Luna Moth on the kitchen window.
One thing about this trip…I’ve been so tired, I’m sleeping like a log! I woke up yesterday morning with a start at around 8:00. Mr. FixIt was still snoozing away. I let him sleep for a while, then noticed around 9:00 that the temperature was quickly rising. It was almost 78° already and we still needed to pack up the trailer and head to the farm to mow.
I’ll tell you what…recovery comes more slowly with age. Both Saturday night and Sunday night, I laid down at 5:00 just to stretch out and woke up at 9:30 in the morning! I went right out and mowed the yard yesterday as soon as I could because the temperature was supposed to be in the 90’s by mid-afternoon. I got almost finished and ran out of gas. After a quick trip to town for a refill, I did the last three loops and was done. It always looks so pretty when it’s finished.
When I got home on Saturday at 4-ish, wolfed down the pizza, emptied the truck, got upsetting news, and crapped out…all in a matter of fifteen minutes, I thought I was stepping into the twilight zone. All that good work I’ve been doing on self soothing and maintaining emotional equilibrium seemed to have gone out the window. When we are excessively tired, it is extremely difficult to see the bigger picture and so easy to slip into old behaviors.
This is the point in the trip when I say to myself…”What on earth was I thinking??? I’m too old for this!” I got a decent start yesterday. There was a portion of the drive with no rain. And, there was a goodly portion where I thought maybe I’d made a wrong turn and was in a car wash! Holy cats!!! Of course, you have to slow WAY down, which adds time to your trip but give you a better chance of actually making it. Of course, if the truckers had their way, they would have used cow catchers on the front of their trucks to just move us slow pokes out of the way. Relaxing, it was not.
Just when I was totally overwhelmed with camping and traveling and putting a camper up and down in the rain and doing it all by myself…along comes God and says, “Here…take a nice nap. And when you wake up, I’ll have something pretty for you to see!”
I awoke yesterday morning to a chilly, gray, wet day that was thankfully not actively raining. I only had to drive through a little bit of drizzle a couple of times. I had my eye out for a coffee shop and was prepared to get a cuppa joe and a pastry when I saw…the sign! Perkins Pancake Shop!!! JUST what the doctor ordered. There is no schedule when you’re camping so I pulled in and sat down away from others. And enjoyed the HECK out of a nice hot breakfast with really GREAT coffee! I gave the waitperson a very nice tip because she was working her tail off. I wrote “God Bless You…have a great day!” on the receipt. It’s the little things.
Ok…I’m going to vent a little. Sorry.
We bought this camper in October. Brand new…never been used. When I was preparing for camping this spring, I discovered the refrigerator doesn’t work. Ok. These things happen. I took it in and they couldn’t get it fixed before my trip to Colorado so I brought it with…sans refrigeration. No big deal. That’s what coolers are for, right? Then…when I picked it up to bring it with me on this trip, I noticed a leak. They’re going to have to fix that. There is a glass cover that opens and closes over the sink that is attached with hinges. Every time I tow the camper, the vibrations cause the screws to come out and fall down in the sink and I have to use a special tool…which I do not own (I used Ben’s) so I’ll meet to get one and also see if they can do something about that. Maybe some sort of adhesive? Also, every evening when I stop to camp, the microwave has creeped it’s way deeper into the cabinet that holds it and I have to fish it out. At least it isn’t falling out on the floor!
Something happened Monday night that I didn’t tell you about because I wanted to ruminate on it a bit. I do my best thinking when I drive and this deserved some serious cogitation. I was settled in for the night in The Big Birdhouse out by the garden at my son-in-law’s parents house. Ben and Sue are kind enough to let me plug into the electric out in the shed so I can have my own little space and “pretend camp” in the driveway.
Change is my middle name. I have absolutely no problem changing direction at any given moment and can shift with the winds. I spent a good portion of the day with Daughter #2 yesterday. I picked her and her wife up and took them to our favorite breakfast joint. Then, after dropping my daughter-in-law off at home, my daughter and I ran errands and chatted. We oohed and aahed over the kittens at PetSmart. We browsed the sale racks at Target and I bought a new floor fan. Then we went to the most beautiful garden shop and looked at plants. They are working on building up the soil in their yard so we picked up a few bags of this and that. When we got back to their house, we looked around the yard at the new plants coming up. They’ve made a lot of progress since I was there in September and I’m very proud of their hard work.
It’s always hard to say goodbye when you are “of a certain age”. We’ve experienced losses now. We know we’re on the short end of the stick and things can change in a heartbeat. We want all those loving hearts to keep on beating as long as possible, and the thought of possible “last goodbyes” cuts deeply. My brother is doing so much better now. When I called him to tell him I got back to Denver ok, he answered the phone (yay!) and was out on a little afternoon junket. He went to Subway for lunch, then took the bus out to Target to do a little shopping. That’s an incredible improvement over just a few short months ago! As long as he is doing this well, he is in the best setting, but I know he misses me as much as I miss him so at some point, I’ll bring him to West Virginia.
After a day of snowy, cold weather, it was a treat to wake up to Colorado sunshine!
I had a lovely visit with my brother yesterday. We watched a little baseball. I fed him his favorite food. Then I cut his hair and trimmed his beard. I am so pleased he is doing better in the new setting. He has more support, more often. Even though he still has trouble understanding/hearing his roommate, I found them getting along pleasantly. I spent some time working on my brother’s phone. He told me he answers it every time it rings, but I can assure you…after missing no less than twenty-seven phone calls from me in a two day period…he wasn’t hearing it ring.