Down Time

It's been a period of down time for us in more ways than one. Denny has been dealing with his kidney stone and the multiple treatments the urologist ordered to demolish his king-sized stone and that has been time consuming. We've spent much more time than we'd like in the hospital, both as in patient and out patient and I have to admit, I've not been patient. Spending hours upon hours in the waiting rooms brought back memories of the weeks I spent sitting at my mother's side during her six week hospital stay and that was a time I had not been anxious to revisit.

But the good news is that the treatment worked, the stone fragments are working their way out and somehow it has been a pain free experience for Denny. Which is wonderful, of course, but curious. Our extra time here has allowed us to see more of our oldest son and his family and get some things done around the rig since we didn't wander too far away not knowing how the stone passage was going to work for Denny. Being backed up to the fishing pond has been fun as the kids here in the campground have been pulling out catfish and small bass left and right, plus we have been watching all the different Canada geese families swimming, feeding and walking their young. Each family of geese apparently had their goslings in a different week because there are all different age ranges of babies and Patches has been a rapt audience when they all meander to the rear of our rig to pluck at the grass.

Another part of our "down" time has been the amount of time we have been offline due to the very spotty free wi-fi provided by the campground. Their router is in the clubhouse, which is about 100 yards from us, which is just far enough to be weakened by the many people trying to use the system. Normally we put up our Hughes.net satellite dish, but we are parked right beside a set of huge cottonwood trees and we can't move our dish out away from the rig because the volleyball court is right behind us. That would be an accident waiting to happen. The lack of Internet access has been aggravating because I've wanted to research the things the doctor told us he was going try for Denny and the connection has been dropping literally every ten seconds. I now have a renewed appreciation for our satellite service and am looking forward to the next campground and being able to set it up once again (that is, if the campground is not heavily wooded as is usually the case in the eastern states.)But for today, we'll once again be with Steve, Angela and the kids. The girls and I will be baking an angel food cake as a delayed birthday cake for Steve and the men will grill out ribs and drink beer and celebrate the maleness of Father's Day together. Soon it will be time for Denny and I to point the nose of Black Beauty to the east, trying out our new Tri-glide jaw on our king pin hitch and easing through toll booths with our new EZ pass which will work in several of the seaboard states we'll be traveling through this summer. I have to admit, I'm ready to see what's around that next bend.