On & Off the Road

This has been a hard summer for us.  We’ve had a great deal of fun, too.  In fact, we’ve had so much fun this summer, it’s kind of hard to explain why I say it’s been a hard one.

I for one didn’t think the summer was particularly hot, though so many people did complain about that here in the Metro Omaha area.  So it wasn’t the climate so much.  The flooding Missouri River, which was in flood stage for 2 months and has done a great deal of infrastructural damage in this area never impacted us.  We live far enough from the river that it would take a great deal more flooding than experienced… virtually a “Great Flood” of “Noah’s proportion” to get us wet!

I guess what made this a hard summer for us, well to be precise for me personally, was the decision we made in July to stop Dad’s Alzheimer’s medications.  We came to the point by mid-July that it just didn’t make sense to continue pumping him with those meds.  They had ceased to provide any benefit for his mind.  He didn’t know who any of us were; he couldn’t string together a single thought.  It was, in the end, the right thing to do.  We knew the ramifications of that.

Two weeks ago today, Dad took ill.  He was admitted to the hospital with a bowel obstruction.  By Friday of that week, it was clear to the doctor that medical intervention alone would not relieve this obstruction, and that surgery would be required.  We decided that surgery was not appropriate given the circumstances.  My brothers were called, and Paul came from Houston immediately.  The doctor removed the hydration line from Dad.

But Dad is a powerful man.  His body is strong, even at 86, one could feel the power in his upper body.  At one point in the hospital dad grasped my forearm in both hands and started to bend… I’m sure my arm would have broken if I had not extricated myself!  And the doctor’s all commented on Dad’s “constitution” being that of a young horse.

By last Tuesday, the doctor (a different one than the one who treated Dad Thursday through Sunday) heard sounds indicating that the bowel was clearing up.  We decided it still would not be wise to restart hydration, in part because his kidney’s were probably shutting down due to 4 days without hydration.  But, inexplicably that afternoon Dad WAS rehydrated.  When challenged, the doctor told us WE could decide to remove the hydration, and that the decision to do so or not was “ethically neutral”.  Thanks Doc.

While we did eventually leave the hydration line in over night, when Dad went back to his Assisted Living facility on Wednesday, he did so without hydration.  The staff there offered him water and swabbed his mouth. 

Saturday morning I stopped in to see Dad and he was asleep.  I was unable to awaken him.  On Sunday I went back, and he was still asleep, and his breathing was very labored.  I made the decision to stay with him overnight, because I was certain the end was near.

During the night I had a dream.  It was a very odd dream.  Or maybe it wasn’t a dream.  In this… dream?… I awoke, about 2:30 am.  There were 3 people in the room, with Dad and I.  I remember my eyes were virtually glued shut with sleep, the way they are when awakened at 3 in the morning.  I blinked repeatedly trying to clear them, and peered at the man and 2 women.  One woman was on the far side of the bed, leaning over Dad, whispering.  There was a man I was certain was Uncle Lyle standing with his left back to me at the foot of the bed, and another woman between him and the bed, mostly obscured.

I was certain it was Uncle Lyle, and when he turned his head as though to look out the window, thus revealing his left profile to me, I was sure it Lyle… that strong Strom profile of both his and Dad.  Then I fell asleep again.

At 7 am, I woke up again; Dad was breathing very heavily, but really no apparent change from the night before.  I stepped out to get a cup of coffee, and stopped at the registration table to see if Uncle Lyle had been there in the middle of the night.  Of course, he hadn’t been!  Returning to Dad’s room, I stopped to chat with a woman my age who was there for pretty much the same reason as I was… her father was in hospice and near the end.  About 7:20, I stepped back into Dad’s room to check on him.

Dad had passed away in those 20 minutes I was out of the room.

I may have had an odd dream that night.  But I really do believe that it was Grandpa Strom and Grandma Strom and Mom come to get him.  And I believed he waited until I left so he could slip away.

I knew Sunday it was the end.  At 2 that day before I left to go home to get some things before returning, I told Dad he had been a marvelous father to the 3 of us, and that he had won the battle he always claimed to be fighting.  I told him he could stop fighting, it was over, and he’d won.  And I told him, “If you see someone come for you, you go with them, and go happy!”

I guess he did.

Wednesday morning, Scott and I both slept late.  By the time we awoke, the sun had risen far enough that there were no more oranges, no more melons and no more golden hues to the sunrise.  The sun was full in the eastern sky.  It was 6 am!  As has become tradition here, I went out, fired up the generator, and started coffee.  Cindy got up (yes, she was up before Juline) and we talked while the coffee brewed.  About the time the pot finished brewing, Juline came out of the tent, ready for coffee.

AFter breakfast, we hurried into Laramie for a few last minute supplies, then back to camp.  All in all, our afternoon was a lazy one.  Some of us read books, I finally figured out why my phone was no longer downloading email, so I read email for a while.  About 3 pm, as seems normal for this location, the sky clouded up, and then, it happened.  We heard the rumbling of a truck.  And INTERLOPERS pulled in to OUR campsite and decided to set up shop between us and the road!  The nerve of them! I sat in front of our trailer under our awning and smiled at them, trying not to let my frustration at their intrusion show. 

It apparently did not work.  One of them walked down and introduced himself.  “I noticed you looked a little put out by our choosing this location, so I thought I better come down and introduce ourselves.  I’m Cole.”

“Oh, no, not at all!” I lied.  “There’s plenty of room here.  As long as we can get in and out of our site by vehicle, it should be okay!”  So then the other three came down.

“This is Erik” Cole introduced a grizzled man who joined us.  “He renovates Fleetwood Travel trailers.”  I was admiring the Avion they were pulling.  A 35 foot, 3 axle trailer from the 50s.  They quickly introduced the other two travelling with them, Heinrich (yes, a German) and Sterling, two men from New York City!  Here, in Wyoming!

We chatted about the wind, and the rain that was falling gently, not enough to drive us under cover.  After about 15 minutes, we noticed the breeze picking up, and Scott and I headed back to our trailer to give our new neighbors time to set up.  Half way to our trailer, I thought to myself “We should really put up the awning in case this wind gets stronger…” and with that a gust of wind came along, and ripped our awning from the side of our trailer!  The support trellises that hold it in place were shattered!

Scott and I and Cindy stood holding the awning for 10 minutes discussing what needed to be done, and had just decided there was nothing for it but to get a knife and cut the awning from the side of the trailer, when along came Erik of grizzled trailer renovation fame with a box of tools.  Ten minutes and considerable swearing later, we slid the awning from the side of the trailer, rolled it up and slid it under the trailer.  We’ll take it home with us and hopefully it won’t be too hard for Scott and I to fix on our own, once we get the new parts. 

And Erik, Cole, and the two New Yorkers are MORE than welcome to be our neighbors for the duration!

By this time, I was also painfully aware that, while the generator was running, it was not supplying power to the trailer, which meant the battery was not charging, and my computer had died and was not recharging!  Oh, grumble of grumbles.

At 5:30, we went down and signed in at “Camp Central”, then ate dinner at the Potluck!  My goodness it was scrumptious!  Mark from the Denver County Sheriff’s office joined us for dinner as did two women that Cindy and Juline had met.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think maybe canine participants out-number human participants here this year!  So many dogs!  Gracie, the adorable 6 month old dachsund, newest owner of Cindy & Juline of course, and the 2 dogs, Maxie and somebody or other with our new neighbors.  Grace is here with Mark who had wanted to leave her home, but she insisted she was NOT too old to go camping one more year.  And then there are poodles, and Corgi/Black lab mixes and pits and well, just dozens upon dozens of canines!

Scott and I sat around a fire with the new neighbors and had a beer and some good conversation.  Then returned to our trailer to prepare for bed.  We turned on the water pump to brush our teeth and were greeted by a pitiful gurgly grinding.  Well, we knew we’d be replacing THAT soon.

I fell asleep thinking “In the morning, we are going to hook up and call it quits.  I am most definitely NOT having fun any more!

Well, here we are at 2 pm on Thursday, Day 2 of Rendezvous, and we’re staying where we are.  The water pump is working fine, the generator is once again doing its thing, and all is well with the world!  Now, let’s see if I can get connected and get this post online!

Ah, dear friends, the stress of trying to meet a daily Blog posting deadline!  So sorry I didn’t get one written, let alone published, yesterday!  I shall attempt to explain why!

Sunday evening shortly after posting “Day 2”, the weather began to turn on us… just a little.  First it rained.  It felt so wonderful, sitting in the comfort of our trailer with all the windows open, watching rain pour on the mountains!  But, then, over night Sunday into Monday, the winds picked up.  Scott and I had forgotten already from years past that wind is the natural state of things here in the mountains of Wyoming!

We were awakened a couple of times during the night by the wind.  Once was to close the windows so that the venetian blinds would stop rattling.  And the second time, the trailer was rocking so much that I couldn’t sleep.

Monday dawned again for us in shades of orange and melon.  But having enjoyed our previous evening’s rum & coke perhaps a teensy bit too much, I slept in until the multi-hued sunrise was nearly over.

Scott and I spent the morning doing a major cleaning of the trailer, going through all the cabinets and picking out things we just no longer needed, and straightening up.  We’ve not done this to this degree before, so it took a couple of hours. 

With our burst of high-energy cleaning out of the way, there was nothing to do but wait for our friends to join us from Omaha.  So, we dozed… but the wind kept up it’s blasting, and the trailer rocked, and the trailer swayed.  And we grew quite tired of the wind.  I knew our friends, who would be staying in a tent would be miserable in that wind… gale force it seemed at times.  So, about 3 pm, we hooked up the trailer, and went in search of a better sight.  We found one with a stunning view, and less vulnerable to the wind than our first site.

We were just moving the second load of stuff down to the new location (Linda, you’ll know our new place… Ft. Collins had a couple of trailers here the year before last, just where the road turns sharply to head up to the meadow where we have stayed the past 3 years) when our friends called and asked for a little help, as they were close but not quite sure of the way in to camp.  So we drove up to the corner where 701 meets 701c, then guided our friends in to our site.

By 6:30, we had their tent set up and our trailer more or less situated, and Scott began cooking.

This morning, since Rendezvous hasn’t officially started, we just sort of puttered around, drove up to the rest stop, then down to Laramie for some more supplies.  Returning to camp, we set up the external shower, and have spent the rest of the day just doing what we do best when camping.  Absolutely nothing.  Sitting.  Chatting.  Playing with the puppy (our friends brought up their 6 month old dachsund pup.)

All in all, our trip is going about the way a camping trip should!