We had a fast but uneventful trip down. Since we didn’t get out of Steilacoom until 4 pm on Thursday, we made it only as far as where 205 hooks up with I-5 south of Portland. That is a great rest stop, and after wandering back through additional parking areas we scored a parking spot next to a grassy strip where we could extend the bedroom slide and give Cooper a place to walk.
Friday was from there to Red Bluff and Saturday was Red Bluff to Bakersfield with both towns having great RV parks for us. Sunday was a half day drive from Bakersfield to Redlands. Coming through the San Bernardino Mountains seemed less harrowing than last winter, perhaps because it was a Sunday and perhaps we weren’t trying to keep up with Mario Gary Ousey Andretti!!
We had researched RV parks in this area and only found two that were within a reasonable distance of Loma Linda, and sure enough there are only two. Both are older parks, nicely maintained, but with spaces that would have very nicely accommodated our early 70s pickup and camper. Ken did a great job of maneuvering the MH into our spot.
Cooper has been a trooper. He usually was up on the sofa while we were moving. He hasn’t been overly interested in his dog food, so I have been giving him fresh green beans and cooked rice. He loves the green beans. He has lived a pretty sheltered life, so his nose goes into high gear when we take him outside for walks. He is happy to be with us but isn’t quite sure of what is going on, so he doesn’t let Ken get more than three feet away from him.
We will spend these next three days exploring the area, buying groceries, and locating Costco, Trader Joe’s, Camping World, etc. Costco is about 18 miles away but the others are here in Redlands.
It has been very very lightly raining this morning. Sun is forecast for this afternoon, and the usual temps are around 90 but it looks like it cools down to the low 70s and high 60s at night which I can handle.
Later……………we have met two men here in the park who will finish their treatments this week. They are just as enthusiastic as anyone else we have encountered. I first met one of the wives………where else but the laundry room. Subsequently her husband, and his neighbor both came over to chat. I can see that this whole thing becomes quite the clique.
We drove around the area for a while this afternoon. It turns out that Costco is very close, and Camping World and a lot of chain restaurants, but not much else. In N Out Burger is in San Bernardino which we will track down very soon.
While sitting outside this evening some neighbors came home, came over, chatted, went back and got their lawn chairs and drinks of choice and came back and stayed about two hours. They are just passing through and live in Kennewick. So now we have names and numbers to contact for a visit/MH parking in Kennewick. No one is a stranger in this world of RVs.
Ken and Cooper and I need to take an evening walk. Ken and I plan to attend an orientation at LLUMC on Wednesday. I’ll let you know about that. Ciao
Monday, July 31, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Reunion Weekend in Review
Here is a recap of the past weekend’s activities in celebration of Ken’s graduating class of 1956.
Bob and Sharon entertained the Davenport alumni, class of ’56, on Friday afternoon similar to what we had done with the Jaynes when the class celebrated its 30th. Everyone enjoyed catching up and reminiscing. The dapper dude in the hat is Bob.
Friday morning, Ken and Bob had to be in Davenport by 10:30 to be ready to ride in the Pioneer Days Parade. One of their classmates has restored a late ‘30s truck and he had created some bench seating with bales of straw on the flatbed where the classmates could hold court over the onlookers. They were near the end of the parade, and were preceded primarily by local candidates for office, fire trucks and the local ambulance. Oh yes, and the Schwans truck! You gotta love these small towns.Saturday afternoon we moved on to the park for lunch, some very good musical entertainment, and a display of several dozen restored cars. Davenport has a car club known as the Road Knights which was founded when Ken was in high school, and he designed the club logo which is still being used. I made him purchase the baseball cap with the logo, and he was given a tee shirt since he is one of the “old timers”.
The evening dinner and dance was the usual disappointment, but it provided a venue for us to continue to visit and see old friends. Ken’s second grade teacher (in photo at the right) was in attendance and looked as perky and cute as a teenager. She is probably at least 80. She said she knew how to teach children to read, and when UCLA came in and proceeded to tell her how to do it, she retired. She also taught Brian for a few months when he was in the second grade and we were between moves.Our old house at Liberty Lake was still standing last week end, and Ken and Bob were able to rescue the kitchen sink for me. For those of you who weren’t in that house, I discovered the old original sink and had it installed in the new kitchen when we remodeled. It is the single sink with attached backsplash and drainboard. It has a porcelain finish that must be at least 1/4" thick. I don’t know when we will have time to do something with it in this house, but I am pleased to have it.
The next week will be spent getting the motor home packed and the house ready to be vacated for almost three months while we are in Loma Linda. We will leave next Thursday or Friday. Craig will be available to check on it as well as some friends of his who live down the street. It is hard to leave the yard and garden, but it can be redone next year. Cooper has no idea what he is in for, but I know he will be happy just to be with us. This is all just another adventure! Ciao
Sunday, July 09, 2006
The old and the new
Of course we have been preoccupied with Ken’s health issues, but we have learned a great deal in the past few days.
One of Ken’s former co-workers at the hospital told him that her stepfather had had prostate cancer, and he was treated with proton therapy at Loma Linda Medical Center. From everything we have been able to learn, it is just as effective as other treatments, but its accuracy alleviates all the side effects caused by traditional radiation.
This is a treatment that has been in use for over ten years, it is not experimental, and we have yet to find a negative about it. But isn’t it interesting that if you weren’t looking for it, you would not even come across a discussion of this treatment in any of the usual information? The gentleman Ken spoke with said he even went to the upper levels of administration at Loma Linda to ask why it was not better publicized, and the response from this Seventh Day Adventist institution was that if God wanted him to be there (Loma Linda) he would find out about it!!!???
If you want more information:
http://news.adventist.org/data/2006/03/1144961805/index.html.en
We will be interested to see if it is even mentioned at the appointment at Madigan on Wednesday. The other good news is that the treatment is covered by Medicare.
Next weekend is Ken’s 50th high school reunion. We will drive to Liberty Lake on Thursday and stay with Bob and Sharon. They are hosting a get-together on Friday night and then the classmates will ride in the back of somebody’s truck in the parade in Davenport on Saturday. Then another get-together at Daryl and Jan Ziemer’s Saturday afternoon and the dinner and dance in the evening. My what a social swirl.
Speaking of Liberty Lake, we learned today that the house we owned there is going to be rased within the next few days. The current owners (who purchased from the woman to whom we sold) found the foundation could not withstand the renovations they wanted to do. I must admit that it is with a heavy heart that I learned this. It was unreasonable to believe we would ever return, but it was the most grand and wonderful house I have ever lived in.
Have a good week, and I’ll be blogging again later this week.
Ciao
One of Ken’s former co-workers at the hospital told him that her stepfather had had prostate cancer, and he was treated with proton therapy at Loma Linda Medical Center. From everything we have been able to learn, it is just as effective as other treatments, but its accuracy alleviates all the side effects caused by traditional radiation.
This is a treatment that has been in use for over ten years, it is not experimental, and we have yet to find a negative about it. But isn’t it interesting that if you weren’t looking for it, you would not even come across a discussion of this treatment in any of the usual information? The gentleman Ken spoke with said he even went to the upper levels of administration at Loma Linda to ask why it was not better publicized, and the response from this Seventh Day Adventist institution was that if God wanted him to be there (Loma Linda) he would find out about it!!!???
If you want more information:
http://news.adventist.org/data/2006/03/1144961805/index.html.en
We will be interested to see if it is even mentioned at the appointment at Madigan on Wednesday. The other good news is that the treatment is covered by Medicare.
Next weekend is Ken’s 50th high school reunion. We will drive to Liberty Lake on Thursday and stay with Bob and Sharon. They are hosting a get-together on Friday night and then the classmates will ride in the back of somebody’s truck in the parade in Davenport on Saturday. Then another get-together at Daryl and Jan Ziemer’s Saturday afternoon and the dinner and dance in the evening. My what a social swirl.
Speaking of Liberty Lake, we learned today that the house we owned there is going to be rased within the next few days. The current owners (who purchased from the woman to whom we sold) found the foundation could not withstand the renovations they wanted to do. I must admit that it is with a heavy heart that I learned this. It was unreasonable to believe we would ever return, but it was the most grand and wonderful house I have ever lived in.
Have a good week, and I’ll be blogging again later this week.
Ciao
Saturday, July 08, 2006
From the Fourth Forward
We have had some eventful times over the past 10 days….
Brian and Sheila and Nolan and Warren arrived Friday evening and it took the boys about 5 minutes to check out the tree house and move in. They slept up there all five nights they were here. Grandpa had a new flashlight for each and they utilized the basket/pulley system to haul their belongings up and down. I don’t know who gets more joy out of all of this, the boys or Grandpa and I.
Curt, Cinda, Linea, and her friend Jamie arrived midday on Monday. The girls pitched a tent in the front yard and moved in with their air mattresses and books. Cinda lamented that she and Curt had moved into the “elder” group so were afforded the luxury of a real bed in the guest room.
Craig, Cassie and Greta joined us on Saturday and Monday evenings. Greta is 5 ½ and is very cute and precocious. She was quite the epicurean as she made her way through fresh cherries, clams, and mussels, and most anything else we were serving. She does not have typical preschoolers’ tastes.
I think we ate and drank our way through three days. Brian is a master with the grill and he smoked ribs, a tri-tip roast and two whole chickens for the 4th. Cinda and Sheila were the queens of the salads, breads, and fruits and veggies, and I offered appetizers with a Spanish theme: cured ham and honeydew melon, manchego cheese (if you have not tasted it, be sure to do so), and roasted red bell peppers (recipe to follow). Brian and Sheila store some of their yummy German white wine in our cellar, so that, along with some of our Washington selections and lots of beer kept us in fine fettle.
We all walked downtown on the Fourth to watch the parade which consists of old cars, politicians with campaign signs, kids on bikes and in strollers, the Ft. Lewis Army band, and even some Strykers. After careful scrutiny, we determined that the little old lady in the beige Taurus had simply taken a wrong turn and accidentally became part of the parade so someone proffered a flag for her to wave as she made her way down the street.
From the street fair, Brian and Sheila gifted us with a metal sculpture; a wine glass fitted with a piece of red glass and a plaque reading “wine garden”. It is charming and looks right at home on our property.
The boys had two outings at the beach here in Steilacoom. They can squat for hours digging furiously to get to? And then only to be defeated by hitting water or having the tide come in. Brian, Ken, and the boys went to a Tacoma Rainiers game and the home team won! Sheila and I did a bit of shopping since her time and resources are so limited when she is home.
All the fun was a good diversion for us as we face a bump in the road. Ken had a prostate biopsy come back with some cancer cells present. He has been participating in a study for the past two years, and we feel fortunate that the study called for a biopsy at the two-year point. He had had one two years ago as a result of an elevated PSA, but it showed nothing. From all indications now, it appears to be early and small. We know many men who have gone through this, and Ken has talked to several to be better prepared to make a decision for a course of action. We will meet with a radiation therapist on July 12 to talk it through and decide what comes next. We plan to have all of this behind us a soon as possible to be ready for travel, Christmas and heading south after the first of the year.
This is a heads up for you– pay attention to your prostate and get examined.
We had some glorious weather up until the Fourth. Since then it has been cloudy and cool with a few sprinkles, and we even have the furnace on! Typical Puget Sound weather.
Here is the easy way to prepare roasted peppers:
Several whole red bell peppers
Two or three cloves fresh minced garlic
2 tsp kosher salt
olive oil
Place peppers on a hot outdoor grill, turning as they char, until the entire outside skin is blackened and blistered. Remove to a covered container and let steam for 20 or 30 minutes, and then halve, remove seeds and ribs and remove outer skin. Slice lengthwise into ½” strips. Combine pepper strips and salt and minced garlic mixture. Drizzle with olive oil and let rest for an hour or so. Can be refrigerated, but should be brought back to room temp to serve.
The key to the ease of this is to roast the peppers on the outside gas grill. It is hot and easy to turn the peppers. I’ve tried using the gas flame on my inside range or the oven broiler but with limited success.
Ciao
Brian and Sheila and Nolan and Warren arrived Friday evening and it took the boys about 5 minutes to check out the tree house and move in. They slept up there all five nights they were here. Grandpa had a new flashlight for each and they utilized the basket/pulley system to haul their belongings up and down. I don’t know who gets more joy out of all of this, the boys or Grandpa and I.
Curt, Cinda, Linea, and her friend Jamie arrived midday on Monday. The girls pitched a tent in the front yard and moved in with their air mattresses and books. Cinda lamented that she and Curt had moved into the “elder” group so were afforded the luxury of a real bed in the guest room.
Craig, Cassie and Greta joined us on Saturday and Monday evenings. Greta is 5 ½ and is very cute and precocious. She was quite the epicurean as she made her way through fresh cherries, clams, and mussels, and most anything else we were serving. She does not have typical preschoolers’ tastes.
I think we ate and drank our way through three days. Brian is a master with the grill and he smoked ribs, a tri-tip roast and two whole chickens for the 4th. Cinda and Sheila were the queens of the salads, breads, and fruits and veggies, and I offered appetizers with a Spanish theme: cured ham and honeydew melon, manchego cheese (if you have not tasted it, be sure to do so), and roasted red bell peppers (recipe to follow). Brian and Sheila store some of their yummy German white wine in our cellar, so that, along with some of our Washington selections and lots of beer kept us in fine fettle.
We all walked downtown on the Fourth to watch the parade which consists of old cars, politicians with campaign signs, kids on bikes and in strollers, the Ft. Lewis Army band, and even some Strykers. After careful scrutiny, we determined that the little old lady in the beige Taurus had simply taken a wrong turn and accidentally became part of the parade so someone proffered a flag for her to wave as she made her way down the street.
From the street fair, Brian and Sheila gifted us with a metal sculpture; a wine glass fitted with a piece of red glass and a plaque reading “wine garden”. It is charming and looks right at home on our property.
The boys had two outings at the beach here in Steilacoom. They can squat for hours digging furiously to get to? And then only to be defeated by hitting water or having the tide come in. Brian, Ken, and the boys went to a Tacoma Rainiers game and the home team won! Sheila and I did a bit of shopping since her time and resources are so limited when she is home.
All the fun was a good diversion for us as we face a bump in the road. Ken had a prostate biopsy come back with some cancer cells present. He has been participating in a study for the past two years, and we feel fortunate that the study called for a biopsy at the two-year point. He had had one two years ago as a result of an elevated PSA, but it showed nothing. From all indications now, it appears to be early and small. We know many men who have gone through this, and Ken has talked to several to be better prepared to make a decision for a course of action. We will meet with a radiation therapist on July 12 to talk it through and decide what comes next. We plan to have all of this behind us a soon as possible to be ready for travel, Christmas and heading south after the first of the year.
This is a heads up for you– pay attention to your prostate and get examined.
We had some glorious weather up until the Fourth. Since then it has been cloudy and cool with a few sprinkles, and we even have the furnace on! Typical Puget Sound weather.
Here is the easy way to prepare roasted peppers:
Several whole red bell peppers
Two or three cloves fresh minced garlic
2 tsp kosher salt
olive oil
Place peppers on a hot outdoor grill, turning as they char, until the entire outside skin is blackened and blistered. Remove to a covered container and let steam for 20 or 30 minutes, and then halve, remove seeds and ribs and remove outer skin. Slice lengthwise into ½” strips. Combine pepper strips and salt and minced garlic mixture. Drizzle with olive oil and let rest for an hour or so. Can be refrigerated, but should be brought back to room temp to serve.
The key to the ease of this is to roast the peppers on the outside gas grill. It is hot and easy to turn the peppers. I’ve tried using the gas flame on my inside range or the oven broiler but with limited success.
Ciao
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