Altoona, IA - Look at That Roof!!!

Oh, boy: sometimes I have troubles publishing my blogs online. How annoying. I just want to write and put my pictures out there but then I have to become a computer jockey and try to figure out why my software doesn’t speak the same language as Google. But, I think I’ve got it solved and more should appear shortly.

OK, I think I’ve got my problems solved - for now. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I really don’t have much to write about. We’ve been in Altoona, IA for two weeks now and mostly have visited our doctors and dentist and eye doctors for our annual exams. We try to get these all in one week so we can get them out of the way.

Last year I notice a large lump in my groin area in January down in San Diego. Aha - a hernia. I’ve had one before and knew what they looked like. I decided to wait until I got back to Iowa for any work on it and last summer I had a hernia ‘procedure.’ This year my January surprise was painful tooth. Every time I bit wrong on it, it hurt. Ouch. But, again I decided to wait until I got back to Iowa to have any work done. Ouch. But, then in June, I was eating my breakfast cereal and noticed a hard lump in my mouth. Oops, a bit of a tooth. But - the pain was gone. Sure enough, a piece of the the tooth that was causing me pain had fallen off and the pain was gone. Whoopee.

We were in New Hampshire by this time and I got an appointment for a dentist to check it. I was in absolutely no pain and she agreed that I could probably wait 3 more months to see my Iowa dentist. So, I came back to Iowa this year the same as last year - knowing that I needed some work done.
My dental appointment was not the 30 minute cleaning that Gary’s was - mine was 2 hours and I don’t care how much he smiled and chatted - I know he was going to give me a 10” shot and then was going to drill to China. Now, first I got the usual shot in the gum area - then he gave me a shot in the roof of my mouth. Ooof-da. Geez, Louise. The roof of my mouth. 2 hours later I walked out drooling because my whole mouth was numb.

That was a Monday. My mouth hurt and I was on Aleve until Friday, the Friday before Labor Day weekend. 2 Aleve in the morning and 2 at night. And, it still kept me awake a bit. Finally on Monday, I got into the dentist who looked at the roof of my mouth and said: ‘that looks bad. It’s the worst mouth ulcer that I’ve seen in 13 years of being a dentist. Thanks, Doc. That was not what I wanted to hear. He told me that a mouth ulcer would clear up on its own - he couldn’t do anything to make it better but he did give me some mouthwash to help keep it clean. And, yes it’s clearing up. I took the Aleve for about 5 days and now have no pain. As he told me, the ulcer is slowly decreasing in size and I have my next appointment in a few days to put on the new crown. What fun!!!

We also are cleaning up after a long journey. Most of the campgrounds that we have been in have prohibited washing of RV’s and cars. And, I understand. Firstly water is not cheap and secondly, it does seem to be a waste spraying water all over a huge RV. Usually I use a produce called Wash and Wax All and have great results with it. However, even using that, I need to get all the grit off of the RV first. Usually, I’ve been able to ask for permission to use a bucket and a sponge or rag to wash some of our vehicles but this is usually not completely adequate in getting that grit off. So, we’ve arrived in Iowa just a bit grungy and dirty.

And, that’s one of our first big tasks - cleaning up the Jeep and the RV. Gary gets the roof and, though I don’t want to show this picture of our roof for fear you’ll think we never clean our RV. On the other hand, we’ve been camped under a lot of trees which drop sap, leaves, pine needles and dirt. So, this is what an RV roof looks like after about 5 months of not being washed - it’s a bit dirty. Here you can see where Gary has cleaned about 1/3 of it off and you can see the section that he still has to do. When he gets done, he’ll put on some protectant against the sun.

Funny thing, we raised the Direct TV receiver so he could clean under it and, lo and behold, we could not get it down. Gary pressed the ‘down’ button and all it did was turn and turn. That sure will be a problem under bridges. However, he called the manufacturer and finally got it down.

I worked on the rest of the RV with my magic expandable wand but Gary used the ladder to get to the tops of the slides and some of the areas that I could not reach.

Meanwhile, you can see the reflections on the side of the RV to see what we have gotten done.
And, here we are, both the RV and Jeep have been cleaned and we’re ready to - relax and catch up.

On the other hand, we’ve been seeing our friends and relatives. We met Cathy, Gary’s sister at Panera for a lo-o-ong chat fueled by coffee and sugar.

We’ve been over to see our friends, Shirley and Jerry, who just got back from Alaska after a 3-month trip. They are actually in the same campground we are which is a novelty to us - having friends in the same campground. We’ve seldom camped in a campground where we were before so don’t usually arrive knowing people. They’ve given us loads of hints about traveling in Alaska and we’ve given them loads of hints about traveling the East Coast where they plan to travel next year.

‘You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.’

                                        Booker T. Washington