On & Off the Road

Twenty two years ago, while I was living in El Sobrante, California, I had a fibrous cyst removed from my back, up by my neck.  I remember it probably a bit better than I remember anything else from that time frame because of the complications that arose from that surgery.  Nothing really serious, but enough to stay in my memory.

Some time abut 12 years later, I noticed a bump in that same region.  Remembering that the first bump was a fibrous cyst, I didn’t take any great concern at it’s return.  Some time in the next couple of years, while at the doctor’s office, I mentioned it to him in an “oh, yeah, I’ve got this bump thing.”  He looked at it, and declared that it was probably a fibrous cyst, and that there was no rush to move to remove it.  We measured it, as best we could, at about the size of a pea.

Last summer, I went to see my doctor about something.  We had a look at all the “systems”.  I knew my medical insurance was running out, so we did a bit of a brief physical.  We measured the cyst again, and it really hadn’t grown much.  It was the size of an almond… a shelled almond.  “Nothing to be concerned about, unless you WANT me to take it out.”  His body language said “Please say no”, so I said no.

Somewhere around early March, I found my hand moving to touch the area rather frequently… and I noticed something… the cyst was exuding some kind of odor… I can’t put my finger on it.  It doesn’t do that all the time, and it isn’t doing so now.  But it’s an unpleasant odor.

As you all know, I’ve been doing a lot of walking.  My back has been a bit sore during this walking.  I knew that was coming, I anticipated it.  I do have arthritis in my spine.  Yesterday my back was hurting, and it had migrated up in to my neck.  As the day wore on, the pain became worse.  Last night at dinner, we entertained some very good friends.  While at dinner, my hand, unbeknownst to me, crept up to the cyst.

“OH MY GOSH, Scott!  There’s a golf ball lodged in my neck!” I exclaimed.  I kid you not.  Some time over the past 3 months, I don’t know when.  It might have been gradual, it might have occurred literally overnight, but at some point, this little almond sized, smelly cyst has become a friggin’ golf ball… maybe larger!  And it HURTS HURTS HURTS!  And I am now aware that the pain in my back seems to be radiating OUT from the cyst.

I slept very badly last night.  Any pressure on my neck is excruciating, and would wake me up.  On top of that, our bedroom is very cold, for some reason, but last night I perspired heavily through the night, sticking to the sheets.  That tells me there’s a fever.

Well, it’s time to call the doctor.  I’ll do that tomorrow and get this removed.

Ugh.

Okay, today’s post is short.  Just like my walk today!

There is, it seems, a limit to the joys of walking!  Tonight, my shins are killing me.  And my legs feel like I’ve walked a hundred miles.  Perhaps next week, I should be a little more careful, walk a little less.  Take better care and build up to what I’ve been doing!

On my walks, I’ve encountered some interesting buildings… buildings I never knew existed in Omaha.  For instance, here’s an interesting one:

This is the Omaha National Bank building… Omaha’s first “skyscraper” build in 1888!  It’s rather interesting architecture.  Here’s a closeup of the statue above the door:

These photos really aren’t all that good, I’m afraid.  They’re taken with my Blackberry.  Yes, Kate, I know.  I should get one of them new-fangled iPhone thingy’s so I can take better pictures… AND use Yelp!  I’m waiting for the check.

It’s been an awful long time since I last posted an entry on our blog.  I’m sorry to you all for that.  As you are probably all aware, I started a new job the day after Scott and I got home from our trip to California and New Mexico.  Because of that, time has been a little shorter for me than it has been in the past.  And, to be quite honest (and admittedly more than a little silly) I’ve been afraid to write much about my new job for fear of jinxing it!  Even though I don’t really believe in jinxing.

My job is in Downtown Omaha, near the corner of 18^th and Harney.  There’s something downtown Omaha has that my previous office in west Omaha did not.  And that, quite simply put, is “Something Fun To Do”.  It has character.  There are sidewalks and places to see!  It’s fun down here!

Scott and I have gotten into a routine.  We leave home about 7:25ish, and head west.  I won’t go in to the details of that, though right now that isn’t as straight forward as it might seem.  Ah, what the heck, I’ll tell all.  The 16^th St. Viaduct in Council Bluffs is being renovated starting this past Monday.  This means that the viaduct EAST bound lanes are being torn out, concrete, girders and all.  West bound traffic has been diverted to Avenue G and the new viaduct up there, while east bound is now using the west bound lanes on the old viaduct.  Anyhow.  Scott and I leave at 7:25 a.m.

We reach 19^th and Dodge in Omaha at about 7:45 a.m.  There, I am dropped off, and walk the 4 blocks south to my office.  I stop in the Civic Center for coffee en route.

I’m discovering all sorts of new restaurants that I never knew existed down in the heart of Omaha.  Indian and Thai and Bob’s Grill… there are different food vendors in the Civic Center every day… and I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s available yet!

Paul & Deb will appreciate that I even have stopped in at the Jazz and actually enjoyed it!  The 4 of us ate there and hated it back in September 2007.  At lunch it’s fun!

As a contractor, I’m not allowed to work any over-time for DOT.COMM.  So, I’m out of the office most days at 4:30.  What to do, what to do?  Walk!

I’m having the time of my life walking!  Since I started counting 2 weeks ago today, I’ve logged over 40 miles!

So, that brings us to the end of today’s post.  I’ll have more to post in the next few days.

Well, our whirlwind tour is complete.  We are home.

Today was by far the hardest of days.  In the days before leaving Alamogordo for home, we were aware of a pending winter storm along our route.  However, reports we were watching implied that we’d probably encounter very little problem.  Ugh.  So much for reports and implications.

We arrived in Elk City on time as reported last night.  But as we watched the news after posting my last entry, it became clear bad weather was ahead of us.  We made the decision to take a short rest, then leave at midnight.

Midnight came, and sure enough the wind had died down, so we pulled out of the campground and headed east.  It was shortly after getting on the interstate that we remembered we didn’t have running lights OR taillights!  A passing semi alerted us to the fact.  We were determined, however, to proceed, so we turned on our emergency flashers and drove on. 

As we approached Oklahoma City, the sleet started, and the wind picked up again.  In Yukon, 102 miles down the road, we stopped for gas and realized we’d probably made a mistake, so we found a Target parking lot, and crawled back in to the camper and tried to sleep.  By now it was 3 a.m.

The wind rocked the camper and at times, I was sure we’d roll over!  But after an hour, at last I fell asleep.  We awoke at 6:00 a.m. and again hit the road.

Over the next 3 hours, we drove 80 miles to Perry, OK.  We stopped for breakfast, but then decided to keep on “truckin’”!  This far, our journey had been ice and snow, and very stressful.  I was actually feeling a little scared to get back on the road… but we did.  I’m glad!

Shortly after crossing in to Kansas, the weather and the road began to clear.  And, eventually, after 13 and half hours of driving, we arrived home!

As I sit here on my sofa, I still am feeling the motion of the road!  And I am SO ready for bed!

It is with a little disappointment that we left Alamogordo this morning at 9 a.m. (CDT)  Scott and I both really like spending time with Scott’s family.  His parents are fantastic people to just hang around with.  Terry and her two girls are a blast!  Eleanor is just about the cutest little bug you can imagine, and Bethany is such a bright girl… her intelligence is really a bit daunting.  I mean, come on!  An 11 year old girl whose favorite class is LATIN!!!!!

The day started off good.  We left Alamogordo at 8 a.m. (Mountain time) drove north to Tularosa, then cut over on US60 through Ruidoso, Roswell, and Clovis to Hereford, then north to Amarillo and finally to Elk City.

The first leg of the journey went fantastic, no wind, we made good time and just over 9 miles to the gallon!  That is fantastic!

However, from then on, the wind picked up and we made much less progress, averaging around 5.5 mpg.

We got to our little home-away-from-home about 6 p.m.  It’s quite a bit chillier here than it was in Alamogordo. 

We’re worried a bit about the storm screaming down through the Rockies, and on to the lower plains.  Omaha, I guess, isn’t supposed to get hit too bad, but it looks like we might be!

We’ll just have to see.  I really need to be home relatively early on Sunday, to prepare for this big week ahead!

Hey friends & family,

I’ve just learned, after a 4 day silence during which I had come to believe that the worst may have happened, that the young man, Tyler, whom I asked you all to pray for back on Tuesday, was brought out of his coma today.  His condition is still guarded.  He is still unable to talk, but is interacting with his family.  They are still requesting prayer.

So, to all you who prayed, thank you!

Eric

Hi all.  This prayer request comes from the brother of a friend of a friend of someone I kind of know.  It doesn’t really matter how I know him.  I just know this.  A young man by the name of Tyler has been in a horrible auto accident, and is now in a coma.  His brother has requested prayers.

Sunday, August 9, 2009.  Yesterday after our visit to the Cheyenne Public Library, Scott and I drove around Cheyenne for a while, seeking out a grocery store to pick up a few things we needed for this morning’s breakfast, then topped off the tank and returned to our campsite.  We were gone a lot longer than we anticipated we would be, partially because we also needed to stop up at the Happy Jack Rd. rest area for more water.  The pump up there is pretty slow… it took nearly 5 minutes each to fill our two 6 gallon water jugs.  We started filling the 20 gallon water bladder, but that was going to take so long that we decided against it.  As it turned out we really didn’t need it!

Back at camp, Tom was just finishing cello practice.  Ray was off partying.  The girls were… up to something, not sure what, but they were away from their campsite.  Scott marinated the steak, and I am not really sure what I did!

Dinner of fajitas & wine was magnificent!  Then, Tom took off to find the parties while Scott and I cleaned up and then enjoyed a little quiet time at the trailer.

This morning, we were up by 7:00 and started breaking camp.  The ladies showed up at 9:45 after breaking their site down, and loading their trailer.  As has been the norm, we had a delightful breakfast… Ray cooked omelets.  (Hmmm… that’s how spell checker said to spell it, but it doesn’t quite look right to me!)… and Tom fried up some more bacon.

We did have a bit of an alarm cooking… Tom was also going to make raisin toast, but all the electric shut down when he plugged in the toaster.  We hunted through all the fuses and the GFCI trying to find out what went wrong.  It turns out the generator overloaded and stopped functioning.  We had to power it off, then restart it to get electricity flowing again… by which time, Tom had toasted the raisin bread on the grill… MMMmmmmm!

By noon we were on the road after once again experiencing a little problem… the stabilizer pins were NO WHERE to be found!

It’s now 1:55 Mountain Time, and we’re just inside Nebraska.  It doesn’t look like we’ll be home tonight.  So we’ll probably just stop for the night around Grand Island.  I’ll post this then!

UPDATE: Well, we decided to tough it out, and drove on to Council Bluffs.  We got home this morning at 12:30 a.m.  Now, we have to go get the camper from the parking lot at the corner and take it to the storage site!

Saturday, August 8, 2009.  Wow, I can’t believe it is already Saturday!  Rendezvous is almost over!  How can that be?  We only got here a few hours ago, it seems!  On the other hand, it must have been longer ago than that, I’m exhausted!

This morning, the ladies came up around 8:30 or a little later.  Scott and I cooked breakfast this morning… scrambled eggs, sausage and potatos.  We didn’t spend as long a time chatting today as we all had to be at camp central for the worship service that MCC Omaha puts on here.  Frankly, I didn’t think it was too well attended.  Certainly not as well as last year.  But we did a great job!  The 8 of us from MCC Omaha were joined by maybe a half dozen from MCC Family In Christ, from Fort Collins, Colorado.

As soon as the service was over, Scott and I drove in to Cheyenne to find a WI-FI spot so that he could take his final exams.  We’re sitting in the Cheyenne public library right now… which is the only reason we are able to post these blog entries!

Once we’re done here, we’re off to get water for the trailer… we’ve run out! 

Watch back late Sunday or perhaps Monday for the final posts on Rendezvous.  There are a number of factors that may impact our ability to get home on Sunday.  So don’t be concerned if we’re not home until mid Monday!

Friday, August 7, 2009.  The people really started arriving today, and the site is filling up.  Though the overall count is still going to probably be less than previous years.  There’s a “competing” campout down in Colorado earlier in the summer.  From what I hear, it’s not something I’d want to go to.

Once again, the ladies came up to cook breakfast (Juline and Cindy, this time – it’s our turn tomorrow.)  We had a delightful meal, then sat around outside chatting until nearly noon. 

About 1 p.m., Scott and I and the ladies (you know, it get’s tiring typing all 4 names so often, so I just refer to them as ‘the ladies’) joined several other people for a drive over to North Crow Reservoir and went canoeing for a few hours.  We spent a lazy afternoon enjoying the sun – and getting roasted – and the water and good camaraderie.  Around 5 we headed back to camp.

Ray’s not feeling the best, so he spent the day napping, and Tom spent the day visiting friends campsites.

After dinner, it was time to head down to camp central for the evening program.  There was the usual “Cinderfella” skit, and then the highlight of the evening began.  Susie’s concert went fabulously.  She’s really loved here at Rendezvous, and is considered a highlight of the week.  We’re just proud she’s one of US!  She had a little “heckling” from the audience, but she disarmed it really well.  Heckling isn’t exactly the word, I’m not sure what is.  The young man had a bit too much to drink and wanted to be her backup dancer.  So, she let him come up and dance for one of the songs.  It was really cute.  And so was the dancer!

Scott and I were in bed by 10 p.m.  And another day ends.