Keeping track of medical tests

wednesday, April 25, Jay and I drove to Fort Collins for me to have an EEG and an MRI.  There were issues with the EEG technician, which involved him not showing up for my appointment until it was too late to do it.  I needed to go to my MRI on the other side of town.  As it turned out, it didn’t matter because I had spaced out the fact that I have serious claustrophobia and became so upset when the technician started locking me into the equipment that I couldn’t be scanned and had to halt the procedure.  Jay thought I should just tough it out, but I couldn’t.  So then we went back to Poudre Valley hospital and they got someone in from the Loveland hospital to do my EEG since the other technician had to go home.  She didn’t know what was wrong with him, but she felt it was just as well that he didn’t do my test since there was apparently something wrong with him.  Also, she totally sympathized with me about not being able to do the MRI.  She had just had one done a couple weeks before and said she’d taken a handful of Valium to get through it

Lazy Monday in Naples

 We had coffee at Starbucks this Sunday morning and then decided to leave our car where it was parked around the corner on 7th Street from 5th Avenue and walk to the Naples Pier off 12th Avenue.  We had lunch at the Olde Naples Pub where we are sitting here.  The sun was bright and it was about 84 degrees so we got a little sunburned.  Dorothy Ann was dressed better for the walk than I was, as you can see here.  We didn't think about getting sunburned when we set out to walk 13 blocks with the sun directly over head.  On our way back to our motel afterwards we stopped and bought some sun screen.

 NAPLES BEACH north of the pier.  The beach was packed with people as far as you could see up and down the shore.

 We walked on the Naples Pier and I got a good picture of this dolphin off the end of the pier.  There were about 5 or 6 dolphins swimming around  the pier and back and forth under it while we were there. People kept running back and forth from one side to the other trying to see them.  The pier was packed with people walking up and down and fishing off it.  I never saw anyone catch anything but there were dead fish floating on the water and pelicans were eating them.  The other birds that grabbed up one of the dead fish just dropped them right away.  I wondered if that was because of the red tide.

 Sea Oats growing in the sand.  I saw a large framed print of a photograph like this at the art festival and really liked it so I thought that I could make one like that too.  I don't know though.  I think my camera doesn't get good clear colors anymore.  I'll have to see.

Here's a store I saw on 13th Avenue.  It's down near the beach in a little shopping area where we went to a big Farmer's Market in the parking lot where we park when we go to the Olde Naples Pub. Jay and I like Lovejoy Antiques, just not this one.  Though, since I didn't actually go in this one, I don't know whether I would like it or not.

Me and my sister, Dorothy Ann, in Florida

The first night we spent in Florida we stayed with Rhonwyn and Steve at their house.  We didn't see Steve because he had a night out with the boys.  (At least, that's what he said, but he kept sending emails from Starbucks, so I had to personally wonder!)  But we went to South Beach with Rhonwyn and Bryan and walked on the beach and ate at the News Cafe.  South Beach is always fun and so it was great that Rhonwyn took us there because there was no way I was going to drive over there with all those crazy people that are all over the place there!!!!

 We spent one night in Key West and walked from our motel out to the Sunset Pier to watch the sunset because that's what the guy at the desk of our motel said was a must see.  It was pretty good.  The pier was amazingly crowded and noisy.  But there were a couple guys playing guitars and singing and the music was good and loud enough so that we could hear it.  Dorothy Ann took a video of the sunset with her new smart phone and it came out good but I couldn't get it to download on here.

 Having stuff be the southernmost of whatever it is is a big thing in Key West and this here is the southernmost house that Dorothy Ann is standing in front of.  It was built by a ship captain who salvaged ship wrecks and got to keep whatever he got.  Apparently a lot of ship captains did that back when Key West was a small town and pretty lawless.  All these big gorgeous houses were built by ship captains from wreck salvage stuff loot we were told.

CHICKENS!!!!  I LOVE chickens!  And Key West has them wild.  Here's a little hen and a possessive rooster that keeps having to run off other roosters to keep her all to himself.  He kept watching us where we were sitting at an outside table here having a cup of coffee, but I don't think he was afraid of us.  These chickens are all over the place in town and don't seem too worried about people.  I think they are protected here.  I kind of remember something in the news a while back about some people in Key West trying to get rid of them and so then they got protected.

We are now in Naples staying just off the Tamiami Trail not far from downtown Olde Naples.  (That's how they spell it, Olde.)  We've been having a good time and haven't gotten lost TOO many times!  Unfortunately, Dorothy Ann is, if possible, more directionally challanged than I am.  We got here Friday, driving from Key West about 200 miles up through the keys over 40 bridges, (which is ALWAYS interesting!)  and then up the Tamiami highway seeing a lot of alligators laying (lying?) around along the way.  Yesterday we went to a really big Farmer's Market and today we went to an amazing National Art Festival with artists from all over the country showing their particular type of art.

Having a good time.  Wish you were here!

Poudre Canyon fire

 I don't know what these plants used to be but they're burned to stumps now.  I had to go to the dentist today and the highway to Laramie was closed by a new forest fire right close to the road so I had to take the highway over Cameron Pass down the Poudre Canyon... which has been closed for weeks by a wildfire that burned a lot of trees and houses.  Today, luckily, was the first day they opened that road, so I was able to get to Fort Collins to get my tooth fixed.

One good thing about driving down the Poudre Canyon after a raging wildfire had closed it for three weeks ... no traffic!  I thought about stopping to see if I could find some BBQ moose --- but decided that would be in bad taste.

 These pictures aren't very colorful.  Of course, the smoke was still a big haze in the air though I didn't see any smouldering spots on the ground.  Still, my camera card is an old one from another camera that I sat on at the Western stock show a couple years ago.  I think I'll get a new card and see if that helps.  I don't know how many people will be interested in these pictures.  Scenery doesn't work all that well for me somehow.  Probably I need a better camera than a little cheapo digital.

 Here's a picture of the entrance to the Narrows coming from FTC.  Trees burned in the Narrows.  The fire burned big time on both sides of the Poudre River all the way up to Rustic.  I don't know why the news didn't say that.  It was just mostly reported about the fire jumping the river at one spot... at the location of that Glacier housing development.  Like that was the only spot where the fire crossed the river.   Basically, Poudre Canyon burned  to the tops of the mountains on both sides of the river  for almost 60 miles.  Some mountains were burned down to the dirt.  Some burned just in spots.  Others are covered with skeletons of burned trees.

These are pictures of lots of burned trees but I don't know if it's showing up that well.  Oh well, I took these pictures to put in my blog--- so I'm going to use them anyway.

Rodeo Weekend

 This was Rodeo Weekend in Walden...  thus the Oyster Fry!!! ...which I personally hate.  I think it is a really sick thing to make a big deal of.  After cutting them out of those little newborn calves, (and if you've ever participated in a branding you know that it is a dirty painful violent thing to do) acting like you're so macho by eating them...  well, I think it's pathetic.  Anyway, this is Rodeo Weekend in North Park.  And it was a really busy weekend because it's always the Pioneer Reunion the same weekend as the rodeo, and it happened that this weekend there was a Ride The Rockies bicycle tour that spent the night on it's way through town.  2000 bike riders.  There wasn't enough rooms in town for all the people.

 Here are some pictures of smoke from the wildfires down the Poudre Canyon,  viewed from the fairgrounds.

 This is the smoke over the Rawah mountains to the east which you can barely see for the haze.  I didn't count how many horse trailers there were at the fairgrounds for the rodeo.  Maybe fifty.  A lot.  The first time I had been up there for the rodeo since the kids were little.  I like the pole bending and barrel racing but not so much the bull and bronc riding.

 More of the Rawah Mountains.

  We went down to watch the parade this morning.  There weren't any teams of horses this time, Maybe Roy Golobith doesn't work them any more since he's gone to work for Silver Spur Ranch's Lone Pine Unit and left the State Line Ranch.  They used to have that really cool team of black Percherons that always stood there in that pasture at Three Way.  But there were plenty of people riding horses.  I wanted to mention a float that absolutely amazed us when we watched it go by. It was a semi and flat bed covered with bales of hay and people, (Including Joe's 4th grade teacher, Sarah Carlstrom) and a big sign that said "Cowboys For A Cancer Cure".  I was looking to see if I knew anybody on there when I spotted a woman sitting there on one of the bales of hay smoking a cigarette! It was the most amazing thing!  The float for curing cancer.  (Not to mention sitting on a bale of hay surrounded by bales of hay, surrounded by smoke from raging wild fires!)   And none of the rest of them acted like there was anything wrong with that.  Oh well!  That's North Park!.  Yesterday Jay played with the Front Porch Swingers at the Pioneer Reunion and when he carried his electric piano in it's case into the elementary school gym, a kid came up to him and asked, "Is that a gun in there?"  It is absolutely nuts!  And when that float came back by (Walden's parade is so small, it goes down the street twice!) She was not only still smoking cigarettes but was now carrying a pack of cigarettes and lighter!  I didn't see if any of the hay was smoking.

Hannibal, Missouri

 On my way up to Iowa from Bonne Terre, Missouri, I had to stop in Hannibal to see where Mark Twain grew up or Jay would have been really upset... if I happened to accidentally mention the fact.  Because he's a really big fan of Mark Twain's.  So is Joe.  Here is the home Twain grew up in.  They charged $8 for a tour but I didn't see any reason to do that.  The whole town had those signs or plaques like the one above on the buildings.  So you knew what significance it had in Twain's life or his books.  He really included his hometown and stuff that went on there in his stories.  One of the plaques said that using his town in his stories helped him to make sense of his life.  That made sense to me.  The sign says this fence is the one Tom Sawyer painted.

Here's proof that that house above was really Twain's home because here is an actual picture of the actual Twain standing in front of the same house.

 This is the house that was used for Becky Thatcher's home in Tom Sawyer which is right across the street from Twain's home.

This is supposedly Twain's river boat, sitting on the Mississippi River at Hannibal.  There was a light house and I thought I would climb up the stairs to the top of the bluff overlooking the river to get a panoramic view of the river, but after about the 1000th or so flight of stairs climbing on and on forever!!!! I decided it wasn't all that important to get a panoramic view of the Mississippi River!  Anyway, some guy doing yard work at a house on that hillside climb told me you couldn't go in the light house anyway.  So really, what was the use?  At Hannibal I headed east away from the river inland in Missouri and then north to Iowa.  It was 400 + miles from Bonne Terre to Lorimor, Iowa.  A long drive and I'm still tired.

Shirley's farm

 I took a video but I've tried and tried to download it and it won't come on here.  I need to make a you tube account and put videos on there for people to see.  It's disappointing that I can't put it on here.  Joe is showing Amanda's grandmother's home and yard and you can get a better idea how nice it is here.  So lush!  This is the drive coming in to the house.

 This isn't easy to see how far you can see into the distance but it is miles and miles of rolling tree covered hills.  This is part of the yard and drive into the house.