I got a lot done in their free-sewing time. I sewed 10 new microwave bowl cozies to use as presents, and I finished all the rows of my triangle donation quilt. The plan had been to finish it today, but there was t room with the slides in. In fact, my sewing table is turned upside down on the bed right now! I can get the top finished next week for sure. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I did Dutch Oven dishes for the rally potluck – layered green chili chicken enchiladas and peach cobbler. The cobbler was such a hit I made an apple version on Monday evening, but still no leftovers. Sigh. It all went over well though, and there wasn’t much scraping needed to clean the pots!

Quartzsite, visit #7

We arrived at our campsite in Quartzsite, AZ after a 4 hour drive from Organ Pipe. We stay with a group of friends from an online forum, RVForum.net. As our seventh trip here with them, we don’t go running around as much as we did the first few years. There is a lot more just relaxing, talking by the fire, and doing hobbies. I have the sewing machine out, and I am trying to work on a Drunkard’s Path quilt made with 4” blocks. I am finding it much, much harder than the 7” block version I did a few months back! I also go my sewing machine adjusted so the needle bar was exactly in the hole of the needle plate, but the tiny adjustment has thrown off some of my measurements. I will get used to it, but it is a bit of a struggle. I did cut a bunch of triangles, and I sewed those without a problem. It is always nice to have “mindless sewing” available, something I can just enjoy instead of fussing around.

Kevin discovered why our generator wasn’t charging the new LiFePO4 batteries very quickly. Turns out there was a switch that limited it to 30 amps, and once that was updated we started getting 90 amps charging. That makes the entire process so much faster. We have had quite a few cloudy days here, and the solar just can’t keep up between the clouds, low sun angle, and shorter days. Our 900 watts of panels are flat mounted, and they don’t get more than 300 watts some of the time, and mostly less than that this time of year. That only gets us 18-20 amps from the solar.

Kevin put up our weather station, and I just love knowing the outside temp and humidity. We will eventually get the wind sensor working, but right now the mounting pole moves in the bracket. Kevin is 3D printing a clamp for it now. Hopefully that will correct the pole rotation.

I don’t have many pictures right now, but here is the last picture from Organ Pipe showing the motorhome and our campsite.

Note the generator access panel open on the front. We heard rumors of pack rats, so we kept all the hoods open to discourage them.

I also have a beautiful sunset picture from Quartzsite.

This shows not only the pretty colors, but also how people spread out here in the BLM area. We are in the southwestern Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA) at La Posa Tyson Wash. It is the least crowded of the four LTVAs, being about 3 miles from town. It is still an easy bike ride though, and I prefer the space. Kevin went to town twice, searching for bolts and a new sunscreen for the awning since he somehow managed to crush the zipper pull on the old one. I am staying at the camper, away from the crowds. He is good about wearing a KN95 mask, so he is as safe as a triple vaxed person can be.

Organ Pipe part 2

The sunrise this morning was spectacular!

Sunrise from the campsite

Today we took another scenic drive, the Puerto Bueno road. It is labeled as needing high clearance, but I think most passenger cars could do it. Certainly a basic SUV could manage it. I didn’t take as many pictures as yesterday of the plants, because I did so many yesterday, but I still got some nice shots to remind me of the area. Might as well get to it!

The front plant is a teddy bear cholla while the back on is a chain cholla.
The organ pipes live right on the rocks
Top and bottom of hill is solidified slow moving magma called “ryolite.” Middle is “tuff” or solidified ash
We found one cholla blooming
Close up of bloom
Bonita Well was a popular way stop in years past
Corrals at Bonita Well
Pretty much the perfect saguaro at Bonita Well
Surveillance equipment for the border

This is the first time I had see “The Wall” in person. It is just as ugly and intrusive as I had heard. I know we need to keep people from crossing illegally into the most inhospitable part of Arizona (they DIE!), but having a big area literally plowed clear in a National Monument seems wrong.

Note the person-sized gates on this section.

Climbing over the hills

After we finished the road, we headed to the historic town of Ajo for some ice cream. The town originally was a company town founded to support a huge open pit copper mine, the New Cornelia, now closed. Some of the by-products of the original mine are still being sold for other purposes.

The dry containment ponds from Ajo copper mine. They stretch much longer than my camera could photograph
The mine overlook

The town itself has a very pretty historic district including this lovely town square. Surprisingly the town still looks pretty prosperous in contrast with other mining towns after a closure.

The historic square of Ajo

We are packing up today to head to Quartzsite tomorrow. Going to camp in the desert with friends for a while. It will probably be difficult to post due to data issues with the hundreds of thousands of people who show up for the winter, but we will get to some other towns off and on.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, part 1

Warning: picture heavy!

We left Willcox to head to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Like Joshua Tree, Organ Pipe was protected specifically for one type of cacti. Organ Pipes grow mostly in Mexico, but the almost all of the US ones are protected in the monument. As we drove into the Sonoran Desert, I noted again just how lush this desert is compared to the Mohave or the Great Basin deserts I am more familiar with. We drove through some lovely mountainous country and reached the campground about 3:00. While I had reserved a nice long site, we had the devil of a time getting into it. The entry road is only one lane and the pad was only one lane, but my motorhome take 2 1/2 – 3 lanes to turn right! We ended up going to the other side of the pull through site and backing in. The resulting location is wonderful though with decent screening by native plants all around us. We have saguaro, organ pipes, mesquite, teddy bear cholla, and brittle bush just outside the door.

Organ pipe at the edge of our campsite. I didn’t it it, but someone did.

We generally just got set up and relaxed. We had shopped in Willcox, so Kevin made smash burgers on the Blackstone grill for dinner. Yum.

Today we drove a wonderful interpretive nature trail – the Ajo Mountain Loop. It is just over 20 miles, and we took a leisurely 3 hours, stopping a lot for pictures and to read the information about each numbered stop. I am just going to drop lots and lots of pictures with captions.

There were windows/arches. These two had a trail to them.
This little window was more hidden
You know I love rocks, this is Ajo Mountain
Baby organ pipes use other plants to protect them
Baby saguaros also nestle in other plants for protection
This shows all the spikes on a mature organ pipe
There are other plants. These yellow flowers are blooming next to a brittle bush
A dead saguaro showing the substructure
A dead cholla showing its structure. Interesting shapes!

There were a few birds out and about.

The nest of a cactus wren
Some kind of hawk
Another hawk
A small bird that visited the campsite. Great camouflage!

We got gas at Lukeville, 5 miles away right on the Mexican border. The gas station was actually closer to Mexico than the entry to the border crossing! We had fajitas made on the Blackstone, and generally just relaxed until we’ll after the sun went down. Tomorrow is another scenic drive, so I hope to post more pictures then. We head to Quartzsite the day after.

Monahan Sandhills, Deming, and Willcox areas

After we left Abilene, we decided to head to Monahans Sandhills State Park in Texas. It was just an overnight, but it was a relaxing stop. We got there in plenty of time to sit outside in the warm temps. The campsites are pullouts on the side of the road, and ours was listed as 40’. However it was plenty long enough for both the 40’ motorhome and the Jeep. Even better, it was deep enough that I didn’t worry about someone hitting the slide outs, something g that has worried me about other pullout spots! Here is a bit of a sample.

And the sunset was gorgeous!

We next drove the short trip to Willcox, AZ. We stayed at Lifestyle RV Resort. It wasn’t bad with level sites, but I wouldn’t call it a resort even with an indoor hot tub. The sites were crowded on a gravel parking lot. The good thing was it was relatively inexpensive, level, and all the utilities worked just fine. We managed to get all our laundry done, some shopping accomplished, and we enjoyed a few short trips.

Chiriacahua National Monument was our primary place to visit. It is a pretty small place with only one scenic drive, but it was lovely. The rock columns are the draw here, and readers should know by now I like rocks!

Columns were all along the road
Rocks are definitely the draw
My favorite view
This green lichen was on one side of a lot of the rocks
Columns were all along the road

We saw lots of interesting birds including hummingbirds (no pictures), Mexican Jays, and another one I don’t recognize. We also caught a glimpse of some type of weasel, but I didn’t see enough to identify it.

Mexican jays were abundant
Here’s looking at you kid
Wish I knew what this robin-sized bird is

The day after Chiricahua we went to Cochise Stronghold in the Coronado National Forest. Cochise and his band were able to hold out here for long enough to convince the US to let him stay after making the area an Apache reservation. More rocks!

This shows a part of homestead that is now available for rent through the NFS.
There are a number of inholdings in the area

Wilcox also has a nice apple business where Kevin bought a great apple crumble pie. Nice supper treat.

We leave tomorrow for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I expect poor or no service, so it will probably be a few days before another post.

On the road again

I said last time I have been in a blogging funk, so nothing has been written. I have been slowly recovering from my shoulder surgery, but it has been slow. I think the soreness is one of the reasons I haven’t been doing as much. We have been doing a few things though! We had Thanksgiving dinner with three of our kids and all six of the grandkids, something that hasn’t happened before! We went a bit non-traditional with a smoked turkey and sous vide sirloin. It was a much more relaxing approach, and I think I will repeat it in the future. We also had Christmas with all four kids, spouses, a girlfriend, and five of the grandkids. Even nicer was the meal was mostly made by my oldest son and his wife, both great cooks. It is time to start transferring host duties.

I have also been in a quilting funk. I have only finished one quilt for my daughter. I was lucky to get time with each of the older two granddaughters, 12, to do some sewing. They each got to pick out fabric for a pillowcase, and then they sewed it by themselves. They were appropriately pretty proud of themselves.

We couldn’t leave right after Christmas because I needed to get a laser treatment on my eye. Nothing critical, just clearing out some film behind the cataract lens. Then we had snow and ice, so we didn’t leave until 30 December. We made it only to Lakeside Casino Campground in Osceola, IA to get the rig dewinterized and filled up with water. The campground has definitely had better days, but it is open all year and in a convenient location for getting things set for the trip.

Bad weather was dogging us, so instead of the two days we planned on to Oklahoma City, we pushed through the 500+ miles in one day. We decided we would much rather be stuck two or three days there rather than somewhere along the road. Good thing because we made it just before very cold weather with sleet and ice! And guess what else we found wrong with the rig? The thermostatically controlled outlet for the wet bay stopped working, and we didn’t have good luck with temps going to mid single digits. Kevin tried some other options like an incandescent trouble light and a heating pad, but we had frozen water by the morning of 2 January. Sigh. I looked at Kevin and said “I want to go south!” So we did. We chose to leave OKC and headed to Abilene, TX. By noon we had water again, and by 3:00 or so we were set up at the KOA. Nice place. While we aren’t far off I-20, I don’t hear the traffic.

We decided to stay 2 nights in Abilene to throughly warm ourselves up. Today we went to the Frontier Texas Museum, and it was fabulous! It has multi-media interpretive displays showing the viewpoints and experiences of the natives and the Anglos. Lots of fascinating immersive exhibits, and I highly, highly recommend it. I also got a bunch of equilateral triangles cut with my Accuquilt for use as what I call “mindless sewing”, an easy way to sew while traveling. I also have a 4” Drunkard’s Path die along with a bunch of fat quarters of fabric to cut. I will use the scraps from that to make more triangles later. The DP definitely isn’t mindless, but I do really like the design. Hopefully I can get two lap quilts done by the time we get to the FMCA rally at the end of the March. They always collect quilts for a local charity in the area of the rally.

Tomorrow we are heading farther down the road, but only 200 miles so we stop ahead of some heavy winds. I promise to post more!

End of 49ers Encampment and heading home

Warning – another picture heavy post!

We finally got all the work done on the Jeep, and it was expensive. Just part of the joy of MH ownership, and we have been pretty lucky until now. There has been so much travel to Las Vegas that we really didn’t want to do a lot more travel. That is the excuse I am going to give for not hitting the big tourist spots in Death Valley this time. We didn’t even do any of the 4WD trips! We did get to some of the historical presentations, all the music acts, and some other presentations.

We also took time to buy a Blackstone grill while in Las Vegas. Kevin has been looking at them, and the Camping World there had one at last year’s price, a significant savings. So far we are enjoying it. Kevin has made hamburgers, fajitas, and grilled potatoes. It is a bit of a pain to clean, but that should get better as the seasoning improves. Kevin installed a propane tap to the MH so it is easy to attach an external device to the MH’s propane tank instead of having to use a separate propane bottle – handy.

We headed into Beatty, NV one day to go to their famous candy store. And of course we bought a bunch of nuts and candy. They have some things hard to find anywhere else. Right at the edge of Beatty we found two of the famous donkeys. They are a standard sight here, and very popular with tourists. They are truly a dreadful thing in the wild though, displacing the native big horn sleep.

Found on the west side of Beatty, NV

Heading back to the campground, I took some pictures of Death Valley at sunset.

Near the bottom of Sunrise Pass looking south

There really is no way of showing the vastness of the park. The picture above shows probably 30 miles.

Daylight view from CA 190
From the Texas Springs Road showing the salt pan to the north
Looking from Texas Springs Road above Sunset Campground, NPS Visitor Center foreground right.

The huge alluvial fans coming from the mountains are amazing, this one shown above is probably 5-7 miles wide. They are a very distinctive feature of the park, and they show up everywhere.

With all the beauty around us, you don’t generally stay at the campground to “camp”. It is more a place to rejuvenate, eat, and sleep. That’s good because the campground is basically a big gravel parking lot. It is cheap though – $7.00 a night with our senior pass. There are flush toilets (no showers) plus a dump station with fresh water. This year there weren’t nearly as many people attending. They didn’t even open the first overflow camp area until Thursday, and normally they have all three overflows open and occupied by Monday or Tuesday.

Sunset Campground during the Encampment

Another thing about the Furnace Creek area is the legendary fuel prices, generally the most expensive in the country.

Yup, those are the real prices

Also in the park (but regulated by NPS contract), the price for regular gasoline is $4.86 at Stovepipe Wells. Outside the park in Nevada at the casino, the price was $3.88. It is well worth the time to drive the 35 miles to Nevada! The Furnace Creek prices are the best advertisement I know of against unbridled capitalist greed. Stovepipe Wells is just as far from distribution sources, and they charge more than  $2 per gallon less.

One thing nice about Nevada and California is they allow both medical and recreational sale of cannabis. I was able to refill the gummies I use to manage the residual pain in my shoulder for a much better price than I can going to Illinois at home. Using them I have been able to stop the ibuprofen that I have been on since surgery, giving my belly a much wanted relief. I take 10 mg each night, and I also take CBD gummies to reduce inflammation. The combination has really helped. I have to use the gummies because there is absolutely no way I am smoking anything!

Getting back to the Encampment, the biggest event is always when the wagon train comes in. This year they had 14 wagons travel the 100 miles from the far southern edge of the park to Furnace Creek. I will just post the pictures without captions because they are pretty self-explanatory. They are lead in by the Marine mounted color guard from 29 Palms. Each of the color guards trains their own horse, chosen from mustangs sold by the BLM. Impressive!

Marine color guard

We left Death Valley on Sunday. We spent Sunday night at the Seligman, AZ KOA. Monday we stayed at Lavaland RV Park in Grants (nice brewery associated with it), Tuesday and Wednesday we were at the Tucumcari KOA waiting out a wind storm, and tonight we are at Mustang Run RV Park on the west side of Oklahoma City. We will spend Friday night at a Boondockers Welcome site near Kansas City, then home!

Finally made it to Death Valley

We left North Platte on Friday,29 October. We stayed at the KOA in Rawlins, a nice spot, then got to the Salt Lake City KOA late morning on Saturday. We were able to meet up with friends, ate well, but only had the two little kids camped next to us a Trick or Treaters. I gave an entire bag of candy to one of my friends to take into work! We stayed until Tuesday morning, the headed on our way. We spent the night at the Eureka Casino in Mesquite, NV. Very quiet, but we sure had to pull out the leveling blocks!

After we left Mesquite, we started getting check engine lights on the motorhome. The error was low manifold pressure, so we called to Freightliner in Las Vegas to check it out. Turns out a hose had developed a crack and needed replaced. Since it was a formed hose, it had to be ordered from the warehouse in Phoenix. They let us stay overnight next to their lot, and then replaced the hose the next morning. $45 hose, $40 shipping, and the rest of the $600+ bill was labor. Sigh. This is the first non-routine issue we have had in 3 1/2 years and almost 40,000 miles, so I won’t complain too much. Still, it was too bad this didn’t happen at home with $95/hour labor rates instead of the $175/hour in Vegas.

We finally got set up at Death Valley, and we lucked into our favorite site! It is on the east side of the lot with nothing between us and the mountains except a small road. My camera was dead, so I hope you can stand these iPhone photos.

Timbisha Shoshone settlement and headquarters on the left and part of the staff housing for Furnace Creek on the right.
Rather flat light, but the color contrast is still interesting
The mountains at sunset looking a bit south
Mountains at sunset looking a bit north

I can look at those mountains all day! We haven’t had a lot of chance though because Kevin discovered the base plate on the Jeep was loose. This is what attached to the tow bars to tow the Jeep, so loose is a danger! The closest place was Vegas again, this time Indoor RV Center. They came recommended, and so far is seems valid. They saw us on Friday to evaluate and quote the repairs, then on Monday Kevin drove back to get the repair completed. It would have been completed then, but we have discovered the idiots who originally installed it didn’t follow the directions or use the right parts! I am livid. We had to have a complete new baseplate installed plus extra labor to drill out or cut off a bunch of bolts put in wrong. It was so much work that we had to come back today too! Since northern Vegas is a bit over 2 hours from Death Valley, that is an awful lot of driving. We don’t know the final bill, but it will be north of $1500. The shop rate here is even worse than the Freightliner dealer – $189. They do seem to know what they are doing though, and a base plate is a critical piece of safety equipment. We just can’t stand to have an issue with it, and better here than Canada or Alaska next summer!

We have yet to attend a single 49ers activity, but we will start this evening if we get back in time. And we have the funds to pay the bills since we knew this day would come. Hopefully my next post will be much more positive.

On the road again!

Finally! I had my last PT on Monday morning followed by my last orthopedist appointment. I am officially released. I am still not recuperated completely though, and I will need to work on strengthening the unused muscles a lot more. I still get store and stiff, and I have trouble sleeping in the bed, but we are out traveling!

We left on Tuesday afternoon, hoping to beat the “Bomb Cyclone” leftovers headed for the Midwest. We made it to the Cabela’s just south of Omaha Monday night and stayed in their parking lot. A bit noisy, but better than a Walmart. We left early, still trying to get as far ahead of the forecast winds as we could manage. We only made it to North Platte, NE where we have been stuck for 3 nights. Luckily the campground, Holiday RV Park is a reasonable place to stay. They still have water on, and it is nice to have access to electric heat. We had lunch one day at a great place downtown – Good Life on the Bricks. It was mostly a BBQ place, and we both enjoyed it. We also ate at Sonic one night – green chili hamburger!

Here’s a picture of winds that came through. See how narrow the frontal boundary is? And it was right on top of us. There was over an inch of rain dropped, but it was accompanied by hail, thunder, and lots of lightening in addition to 50+ mph gusts. The MH definitely rocked and rolled. The campground has been filling up the last 2 days with other work refugees. Luckily Friday is looking good, and we intend on heading out early in the morning,

Wind forecast. Gusts were much worse.
Rain forecast. The pink is for wind warnings.

While we are stuck in North Platte, we got groceries and wandered around some. There was one older house that had gone all out for Halloween.

Combo of plastic and carved pumpkins
Lots of inflatables

But the one that caught my eye is the house with tan siding next door. This was their sign:

Why compete?

The cats have adjusted pretty well. Luna is still her cuddly self. Minnie hides more so no picture. Minnie is actually on anti-anxiety meds, and they are helping. She probably will always be easy to spook, but it doesn’t seem like she lives in terror of everything. Poor baby!

Don’t leave me!

Kevin went to Golden Spike Tower, a railway museum. North Platte is home to a HUGE rail yard, and he said there were lots of various locomotives on view. I stayed back and got a bit of sewing done. I always like having some bowl cozies around as gifts, and I was completely out. I now have two available if I need them. I used my new edge stitch foot and my roller foot, two feet I bought this summer during Bernina’s 25% off sale. The vintage 830 Record machine I have in the MH doesn’t use the same feet the other Bernina does, so I have been adding to the nice selection that it came with.

Speaking of sewing machines, I almost forgot the lovely vintage 730 Record I picked up a month or so back. I wanted a backup machine, and this was sold by a Bernina store in Minnesota. We drove up, and it was in perfect shape. I should have gotten pictures, but I was so sore when we got back I forgot to take any. Lovely machine, heavy, perfect stitch, all the original accessories, all tucked into a cool green suitcase.

We are leaving here tomorrow morning heading to Rawlings, WY. Hopefully we will make it to Salt Lake on Saturday early enough to see some trick or treaters in the KOA campground. I was told the Mormon Church, pretty strong in the area obviously, had decreed Saturday was Trick or Treat Day so everyone can concentrate on church on Sunday. Sigh. I figure we will be ready both Saturday and Sunday. I am hoping to do some banking, connect with some friends, and do some shopping before we head to Death Valley on Tuesday.

ETA I fixed the typos! I have to improve my proof reading skills.

Blogging block

It has been 2 1/2 months since my last post. I guess I just have lost my blogging mojo. Some of it is not being on a trip (I always post more when traveling), and some has just been the  blandness of preparing then recovering from rotator cuff surgery.

To start, we did get home from the Badlands. We stayed one night at the KOA in Mitchell, a nice enough place. We then spent a night at a Boondockers Welcome site in Truman, MN (southwestern Minnesota) before coming home. We thought we had to rush home to get to a rescheduled pre-surgery appointment only to get it rescheduled (for the third time!) a week later with a different practitioner. I wasn’t pleased, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. It didn’t get rescheduled until we were already almost home.

I had surgery on 30 July, and it was truly as awful as everyone says. I was so sore and hobbled with the sling and pillow. I also got an open incision instead of the arthroscopic surgery the surgeon had discussed. That made everything more sore and longer to heal. Six weeks in the nasty sling, PT every week day with the therapist just moving my arm (passive range of motion). I must have built up some scar tissue because the ROM sucked. The therapist basically had to break it up and that hurts! I actually cried a few times, and I was one fairly heavy meds. At 6 weeks I was liberated from the sling, and after 8 weeks I finally got an acceptable ROM. I am now in the strengthening phase meaning I can pick up a one pound weight and move it around below shoulder height. Slow progress, but definitely progress. I can drive! I can do my hair! I can dry my back! Funny how little things take a huge importance when you haven’t done them for 2 months. I get another 4 weeks of 3X a week PT plus exercises at home, then I get partially released. Good thing because we are heading to Death Valley with a detour through Salt Lake City to see friends. We won’t be back until the week before Thanksgiving, so I will be doing my exercises on my own then. After the trip, I will work with the PT some more. It truly is a long recovery.

We did enjoy a weekend with most of the kids and grandkids (plus a SIL and a girlfriend). We rented a spot at Pleasant Creek State Park, and my DD and SIL rented one next door. They stayed in our little motorcycle tent camper, and the rest of the family stayed in tents. We ate food cooked over the fire, and the kids all had a blast. I only have a few pictures. One of my children allows their kids a big social media presence while the other doesn’t.

 

Clay had a fabulous time
Callyn is a busy girl, but she stayed still at least once
Sergeant Schmitty is one of my grand dogs (golden doodle)
Mark had an exhausted Sergeant Schmitty on his lap. Sorry for the quality of this one! You can see his other dog’s ear (Grizzly, a black German Shepherd).

I am hoping to get back some blogging enthusiasm soon. I am actually hoping to get some sewing done this weekend too! I can’t quilt (can’t push that much weight), but I can piece, so I want to finish the rows of a quilt for my daughter. Hopefully I stay feeling good.