I'm still recovering from the 1500 mile road trip I took last week with the 2 and 6 year old great-granddaughters. We had a great week. Hiking, touring a cave, riding an aerial tram up the mountain, riding a giant Ferris wheel, visiting historical sites, sliding down a ski slope on inner tubes, and swimming a lot. And we saw bears! I'm still a little off whack from the 6 week bout of bronchitis followed by finally catching Covid (boo!hiss!) but I managed to keep up with them. I'm enjoying a 2-week nap.....
I think I am finally on the downside of an illness (not Covid) that has gone on for more than a month, with a 6-day reprieve after the first few weeks, before getting sick again. I am feeling pretty good right now, though.
I was down for over 24 hours with neck and spine problems and learned I should never ever extend my hand over my shoulder and twist my neck at the same time. Maybe 15 years ago might have been ok but not today. When I say over 24 hours I mean in bed and serious pain. The only time I have ever felt so bad was when I took a strong muscle relaxer, it was like striking a match on my upper body and neck. Thankfully the bed time was sufficient to get me at least back to just normal hurting. This morning I will go shop and hope I feel like sprinting because usually when we show so much rain possible I have to stuff groceries thru my bedroom window because I can't drive up to my front porch the water is too deep, sometimes over the bottom step of the porch. I fully expect to see some rain before the day is over. I try to shop at opening time 8am near me, but the dollar store has banking hours and opens at 9am, that really messes up my schedule.
We had a horrible trip through Ohio. After a three-hour standstill for an accident that we didn't even get to gawk at, we got to drive at a reasonable speed for a few miles before encountering another long traffic jam, followed by a thunderstorm. We only made it as far as Milwaukee, and we're staying the night at the worst hotel I've stayed at since a $3/night room that I took somewhere in Arizona in the late 1960s. The place stinks, the floors are sticky, and there are barely any towels. It's horrible, but we got in late so I suppose we can make do. Had we got here earlier, we'd be looking for a refund and another hotel. We're only a few hours from our destination but I don't want to disrupt my brother's family by coming in late at night. I get the feeling that renting rooms to travelers isn't the real business going on here. I'm pretty sure my wife will be able to get us a refund from Choice since we're Platinum members, but this is really a ratty room. The place could be nice but it doesn't seem like they put any money into upkeep.
I didn't investigate, exactly, and I'm sure we're not the only ones who rented the place unseen through the Choice Mobile App, only to be sadly disappointed upon arrival.
We got to my brother's place before noon today, and have been visiting all day, which is why I wasn't here. Tomorrow, the church's anniversary celebration, and Monday is my younger brother's funeral.
The worst motel I have ever spent the night was in Gila Bend. I still had that 100 miles to Yuma but my Grandmother who was 80 at the time was with me, also my dog. I thought it better to stop and take a nice cold shower then get up early before sun up and make that last leg to San Diego. I started running shower water and kept waiting for cool water but it never did get cold or cool. When I checked out I told the Turbaned fella at the desk the cold water don't work. He told me yes it did work but the water tower is above ground. Light Bulb expression here. It was so hot when we arrived at Yuma I pulled into a little store and went in and got two bottles of cold beer and my Grandmother and Myself and the dog sit on the curb beside the store and drank that cold beer. I remember those old stories from my Grandmother and she pointed out a place on the highway in the trip that she and her Father and three brothers rented a motel room and had to burn some of the furniture to keep from freezing. It was in the 20s of course and some really old cold cars. I don't know where they were all going but I do know they had cousins in California so I presume it was to work or visit or both. Those days will come to a swift end soon as they ban combustion engines, there will be no travel except if you are rich.
We'll be heading back tomorrow morning. But Michelle has a virtual meeting she needs to attend at 4:00 pm so we'll be stopping very early at a hotel on the first day.
Thank you. We'll probably be stopping for the night somewhere in the neighborhood of Gary, Indiana, give or take a few cities.
It was a nice visit and, realistically, this could have been the last time that some of us will see one another because I'm the youngest, the oldest being in his 80s. I'm thinking of maybe moving home to the UP sometime in the next year or so. We should be able to sell our house, camp, and land for enough to get something small but nice in the UP. Not my hometown, though, because the prices are too high there, for some reason, but there are affordable homes and land within 30-40 miles. Rather than buy a home that needs a lot of work, I think I'd rather buy some land and put a prebuilt structure on it, similar to the one we have as our camp building. We wouldn't need a large house and there are advantages to a small one, especially when it comes to heating in the winter. One of the reasons I didn't want to move back home when I left Texas was that there were golf courses where people used to farm. Well, there isn't a whole lot of farming going on but all but one of the golf courses failed, and the one brother I have who still lives in Wallace refers to it as the golf course that no one uses.