Hi
there, welcome back. Our last episode
concluded on Thursday, February 29th. On Friday, March 1st, Jackie had a
10:00 card game in the clubhouse that went for about 5 hours. I was doing some chores and also had a 2:00
appointment with the President and Vice President of our Co-op Board of
Directors to help them with conducting meetings. They have been having some issues with
disorganized meetings and I was teaching a little bit of basic Roberts Rules of
Order. We went to happy hour at 4:00,
then went home for dinner and a night with the TV.
Saturday,
March 2nd, Jackie and some of the other ladies from the park went
out to a craft sale and then some other girl’s day out stuff. I was doing some office work and other chores
around the house. We were having a major
wind storm and at one point I heard a huge crash and went outside to find that
a four by eight piece of two inch Styrofoam had blown from somewhere and hit
our trailer. Fortunately, it hit our
garden flag pole first, bending it about 30 degrees, which slowed it down
some. It didn’t do any damage, other
than bend the pole, which I straightened out.
We went to happy hour and then had dinner. We spent the remainder of the night watching
TV. Sunday I had an appointment at
Desert Radiology at 2:00 for an ultrasound of my testicles. I had gone to the Urologist last week to have
them check a lump, which he said was a common benign cyst which would not be
any problem or need to be removed. He
did order an ultrasound just to be sure.
After the ultrasound we went to Smith’s to do some shopping and then
came home and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Monday,
March 4
th, we left the trailer about 11:00 and went into Las Vegas to go see my brother Russ
and his wife Zen, who live in North Las Vegas.
Even though we live fairly close, we only get to see each other every
few months. He is still working as a
floor manager at the Golden Nugget Casino in downtown Las Vegas. He has been there about 30 years now working
the craps tables. Zen is Philippino and
loves to cook, so we had a wonderful meal and had some time to sit and talk and
catch up. We left about 3:30 and on the
way home we stopped at Valley Hospital, near downtown, to see our friend Millie
Duffin. She has some health issues and
ended up having to spend some time in the Pahrump hospital first, then
transferred down here to Las Vegas. She
was surprised and happy to see us and we spent about 40 minutes visiting. We then left and headed home, getting back
home about 6:30. We spent the rest of
the night watching TV. Tuesday was a
stay at home day. We got a lot of little
chores done but stayed home most of the day.
I did go out in the morning to take my Pre-op Clearance checklist to my
primary care doctor here in Pahrump.
This is the list of stuff that the Orthopedist in Las Vegas needs
checked before I can schedule my hip replacement. I was concerned that I might not be able to
get all the stuff done before our cruise, but it turned out well. The nurse took the checklist back to Dr
Wiggins and he immediately made out an order for the chest Xray, as well as for
all the required labs. I was able to go
to the other end of the building and get the Xray done and the blood drawn for
the labs. I also have an appointment in
a week and a half with the doctor for the physical and the EKG and then he
should give me a letter of clearance and I can schedule the hip replacement,
hopefully shortly after we return from our May cruise. Yea. We
did go to happy hour and then came home and had dinner with the leftovers from
Zen’s lunch yesterday. After dinner we
watched TV and went to bed.
Wednesday,
March 6th, was also a stay at home day. Jackie played Pokeno at 1:00 and I did some
office work and other chores around the house.
We went to happy hour at 4:00 and then had pot roast for dinner that had
been cooking all day in the crock pot.
After dinner we watched TV and went to bed. Thursday we got up and cleaned up early to go
to the clubhouse for breakfast. The
Silver Seekers did a French toast casserole for breakfast. About 10:00 Jackie went over the clubhouse to
play cards and I stayed home and did some chores. The housekeeper came about 1:00 to
clean. About 3:00 we left to take Jackie
to her ophthalmologist for a checkup. He
told her tat the floaters were normal, nothing to worry about and there was no
way to make them go away. After the eye
doctor we went to happy hour, then came home, had dinner and spent the rest of
the night with the TV.
Friday,
March 8th, we went out about 12:30 to Terrible’s Roadhouse for a
late lunch. We both had liver and
onions, Yum. We then stayed and gamed
for an hour or so before heading home.
We did a few things around the house in the afternoon. We went to happy hour about 4:30, then stayed
at the clubhouse for bingo. Again, neither
of us won anything. After bingo we went
home and relaxed with the TV the rest of the night. Saturday was a stay at home day for me. Jackie went out about 11:00 for a ladies luncheon
at a local Mexican restaurant. Len came
over about 1:00 for guitar practice. I
went to happy hour about 4:00. Jackie
was feeling poopy and didn’t go. After I
got home we had dinner and then watched TV until bedtime.
Sunday,
March 10
th, we had a relaxing morning, then went to the ice cream
social at 2:00 in the clubhouse. After
the social we spent about 45 minutes playing left-right-center, which was a lot
of fun because we had a dozen people playing today, including some
visitors. After the game we went to
Walmart for some supplies. After we got
home we had some hamburgers on the grill for dinner, then spent the rest of the
night with the TV. Monday we were
dressed and out of the house by a little after 10:00, heading over the hill to
Las Vegas. We were headed to the Olive
Garden restaurant in Summerlin, for the Lucky Rollers monthly dine out. They try to do at least two a year in Las
Vegas for those members of the travel club that do not live in Pahrump. We had 26 people turn out for lunch and we
had great service and great food. After
the lunch we drove to the nearby rehab facility that our friend Millie had been
transferred to for a brief visit. One
other member of the park, Phyliss also went to visit Millie. Millie is not very happy with the facility,
which is really just a facility for people who are not sick enough to be in a
hospital, but still need some medical care that they can’t do on their own at
home. She is scheduled to be here for 20
days and is about a third of the way through that now. After
we saw Millie we made a quick run to the nearby CVS pharmacy for some supplies
she needed. We dropped them off to her,
then drove to Costco for some heavy duty shopping. All three of today’s destinations were within
a quarter mile of each other. Among
other things, we bought about $100 worth of corn beef to cook for next Sunday’s
St Patrick’s day dinner in the clubhouse.
After shopping we headed back to Pahrump. We didn’t make it back in time for happy
hour, so we just stayed in the rest of the evening watching TV.
Tuesday,
March 12th, we had pretty much a stay at home day. We did some chores around the house and had a
meeting of the Silver Seekers Board at 1:00.
After the meeting Jackie had a mani appointment and I did some more
chores. I did happy hour at 4:00 and
Jackie came after her appointment at about 4:30. After happy hour we went home and did some
pork chops on the grill and then watched TV until bedtime. March 13th, my son Roy Jr’s
birthday. Jackie did Pokeno in the
afternoon and I played some guitar with Len.
About 3:00 or so I got a call from Susan, my brother Ken’s wife, letting
me know that Ken was not doing well in the hospital and doctor’s were not
hopeful for a recovery. After talking to
Jackie, we decided that we would travel down to Phoenix to spend some time with
Ken and Susan. I made some hotel
reservations for us leaving here on Thursday and arriving in Phoenix on
Friday. We went to happy hour and midway
through happy hour I got a another call from Susan telling me that Ken had
passed. We were shocked and sad, but
told Susan we would be coming down as planned to help in away we could. After happy hour we had dinner and spent the
rest of the night with the TV and packing.
Thursday,
March 14
th, we had our clothes and stuff packed for a weeks stay and
headed out from the park about 10:30. The
first part of the drive was about 180 miles to Kingman, Arizona, where we
checked into a Motel 6 near the airport for the night. We were up early the next morning and on the
road heading to Phoenix. The weather was
really bad, lots of rain and we roads, but we made it into Gilbert, Arizona, on
the East side of the Phoenix valley, about 2:30 or so. We got checked into our extended stay hotel
for a week’s stay, then drove over to the hospital to meet with Susan. For those who don’t know, Ken and Susan have
been full time RVers for the last three years or so. Last March Ken was not feeling well and went
to an urgent care in Texas, near Dallas, to get checked. They did some tests and found a mass in his
chest that was causing the shortness of breath and weakness he was
feeling. They needed to get back to
Arizona for more tests, but Ken was not up to the trip and Susan didn’t drive
the coach. I flew out to Texas and
helped them get the coach back to Arizona.
He went to the hospital shortly after that and they found the mass was
cancer and he started treatment. They
have been living in the hospital parking lot for nearly a year. Fortunately, the hospital has 10 full hookup
RV sites in the parking lot. Ken was in
and out of the hospital, but could never get away from the hospital because of
the ongoing treatments. He had chemo,
stem cell transplants, all kinds of procedures, although they never did surgery
because of the location of the mass. At
one point in the fall they thought the tumor was gone and he was getting
better, but by the holidays it was showing it was back. In the end, his body just couldn’t tolerate
the treatments anymore. We spent some
time with Susan before heading back to the hotel for the night.
Saturday,
March 16
th, we went back over to Susan’s and spent the afternoon
with her talking next steps. She asked
us to go to the funeral home with her to make the arrangements for Ken. She is just doing a simple cremation for the
present and planning a Celebration of Life for later in a couple months. We went there and spent an hour or so with
the funeral director taking care of the papers.
They hope to be able to do the cremation and get the ashes back to Susan
by the end of next week. After spending
the day with Susan we went back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the
night. The next couple of days, Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday, were all pretty much the same. We spent some time with Susan, we did some
sightseeing in the East valley and some shopping. We also did some geocaching, something we haven't been doing a lot of. In fact, we found enough caches that our finds for 2024 is already more than we got all last year. Still only a few compared to the old days, but we did have one 10 cache day here in the Phoenix area. We spent the nights with the TV at the
hotel. On Thursday, our last day there,
we had to move the motor home. Susan
knew that the hospital was asking her to leave now that Ken was no longer a
patient, and I had to drive the coach. Fortunately,
Susan has family in the Phoenix area and one of her older cousins has a small
farm in Buckeye, on the far west side of Phoenix. So about 9:30 on Thursday morning we went
over and helped Susan get the coach packed up and I drove the coach about 60
miles from Gilbert, across the Phoenix metro area, to Buckeye and got her
parked in her cousin’s yard. She has
some hookups there and will stay there for a month or so to get situated. She and Ken had purchased an RV lot at a resort
in Benson, Arizona, East of Tucson, but she wasn’t sure if she was going to
keep the motor home and put it on the lot, or change to a park model. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the
motel.
Friday,
March 22
nd, we were packed up and ready to leave Gilbert around
9:00. Unlike the trip down the weather
was good. We made it across the City of
Phoenix, East to West in good time and were on our way home. We stopped in Wickenburg for lunch at a café
called Spurs, which had great food and great service. We had a little trouble navigating our way
out of Wickenburg because of some major road construction on Highway 93, but we
were finally on our way again. We made a
quick potty stop in Dolan Springs, about 30 miles South of the Nevada line and
bought some tickets for the big PowerBall lottery. We hit Vegas at the beginning of rush hour,
but we finally pulled into our driveway in Pahrump about 5:30. We got unpacked and relaxed for the rest of
the evening.
Saturday,
March 23
rd, we did laundry and other chores related to being gone
for a week. In the early afternoon I
took all my audio equipment over the clubhouse for an event tonight. At 3:00 we went to the clubhouse to help set
up for tonight’s pot luck dinner at 4:00.
We had a nice pot luck, with probably 30 people. About 5:00 I started doing karaoke. Tonight was originally supposed to be a lip
sync night, but no one signed up, so we made it karaoke instead. About two dozen members stayed for karaoke and
for the first time since I have been doing this stuff at our park I had people
come up and sing. We had singing,
dancing
and went until 7:30 with nonstop fun.
I was really pleased. After the
event I packed up the equipment and took everything home and we spent the rest
of the evening watching TV.
Sunday, March 24th, we
planned to have a quiet day at home, but we got a call from Jackie’s cousins, Ron
and Stphanie Kopf that they were in Las Vegas, heading back to Bullhead City,
and wanted to know if they could come up to Pahrump for a visit. We said yes and they came up. They actually have a home in Fresno,
California, but Ron is an electrician and has been working in Bullhead City for
a while. Stephanie came out to take a
mini-vacation with Ron. They got up here
about 1:00 and we took them over the clubhouse at 2:00 for the ice cream
social. We then came back and sat and
talked until almost 8:00. We did take a
break and Ron and I drove to the Pour House to get a pizza for dinner. They left about 8:00 and we spent the
remainder of the evening watching TV.
Monday,
March 25th, we had a fairly quiet day. I did have an meeting in the clubhouse at
2:00 that lasted about an hour. After
the meeting we had 4:00 happy hour. We
left happy hour and went to Walmart for some supplies. After Walmart we stopped at Chipotle for a
quick dinner, which we took home to eat.
We spent the rest of the night watching TV. Tuesday Jackie had a mani appointment at noon
and I did some work in the office. About
3:00 we left to go to the monthly park dine-out. This month we went to Mom’s Diner. We left early because Jackie’s favorite place
to shop, Secret Sisters consignment store, is in the same strip mall. There were ten people at the dine-out and we
had a good time. After the dinner we
went home and watched TV until bedtime.
Wednesday,
March 27th, I had an 8:00 appointment with our primary care doctor,
Dr. Wiggins, to get the final clearance for my hip replacement surgery. He and his nurse did the usual basic checkup
stuff, the doctor came in and talked to me for a while, then they did a brief
EKG. After it was all finished the nurse
came in and said they would fax the surgery clearance to Desert Orthopedics and
they would be in contact with me at some point to make appointments. Jackie had Pokeno at 1:00 and my buddy Len
came over at 1:00 and we had guitar practice.
We did happy hour at 4:00, then came home for dinner and a night with
the TV. Thursday was pretty much a stay
at home day. I had an open jam session
in the clubhouse at 2:00 and had to go over a little early to get set up. We still only had three people at the jam. Len thought he had identified another couple,
but they told him today that they couldn’t come because of illness. We still had a good two hours or so with a
few people in the audience. After the
jam I cleaned up all the equipment and went home. We did happy hour, then went home for dinner
and watched TV until bedtime.
Friday,
March 29th, I had a 10:00 meeting of the By Laws Committee, which
went for a couple of hours. After the
meeting I went home for lunch and we went out to do some shopping. We did happy hour, then dinner and the TV for
the rest of the night. Saturday, we had
haircuts scheduled for noon. After the
haircuts we ran a couple of errands, then went home for the rest of the
day. It was rainy, so we skipped happy
hour and just had dinner and watched TV.
Sunday,
March 31
st, Happy Easter. We
had a relaxing morning and afternoon for the most part. Jackie spent some time cooking sweet potatoes
for the Easter dinner we were having at the clubhouse. At 3:00 we went over to the clubhouse to help
set up for the 4:00 dinner. I was one of
the ham carvers. We had four big spiral
hams that the Silver Seekers provided, and lots of side dishes brought by
members. We all had plenty to eat and we
had about 40 people at the dinner. We
were pretty much done and cleaned up by 6:00, so we headed home and spent the
rest of the night with the TV.
That
is the end of March, and the end of this episode. Until next time, be kind and stay safe. See ya soon.
