I’m Stylin’

Every day now, my eye is improving a bit.  The day after my cataract surgery, my bad eye was already 20-30.  The eye doc said it will continue to improve over the next week or two.  In two weeks, I’ll have the stiches (!!!) removed from my eye and we’ll see if it hits 20-20.  Yep, because the cataract was so tenacious, they had to make a larger incision and it took three stiches to close.  It hurt putting them in, but I don’t feel them now.  I can’t even see them in the mirror because they are tucked in behind my cornea.  Amazing what modern medicine can do.

All in all, despite the pain of the procedure,  I’m pretty happy with the results.  I now don’t have to wear glasses to drive anymore, which for me is a thrill.  I’ve been wearing glasses since I was a kid, and I am not fond of them.  The thing that really bugged me was there was no good sunglasses, except prescription ones, and with my vision changing over the years, it cost too much to continually upgrade sunglasses as well as the everyday glasses.

So I had to resort to wearing the “Old Fart” over the glasses sunglasses, and I really despised the look.

One of the first things I did was go out and buy a normal pair of sunglasses, in fact I bought two pair…I got a little carried away with my enthusiasm.

Yep, I’m stylin’ now!  :c)

I found something on line the other day that I can point to as the thing that started my wanderlust.  It was a TV show that lasted 26 episodes and I remember thinking how cool it would be to travel all over the country.  I found the DVD of the pilot movie.

Watching the movie, it brought back memories, even though it was a cheesy plot, I remember the thrill of the idea of motorcycle touring.   That’s what I ended up doing, taking a 7000 mile trip around the country on a matched pair of Honda 500 motorcycles with my dad and brother.  It caused the travel bug to bite me…hard.

As the years have gone by, I still enjoy the traveling, but it’s certainly much better in our Journey, nice having my bed…and bathroom with me wherever we go.  But maybe someday, a motorcycle trip could happen again…

One thing about travel that is somewhat of a hindrance is the cost of diesel fuel.  I’m always looking for an additional income stream and I think I found it.

Actually the grandsons decided they are going to earn money to buy a motor boat.  Their sales were pretty good, they made thirty dollars and some change for a few hours work.  They split up the money, each one took a share of the profits and there was some left over to go to the boat fund…all of thirty five cents.  Now they’ve earned enough to buy two screws to hold down a cleat.  I’m thinking we need to help them refine their business model.

Some people love RVing so much, they never want to give it up.  In our travels in the area, we saw an amazing sight, an RVer who went to that great campground in the sky and took his RV with him!

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The Eyes Have It

Or at least one of mine does…a new lens.

Had my cataract surgery yesterday and as usual with me, nothing ever goes easy.  Along with a delay waiting for the operating room to become available, my procedure that was to take about five to ten minutes lasted one hour and nine minutes.  Evidently the thickness of my cataract was underestimated and it took the ophthalmologist extra time to complete the surgery.

I have to say it was probably the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever been through…ever.  The numbing drops that were used didn’t work very well.  My jaw was quite sore after the surgery from  gritting my teeth.  I went through childbirth three times watching Marti deliver our kids and clenching my jaw then didn’t hurt as much as it did this time.

But it’s all behind me now, so it’s a regimen of eye drops, Tylenol, eye drops and rest for the next few days, then even more eye drops for the next month.

Am I seeing better?  Yes and No.  I now see better with the newly repaired right eye at a distance but not good up close, and the left eye works great up close but not good at a distance.  My current glasses are now obsolete because they seem to make me cross eyed…more so than usual.  The eye doctor said to wait about a month before being fitted with new glasses.  Looks like more toothpaste missing the brush and ending up in the sink. :c(

Because of my cross eyed state, Marti now is EDAIC for me (Eye Drop Administer In Chief), so the drops will actually get where they’re supposed to go.

Despite the cross eyedness I’m dealing with I still could see well enough to post this picture of my BBB (Best Blogging Buddy) Rick and his handsome little grandson, Mason, in case you missed it on his blog.

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Reservations Make My Head Spin

I’m usually a pretty patient person.  I try not to let things bother me too much, it doesn’t help one’s life expectancy letting every little thing get under your skin.  There is one thing that drives me absolutely bonkers, though.  It’s trying to make reservations at campgrounds.

It used to be easy, you’d look up a campground and they’d have listed their campground rates.  Now it seems that many of them won’t let you know what the nightly rate is unless you go through a laborious matrix of picking dates, providing your credit card information and then they’ll tell you the rate.  I don’t always know what dates I’ll be there and just want to research for the most bang for my bucks.

I especially am not fond of the Reserve America system that so many campgrounds are defaulting to for their reservation system.  Not only do they charge you for the privilege of letting them make your reservation, if you have to make an adjustment to the dates you’re going to be at the reserved campground, they ding you a penalty fee.

I’ve just spent a couple of hours looking for campgrounds outside of St. Louis, MO.  Our son Ryan, and his family just transferred to Ryan’s new assignment,

the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Cheyenne, homeported in St. Louis, MO.

The Cheyenne is a river tender, it has the responsibility to maintain navigational aids (buoys, channel markers and such) up and down large stretches of the Mississippi River. 

Built in the early 1960’s this cutter will be quite a challenge for Ryan to keep running in top condition, but then, he’s the man for the job.  It will be a three year tour for him unless he promotes himself out of a job again like he did in his last assignment.

So we’re researching campgrounds just west of St. Louis where they’ll be living (we’re open to any suggestions).  We want to spend some time visiting them in September and look forward to many more visits over the next several years.

Back to the campground search, we hope to find something close by that doesn’t eat our budget alive.  KOA?  No thanks!  They must think pretty highly of themselves to charge that outrageous fee per night.  I guess I’ll just have to spend more time looking at other campgrounds and state parks and suffer through the crazy reservation system. *sigh* 

Good thing I’m retired.

But it will be worth it all when we get to see the girls once again.

 

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A Special Surprise For The Boys

We always enjoy our time with all our grandkids and hope they remember our time together.  Sometimes we find a way to create a special memory by doing something unusual.

We set out from our campsite in Myrtle Beach and headed North, telling the boys we had a big surprise for them.  We stopped in for a just made hot doughnut at Krispy Kreme.

They’d never had one before and quickly wolfed them down.  I guess you could say we were contributing to the delinquency of minors. ;c)

But that wasn’t the big surprise.

We stopped at a park that had some old Air Force planes on display.   We walked around them and looked at them.  The boys loved it and had a million questions.

But that wasn’t the big surprise.

We drove a little further and FINALLY got to the big surprise.

We took the boys for a ride in a helicopter (with their parent’s permission).  They’d never been (neither had Marti) and whooped with excitement.  We had to split up because the helicopters were small and could not take all four of us at the same time, so Andrew and I went riding in the grey helo and Marti and Owie rode the yellow helo.

Andrew sat right up front next to the pilot, what a view!

Owie sat in back with Marti, he loved it, too.

It was really cool to be able to have a special surprise for the boys, they’ll always remember their first helicopter ride.  They said this was the next best thing to Splash Mountain at Disney World.

I guess we need to make a return trip to the Magic Kingdom one of the days (soon!).

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We Saw A Real Ghost–Honest!

That’s not just a catchy post title, we really did see a ghost.  I never would have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes!  Read on.

We’ve been having a great time with the boys at the Pirateland campground.  There is so much to do, so while Marti was at her seminars in the mornings, the boys and I headed over to the pool,

and the Lazy River, where we drifted along on tubes.

I had a great time with the boys.  Sort of sad that Marti missed out, but by Thursday she finished her last class.

Owie is fascinated by Alligators.  Fortunately in Myrtle Beach, they have this really excellent attraction, Alligator Adventure.

It is 15 acres of alligators of every shape and size. 

There were little ones and big ones.  And to show the difference between gators and crocodiles, they had a couple of crocs to see.  One was huge!

I wanted to meet the park employee that gives that croc its pedicure…

There was an unusual gator there, one born with no tail.  Tail-less gators are the most common birth defect, and it is a death sentence as those poor gators have no chance of survival.  This tail-less gator was lucky to be raised in this facility.  Its name?  “Bob”.

At one of the shows, the boys got to touch an albino king snake,

as well as a little gator.

There were other kinds of reptiles there, turtles were everywhere.

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother…and my other brother…and my other brother…and my other brother…

In the snake house, they had an amazing collection of snakes.  Cobras, Black Mambas, Fer’ De Lances, Anacondas and even some Rattlesnakes.  We were glad they were behind thick glass!

But then, we saw it!  An honest to goodness Ghost!  Actually, there were two!

Albino Alligators!  There are only seven know to exist in the whole world and they all live here.  Legend has it that these gators are know as the “Ghost of the Bayou” and if you see one, your death is imminent.

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but one look at those ghostly eyeballs sent shivers down my spine!

All in all, a great day, we all had a great time and learned a lot, not just the boys.  The boys didn’t really want to leave.  I’m so pleased that they are plugged into nature.

But we had to leave, we were saving up a big surprise for the end of the week.  What was it?  Stay tuned!

     THE END!

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Heaven For Little Boys

Backing up the blog a bit, time to put in some pictures.

My Co-Pilot helped me navigate to Myrtle Beach.  He was rewarded with a fuel stop at Flying J.  Andrew was filled up with pizza and chicken wings (as was Owie).  Can’t beat that smile!

Even though we ran into some rain on the way down,

we checked into PirateLand Campground with no problems.  We were well behaved at check in, because there was a pirate hanging from the ceiling ready to deal with troublemakers.

 

We got a good site, in fact the exact same site that we had last year.

We jumped into some of the activities available.  Right off, we went sailing on some paddle boats.  I liked the paddled boats, they are two boy powered.

Of course with all that energy expended, we had to refuel the boys…with, what else?  Ice cream!

They do pack the RVs in here pretty closely.

But we don’t care because right at the end of the street is this!

The boys looked at the waves for a little while.

But it didn’t last long!  :c)

Another evening, they got some advice on building sand castles from Mimi. 

After fighting a losing battle with the tide, we consoled the boys…

With more Ice Cream!

We haven’t even gotten to the pools and mini golf.  Standby.

      THE END (For Now)

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