You Asked For It...

U.S. Navy F/A-18 Blue Angels 1 - 6 readying for flight

Penny and I have been getting requests to update our blog, so here we go… 

F/A 2 Sea Harrier Jump Jet

We haven't really done anything to interesting since we got back except I (Paul) went to the 2015 Rockford Airfest where I shot somewhere in the neighborhood of 7000 pictures. Gave my self a pretty bad case of tendonitis near my lower right-side latissimus muscle from all the up and down camera motion. Since thats kinda all of the newest stuff I shot, that's what I'll post here. As always, click on a pic to see a larger version.

U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor

When last I wrote, we had moved back to Northern Illinois so we could be treated for our chronic Hepatitis C. I was going through some pretty extensive medical procedures. As of this point we bought a place to live in, close to church, family, friends and loved ones, not to mention quality medical care.

Blue Angels C-130 Hercules "Fat Albert"

Our house is really nice, but like any house it needs some cleaning, some painting and some minor repairs. It's been eating a lot of our time, but it'll be worth it when we're done. It has more space, cabinets, counter space, and storage than we'll ever need.

We're splitting our time between home and the campground, since it's only 15 miles away.

We've started the latest anti-viral treatments for Hep C, in our case, the Viekira Pak plus Ribavirin.

U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor

Since Penny has never been treated, and shows no signs of liver damage, she will be on a 12 week course of treatment.

U.S. Navy F/A-18 Blue Angels 1 - 4

F/A 2 Sea Harrier Jump Jet

I, on the other hand, have failed to eradicate the virus using three different treatment protocols, over a 4-year period, the last of which almost cost me my life when my blood crashed. Added to that I have compensated (mild, Child-Pugh A) cirrhosis of the liver. That means 24 weeks of treatment for me. 

If we maintain a viral status of "undetectable" for three, (or maybe six, I forget...), months after treatment ends, we will be considered cured.

U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor

We just began week 4, and side effects have kicked in big-time. We're totally sun sensitive and can burn in a very short time. We're always bone tired, except when it comes time to sleep, have little energy, are always out of breath, and hurt all over. We're both in a mental fog where we can't concentrate, forget everything, and easily become confused.

Blue Angels C-130 Hercules "Fat Albert"

Our emotions are completely out of control. Penny wants to cry all the time, and I anger quickly and easily, and want to lash out at people and objects, (they call this Riba Rage coz it's caused by the Ribavirin). The list goes on and on. told that all this means the stuff is working and that the side-effects will resolve some over time, but on a Hep C support site, some folks are reporting that their side effects have taken 6-months to a year after treatment ended to go away. All this makes workamping at the campground pretty difficult. 

So, for now, we sleep, take pills, nap, rest, and drive each other nuts. 

U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor

Enjoy the Airfest pics. There's plenty more where these came from...

P-51 Mustang "Baby Duck" and F-22 Raptor Heritage Flight

What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

We're coming up on two years of full-time living in the HOW and our internal GPS is saying "Please make a u-turn as soon as possible."

We arrived back here in Illinois the day after all those devastating tornados tore through the North-Central part of the state. As we drove north up I-39, we saw all kinds of debris on the sides of the road. Even though is was a day after the storms, there was still a lot of gusty wind coming out of the West. Not only was the HOW getting blown all over the road, semi-trucks were too. We were almost sideswiped twice. We got back to Blackhawk Valley Campground and got all setup. 

Then we got ready to start workamping and for me, (Paul,) to undergo a plethora of medical tests and procedures. 

The prep for the procedures was horrible as usual. The upper GI revealed five new esophageal varices that had to be banded. Not what we had hoped for. The hospital isn't using the same anesthesia they used to use, (the one Michael Jackson died from), and whatever it was they gave me (Paul) took a day and a half to recover from. I get to go back next week so they can look for any more that might have been hidden by the previous five. Happy Happy Joy Joy...

These varices are like the moles in that Whack a Mole game. Whack one down and another one pops up somewhere else. Eventually the esophagus gets scarred over and then no more can pop up. Of course then they can form in the stomach... The doctors hope that if they can get my Hep C under control, and I continue to loose weight, (68 pounds so far), that these and other related complications will settle down.


I also had a whole bunch of blood tests on different days, an ultrasound of my liver, (early detection for cancer) spleen and other assorted guts.

Then off to see the liver transplant specialist to initiate the process of having our Hepatitis C treated with some promising new drugs. The doctor asked us if we had any plans to stay in one place long enough for him to treat us. For Penny it'll be eight weeks, for Paul twenty four weeks. That was the clincher.

We're not looking for any "poor babies" or doin' that old fart listing of all our health woes, dem is just da facts Jack!
For almost two years Penny has been up nights worrying that another almost-get-dead episode, like the one in August 2013, will come up while we're on the road with no help nearby. She also worries because I work so hard, often injuring myself in the process. (When we were remodeling the dining area on the HOW, I hit my head on the table so hard that I still have a dent in my skull. Not too smart for a guy who doesn't have enough platelets to stop a cut from bleeding, much less a brain-bleed.) She's also a planner, and our adventures rarely go as planned.

I, on the other hand, see Penny spend her days trying to make wholesome food for us in our small kitchen and then having to clean up and wash dishes. The laundry is never finished. That sucks!

We both miss family, friends, and a church to call our own.
They say hindsight is 20 / 20, and in our case that is certainly true. When we look back over the last two years we see God working in our lives, steering circumstances to protect and provision us, and also to lead us. We're just to blind to see His obvious intervention when it's right in front of us. It's funny, when we pray for God to reveal His plan for us, we always tell him we need to get hit on the head with a 2X4 to "get it", but apparently that's not enough for our thick skulls. So He dropped this most recent bomb. This time we GOT IT!

All this to say, we're moving back to the Land of Lincoln, oppressive taxes and corrupt politicians; lovely and scenic Northern Illinois.

We'll still travel, we just won't be Full-Timers, but we'll become Any-Timers. We'll go when (like January and February) and where we want, but we'll take shorter trips and stay closer to medical assistance. We plan to continue to spend our summers here at Blackhawk Valley Campground because frankly, it has everything we could want or need for not only recreation, but for the well being of our souls. I mean, look at these pictures. What more could we ask for. 

Home will be close enough to do laundry and cooking blitzes, and it's close to church, family and friends.

SO!

The next post will have a change of address to a new blog. It will be more photo and story centric so stay tuned and HANG ON!

'Bout Half Way There

Greetings from Little Rock Arkansas. We're about half way on our trek from Hondo, TX to Rockford, IL. 

When last you heard from the 2 P's we were only about 80 miles along. We wanted to go through the Texas Hill Country to try out the HOW's new suspension modifications. I'm happy to report that they work well! Anyway our fancy-schmancy GPS guided us right through downtown Bourne (pronounced bernie) during rush hour, AND the road was under construction! It took like an hour and a half to get back to the highway.

But arrive we did at the Potter's Creek COE Campground on Canyon Lake. This is a lovely little campground on a smallish (for a COE impound anyway) lake. We'll stay here again for sure! 

The next day we headed out in a northeasterly direction. We went to another COE Campground called Westcliff on Belton Lake. We got a pull-through site so we wouldn't have to unhook the toad for a one-night stay. That's always a welcome option.

Our place was just off of a nice sand, gravel and bedrock beach. The folks who had the site before us left a nice pile of firewood, so of course we thought about having a fire in the evening. We never did, but that's another story.

I (Paul) took my camera and went for a walk on the beach and had a look around. The campground bordered some private property and I had to get a picture of the house on that space. I guess if you're gonna have a house on a hill overlooking a lake, you may as well have one like this.

The next day we headed northeast again until we got to Lavonia Lake in Northeast Texas. This too was a COE impound. We drove through one campground which was looking pretty neglected for a COE facility. We left that one and went to another, this one called Lavonia Park. It was in a little better shape, but not by much. We've gotten pretty spoiled by the cleanliness, and quality facilities at all the other Army Corp of Engineers campgrounds we've stayed at in the past, so these were a real disappointment.

We did however, find a site we liked and after a lot of screwin' around, were able to get the HOW leveled. This site had quite a beautiful 360-degree vista. 

There was some funky weather passin' by which made for some really awesome cloud formations.

The sunset wasn't bad either.

When we left, we headed back towards Texarkana. Our route would take us to Beards Bluff Campground on Millwood Lake in southwest Arkansas. The road from the freeway was a nightmare. Twisty-turny, up-and-down and crowded with log trucks. Log truck drivers are paid by the load, so they want to go fast, fast, fast. If you're in the way, as we were, they just go around you. Curves, hills, it doesn't matter; double yellow center-lines have no meaning. We were happy to arrive in one piece. We got another pull-through coz we only planned to stay one night. When we got to our site, however, we found this!

This site was REALLY NICE! We opted for another night here. So far the weather along our route had been nice. We'd been able to sleep with the windows open and this place was no different. That is...

... until the smell hit

I shoulda known. The name of the lake is Mill Wood. All those log trucks... We ran into this at Wright Pattman Lake last fall. Ever smell a paper mill? Take some sauerkraut juice and soak some old cardboard boxes in it. Then let it sit a while a dark dank place and let your dog have diarrhea on it. Gettin' the picture? We were otta there early that morning. 

We arrived in Little Rock that evening. It was clear and the moon was full, so I tried a couple 'speriments. Here are some of the results:

Sirus (way on the left) and Orion
You can see the Orion Nebula in his sword (fuzzy blob in the center)

We came through Little Rock because we wanted to be sure we could find a good church for Good Friday and Easter services. We found what we were looking for at Fellowship Bible Church. To God be the glory!

And now, you're caught up.

Head For The Hills!

We left Hondo on March 29 and headed for the hills. Hill Country that is! We only went about 80 miles before stopping for the night, because we wanted to have a bit of a shakedown before we got out of familiar territory. Darn good thing we did too!

First though, I need to cover a little unfinished business. 

If you remember back a bit, I did some suspension modifications on the HOW. I still had to finish that job by installing a rear track-bar. That didn't go well on the first attempt because things weren't lining up the way they should, and I couldn't get the two most important nuts to seat properly. I followed the instructions to the letter, (probably where I went wrong) and when everything didn't fit or tighten correctly, I had to get it all apart again. Not an easy task as the directions said to use the red flavor of lock-tight, (which is pretty much permanent), on everything. Also the nuts that wouldn't tighten right were self-locking and had locked themselves nicely about a 1/4-inch short of where they were supposed to stop. After too many hours of "persuasion", I got everything apart. I called the manufacturer and spoke to support gal who pretty much said that as long as I use the red lock-tight,  I could use as many washers as it took to get the whole assembly to align correctly, and I could swap their nuts and bolts with appropriate replacements of my choosing. So off to the hardware store I went for a 1/2 dozen washers and some nice new Grade-5 nuts and bolts, (and yes... I did get ones with deep enough shoulders that no threads were covered except with the end lock-washers...). I had to wait out a couple rainy days before I could continue, but happily, it all reassembled the way it should. 

While I was workin' on the track-bar, I noticed that the U-joints on the rear of the driveshaft looked dry, so I did a lube job on the whole chassis, suspension and steering. 



I had raised the HOW as high as it would go, on its jacks, so I could get to all the grease zerks, and while it was up there, I noticed that the rear anti-sway bar was making contact with the differential. I was aware that might happen so I had to reverse the Cheap Handling Fix, and restore the anti-sway linkage to their stock locations.





And as long as I was down there, and already all dirty and greasy, I did an oil change...

(I went with synthetic)


We couldn't be happier with our new dining/ work area. 

As you can see, we got some chairs.

We used the former seatbelt anchor points to fasten the table down so it won't go airborne if we get in an accident .

Sorry about the crummy picture quality. I just can't get the hang of those hold-it-out-in-front-of-you-point-and-shoot dealies. 

And Still More Woykin 'n Practicin'

Well...

We been talking about it; we been planning for it; we been driving around with the materials for it; and since we were due to be leaving, we when for it...

Remember this from last time? 

The dining booth

I mentioned we had big plans for it. Actually, we had smaller big plans for it, which consisted of recovering the cushions and putting new fabric on the trim. We could have done that.... BUT NOOOOOOO! NOT US! That would be too easy! 

Living in our HOW means doing a lot of sideways walking and or scooting, and all that sidewaysness is really hard on our knees. Since we had replaced the sofa in the lounge with Lay-Z-Boys, the room had gotten kind of narrow when the recliners were, ... well, reclined, and walking past the recliner's footrests required walking sideways. Getting in and out of the dining booth - sideways; getting from the foot to the head of the bed - you guessed it - sideways. Then there is the biggie - climbing in and out of the passenger seat workspace. That required moving sideways AND getting around the doghouse (big hump that covers the engine).

So we tore the dining booth out!

We figured five days tops. One to tear it out, two to frame it out, and two to finish the space. Did I mention the booth is built in?  And it has electric and ductwork running through it? 

It turned to be more like a week for the demolition and framing before we could start the finish work. We had a few false starts, and a few more do-overs, but after 10 days we had the structure completed and ready for the trim work.

The new space with the paneling in place and the electrical fixtures and heat vents in place

Up until this point in the project, we had been able to reuse the materials and hardware from the original booth and stuff we had laying around, so we didn't have to get too many supplies. But now we were down to the sub-flooring and we really didn't know what we wanted to do about that. At some point down the road we need to replace some worn out carpet, so we didn't want to sink much into a temporary flooring solution.

We spent an entire day looking at possible solutions when we ran across a carpet remnant that would do the job and only cost twenty bucks. After some cutting and molding we had our new space all ready. Just a little spackling and repainting on the walls and it'll be peachy.

Last thing we did was assemble and install the table we'd been driving around with all year.

So, now we have a large table that we can both sit at, side by side, just like 2 P's in a pod, lookin' out the widow while we eat, work or whatever.

Oh yeah, we still need chairs....