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fenchurchI figured it's been long enough, I'd better give a bit of a run-down of what I've been up to, before I start a huge dump of daily photo updates! I've been taking the photos like I'm supposed to for this, it's just a matter of making time to figure out which ones from each day to use and getting things all formatted... and I've ended up traveling a lot more in the past few weeks than I'd anticipated.
The first trip was a planned one.rackham and I headed down to the Columbia River Gorge for a Geocaching event... a Cache Machine (where someone had come up with a route to find about 100 caches in one day, if you were quick about it). We ended up finding 55 that day (not our all-time record for a day, but close) driving all around the area near The Dalles and Hood River in Oregon on a stunningly gorgeous day.
We got home from that and the next day I woke up with a migraine, which is pretty much the only way I get them these days. In the car accident, I injured some of the things that cause my migraines, meaning I now get several hours notice that I've got one coming on... giving me plenty of time to stop it if I'm awake. Sadly, not the case this time. Ugh. I ended up spending that Sunday mostly sleeping and trying to get my neck and shoulders to loosen up.
On Tuesday my mom called... my grandfather was in the hospital with what looked to be a stroke and she was thinking of driving down to Sacramento to be with him and wanted to know if I would go with her. Cue mad scramble to get laundry through and get packed, then Wednesday Rackham drove me down to my step-sister's place in Portland, OR where I met up with my mom (she drove over from Eastern Oregon) and the two of us headed south in her truck... stopping occasionally to stretch and find a Geocache or a Munzee (my mom has recently discovered Munzee and likes it more than Geocaching... calling it "Geocaching Lite" -- for a brief description, basically you're hunting for QR codes that people have placed around, using your smartphone to scan them and earning points for the ones you find). We stayed overnight in Rogue River, Oregon and then finished the drive down on Thursday (with a brief stop in Corning to hit the Olive Pit (it's traditional)).
By the time we got into California, we found out that my grandpa was being released from the hospital, which was a bit of a shock. He'd been in the ICU since Monday... and they just released him from there to drive home on his own. o_O We figured we had a bit of time for them to process him out and for him to get settled at home, so we decided to swing down to Fairfield, CA and hit the Jelly Belly Factory to stock up. I love going there... they always have a really good deal on Belly Flops (the Jelly Bellies that are mis-shapen or malformed), plus I can buy some of the individual flavors of Jelly Belly that are normally only available in multipacks (such as Black Pepper, which is only found in Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, or Birthday Cake, which is only available in the Coldstone Blend).
My grandpa was looking pretty good, when we finally got to his place. He'd had a small stroke due to high Coumadin levels (he'd stopped using his pill divider and he's pretty sure he probably just took too many by accident... don't worry, he's going back to the pill divider after this), but came through it pretty well. He ended up losing the use of his left thumb and forefinger, but he's already starting therapy and is hopeful of regaining them. We had a wonderful visit, though, and I'm very glad we drove down... if only for our peace of mind and because it cheered him up immensely. Plus we got to meet his girlfriend! She had already planned to come up and visit that weekend, so it worked out well... we got to meet her and we also knew someone would be there with him for the first few days after he got out of the hospital.
We actually found out on the drive down that my grandmother had also gone into the hospital. I should mention that she and my mom are not very close... and as a result, she and I have never been particularly close either, so it's not surprising that we hadn't heard about her being ill until then. We decided we really needed to go visit while we were there, so Friday morning we drove out to her hospital. It was an interesting experience. My grandmother is a carrier for necrotizing fasciitis (do NOT click that link if you have a weak stomach), which I had no idea was even possible. She has no trouble with the bacteria herself, but can spread it if people aren't careful around her. There were warnings on the door to her room about a Biohazard and we were required to wear protective clothing and gloves in order to see her. Our first visit went well enough, but she wasn't terribly lucid... when we came back later in the day, she was much better but had no memory of our earlier visit (I wasn't surprised).
The reason she was there really came down to her just getting too weak. She hadn't been eating well (and her husband had not been able to get her to eat better) and had taken a fall, which then snowballed into her getting even weaker... mixed in with issues with her seizure medication. She started doing better not long after we saw her and is at a rehab facility now... hopefully working on eating better as well as walking more. Still, once again I'm rather glad we went to visit her... we got to talk to her doctor and her neurologist and we got to cheer her up quite a bit by being there.
On Saturday, we headed for home, staying overnight again in Oregon and then meeting up with Rackham at my step-sister's place on Sunday. In fact, he had sent me a Glympse so I could track his location on the drive... and I loaded it up as we were approaching our exit, only to realize that he was on the same highway coming in the opposite direction approaching the same exit! My mom slowed down just a little bit and we got to wave at him waiting to get off the freeway as we drove by! Very funny! Gotta love technology.
Anyway, I've mostly been recovering from back to back road trips since then (seriously, that ended up being about ten days of being on the road the majority of the time). Photos will hopefully be forthcoming sometime this weekend, since I really hate being this far behind.
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
The first trip was a planned one.
rackham and I headed down to the Columbia River Gorge for a Geocaching event... a Cache Machine (where someone had come up with a route to find about 100 caches in one day, if you were quick about it). We ended up finding 55 that day (not our all-time record for a day, but close) driving all around the area near The Dalles and Hood River in Oregon on a stunningly gorgeous day.We got home from that and the next day I woke up with a migraine, which is pretty much the only way I get them these days. In the car accident, I injured some of the things that cause my migraines, meaning I now get several hours notice that I've got one coming on... giving me plenty of time to stop it if I'm awake. Sadly, not the case this time. Ugh. I ended up spending that Sunday mostly sleeping and trying to get my neck and shoulders to loosen up.
On Tuesday my mom called... my grandfather was in the hospital with what looked to be a stroke and she was thinking of driving down to Sacramento to be with him and wanted to know if I would go with her. Cue mad scramble to get laundry through and get packed, then Wednesday Rackham drove me down to my step-sister's place in Portland, OR where I met up with my mom (she drove over from Eastern Oregon) and the two of us headed south in her truck... stopping occasionally to stretch and find a Geocache or a Munzee (my mom has recently discovered Munzee and likes it more than Geocaching... calling it "Geocaching Lite" -- for a brief description, basically you're hunting for QR codes that people have placed around, using your smartphone to scan them and earning points for the ones you find). We stayed overnight in Rogue River, Oregon and then finished the drive down on Thursday (with a brief stop in Corning to hit the Olive Pit (it's traditional)).
By the time we got into California, we found out that my grandpa was being released from the hospital, which was a bit of a shock. He'd been in the ICU since Monday... and they just released him from there to drive home on his own. o_O We figured we had a bit of time for them to process him out and for him to get settled at home, so we decided to swing down to Fairfield, CA and hit the Jelly Belly Factory to stock up. I love going there... they always have a really good deal on Belly Flops (the Jelly Bellies that are mis-shapen or malformed), plus I can buy some of the individual flavors of Jelly Belly that are normally only available in multipacks (such as Black Pepper, which is only found in Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, or Birthday Cake, which is only available in the Coldstone Blend).
My grandpa was looking pretty good, when we finally got to his place. He'd had a small stroke due to high Coumadin levels (he'd stopped using his pill divider and he's pretty sure he probably just took too many by accident... don't worry, he's going back to the pill divider after this), but came through it pretty well. He ended up losing the use of his left thumb and forefinger, but he's already starting therapy and is hopeful of regaining them. We had a wonderful visit, though, and I'm very glad we drove down... if only for our peace of mind and because it cheered him up immensely. Plus we got to meet his girlfriend! She had already planned to come up and visit that weekend, so it worked out well... we got to meet her and we also knew someone would be there with him for the first few days after he got out of the hospital.
We actually found out on the drive down that my grandmother had also gone into the hospital. I should mention that she and my mom are not very close... and as a result, she and I have never been particularly close either, so it's not surprising that we hadn't heard about her being ill until then. We decided we really needed to go visit while we were there, so Friday morning we drove out to her hospital. It was an interesting experience. My grandmother is a carrier for necrotizing fasciitis (do NOT click that link if you have a weak stomach), which I had no idea was even possible. She has no trouble with the bacteria herself, but can spread it if people aren't careful around her. There were warnings on the door to her room about a Biohazard and we were required to wear protective clothing and gloves in order to see her. Our first visit went well enough, but she wasn't terribly lucid... when we came back later in the day, she was much better but had no memory of our earlier visit (I wasn't surprised).
The reason she was there really came down to her just getting too weak. She hadn't been eating well (and her husband had not been able to get her to eat better) and had taken a fall, which then snowballed into her getting even weaker... mixed in with issues with her seizure medication. She started doing better not long after we saw her and is at a rehab facility now... hopefully working on eating better as well as walking more. Still, once again I'm rather glad we went to visit her... we got to talk to her doctor and her neurologist and we got to cheer her up quite a bit by being there.
On Saturday, we headed for home, staying overnight again in Oregon and then meeting up with Rackham at my step-sister's place on Sunday. In fact, he had sent me a Glympse so I could track his location on the drive... and I loaded it up as we were approaching our exit, only to realize that he was on the same highway coming in the opposite direction approaching the same exit! My mom slowed down just a little bit and we got to wave at him waiting to get off the freeway as we drove by! Very funny! Gotta love technology.
Anyway, I've mostly been recovering from back to back road trips since then (seriously, that ended up being about ten days of being on the road the majority of the time). Photos will hopefully be forthcoming sometime this weekend, since I really hate being this far behind.
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 07:17 am (UTC)