unpacking

still working on unpacking. Bob made it home on Friday and had a successfull openhouse on Saturday. I forget how many retirement condos he had built there in Bellingham but i was very impressed with that town which unlike seattle operated at
a calmer pace. Bob got to visit the family while he was here. I still feel bad for disrupting his schedule but he claims he was getting an escape from the grind.
They put me on some anti-seizure medicine which is making me feel very tired most
of the time not to mention foggy- it seems to affect my short term memory...
what did i just say??
I have a heart doctor appointment for Wednesday to check the possibility that the seizure may have been caused by my pacemaker battery wearing out. Because of a shortage of neurologists in DM i couldn't get an appointment until october 31st
so i will have to stay on med at least until then.

On the drive home we stayed overnight at my brothers cabin in beautiful Wintrop WA.
Then while here we drove over to Iowa City for some much needed Thai food with
my other brother and two of our three sisters.

back in DM

Arrived home after exhausting drive- left washington friday afternoon and got in des Moines at 5 pm monday. Bob is a real champ for doing the long drive- he has to head back friday to be there for a Open house on a construction project he just finished-
he built some condos in Bellingham.
its going be a real pain to avoid driving for 6 months. i have dr appt today and i suspect i will have some follow up tests sometime soon.

heading home

my brother Bob will be driving me home to DM starting this afternoon. We will driving across the North Cascade highway to Wintrop WA today. we probably won't get to DM until Monday? he will stay and visit for a week. i have to schedule some Dr appt. to try to determine what caused my seizure. This will probably be last blog entry for a while.

my brain visits the neurolgist

Dr Venema the neurologist concurred with the ER doctor and concluded that I had a seizure. He wants me to do some additional tests to try to determine the cause. I opted to have the other tests done in Iowa because he said they might take 2 or 3 weeks to schedule and perform here. The catscan showed a dark patch on my brain which he said looked like an old injury rather than a tumour (but further tests would give a better look. He wondered if i knew what caused it. The only thing I can
recall was a concussion i received playing sandlot football when i was a freshman in
college. I was briefly knocked out and had several hours of distorted consciousness
but seemed fine the next day. It may not turn out to be the cause but it boggles the
the mind(in more ways than one) that a bump on the head could cause a seizure 40 years later. The dr gave me some anti-seizure medication and advised me not to drive for 6 months. In Washington and Iowa it is deemed legal and medical advisement but in California they actually take your drivers license away. Not driving puts a real
crimp in my travel plans for the next few months. I feel really bummed out and feel very badly that i have to disrupt my brother and his family life so much. He has been a great sport about it and claims he is looking forward to an iowa visit. Aimee has been a wonderful support.( note there is something wrong with this keyboard and though i am a bad typist this keyboard is exaggerating my flaws).

travel travail , or bad news for this blogger !

The word “travel” comes from the old French word “travail” which means to work. That word, is thought to have come from “tripullare”, which is the three sectioned whip that Roman soldiers used to strongly encourage productivity out of the laborers in their expanded empire. They associated the act of moving from one place to another with hellish torture. ok so far i had a wonderful visit in washington, visiting relatives nd seeing the sights, eating great food especially the fish and chips and clam crowder. i got we also went to a musical in downtown seattle Lone Star Love with Randy Quaid that will open on BROADWAY in NOVEMBER - Itwas exciting and and amusing. NANCY got to visit some exeptional flower stores and nurseys. by the way she arrived home safely as scheduled on SEPT 15 . Unfortunately she missed the Etta James and BB King concert Aimee and i saw sept 16 th - quite the show it was outside but the rain was barely noticeable - they gsve us ponchos! we were on the 2nd row - not soon to be forgoten. Now the bad news: It seems i fainted in the bathroom sunday morning getting ready to go to church with Aimee. evidently i blocked the door when i fell and she had to call 911 to come take me to the emergency room. The ER doctor thought i hsd a seizure and insisted that i see a neurologist before i try driving. i have an appointment tommorrow . there is a possibility it could hsve been a stroke or it just could have been a fainting spell - anyway my brother is going to try to drive home with me and visit the rest of the family . so we may not be starting back until friday. Bob will probably stay until the 26th or 27th. in short i may be at that dreaded slope.

washington state fair at the end of summer

we went to the state fair in Puyallup Wa. yesterday. It was remarkably like the iowa state fair yet completely different...
AND now for something completely different:
Poem: "Three Songs at the End of Summer" by Jane Kenyon, from Collected Poems. © Graywolf Press, 2005.

Three Songs at the End of Summer

A second crop of hay lies cut
and turned. Five gleaming crows
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,
and like midwives and undertakers
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,
parting before me like the Red Sea.
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned
to water ski. They have, or they haven't.
Sounds of the instructor's megaphone
suffuse the hazy air. "Relax! Relax!"

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada's dry monotony breaks
over me. The days are bright
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today
for an hour, with my whole
body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,
and a crow, hectoring from its nest
high in the hemlock, a nest as big
as a laundry basket...
In my childhood
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.

bellingham

spent a nice day exploring beautiful bellingham. it has about 70,000 odd people (so not nearly as many odd people as DM). It was being marketed as a great place to retire until they had a string of bad winters - rain, snow and no sun. it is near the ocean and the mountains has great parks and great weather - at least while we were there. next we will go to Everett to help niece Aimee celebrate her birthday and get washingtonized.

from the evergreen state

nancy arrived as scheduled on friday 9-7 and we immediately embarked for Olympic Nat'l
we found scenic camping spot at the staircase on the elk river. much more fun traveling with nancy then alone- better company i guess. saturday we drove to the ocean and found campsite at Kalaloch near the beach. we hung out on beach then had a nice dinner at lodge- the best clam chowder ever. we sit on the beach and watched the stars- the dark sky was great for gazing. our campsite was near road but surf drowned out any traffic noise. warning the following is an attempt at haiku and may not be suitable for all viewers:
Towering hemlocks, ocean beaches
Nature beckons-
go away! Campground Full

sunday drove to bellingham to visit brother Bob

this land is my land...

greetings from Washington:
this land is your land from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters...
After driving thru Redwood natl park i took a detour over to Medford oregon to get
a maintenance check on ol Blue- then back to the oregon coastal scenic 101 highway.
then i drove on to washington. need i mention besides the scenery the oregon coast has great seafood opportunities- i couldn't resist the halibut and chips with clam crowder.

from sea to shining sea

in oregon now- been chalking up the nat'l parks: Arches, Canyonlands, Great Basin and
Lassen Volcanic. drove highway 299 across N. California- that was some tightfisted two-handed driving. then went down coastal 101. pictures are ocean from 101, wheeler peak in Great Basin and Lassen Peak. (no wi-fi or cell signal at Nat'l parks)