Woke up to discover we had an inch or two of snow, but I had been careful to park on the asphalt so we were able to get out okay, though at one point, I slipped and fell on a patch of ice that covered the asphalt area. May have been better off on the gravel! Anyway, we managed to get packed up and out of there early, with a quick stop at a fast food joint for a to-go breakfast, and took a “non-toll” route to the Alliant Energy Center, which took us on some nice country roads, which had fortunately been cleared already. The snow got deeper along the roadside, however, they obviously had more snow further north. We later learned that Green Bay had had almost 3 feet of snow in the past week! I also heard on the radio that this was the coldest April in 137 years. Figures. I expected Spring when I planned this and I got winter when I got here. Sigh… Well, no one can accuse us of not living, and taking everything life can throw at us!! We arrived at the venue at about 8:30, then parked in a fairly long line waiting to offload Apollo at the barn. It took a bit of information-gathering to learn what stall he was assigned (turns out they gave me two, so I stored all his stuff next to him to keep the aisles clear, unlike the Hoosier Horse Fair, where everything was just piled up outside the stall), and then proceeded to get assigned to a VIP campsite. We were parked right next to another trailer, then realized we didn’t have a cable long enough to reach the electrical box, so the guy in charge of parking was kind enough to move us a couple of places over, which was great for us but meant he had to work a bit harder to get a couple of trailers in between, but he managed it beautifully! We took a quick ride over to the Exhibit Hall and found our booth location, and even managed to get everything moved in before it was time to get Hubby over to his dialysis center, which was only a few miles away. I got him set up over there, then returned to the Exhibit Hall and got everything set up, then back to the barn to finish getting Apollo settled in, then back to the camper to fill up with water, only to discover that the water hadn’t been turned on! Apparently, they were worried about the pipes freezing (even though they were frost-free spigots, but I guess the bureaucracy doesn’t know what those are), and since we had been told there would be water, we hadn’t filled up before we left Wolf Creek, so now I didn’t have enough water for the shower I so desperately needed! Grrrr again! Well, nothing to be done, so I gathered the laundry, then headed out to a nearby laundromat, finishing up just as Hubby was finishing his dialysis down the road, picked him up, then finally got back to the VIP parking area for the night, sans water. Phew! What a day!
Archives for April 2018
Wed., April 18, 2018 – Travel Day to Rock Cut State Park
Woke up to cold temps again, getting SO TIRED of winter, especially since there was already a pretty good spring at home going on before we left! It didn't take us long to finish packing up and hitting the road, on our way to Rock Cut State Park, which is just off the freeway, just south of the Wisconsin-Illinois border. It's the closest horse camp I could find that would put us within easy range of the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, where the Midwest Horse Expo was being held. It was a very straightforward and uneventful drive (my favorite), and we arrived reasonably early at Rock Cut. The entrance to the campground was partially blocked off with barricades, but I had spoken with the office and they had assured me the campground was open. We squeezed through the barricades and got down to the campground, a nice looking campground, mostly open but surrounded by trees, no electricity, one central water spigot, and an RV dump, though I was told there was no water turned on because the forecast was still calling for a freeze. I got Apollo up on a highline (posts were provided, but no cables), and blanketed him because it had already started snowing by the time we started setting up, grrrrr! Got him settled, as well as the dogs on a line outside for a while. I have several plastic covered cables that seem to be the only thing little Dottie can't chew through in 30 seconds, so I've been running that through a couple of the tie-ups on the side of the trailer and letting them both hang out outside for awhile. It's so crowded inside the trailer, it's the only way they don't fight each other all the time, with us in the way! I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that we're going to have to re-home Dottie. She just needs so much training, and it's apparent I'm just never going to have the time to do it properly, and Lola is getting so territorial about her food (she was a rescue that had been starved before we got her) that she attacks Dottie for no reason, and Dottie is starting to learn the lesson of self-defense, and that will soon turn into aggressive behavior, which she doesn't deserve to become. She is so sweet, she just needs a family that has time for her, especially one with kids, she loves kids (what puppy doesn't?) I hate the thought of giving up on her, but I just don't see how I can do her justice. But that's a discussion for another day. After taking the dogs for a final walk, we got inside, got everyone to bed, and snuggled to keep warm against the snowfall that was going on outside. Hope we don't get stuck in the morning!
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tuesday, April 17, 2018 – Another Great Ride at Wolf Creek
Well, the weather finally cleared up and warmed up a bit (though it's chillier than the last day I rode), so after getting Hubby dialyzed, I set out to explore the northern part of the park. On my last ride, I only got the southern part done, a little over five miles in that loop I made, but it was a great exploration because I learned that instead of just one giant loop, there's a lot of fields that you can cut across, and always eventually lead back to a single trail along the road that takes you back to the campground. Not to mention, being that we were both out of shape (Apollo and I), I didn't want to overdo it the first day out! But today, we were both ready to go longer, and since we got a pretty decent early start, we headed straight up along the trail that parallels the road, all the way to far north end of the park (which really isn't that far!), before the trail cut into the woods. This was one of the most interesting parts of the trail, actually, with some little grades and sharp turns, until we reached the trail that took us along the shoreline, where it became level again. There is really only two types of terrain here. You're either following a single track trail through the woods and weaving along each shoreline, or you're on the edge of a field, where they have done some nice mowing, with a wide track perfect for faster paces and side by side riding. It's a nice combination, but after a while, I found it got a little boring. We did see quite a bit of wildlife, though. Some beautiful white pelicans with black babies were gathering in the lake, we saw some kind of 4-legged critter which I didn't see clearly enough to figure out what it was, but it was the size of a large dog, but more round like a baby bear. Hard to say. At one point, a HUGE wild turkey flew up right after we passed it, and Apollo started to take off sideways. Fortunately, that meant he headed straight for a tree, and he had to stop and think about what to do next, at which point I had regained my balance and kept him standing still. Got a nice bruise on the inside of the my thigh from the saddle horn, as you would expect! Lots and lots of deer out here, really big deer. It seems they grow everything bigger up here! The turkey's seemed bigger than usual, too! Anyway, we kept following the trail, even down to the lake, where we tried to find another route up to the trail and couldn't, so we backtracked the way we came down and picked up where we left off. After about two hours, we stopped at a nice spot with a picnic table on a ridge, and I checked our time and GPS. I realized that if I continued to follow the entire length of the trail, it would be another two hours, which I thought would be a bit too much, so we headed on a more direct line to get us home in about an hour, which we did. Three hours is enough until we both get in better shape! Nevertheless, it was a fabulous ride, we had a wonderful time, it is SO GOOD to be back in the saddle again! Now we just have to get Hubby strong enough, and get him another horse, so we can go back to riding together! I do miss him on the trail, though I have to admit, it's nice to have a little time on my own once in a while. Being his nurse takes up a lot of time, and being solely responsible for his well-being, more so than ever before, does get a bit weighty, but we're settling down into a routine again, I just hope he can get strong enough for that routine to include him riding with me again!
Filed Under: Ride Day
Monday, April 16, 2018 – Shopping Day
After dialyzing Hubby, I had to take a ride into nearby Shelbyville to do some shopping at the local Walmart, as well as drop off some books at the post office to be mailed. Even on the road, I do my best to fulfill every book order with a day or two of receiving it, since my website is the only place to get it (or at one of the horse fairs and expos I’ve been attending lately.) I’ve been asked if you can get it through Amazon, and the answer is “No,” because, frankly, they take too big a chunk of money on their end to print and fulfill. I might get a larger distribution, but I’m happy keeping up with it myself, for the moment. Of course, if it starts getting to be hundreds of books a week, I may change my mind! At the moment, though, I can still handle the demand, so I’ll keep going with that for now. One thing about driving in central Illinois, everything is flat and straight, so the drive was an easy one, and I was back practically before Hubby even missed me. Well, maybe just a little bit :-).
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Sunday, April 15, 2018 – Tax Day, Ugh
Took the day off from dialyzing to get my taxes done, ugh. I usually get it done earlier in the year, but these first few months have just been so busy I haven’t had time to think straight! But that means that I’ve been dragging around that weight for far too long, fretting over when I’d have time to get it done. Managed to finish it and get it sent off electronically by mid-afternoon (thank you TurboTax!!), and relaxed the rest of the day, feeling a great burden had been lifted. Whew!
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Friday, April 13, 2018 – Ride Day at Wolf Creek, Yippee!!!
Had a full night's sleep and woke up feeling absolutely great! Yaaaay! Got Hubby dialyzed pretty early, though I had to call the park office to see if they could change out the 30 amp breaker at this site. It kept tripping for no apparent reason, even when the load remained the same. They came by moments later to take a look, and said they would be back later in the afternoon to change it out. It was a beautiful warm day, but the forecasts had been saying sunny for days today, which of course turned out to be wrong, we had scattered showers all morning. But I was so determined to have a ride on Apollo, I didn't care if I had to get a bit wet. Fortunately, it had mostly cleared out by the time we finished dialyzing, so I went out and started getting Apollo ready. He gave me no trouble at all putting his boots on (he almost seemed glad about it!), and stood quietly while I saddled him up. Just about then, the rangers came back and started to repair the circuit breaker. I found that none of the batteries I had for my GPS were any good any more, but I saw a little mini-mart just outside the park entrance, so I took a quick ride over there and bought some. I finished getting Apollo ready, wearing my new Troxler helmet, and Lola dog and I headed out to the trailhead. What a nice ride! Though I thought there would be gravel on the trails, in fact, there was almost none. It was all dirt covered with layers of leaves, well-enough used so that it was easy to follow. I was also relieved to see that there was a lot more variety to the trails than the map indicated. It essentially showed one long, winding trail that followed the erratic shoreline, with a straight run down the road back to the camp at the end. In reality, the windy trail loops into the straight trail, which runs parallel to the road, many times along the way. You can circle each field and come back to the straight trail, take any number of cutoffs if you don't want to go all the way out to the shoreline, just lots of variety which made it more interesting. Though the park had delayed the trail openings from this weekend to next (due to the rain expected tonight and tomorrow), today they were just beautiful, mostly dry with just a few wet spots around the fields, but absolutely no big deal. I can see why they want to preserve the trails by holding off another weekend, but today, it was a gorgeous ride. Best of all, Apollo did brilliantly! This is his very first ride on his own, without his Mama (mine, too, without Roy! Well, except a few times on other people's horses), and he just did perfectly, totally responsive, seemingly happy just to be doing something besides eating and standing around. He never got excited, though he walked fast at first, as always, and I waited until he was good and warmed up before jogging and eventually even getting a little canter in. He's obviously as out of shape as I am, not having been ridden since last June, and he started to sweat and lather after the first few jogs, but I didn't overwork him (or me!) We stayed out about 90 minutes, doing almost five miles of the 9.2 miles of trails here, and I was surprisingly not the least bit sore, as I thought I might have been after so long. By the time we got back, the circuit breaker was fixed, Lola had thoroughly enjoyed her run (but she immediately found her ball and started tossing it at us to play, of course!), and Apollo seemed very pleased that he had had a break from his routine. I must say he seems to be much more settled since we got on the road, particularly since we've been at the park (he's not much for stalls), and he's relaxing back into his old self, which is great to see. I put him on an anchor so that he could munch on some of the new grass that was springing up nearby, and before long, Hubby and I were both enjoying a nice steak dinner, our first real solid food in days, before settling into the only really comfortable place in this little trailer, our bed! A few more Longmires on Netflix and lights out!
Filed Under: Ride Day
Thursday, April 12, 2018 – My Sick Day
Well, we got proof today that Hubby's sickness the other day had nothing to do with a lack of dialysis! It was most definitely a bug of some kind because it hit me last night like a brick wall. I had all the same symptoms, seriously bad diarrhea, but I managed to avoid the vomiting, though I felt nauseous. I took Pepto right away, hoping to minimize the impact, but I was still feeling really bad. I slept for over 12 hours, managed to get up for a short while, but was so weak and my muscles were so sore, I crawled back into bed by 2:00 and slept through the afternoon. I kept up with the Pepto, which helped, but I was just completely wiped out. Then, just about 4:30 in the afternoon, I felt a flush go from my head to my toes and back again, and like magic, I started to feel better. Maybe I had a fever that broke or something (I hadn't had the wherewithal to check that), but I started feeling better. Hubby was feeling well enough to get himself a couple of soft-boiled eggs for himself, but I just couldn't eat anything, except one piece of toast in the hopes of absorbing some acids. I slowly improved through the evening, though we went to bed before dark and had lights out not too long after that. Not sure how much sleep I'll get after sleeping for more than 18 hours straight already!
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Wednesday, April 11, 2018 – Another Quiet Sick Day
Though Hubby was feeling a bit better today and was able to make it through dialysis without any episodes of diarrhea or vomiting, he was still feeling far from his best. It was another quiet day, which we could both use, as we have been going nonstop in preparation for the trip, and nonstop since we started. I hadn't realized how much stress we had both been under, but now the tension is starting to easily, thank goodness. This is a nice park, the folks are so friendly here. I received a delivery from NxStage, and three of the rangers and camp guys helped load it into the trailer. Whoever made this order really screwed up, though. They sent me 70 cases of stuff!! A whole plastic wrapped palette! I only asked for 21 cases of dialysate bags, and they sent me 66, with 4 boxes of cartridges I didn't need! That's the one flaw in this whole system, I can't seem to make my own orders, it has to go through intermediaries, and inevitably, that screws things up. I did take an extra case of cartridges, just in case, and 22 boxes of dialysate because so far, two bags have been defective when I opened the box, so I had to replace those. The driver of the delivery ended up having the take the rest of it back, but didn't seem to mind. Anyway, it all worked out, I got my delivery, so I'm fully stocked with dialysate supplies until we get home again. It was a bit nicer today, nice enough to sit in our gravity chairs under the awning for awhile, with Hubby covered in a couple of blankets. Once again, an early evening of Longmires before lights out!
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tuesday, April 10, 2018 – Far From Routine
After a decent night sleep, I rose early to get Hubby's dialysis machine set up. Using bags is quite a bit different than using our in-home Pureflow system, so I had to take my time to get it right. Hubby woke up feeling really terrible. He had diarrhea and he was vomiting. We presumed it was his body trying to get rid of the excess toxins that were in his body from not being dialyzed for the last few days, so we got him hooked up to the machine as quickly as possible. He still spent much of the session with a plastic bad handy nearby, and he didn't seem to improve as we went on. We ended up cutting it a few minutes short because of another bout of diarrhea he just couldn't control. He feels terrible! Not sure about the cause, but we spent the rest of the day quietly, trying to recover. Watched a few more Longmires on Netflix before calling it a day.
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Monday, April 9, 2018 – Travel Day to Wolf Creek Park
Got up during the pre-dawn hours once again, did little more than get dressed before heading over to the building to get Apollo. Naturally, the building was still locked up tight as a drum. We ran into another woman who was also trying to get her horses out, and we drove around until we finally saw some people inside and banged on the door until we could get in. By then, of course, the buildings were all open. Fortunately, I had packed all of Apollo's stuff, except his hay bag and his water tub, the night before, so I threw that into the back of the truck and went back for him. We ponied him back to the camping area (more exercise than he's seen in days, poor thing!), tied him up while we hooked up the truck, which took longer than we hoped because the batteries were too flat. There's a button inside the trailer that disconnects the batteries from the electricals which we haven't quick figured out yet, but we got close enough to plug in the truck, so that charged the batteries enough in short order. We finished packing up everything, pulled out enough to load up Apollo, then hit the road forthwith. We skipped breakfast, so we found a Bob Evans along the way and stopped there. Did I mention it was snowing? Yeah, for about the third or fourth time this weekend. Not what I expected in Indiana in April!! Anyway, we had a nice breakfast, then hit the road again, until I just felt so tired I just had to stop for a quick power nap. Hubby had napped a bit already, so he understood, and we pulled into the back side of a truck stop where I slept for about an hour. Perfect! Took a few slugs on a 5-hour energy and off we went! We stopped at a Wal-mart to fill up with diesel and pick up a few things, then headed out to Wolf Creek, where we happened to meet a ranger who stopped and asked us if we were the ones coming into the horse camp early, which, of course, was 'yes!' He let us know there was a barricade with lots of room to go around, and sent us on our way. We arrived moments later at a lovely little horse camp, with about twenty sites, five of which had electric. We had selected Site #14, the handicapped site, so as to be nearest the central water spigot, and near a manure pit. It didn't take long to get settled in and unhooked. The only down side is they have hitching posts here, but I put up a short highline so Apollo could at least move back and forth on it, and hopefully be comfortable. I may put up the highline between a couple of hitching posts later to give him more room, but he'll be fine for now. We had hoped to arrive early enough to dialyze today, but between breakfast and my power nap, it was just too late to get started, though Hubby said he felt fine, he'd be okay until tomorrow. We have just enough of a cell phone signal to watch a little TV before we crash into bed, so we finished off the first season of Taken before turning out the lights, exhausted. Whew! Love being back on the road again, really looking forward to getting back into a routine, though!
Filed Under: Uncategorized