While the morning was lovely, I burned our boxes and moved the horses’ corral first, though, I didn’t want them overgrazing on the area where I had the fence. Then I sat outside for quite a while just relaxing, reading, and miracle of miracles, just listening to the wind rustling the leaves around which we are surrounded (I can’t remember the last time I had time to just sit and listen to the wind!), but it started getting cool and eventually I needed to go back inside. The rain and thunderstorms started up again, so we decided it was a movie day, and watched several movies back to back, with only the basic chores to do. Ah, paradise!! So quiet and peaceful here, exactly what we needed!

Since we didn’t get to spend a lot of time getting caught up, my friend whose wedding we attended on Saturday decided to come and visit us at the horse camp, bringing along the bride’s two horse-loving daughters and the groom’s sister, along with a cooler full of leftovers from the reception, so we ate and talked and got caught up and had a lovely little picnic in beautiful weather. I had run around earlier in the day, down to the little town of Alfred (home of Alfred University and SUNY Alfred State College, which dominate the town), picking up propane at a cement fabrication factory, of all places, and getting rid of our trash and filling up with water, both behind the Mobil station in town. After the picnic, we had nothing else to do but dialyze, and we did that with no problem. Having this Ipad makes a huge difference, since Hubby can do all his own measurements, which leaves me free to do a lot of other things, though never too far away, of course! More old movies and a relaxing evening once again, while listening to the rain come in for the night!

We had a bunch of running around to do today, so we were up early, ran into Arkport to get the wedding gift we wanted, then drove a bit east to Bath to pick up some hay, nice stuff, just $3.25 per, though they are a bit smaller than what we usually get (but larger than what I was given yesterday), and I was only going to get half a dozen, but since we’re considering staying a couple of extra days, I ended up buying ten, since it was nice hay. I may have to put some in the back of the trailer, since I doubt they’ll all fit in the truck once we’re hooked up. Then we headed back, stopping at a quaint little restaurant for breakfast called the Country Kitchen, then did some quick shopping at the Walmart before getting home at 1:00, giving us just an hour to get ready for the wedding. I wrapped the gift, made out the card and letter, and finally got dressed and made up in the last few minutes, and headed out just in time. We arrived about twenty minutes early, but the ceremony got a bit of a late start, but it was a beautiful day, the house was huge and gorgeous, the back yard had a great big tent, and there were probably close to 80 people there by the time it started. It was a lovely ceremony, I got caught up with a number of folks, ate far too much at the reception, had Lola with us making friends, too, and overall it was a very nice party. Hubby finally got too tired to sit in the plastic chairs any longer, and went to sit in the truck, and I arranged with the groom, Steve, to get some water to top off my tank since we had decided to stay a couple more days. We even arranged for him and his new bride Amanda and her kids to maybe come by on Tuesday for a bit, her girls are into horses, taking riding lessons at a nearby stable, and Steve and I can always find things to talk about! He’s like another brother to me, and we’ve known each other since 1974. Anyway, we left shortly thereafter since we had to get back to feed the horses, made two quick stops for fuel and wine (no wine in the Walmarts here!), got back to camp shortly before dusk, and got the horses settled. Hubby was nodding off in his chair before I even came in from chores, so I decided to spend some time with the neighbors, as this would likely be my only chance. So I headed off to their bonfire and we chatted for a long time. By the time Lola and I came back, Lola was ready to jump into the truck, Hubby had already gone to bed, so I took my quick shower and climbed into bed.

Set the alarm so we could get up early this morning, and after another round of putting our final stuff away, and going to the RV dump (which camp trustee Jerry was kind enough to come out and open for us yesterday afternoon), we still managed to get out around 9:30. With a full tank of gas, we didn’t even need to stop before we got to our anticipated destination, a stable near Allegany State Park. We thought a stable might be more secure for the horses, but when we arrived and saw it, though the folks seemed kindly enough, we quickly decided it wasn’t quite the kind of place we were looking for and departed. That left us in a quandary. Do we carry on to Turnpike State Forest, which we’ve never seen and still haven’t been able to confirm has sites big enough for our rig? Or do we go back 20 miles to Allegany State Park, where we’ve spent the night once before, knowing the only problem there is that there is only a single water spigot at the front of the camping area, but since we still had a half a tank in the back of the truck we didn’t really need water anyway? We decided on the latter, because it was getting late and I didn’t want to have to solve a bunch of potential new problems, not the least of which is, will we fit in there? If we couldn’t, that mean another 90 minute drive (by now in the dark) to Sugar Hill, which is way to far east for this day. We were getting low on diesel, but fortunately there was a small truck stop on the same exit that we needed to get on I-86 with, and very inexpensive (probably because we’re in Indian territory), which alleviated another worry I was having. It didn’t take long to get to Allegany, and it was too late to go to the rental office to make a reservation, and there’s STILL no cell service at the horse camp, so we just picked a spot (the place was empty), and I let the horses graze for a bit before tying them in their covered stalls for the night, and played with Lola to tire her out. She kept me awake last night and I ended up having to put here in the truck at 4:00 in the morning, so she’s going back in tonight so I can get a full night sleep! Didn’t unpack much for just overnight, raring to go in the morning!

Once again, FedEx screws up big-time. I pulled Hubby’s labs last Thursday and hand-delivered them to our clinic on Friday. Our nurse Karen boxed them up and sent them out FedEx with a Special Saturday Delivery label, and, would you believe, they arrived yesterday, on Tuesday! Of course, that meant at least one of the test tubes had gone bad, because there’s a short window of time before the ice pack melts, which is why they pay extra for Saturday delivery. Anyway, Karen decided to drive down and pick up a new sample, as well as do her required “home visit” that’s supposed to happen whenever someone joins a new clinic, though it’s something we hope to streamline as part of Fresenius’ RV travelers system. Once Karen left, I started to pack up, as we now have so many extraneous items we’re using, it takes me a lot longer to pack up. I put the screen room away and as many other things as I could, all the outdoor chairs and tables, all the extra horse stuff, and at the end of the day, put the horses on the highline and put the corral away. Whew! Almost two hours of work that I couldn’t start until AFTER Hubby’s dialysis. The good news is, we now have a new Fresenius Ipad and modem, so Hubby can start looking after himself a lot more and not rely on me to get his machine’s readings every half hour, but the bad news is, we’re still waiting for our clinic transfer to come through to get a password. It seems we should have it tomorrow though, and Karen has promised to email the information, since she knows we’ll be traveling tomorrow. Finally managed to get everything put away that I could, just before mosquito hour hit, and we won’t be long out of bed, believe me!

Rained most of the day off and on, so I just moved the portable fence around to a new spot and did some housekeeping, all done by the time Hubby got out of bed, then we had a quiet day, watching old movies while the rain came a’tumblin’ down!

After a very good night sleep last night, best in a long time, the day quickly because like a day of holding court! First Elaine stopped by to see how we were doing when she saw me out doing my horse chores, and chatted for a while, then the couple I met yesterday, Lisa and Rick came by and chatted for another 45 minutes or so, borrowing my ladder to fix a cover over their air conditioner, then Patty came by and visited for a while, until finally I had to go make Hubby breakfast, and after she left I managed to finish my chores. I had put the horses out in the area in front of the trailer that I wanted trimmed, because I was afraid the ground wasn’t getting dry enough for us to be able to get out, and they did a fine job with that today! Then, shortly thereafter, my old high school buddy Donna from Cleveland arrived and we spent almost all afternoon catching up, chatting and snacking. Another trailer came in with a couple of day riders, and a big Kiefer livestock trailer showed up with another couple, and I went a chatted with them for a few minutes because they looked like they might be parking in an area that I knew was too soft for them (which they suspected as well), and they did managed to find a good spot across the road from us. Eventually Donna had to head out, and the day riders left, leaving us and our new neighbors the place to ourselves. Evidently they’re staying until Wednesday. The woman came and asked me about the trails, and I showed her my Google earth map that had an overlay of the local trail map, as well as the GPS of the trails I actually took (which matched in very few places!!), and so they know now to take their GPS with them when they ride this week. I’m hoping to get a ride in as well, but there’s rain forecast for Tuesday, so it may have to be just a short ride tomorrow, but we’ll see. The weather was perfect today, we had a wonderful breeze so that even the screen room didn’t get too warm for a change. I had pulled the barbecue grill out and we had a grilled dinner tonight, me with steak and Hubby with a Beer bratwurst, along with a baked potato. What a wonderful, relaxing day! Now I’m beginning to remember why we love it on the road so much, I actually have time to just sit and relax! Whoo-hoo!

I had intended to get a short ride in today before dialysis, but I uncharacteristically slept until 9:30 this morning, so by the time I got my chores done and Hubby got up, it was too late to do much. Frankly, I was afraid of going out for an hour ride and ending up getting lost for an extra hour or more like last time, so I decided to skip it for now. I ended up chatting with some of the other ladies here, though frankly, this place was incredibly quiet, not one single horse was in the place besides ours! We thought it would be more crowded on the weekend, particularly since the weather has been perfect for the last few days, but it was very quiet here. I put up a small corral at the front of the trailer, because the grass is so long and I’m concerned if the ground doesn’t dry up enough we’re going to get stuck trying to get out next week, so I wanted to get my four-legged lawn mowers on it to shorten it up. Of course, they did a marvelous job, but I was also concerned about staying within the bounds of the rules. Almost everyone I’ve met here hasn’t seemed to mind we’re taking a bit of license, with the exception of the one woman on the board who made a little fuss earlier in the week, but even she came over and apologized to me today, so I guess we’re all good now. Hubby felt good enough to walk out and sit in a chair in the shade and throw the ball for Lola for half an hour, so he was definitely feeling better. We started dialysis, however, and by the end of the session, he was feeling quite poorly again, not sure why but it really weakened him by the end of the session. One of the things we discussed with Karen yesterday is the possibility we might be “over-dialyzing” him, as his blood clearance seems to be almost too much now, so it’s possible after our last labs, if they continue to show that problem, we may be able to actually shorten his dialysis time, which could help with his weakness. We’ll know better in a few days, hoping for the best! Meanwhile, we watched a couple of old classic movies while settling in for the evening.

Well, the day we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived! Hubby and I got up early to get to our monthly Dialysis clinic, our first time at our new location in Canton, OH. We met Karen, who will be our new nurse for the duration, and she was fabulous, giving us all kind of new information and being extremely helpful! She managed to get us an Ipad and a modem so we can get back to sending reports electronically, which will be a GREAT help, and she was very personable and delightful to get to know. After spending more time with her than we probably should, we finally headed over to the Doctor’s office across the street and spend a very short amount of time with them, then headed up to a Walmart to do some shopping, got some fuel and headed back to camp. We spend quite a bit of time socializing with Elaine, and Ellen stopped by for a few minutes to make sure we were doing all right as well. Hubby felt really good today, even walking when he didn’t absolutely have to, and without his walking stick! He even did a little Shakespeare for Elaine, which shows just how much better he’s feeling today. Fingers crossed, he’s getting stronger! Eventually we settled down to dinner and a movie and relaxed for the rest of the evening.