On the Road Again

Fall is approaching here in Leelanau County, Michigan and it's time for us to pull up stakes and join the annual snowbird southern migration. 

Here we are, all hooked up and ready to pullout tomorrow morning, Sunday August 31. We will spend tomorrow night parked in the driveway of our good friends Dan & Pat Martenson in Escanaba, MI. Then, Monday we will continue on to our former home town, Appleton, Wisconsin where we will spend a few days visiting "old" friends (smile) and our son and daughter-in-law. After we leave Appleton we will travel west to our 'legal home of record', Sioux Falls, SD where we have to spend a night at a hotel in Sioux Falls in order to satisfy residency requirements so that we can register to vote in the upcoming November election(s). Leaving Sioux Falls, we will then continue on westward and plan on staying for a month in a lovely park in Pahrump, Nevada. Then in mid October we will head for Lake Havasu City, Arizona to join up with our many snowbird friends at Havasu Falls RV Resort. Between now and then I'm not sure what internet connections we will be able to connect to, so this blog might be silent for a few weeks. :-(

Till then....

Larry & Teddy (traveling America in order to help the "big oil companies" remain solvent)

Final update on my arm

These photos chronicle the healing progress of my left arm from April to present. I am slowly gaining more momentum to the point that I can now bend my elbow enough to reach my face. I'm told that it might take up to a year before it stops improving. I cannot yet close my hand all the way and my little finger is semi paralyzed, but I don't need my little finger except to dig earwax from the inside of my ear and my elbow still doesn't bend enough for that anyway. I can close the other three fingers enough to comfortably grasp the truck steering wheel so driving is no longer a problem. Teddy is relieved that she will not have to drive the rig back to our winter digs in Arizona.

Clafouti

Clafouti
Originally uploaded by .Larry Page

Today Teddy, made this delicious Clafouti (kla-foo-TEE), a traditional dessert from the Limousin region of France. During the peak cherry season it is often served as a breakfast dish. In France, the dish is often made without pitting the cherries because the pits are thought to enhance the flavor of the batter with a perfume faintly reminiscent of almonds. Whole cherries are also less likely to bleed into the batter.
When other kinds of fruit, such as plums, prunes, apples, cranberries or blackberries are used instead of cherries, the dish is more properly called a "flognarde".

The Birth of a Monarch

Teddy went out looking for monarch caterpillars feeding on milkweed leaves and bought six of them back to the trailer so that we could observe them metamorphose into adult butterflies. The Monarch is a common poisonous butterfly that eats poisonous milkweed in its larval stage and lays its eggs on the milkweed plant. Animals that eat a Monarch get very sick and vomit (but generally do not die). These animals remember that this brightly-colored butterfly made them very sick and will avoid all Monarchs in the future. The monarch gets its poison (cardenolide glycosides) when it is a caterpillar, from eating the poisonous milkweed plant (genus Asclepias) while in its larval (caterpillar) stage. The poisonous Monarch is mimicked by the non-poisonous North American Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus), which has a similar shape, coloration and patterns. Predators who have learned to avoid the Monarch will also avoid the similar-looking Viceroy.
Some groups of Monarchs migrate for over 2,000 miles during August-October, flying from Canada and the USA to overwinter in coastal southern California to the transvolcanic mountains of central Mexico; this was determined by the Canadian scientist Dr. Fred A. Urquhart in 1975. Females lay their eggs along the migratory route. This migration takes up to three generations of Monarchs to complete.
Other Monarchs stay in one area their entire lives. The life span of the adult Monarch varies, depending on the season in which it emerged from the pupa and whether or not it belongs to a migratory group of Monarchs. Adults that emerged in early summer have the shortest life spans and live for about two to five weeks. Those that emerged in late summer survive over the winter months. The migratory Monarchs, which emerge from the pupa in late summer and then migrate south, live a much longer life, about 8-9 months.

I took this series of photographs of the metamorphic process.

(click on picture for a larger image)

CLASSIFICATION
Order: Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)
Family: Nymphalidae (over 5,000 species of butterflies with dwarfed front legs)
Subfamily: Danaidae (milkweed butterflies)
Genus and species: Danaus plexippus

Breakfast

I just love breakfast, it’s my favorite meal. Eggs, bacon, ham, spam, grits, breakfast steak, toast, biscuits & gravy, sausage, French toast, waffles or pancakes in any combination. All washed down with strong black coffee and a side of V-8 juice. However, unlike Jerry Seinfeld I rarely eat breakfast cereal & milk. Just not a cereal guy.Here is my breakfast from this morning. French toast, bacon & coffee with maple syrup and PB. Spread a generous amount of PB on the FT and then mix in maple syrup to a gooey consistency. Mmmmmm! I can’t eat like this very often though or I’d blow up like a balloon.

Here are some other breakfasts that I have enjoyed in the past.



Spam 'n eggs









Boiled egg, toast & coffee













Soft boiled egg in an egg cup & coffee














Fried egg, bacon, toast & coffee.















Hard boiled egg, tomato slice, banana & coffee

Creepy Crawlies

This summer I have been skulking outside in the yard & garden taking close ups of various insects. Then I try to identify them using the internet. Here are some of the results.

Six-Spotted

Tiger Beetle

Ant

Antlion

Bee on a Lion

Pallid-winged

Grasshopper

(Trimerotropis

pallidipennis)

Photo taken in Arizona

Common Fly

Garden Chafer

Grasshopper

Mayfly

Daddy Longlegs

Another

Mayfly

Stink Bug

aka Shield Bug

Another member

of the Shieldbug

aka Stinkbug

family

(Banasa dimiata)

Inflated Beetle

(Cysteodemus armatus)

Photo taken in Arizona

Japanese Beetle

Stag Beetle

Dining on

a Fly

Cherry Bounce

Teddy's brother, John Schlueter has now started harvesting this years crop of cherries. Teddy and I took the opportunity to produce 10 liters of this years "Cherry Bounce". It is an infusion of vodka, sugar and red tart cherries. We got the original recipe from Teddy's Mother and have tweeked it to our own through the years.



Here is a pict of the bounce aging in gallon jugs.
















Just before we leave here for our winter digs in Arizona we will rebottle the "Bounce" in 750 ml bottles.

Beating the high cost of fuel

With diesel fuel hovering around the $5.00/gallon mark we aren't firing up the truck as often. Traverse City is 20 miles away so we don't go into Traverse unless we have to. We make a list of what we need so that when I have a doctors appointment we also visit Lyle & Kathy (my brother); then go grocery shopping at Sam's & Meijer's, and visit Ace, Lowe's, Staples etc. if necessary. Teddy's mother is homebound and has to have help with meals etc. so Teddy has to visit her daily. Her home is about four miles from here and instead of driving Teddy rides her Greenspeed trike over there.





Here she is all loaded up and ready to go.
















She also rides into the village of Cedar (14 miles round trip) to pick up necessary inci-dentals such as milk, meat, saltpork, bullets and whiskey.

Reflections on turning Seventy One

Yesterday, July 4 I attained the ripe old age of 71. In truth I don't feel much different mentally than when I was 20. It's just that the old body starts to break down like an old Buick.
It brings to mind the old adage, " if I had known that I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."
Here are top 10 good things and the top 10 bad things about being an old guy in the modern world.

GOOD THINGS:

1. Senior coffee at McDonalds.
2. Can flirt with young girls as they just dismiss me as an old coot.
3. Can drive at 55 as have nowhere that I have to be any way.
4. No longer a slave to fashion (i.e., Can wear comfortable shoes & clothes.)
5. Can take a nap whenever I want.
6. Don't understand popular music, nor care to.
7. Food that I used to not care for is now delicious.
8. Get to wear my cap with the bill facing forward.
9. Artificial knee replacements.
10. Don't have to worry about gall stones as have no gall bladder.

BAD THINGS:

1. Decaf coffee.
2. My memory of how much things used to cost goes back further than most people.
3. All your friends are old people too.
4. Have to take a whole lotta' pills every day & I don't know what most of them are for.
5. My feet hurt, my back hurts, my knees hurt...everything hurts.
6. Don't understand popular music, nor care to.
7. Food that I used to like doesn't taste quite so good.
8. Insomnia.
9. Anti-insomnia i.e., fall asleep at inopportune moments during the day. Like in the middle of a movie or when talking to wife. (could be a good thing too)
10. Getting up to pee two or three times in the night.

Lyle's Birthday

Last Wednesday, June 25th was my brother, Lyle's 68th birthday.

Now for ten days he will be only two years younger than I instead of three. (smile)


We drove into Traverse City and joined him for a cookout.

Lyle's wife, Kathy cooked up some ribs and we pigged out on ribs, beans, brats, potato salad & slaw.

I even gave him a card, albeit the same card that he gave me last year, so it didn't cost me anything.
(I just love recycling).

Besides Lyle & Kathy, their two daughters, Laurie & Julie were in attendance and their three grandsons (Laurie's sons) Jonah, Ben, & Adam.
Laurie's husband, Eric was out of town on business.
Oh well...too bad Eric, more ribs for the rest of us.
;-)

Here Lyle enjoys some time with 2 1/2 year old Adam.

Wireless Cellular Internet revisited

Well my brief foray into wireless cellular Internet was just that, "BRIEF". It seemed to be working well until Tuesday evening when the Starcom modem went "TU" and would not access the cell network. No signal strength. Nothing! Nada! Not on Teddy's laptop nor mine. So taking advantage of their fifteen day full refund warranty, we took it back. They offered a replacement but I decided to put my "early adopter" bone on hold and wait until next summer for the next generation models. Sooooo...Teddy and I are back on dial-up for the balance of this summer. When in Arizona we have a cable modem so no problem there. Oh well, in the words of Monty Python, "nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition".

Wireless Cellular Hi-Speed Internet

All of the cellular companys are now offering hi-speed internet through their cellular circuits. You get a small modem that plugs into a USB slot on your laptop. They then add an additional line to your existing cell account which is exclusively used to dial into their internet interface.
The principal advantage is that you have hi-speed internet anywhere that your cellular plan covers.
Teddy & I decided to go with Alltel’s UTStarcom UM150 and so far it is working well.
This pict shows the modem/card plugged into my MacBook.
It is the ideal solution for fulltime Rvers like us, as when we are traveling we do not have to search for Wi-Fi hot spots to access the web. Also many RV parks do not offer Wi-Fi and in those that do coverage is often spotty. Our plan costs $59.00 per month for unlimited nationwide coverage.and the wireless modem/card is free with a two year contract. That cost is offset by canceling my $25.00/month Earthlink dial-up account and my $40.00/month cable modem while in Arizona. My mail servers for larryandteddy.com are hosted by Network Solutions so the only thing we lose is our Earthlink addresses which we do not use very much anyway.
Time will tell if this is a good move or not…but nothing ventured….yadda yadda yadda.

Update on Larry's weight

I just received an email from my old college & Interlochen chum, John Dickinson inquiring as to my continued success on my self imposed diet. I had blogged on it last Nov. 27 but no update since. Well I am proud to say that I am still seriously adhering to the diet but as I lose weight the rate of loss is not as great. When I weigh less it takes less calories to maintain my body weight. Suprise suprise! ;-)Anyway, here is an updated graph of my progress so far with my weight calculated according to Sir Issac Newton's universal gravitational constant. (when Fg=Gm1m2/r2 when Fg is the gravitionl force, m1 & m2 are the masses of the two objects, r is the seperation between the objects, and G is the universal gravitational constant.
At any rate I aim to reach a weight of 200 lbs and to maintain that weight. HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!

Update on my arm

It’s been seven weeks since the first surgery on my left arm.Here's a photo of what it looks like now. notice how swollen my arm is. (i assure you, that's not muscle ;-))
I guess that I didn’t fully appreciate the severity of my injury as I thought that by now I would be much further along in my recovery.
The mobility in my elbow is very limited. I can only move the joint a few degrees between about 65 to 90 degrees which is not enough to even reach my face. To complicate things further the tendons in my hand are screwed up to the extent that I cannot close my hand and movement in my shoulder is extremely painful. My arm and hand are still quite swollen and my therapist thinks that when we get the swelling down my hand mobility will improve. The therapist started this week and is coming to the trailer three times a week. For now he is leaving the elbow joint alone and is concentrating on the hand and shoulder. To tell the truth, it is beginning to wear on me and I have to fight mentally to keep from going into depression. Sleeping at night is especially hard. I don’t know what I would have done without Teddy. She has been my rock through all this but I can tell that it is hard on her too.
We both look forward to returning to Havasu this fall and will be there come hell or high water no matter what the cost of diesel is. Our arrival reservation at Havasu Falls is for Oct.14 and we also have a one month reservation at Terribles Lakeside in Pahrump prior to that from Sept. 13 to Oct. 13. and are looking forward to that as well. Hopefully I’ll be much improved by then.
I apologize for the negative feeling that this blog conveys but am trying to tell it as it is. I also know that there are many people much worse off than me and am thankful that my injuries were not more severe than they are.
Thanks to all of you for the cards, letters and phone calls. Encouragement from friends goes a long way in my mental well being and helps tremendously in the healing process.
Larry
920-716-7246
Summer address: 3842 Townline Road, Cedar, MI 49621

Annual Morel Hunt

Teddy went Morel hunting yesterday and found a couple of dozen and then our nephew, Freddy Lawrence and his collage chum, Jimmy went out and found another nice batch this afternoon. Teddy will cook them up tomorrow evening and the four of us will enjoy a gourmet dinner. Freddy & Jimmy are Junior college students, home for the summer and are living in the cottage while they work as wait staff in a Leland restaurant. They will also be working for Teddy's brother, John in the cherry harvest in July & August.

3rd Year Fulltiming Anniversary

As of May 1 we have now completed our third year of RV Fulltiming.Here is a map of our travels since May 1, 2005 with year one outlined in blue, year two in green and year three in red.
We again spent the winter at "The Havasu Falls RV Resort" in Lake Havasu City, AZ. We still love our semi-nomadic lifestyle and are amazed at the things that we have seen and done over the past three years.
Highlights of the year have to include my total knee replacement surgery last June, Gall bladder surgery in January and my recent broken arm in April. Thankfully none of these should be permanent issues and we are determined to put them behind us. Teddy remains in good health and walks from three to five mikes daily. On the bright side of the coin, my knee surgery was a wake-up signal to me and through a self imposed diet I have lost over 80 lbs. in the past eleven months. HURRAH FOR ME!
in February we spent a glorious week in Puerto Penasco, Mexico with friends from Havasu Falls and we intend to repeat next winter possibly for a longer stay.
We are eagerly looking forward to our fourth year of fulltiming to see what new adventures await us.

In the words of Charlie Brown, "AARRRGGGG!"

Well…it turned out that my optimism on the speed of my recovery was unfounded. I thought that I was progressing nicely, my pain level had leveled off to a tolerable level and I was looking forward to my appointment with my Ortho Doc in TC on May 8. But unbeknownst to me things weren’t going so good inside my arm. It had continued to bleed out internally and again formed a large hematoma inside the wound resulting with me suddenly waking with excruciating pain on Monday morning May 5th and a 4am trip to Munson emergency in Traverse City. It held till we arrived but while sitting in an examining room it suddenly started spewing blood. They stemmed the blood flow w/a tourniquet, hopped me up on silly drugs and called in an Ortho Doc. So on Tuesday, May 6th, I went under the knife for the third time in less than a month.
In evaluating my condition the doctors now agreed that the culprit was the Coumadin that I take for my a-fib. So with me agreeing to accept the slightly higher risk of stroke I was taken off the Coumadin for a while. I was discharged from the hospital on Friday the 9th. Today is Tuesday and I feel pretty good so far. I saw yet another doctor yesterday in order to establish a local family physician and she wants me to go back on the Coumadin which we refused. I think that it is just a CYA move on her part in case I should have a stroke. So now they have set me up with an appointment with a cardiologist for tomorrow. And I have an appointment on May 19 with the orthopedic doctor that did my third arm surgery.
It appears that I am single handedly supporting half the medical community from here to Utah.
I am, however assured that my bones are knitting, it’s just the flesh that doesn’t want to heal. In other words, "The flesh is weak but the bones are strong."

Annual Snowbird Migration (part three)

Well...things didn't get all that better. Sunday morning at about 1 am I woke with my bandages wet with blood and excruciating pain in my arm. Teddy changed the dressing and rewrapped the arm. I tried to stick it out but it soon became apparent that we were going to have to go in to emergency at Theda Care's Appleton Medical Center. The emergency physician immediately called in an Ortho Doc. and in no time I was again in surgery. They found that the wound had hemorrhaged internally and I had lost a considerable amount of blood. So they stopped up the bleeding, put a drain tube in and sewed me back up again. Then after spending two more days in the hospital getting blood transfusions etc., I got discharged on Tuesday, April 29th and we finished the last leg of our trip on Wednesday traveling from Appleton to Traverse City.
We are again parked behind Teddy's sister & brother-in-law's cottage here in Leelanau County, Michigan, about 15 miles NW of Traverse City. We got settled in today, Thursday, May 1 and drove to Traverse to our Traverse City Doctor for a blood draw to check my Cumiden level and blood count and also visited My brother Lyle and his wife Kathy.
I have an appointment with Doctor Peters, my Orthopedic Doctor, on Wednesday, May 8th. and we'll see what happens then.
It's been a rough month for Larry but I hope to be all mended soon.

Annual Snowbird Migration (part two)

Leaving Pahrump on Monday April 7th we headed for St. George, Utah. The Dingmans and the Mays had made reservations there at a Western Horizons park.


Western Horizons is a members only organization with several parks scattered around mostly in the western states and operated similar to timeshare condos, etc. Members park free, however as non-members we could get in for two days as guests of the Dingmans for $25.00.night
Panoramic view from our site.

The park, called St. George RV was located about 15 miles north of St. George. We arrived mid afternoon, paid $50.00 for two nights, got set-up and Teddy at once, set out to hike & explore the surrounding areas. I, as is my wont, spent my time chatting with other campers. The Dingmans & the Mays both planned on staying about three days before heading on to their respective homes in WY & WA. We were to leave Wed. morning after using up our two day guest pass. However, Tue morning a member approached me with a coupon for 5 free nights on the condition that we sit through a sales presentation. I took the coupon to the office and asked I could use it to extend our stay to Saturday. The said yes and also refunded my $50.00.
All was right with the world...and then...
**BOOM** Larry falls down!!
Tue afternoon about 5 pm we were rerturning to our trailer after playing Pegs & Jokers in the clubhouse with the Dingmans & the Mays. I was riding my Segway and had stopped to chat with some folks while the others continued on. They were curious about the Segway and I began showing off a bit and made the startling discovery that I am not quite as agile as I was in my twenties. In short I got pitched off, landing squarely in the gravel on my left elbow.
OUCH
Benny May took Teddy & I to Emergency at the St. George hospital and you do not have to be a radiologist to see that my arm was broken just above the elbow where it enters the joint.
The hospital bought in an Orthopedic surgeon and he wanted to do emergency surgery that evening...until...wait..oh oh! Larry is on the blood thinner, Cumiden. So they splinted me up, sent me home and scheduled surgery for three days later on Friday.
I spent the next three days in a drug induced haze, during which we had to endure a one-on-one session with a very rude Western Horizions salesman who seemed very pissed that we wouldn't fork over $12,000 to fatten their coffers. Another reality that now became apparent was that with 2000 miles to go, Teddy was going to have to take over the driving. She had driven the rig before but only in rural areas and never in cities nor on & off into fuel stations.etc. She was stressed to the max and nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof but bore up through it all. Benny and Sandy delayed their departure to help Teddy cope and to prepare her for the drive back.
Friday afternoon came and into surgery I went. Spent one night in the hospital and was released Saturday noon.As you can see from these post-op picts, they managed to get a whole lot of metal into my poor little arm. :-(

Benny got Teddy all hooked up, Sandy made me some tuna salad sandwitches and we headed north toward Salt Lake City and then east toward Wisconsin. Although I was wierded out on Codene I was still able to help Teddy through the cities and into
and out of Wal-Mart parking lots. To tell the truth I don't remember a whole lot of the trip back but nontheless we arrived here in Appleton on Friday the 18th.
Since we have been here, we have seen our dentist, been to the doctor twice about my arm, went out for fish with Greg & Sue Madson, had dinner at Tom & Carol Sykes with the martini group, had the tires rotated on the truck, and got all of our maintenance problems fixed at Appleton Camping. Tonight we are going out to dinner with Mike & Toni, Monday we are going to martinis at Dick & Jenny Orrs, and Tuesday we plan on completing the last leg of our journey to Traverse City & Cedar, Michigan.
Have an appointment May 8th with my Ortho doc. (Dr. Peters, the one that did my knee last summer) and a perscription for rehab from the doc. in St. George.
See you Kal. :-)
On the bright side...things are bound to get better! Right!!