So follow our travels from "The Beginning" until now "wherever that may be".



Monday, April 9, 2012

Back to Alabama

Yes, here we are back at Tuscaloosa, AL.  We arrived last Monday evening and hit the camp site a running.  Got lots of business and doctors to see while we are here.

First of all let me say that Bob got his splint off his broken wrist bone on Monday afternoon, 3/26, before we left New Mexico on 3/27.  The doctor also gave him a cortizone shot in his wrist that afternoon to help relieve the pain from arthristis that had set up from an old injury to hopefully help him with the driving.  Also, I had been sick our last week there with an abcessed tooth.  I mean the whole right side of my head was swollen and in intense pain.  Finally got a dentist to see me and the good news was the tooth could be saved.  So, he started a root canal - drilled into the nerve and packed it with antibotics and filled over until I could get back to my normal dentist since we were heading here anyway.  He also gave me a week's supply of antibotics to take.  Never took so many pain pills in my life.  I don't usually take much in the way of pain pills but this required them.

Actually, we didn't leave New Mexico on the 27th but left Alamagordo and traveled to Carlsbad for a couple of nights.  While there we spent Wednesday at Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  We thoroughly enjoyed that.  We toured the entire "big room" using the audio guides.  Sure were tired and thankful that we had decided we were not physically able to do one of the more physical guided tours.  The "Big Room" is really something to see and is free if you have the "Golden Age Passport" which we did.  That thing has paid for itself many, many times over.

We left there on Thursday and drove to an area near Kerrville, TX, where we spent the night in a beautiful little campground nestled in a pecan grove.  Wonderfully quiet and peaceful and had grass.  Berry, our dog, thought she had died and gone to heaven.  Their daily rate was kind of on the expensive side but we used Passport America for our one night stay which made it reasonable.  The name of the park escapes me at the moment.

On Friday, we drove on in to San Antonio where we stayed at Hidden Valley RV Park using Passport America again.  This park is kind of out in the country away from town but was very adequate for our two night stay and the owners were wonderful - very nice people.  Terri even told us about an all day tour of San Antonio that would come out and pick us up at the RV and deliver us back there at the end of the day.  She even made the reservations on it for us.  So on Saturday, we took the Alamo Tours Grand Tour of San Antonio.  If you are pushed for time, haven't been there before and don't know your way around, I would highly recommend this tour.  We started with the Riverwalk and rode the boat ride there which took us all thru the riverwalk area.  From there we rode out to a park which had a Japenese Tea Garden.  After that we went back into town to visit a Saloon (from the 1880's) and Museum.  The Museum was quite large and interesting.  It had pictures created from rattlesnack rattlers the original saloon owner's wife had created. During this stop we also found a place to have lunch on our own and visited the Alamo which was only about 3 blocks away from the museum.  There we reboarded the bus and visited a couple of the different original catholic church missions that were built here before the town of San Antonio and then we went to the Mexican Market.  That was quite interesting with all the wares, both upper and lower end.  There really wasn't enough time to thoroughly enjoy this so would like to go back there someday.  Sunday morning, we went to church and then pulled back out on the road headed east.  We actually drove to Sulpher, LA, where we finally pulled into a Wal Mart and spent the night.  Had company as there were 3 other RV's parked in there.  The next day we actually drove all the way in to Tuscaloosa.  It was almost a relief to know we had gotten home.  However, I will probably be more than ready to leave by the time we can depart.

On Tuesday, we spent the day getting home set up so we could be comfortable during our stay.  And then, Wednesday, we went into the ICD Clinic so the nurse could check Bob's batteries and speed up the pacing to try to get them to go ahead and die so we can meet our schedule.  Yes, Bob's ICD batteries are dying so he has to get them replaced before we can leave.  We are supposed to start our COE contract May 10th in Minnasota.  However, we could be sitting here until June before they die so Prayers are in orders.  We need to keep this job. Then we went on to the VA to drop off one of Bob's hearing aids for repair.  He cracked it all the way around during his NM fall and has been without it ever since.  And then it was on to the tag and license office to get his handicap placard renewed.  It had expired in February along with our tags but we were able to get them by mail order but not the placard.  There was no problem getting it now.

Thursday was our day to drive to Fayette (about 60 miles) and visit the dentist.  We both got our cleanings and check-ups done and I got my referral to a specialist here in Tuscaloosa to get my root canal done which they will be doing this afternoon.  Not looking forward to that.  On Friday, Bob's brother and sister-in-law drove down from Fayette (they were out of town when we were there the day before) and we all went out to lunch then came back to the RV and had a real nice visit together.  Finally, Saturday was a stay at home day which we spent trying to get some cleaning done. 

Sunday, of course was Easter, and we went to church as we always do on Sunday.  Then some friends from church had invited us over for Easter dinner so we did that and spent the afternoon just visiting with them.  Sure was nice to catch up on everything since we were last here.

Well that's about our story for now so guess I will quit boring you.  However, will add a few pictures that I promised to post a long time ago of the Valley of Fires in Carrizozo, NM.

Judy,



 Judy on walk looking at large pieces of lava rock.


Piles of lava rock with weeds, etc., growing up among it.

Walkway out among the lava rock.

More lava rock showing some flow marks.

 

Big piece of lava rock with a large crack in it.


Deep cave like hole in some lava rock


Remember, there was no volcano here.  Lava just started flowing up out of the ground covered this large area of ground with lava which hardened as lava rock.  I think the area was about 32 square miles.  It's unbelievable.







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