The Wake

I went to Shartlesville PA for an Airstream Rally. It was the first time I’ve left the pine grove, and it felt really good to get some wind under my tail, and see new things. It was even better to see my old friends from the Washington DC unit, who are a group of originals, devoted to their Airstreams, mostly vintage, and also devoted to “just camping”.

It was the installation rally, where new officers are sworn in. This is supposed to be a fairly solemn ceremony, but with this group, it involved pink feather boas and a good dosage of hilarity. The principle entertainment is Happy Hour. Most RV get-togethers have an hour of snacks and socializing over adult beverages. For the WDCU, it goes on all night, with folks leaving to find dinner sometimes, or just living on the extensive spread of finger food. We talk and talk, about our trailers and life in general, catching up with each others lives. These folks are definitely family, so it looks more like a reunion, and a reunion where you like nearly all of the people!

We went to Cabelas for something to do, and wandered around looking at mystifying products. It is hunting season soon, so the place was a camouflaged world of everything you need to hit the woods. One person chairs with a tent of camo, and two person ones, clothing of every description in patterns to match the kind of setting you need to be invisible in. There were some products to mask your scent, which is what most of our prey really use to see us coming. I wonder if they work or if the creatures laugh behind their paws at what they smell like. I don’t get the camo stuff. In the woods, if you sit absolutely still for say 20 minutes, pretty soon the creatures ignore you.

Cabelas also has a slightly weird collection of stuffed animals. These are arranged in life-like tableaux, frozen in moments, three lions chasing impala at full gallop, or two bears arguing over a fallen moose (old age probably), two lynx after a rabbit on the side of a cliff. The strangest is the deer room. I expected a lot of heads with antlers, some is good more is better, but here they have trophy heads of “non-typical” deer. These are all very strange mutations of the usual antlers, with many extra points, some pointing down, some thickened almost like moose or elk antlers. Not enough just to shoot down a big rack, but big and weird is trophy too. I was a little dismayed by the sheer number of the non typical mutants, with their little plaques and stories. It had a sort of side show element that was a little tawdry. I am happy to eat venison, might even shoot a deer if I got hungry enough, but the trophy part, I don’t get, except as a possible decorating element in an enormous castle.

On Saturday, after the installation ceremony, and a huge spread for dinner (pot luck heaven), we came back to the campfire to continue to visit and tell stories. I brought and gave away all the wine and beer from the 5th wheel, but saved Don’s big bottle of Johnny Walker Black for this moment. I quietly poured a sip for everyone, told them it was to remember him and wish him good travels. We didn’t break up the party with a toast, everyone just quietly sipped away while the campfire visiting went on its happy, aimless way. Don loved get-togethers like this, the social heart of RVing. He would not want a fuss of stopping the fun. He has never actually met any of these folks, except for John and Harley who came for a visit one day, but we are all campers, part of a grand community of folks all over this country. So it was a fitting wake for him, and a fitting end to his scotch. Well, not quite the end, I have saved about an inch for certain people I have to go see.

The complications of his estate continue to be discouraging. Not greedy family squabbles, but financial and legal oddities. The Power of Attorney his daughter had, a standard one from the law office where she works, does not cover changing beneficiaries according to the folks who hold a life insurance annuity. Don wanted it to come to me, to pay off the loan on the 5th wheel, so I could sell it. As it stands now, it goes to one daughter, not three ways as he intended before he met me. We are lawyering up on this. In addition, the bulk of his funds were in an IRA, which goes directly to his daughters, and is not considered part of his estate. This means the truck, trailer and contents, my piece of the pie, are the entire “estate” and out of this must come any outstanding bills. So I must sell it all quickly, in the Fall, in a down economy, and hope that the medical bills are covered by Medicare and his supplemental. I won’t be out of pocket, but my little fantasy of having some extra to make just traveling more possible may not come true. And the bank demands either full payment or refinancing by November 28 or they will repossess the trailer. Fortunately, the will is registered in SD, and since the estate is worth less than $50,000, no probate is necessary. Advice: you might want to be sure your estate is headed where you intend it to go. Now, today.

Going through his belongings and disposing of them is hard, discouraging work. Most of it was good and useful and treasured by him, but little of it is of monetary value. My Airstream is stuffed to the gills with things I can’t leave go of, especially all the food we bought to survive at the remote North Rim. I have never gone hungry in my life, so I have no idea why hoarding food is so hard to stop. Obviously, my primitive brain knows winter is coming.

I have no idea when I will leave here, or where I will go. Much depends on some luck with the estate, and also I have to switch from what “we” are going to do, to what “I” am going to do, what I want to do, and where.

Funny little things get to me: seeing his phone number on the dog’s ID tag. Clearing out his emergency box in the truck, relics of his 4wheeling days. Going through all his tools, which he loved to have just in case he could save the day. And suddenly, driving down the road, I realize no matter how far I go, I won’t find him.

O Death

Death, oh where is thy sting ?

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord

Hospice has a booklet called “Gone from my sight”, that I was handed as some point, but I put it aside, assuming it was about grieving and how to deal with it. I was grieving, so I didn’t think I needed to be told how, not right them anyway.

After it was over, I picked it up, and it is about what happens to people as they approach their death. Some of the information I knew from watching animals die, and my grandfather’s death, but there was much that I saw happening with Don that it appears was normal for folks facing death.

When someone is about to give birth, everyone knows what to look for: the baby is dropping, twinges of false labor, contractions and how far apart, the water breaks. Perfect strangers will come up to you and tell you you’re having a boy or girl because (insert folk “wisdom” here), they will ask you when you are due (only a guess), and even later the infant is the object of much interest. At any rate, a public event in the “village”.

Death, on the other hand we hide from, hoping it can happen out of sight, hoping it’s quick, or perhaps seeking extraordinary means to keep it from happening at all. We got a lot of suggestions about Don’s approaching death, from seeking out the big guns of medical establishment to dietary suggestions but no one really knows how it happens.

Do we need to know this? Do we want to know this? I asked the nurse later how she decided when to give out the booklet, she said it is a pretty delicate matter of timing, because of our cultural avoidance of the subject, and also individual reactions to approaching death. I wished I had read it long before, for I learned that many things that worried me about him in those last weeks were normal, expected signs of approaching death.

Don slept a lot, napping in bed most of the day or in his big chair, and seemed lost in his mind, not interested in even a Dodger’s game, or listening to me read to him. It looked to me like depression, but this withdrawing from the real world is part of the preparation. What was he doing in there? Getting ready to die, to say good bye to this world, his body, and me. Setting aside these earthly coils, getting ready for the moment reported by those who have “died” when they float above their bodies looking down. Letting go of the busy things we do to fill our days. I confess I felt a little distanced, we mostly held each other, touch instead of words. We had a litany of things we said over and over to each other for comfort. But I missed our amiable squabbling and sorting of the day’s events, and most of all planning for the future.

The worst sign of approaching death for me was he gradually stopped eating much of anything. I love to cook, he loved to eat, I found myself weeping when he took a bite or two and wasn’t hungry, as though it was a personal failure on my part. His body knew he would soon need no food or drink and turned away from it, but also from me again. The cupboards are still full of food I bought to tempt him. I did remember my grandfather eating only half a blueberry muffin now and then.

Other odd things, like picking at the bedclothes while he slept, and tiny tremors are to be expected, although I assumed much of this was from the strokes. He would suddenly be sweaty hot, and then chilly, often needing a blanket or a towel to mop the sweat. All the systems in his body began to slacken, and work fitfully. His ability to navigate fell apart, not really disoriented but a little confused.( My Grandfather was found down stairs in his 3 piece suit, calling a cab in the middle of the night to take him to North Station in Boston. He knew he could take his usual train home and be OK, but otherwise was lost.)

As his time got really close, his fingers and toes began to cool, his legs mottled as if cold, and his breathing rate and heart rate would race or slow way down, he would suddenly be sweaty hot, and then chilly. The nurses assured me that he could still hear me, so I sang and prayed and told stories. It took along time for the heat to leave his body, I held my hand under him to feel it, the last of him, although he was actually dead, as long as the warmth of him was there, I couldn’t leave him. His color was like old ivory, like a netusuke carving of an old wise man.

I hope this doesn’t upset you, gentle reader, it makes me weep to read it, it seems important to record his death, for me, and also if it can guide someone through a sad time, it would be good to understand these transitions, expect them.

I’m listening to Brahms’ German Requiem, which is making me cry, but also it feels like a release.

Bon Secours

Just Quickly.[Sept 4]

We are at the hospital. Don had a massive stroke early Friday morning, more than the Hospice team could handle out in the pine trees, so we are in the hospital in Richmond. He and I have been made comfortable and given all the support we could ask for and more. His wish would not have been to make work and trouble for these wonderful folks. He is at peace, sleeping now

His vital signs, are much weaker this morning, so it will likely be soon that he gets to go on his last walk.

His Dad, who died at 99, said to his nurse one night that he was going for a walk in the woods, and died that night. He was a forestry professor at UWA.





In 1824, the streets of Paris were littered with the misery, illness and death that followed the French Revolution, and subsequent upheavals. A group of 12 nuns began to serve the needs of the sick and dying not within their safe cloister, nor in the dreadful death traps that passed for hospitals, but out in the street and hovels. They treated everyone, regardless of religious or political leanings, and survived several anti Catholic pogroms.

In 1881, three sisters came to Baltimore MD, opened the first day care ever, continued their mission of home care, and in 1916 opened Bon Secours hospital. I was born at this hospital. (In the steamy heat of June, my laboring mother was admonished to cover herself with the bedclothes. When she, typically, would not, the sister said, “But Mrs. Pickman, what if the Doctor should see you?”)

Good Help was exactly what we received from Bon Secours, not just at the hospital, but with the Hospice Program. Mostly lay people now, working for peanuts, visiting and comforting people dying in their homes. Not a peep of Catholic doctrine, no Hail Marys, only a small crucifix high on the wall of each room in the hospital. I found myself staring at this, saying the prayers of my Catholic youth, and weeping while I watched at Don’s bedside. At the end, though, I said to him the whole Lord’s Prayer, power and glory forever, which I learned from my Quaker mother. A Scots Presbyterian would want that.

The folks who came to the RV in those last days were wonderful, and when at the end we were not able to manage the seizures and panic that last mortal stroke caused, we got the same gentle care from the nurses at the hospital. They made time to sit with me and talk, and let me cry on what was happening, and were always monitoring his comfort. And when he breathed his last, we all sat for a long while as the color of his skin faded to an old ivory, like an old Japanese carving, and the heat of his body slowly left. A nice young man came in to just be with us, to listen and affirm, and let us know we could stay as long as we needed.

As a child, going to catechism class, I remember discovering that the answer to nearly every question in the “quiz” was Sanctifying Grace. This seemed to me a commodity that one earned, a little like indulgences, the bartering of lengthy prayers or good deeds for less time in purgatory, but principally by going to Mass , Confession, receiving Communion and obeying the rules. This tally sheet of my sins ( teasing my brother, disobeying my parents, chattering in class) could be fixed, it seemed, just by doing what I was going to do anyway, enforced by my family. It seemed a little too easy, and I went right on teasing my poor brother and chattering in class, since it could all be fixed.

I think I found Sanctifying Grace, in the mission of Bon Secours. We were listened to with full attention, our fears were met with reassurance, our needs attended to, never once did our “immoral” unwed relationship meet with anything but acceptance. And it never occurred to me to think that all this care and love was done to balance out their sins, or to get me back to Mass.

There is another extraordinary power that sustains me, and that is you, gentle reader, and all those others who have worried and prayed and sent me courage and condolences. In the village times of human history, we would all be physically together, doing much the same thing. We move around today, in search of work or dreams or better weather, leaving our physical village, but it seems to me that the internet has filled the need for contact with those we know well, that are family, blood or chosen, old friends, or even those we know only through the air. Those of us who live on the road are even more in need of community, and behold there you all are. Better than a thousand nosey neighbors with casseroles feeding off my sadness, better than sitting at visiting hours, miserable with my loss, having to be a part of the huge party that is a funeral and wake. At moments when my sadness overtakes me, I look up at the sky and your thoughts come to comfort me like a soft shawl. Thank you. If I have the power to do so, bless you.

[On Sunday, Sept. 6, at 12:30, Don breathed his last, in my arms, in no pain, with two of his three daughters nearby. His harsh breathing stopped, started again and then stopped, and his brave heart rested at last.]

I have moved back into the Airstream, after the first two nights, I found there were too many stories in that bed in the 5th wheel. It has taken me 10 days to get my things out, the 5th wheel is a sad place, too many of Don’s molecules are there, I keep turning around expecting to see him, or reliving some of the really bad parts of the very end. His clothes are gone to Good Will, but his toys, the Ham radio set up, his TV, and all his tools are still there looking reproachful still that he was uninterested in them as he slowly turned inward to prepare for death. The inside of the Airstream is a disaster. I accumulated way too much stuff while living in the enormous space of the 5th wheel, and a lot of it reminds me powerfully of him so it’s hard to part with it. But distill I must, and only save the best bits, and remember the best times.

New Country

The natural world here looks pretty much like what I grew up with in Massachusetts, not the same plants, but the same general lush high summer look. The area we are in, known as the East End, of the Richmond area, is very rural, even over by the Richmond airport, there are still fields and woods. There are some big homes hidden away, but it is mostly just empty, kind of the way the Boston 128 corridor was back in the 1950’s, still farmland and forest.

Don, after his stroke, or more probably one big one and several tiny ones, is the new country. A lot of the original data and equipment is still there, and he can still tell you three different ways to drive around Chicago, and telephone numbers from his youth. He still has his dry Scots sense of humor, and sees the absurdities and ironies of the world.

His left hand, well really the fingers, is not much use, and some part of the sorting process for visual input is not working very well. There are also some short term memory glitches. He can’t type, or read, or use his beloved laptop or Blackberry, and worst of all, he isn’t able to do the grounds work here to help work off our campsite. There are no signs of cancer symptoms, which will probably involve the liver first, only a sort of half life, waiting. He has gained more control over his hand and fingers, but the processing of what he is seeing is variable and sometimes faulty, depth perception is a problem

I confess to having moments of wishing a big blood clot would carry him off, instead of him lingering in this sad, missing the fun parts state. But we are, as he says, chugging along.

At this stage, my delicate job is to help when needed but not too much.

Pulp paper production, it turns out, is the reason there are vast forests here, in fact VA is 65% forests, and I think forest products may be the state’s biggest industry. (Working for the gumment doesn’t count).

We drove up to West Point VA to find an old fashioned barber shop for Don, and right there, on a peninsula between two rivers, is a huge paper mill. Back in 1918, Elis Olsson came from Canada and built a paper mill in West Point, making Kraft paper ( brown paper bag stock). The mill has pretty well run uninterrupted since then, through ownership changes and different types of paper products, and the vast tracts of loblolly pine are still being harvested and reforested along this stretch of VA, as well as in other areas. Our “home”, the New Kent Forestry Center, runs a breeding program to improve the loblolly pine, a fast growing giant that tolerates occasional wet feet.

The Chesapeake Paper company owned vast tracts of timberland in VA, including this area, and in 1999 sold it to the John Hancock Insurance CO for very little, and John Hancock has been selling it off for upscale development. This gives new meaning to the term paper pushers. So that’s why it has stayed so empty of urban sprawl. We are 18 miles from downtown Richmond and there are way more deer per acre here than people.

The dog and I continue our evening walks, last night there must have been 30 deer in one field of young pines, and one evening they crossed in front of the truck and there was a white fawn.

Smoke in the Woods

Last night,Monday, when I drove home from the hospital in the dark, I smelled smoke and one stand of the pine trees has been given a therapeutic burn. I was amazed to see flames and coals glowing and no one around watching. In this humid green country, I guess it wasn’t going anywhere.

Out in the west, folks have their eyes peeled for smoke, and sniff the wind for that dangerous smell. A summers’ grazing could go up, or a stack of hay for the winter. And out in California, the dry hills roar with fires again, destroying houses and ruining dreams. I still think of fire that way, even though I know the forests need controlled burns.

On last Sunday, on our way home from a scouting trip to the big clinic in Richmond, Don suddenly had chest pains, so he ended up, via ambulance in the hospital again. Although a heart attack was suspected, it turns out that pain was a pulmonary embolism which kills a lot of people, but not Don. Monday, lots of waiting, some tests, more waiting, some Doctors came and said things, medications were administered, more tests, more waiting.

The sticky blood that cancer causes is the problem, so they want to get that under control, but the Coumadin didn’t work. They were concerned with some swelling at the site of the stroke, so more medications, and insulin because one of the drugs made his diabetes go nuts.

This morning, I came in to find Don confused and worried, the oncologist had told him (wrongly) that he had a few small cancer cells in the brain and wanted to do radiation. I comforted him and realized that his short term memory wasn’t what it was yesterday. A nurse came in to ask him questions for the MRI, and some of them he answered incorrectly, she was unaware that he wasn’t up to this. Then aides appeared to take him to radiation. He apparently said OK to that. Red Flag.

Shortly after that the radiologist came to say she didn’t do the radiation, that she didn’t think by his records that it was a good idea, and said the neurologist had advised against it. We talked about what the point of radiation was for the head, when the liver tumors are what are going to get him, and it suddenly became clear that it was time to go home, get in the hospice people and let him die in his RV as he wishes. An hour later she said that the MRI showed no cancer, only some small clots. Not good, but not needing radiation.

I said some strong things to the oncologist and the supervisor Dr about the radiation. When I asked the oncologist if he had read the neurologists report, he said he couldn’t read it! I gather that some butt will be kicked here over this. I also pointed out that Don hadn’t been given his breakfast and had a headache that wasn’t attended to.

So, they will bring the Hospice folks around tomorrow, get that organized and I will take him home to the pine forest.

I don’t think this is a bad hospital, we were generally well taken care of, but if I wasn’t a dragon, much could have gone badly, and they are bound to treat him here with anything they can think of.

I’m sleeping here in the hospital tonight, like a good dragon. I went home earlier to comfort the dog, get some stuff, tell the neighbor, and there were the remains of the fire still glowing and smoking, with no one watching it. That still doesn’t seem right, like cancer, fires need to be under vigilant care.

Next day, Wednesday:
All is resolved, we know how hospice works, tomorrow we go to one last doctor, the necessary attending physician for the hospice program, and then he will have peace. A nurse will come once a week or so, the eyes and ears of the doctor, and other help can be summoned if I need it.

Tonight, there is a light rain on the roof, and the pine trees are dripping, but that is the only sound. He is sleeping in his own bed, and no one will come to take his vitals in the night, nor exhaust him with questions.

The Green Tunnel

Ever since we left New Mexico, the trees have crowded the sides of the highway, getting taller and bushier, until what is on the other side is nearly all hidden. The grass grows like mad, people are always mowing, and when I do get a glimpse of what lies beyond, I mostly see more woods, or fields going back to woods.

When we drive on the secondary roads, there are the remains of small farms, a corral, a tumbling barn, a rusting tractor, and often an abandoned house. When we are near a city of any size, the old fields are filled with developments, but out here in the countryside, the green summer growth seems to be slowly reclaiming everything. It won’t be until we drop into the wide flat Mississippi flood plain that anyone is growing things at this southern latitude.

In East Texas, the lumber industry is big, we pass huge saw mills, and are passed by log trucks taking the pine logs, mostly for particle board I suspect. There are tree farms in Arkansas too, at least at first, but by the time we pass Little Rock, the green wall seems to be just growing.

We spend a layover day at a State Park in Forrest City. Aptly named, the woods here are thick and dark, even in the day time. The dog and I like to walk in the evening, when the worst of the heat is over. I like to explore the informal trails that most state parks get from kids taking short cuts, but here, either the kids are staying out of the woods, or the brush grows so fast the trails disappear. At dusk, this thick, dark understory is a little scary. The dog is a little blind, and shies at the occasional stick or branch, which spooks me a little too. It’s an odd contrast with the grassy areas and there are acres and acres of these, huge open fields that are just mowed for our viewing pleasure by gangs of mowers. Perhaps the thick forest, dark and entangling, is the enemy of civilization, and the endless mowing the only way to save ourselves or at least to feel we have some control.

I am no fan of lawns, they are a drain of money, time, and water, a design conceit to prove we have money to waste on a perfect pasture that nothing feeds on. Lawns in the desert are particularly sinful, and indeed a bad idea anywhere they have to be watered. Here, the lawn needs no water, just the dew keeps it shoe wetting in the middle of the day. Another campground with concrete roads and pads had thick manicured grass, trimmed and edged like a perfect carpet laid into the areas between the pads. This grass is so lush that one sort of needs to keep an eye on it, as though in the night it might grow out over the concrete and envelope the trailer.

And then of course there is kudzu, the vine that ate the south. Imported as a possible cattle food, this aggressive vine that looks vaguely like grape vines, covers everything in its path, murdering any other plant in its way. Trees are covered, and bushes, like some alien topiary garden, and also the ground, and then it moves on to cover more and more. It has no local pests, and would take over the whole world given a chance. This is a good reason to mow, or it might take your house!

Oddly, there are few wildflowers by the side of the road. The only ones I see are tiny yellow chamomiles and a big white blowzy mallow with a purple eye. In the high desert, the flowers are still going nuts, along the sides of the road. Perhaps the endless mowing has discouraged them here, the woods themselves are too dark. And the flowers here have most of the year to do their business, there is no arid summer or frozen winter, so they can flower when they please, no need to squeeze it all into a couple of months.

We are now in Caruthersville, Missouri on the banks of the Mississippi River, staying in a Casino Campground. The actual casino is on a boat on the river, actually two, a barge with a building on it, and an old ferry or excursion boat tied up outside of the barge. They have fake smokestacks with the iconic metal crown and a cut out of paddle wheels amidships, but mostly they are a stage set. The insides are the usual glitzy, tawdry décor with slot machines and vaguely hopeful folks pouring their quarters into them, and too much cigarette smoke in the air.

We can go out on the rail of the outside boat, and sit watching the Big Muddy go by, roiling and seething at a pretty good clip. A barge with its tow boat pushing it heads very slowly up river. This is a dangerous river, fast and full of logs, and inclined to build up sandbars in the night, or roll old snags up. At the casino there is a 10 foot cement flood wall with slots for panels where the road goes through it. Right now, the river is way below us, but the floodwalls make me think of the horrors of New Orleans, and other floods I’ve seen on TV.

The main entertainment this morning is that they have torn up and re-cemented two of the three roads in this small campground. Many RVers are unable to back their rigs at all, especially those who have chosen the pull through sites that we are in. Getting out may turn out to be interesting. They also started this noisy work at 6:45 AM, understandable in the heat, but not nice for those who were up all night partying in the Casino. It’s going to be like one of those puzzles with sliding plastic numbers and only one empty space to move to while you get them in order.

Fireflies

Last night, at a campground in Crossville TN, the dog and I went for a walk as it was getting dark. It was raining very lightly, and all around in the edge of the woods, fireflies flew up through the branches, or lingered in the tall grass, flashing their love songs in the twilight. I never grow tired of this buggy miracle, it seems like a special present on a summer evening.

I needed a long walk, as the last few days have been pretty bad.

On Friday night, Don had a stroke while he slept, and when he woke up, his left hand would not obey his brain. He could not get his shirt on nor do up his pants and belt, and tying his shoes was impossible. This dear man, who loves to fix things and be generally handy with all sorts of things, is crushed by the frustration and embarrassment of dropping anything he picks up with his left hand.

It was apparent to me that his left hand was not the only damage, subtle cognitive and visual things are wrong too. And this meant that there was no way he could drive.

This was always something waiting in the wings, no one ever knows how this ending dance will go exactly. The thickening of the blood that cancer brings caused a clot in his brain, and the nearby cells died. The people in the hospital in Clarksville TN emergency and then a neurologist in Nashville, did all the tests. There was no other reason for the clot, and they found he had serious clots in his legs, and he is now on Coumadin to thin his blood out.

He was taken by ambulance to Nashville, I had to let him go alone, because of the dog waiting at the trailer. What a horrible moment that was, leaving him to go by himself, and then coming home to an empty bed.

The Airstream and Darth Vader are now parked by the house of Ken’s platoon seargent., He’s the combat medic grandson stationed at Fort Campbell that we came to visit. Ken is my hero, he helped out in so many ways. I will have to fly back and pick it up once we are settled in VA.

Oklahoma and Texas

At this time of year, we would normally avoid these hot places, but here there is family to say good-by to.

Down out of the last of the mountains, we cross the upper corner of NM, stopping at Tucumcari for the night. The name comes either from a romantic and suspiciously Longfellowish story of a love triangle and suicide murder, or (more likely)the name of a mountain which in Comanche means ambush place.

From here, on through Amarillo TX and into OK, it seems way too green and lush to be the old west. Not a cactus or a cow skull in sight, only lush pasture, green fields and increasing amounts of trees. I remember this as drier, maybe it rained a lot, maybe my recollection has been bleached out by too much time in the desert.

The closer we get to OK, the hotter it gets, and the humidity goes up and up. We were sad enough to leave the North Rim, and we really miss that cool dry place now.

In Oklahoma City, we visit the Cowboy Museum. Don’s legs and feet have developed a tendency to swell, making the walking hard, but we go on through, stopping at the Russells and Remingtons and ambling through the exhibits about the world of the working cowboy. A good half of the museum is art, western, realistic, and romantic art. No abstracts allowed here, “we don’t know much about art but we know what we like”. Wisely, the museum makes much of the art part, so as to attract the wealthy donors and patrons that they have to have.

I am a fool for cowboys and all things to do with them. I love the horses, the places and the smells and the people. Here, though, it seems to be a closely held identity, in spite of the fact that few of these people ever actually got close enough to a cow to smell it. It was a romantic idea, and the outfits are good. And it sells almost anything, including religion.

Beside the road we see a black metal silhouette of a cross with a cowboy kneeling beside it while his horse waits. Some of the stories of what the cow towns were like when a cattle drive up from TX came into town remind me that these cowboys were pretty wild and wooley, like the miners, and not perhaps the John Wayne, Roy Rogers version.

First stop, in Pauls Valley OK to visit one grandson, wife, great granddaughter and to their enormous credit, the sister and brother of his wife who have no useful parents. We are staying at one of my favorite types of campground, the city park which is on a lake, lots of visiting and fishing going on, just camping and not pretending we are at a resort. I was dreading tearful good byes, as they will not see Don again, but since he doesn’t look like he is sick, much less dying, perhaps that kept it heartfelt, but not weepy.

Don’s swelling foot and calf worried us enough to go the local emergency room. There, various blood tests and an ultrasound suggested he might have a small clot in his lower leg or foot. Apparently, the cancer makes his blood more likely to clot, and this is exacerbated by sitting in the truck and driving all day. We were advised to get out and walk more often and his aspirin intake is upped. Scary, but the Dr, said to carry on, watching for pain higher up which would indicate a clot that could go to lungs, heart or even brain.

In Pittsburg, TX we stayed again at Lake Bob Sandlin State park. Here the jungle that is hot southern summer growth crowds in, and it rains and drips, and the cicadas rattle and rasp in the trees. There are vines, and in the trees it is dark even when the sun shines. The heat is breathtaking, the humidity is thick, a blue haze where you can see any distance.

This visit, with Don’s daughter was jolly and good too, although she and I puddled up a couple of times, and she made me promise to keep her in my life and close in the months ahead. She has a new husband and a nice new house, and her life is looking up except for facing the loss of her Daddy. She has a difficult relationship with her mother, so the loss is doubly hard. We ate out for dinner, they came here for breakfast, and then she followed us and ambushed us to wave madly in her truck as we drove off.

Next we head further south to Huntsville TX for the other grandson and wife. Hotter and wetter, I don’t see how people can chose to live here, unless their jobs demand it. Another dinner out and another breakfast here, and another fond, but not weepy, farewell, I suppose these people have only seen Don sporadically, and since he appears healthy it may be hard to believe the worst.

Now we are working our way to Clarksville, TN where the combat medic grandson in the Army is stationed. Today, at a beautiful state park in Forrest City AR, we are camped beside a lake, acres of mowed lawns, lots of space between sites, and commercial worthy views out of all windows. We are taking a break from the road today. Driving on Interstates makes me nearly crazy with boredom, especially these southern roads that are made of slabs of concrete. Maybe they are OK when new, but with time the slabs move and they are just the right distance apart to set my truck and trailer into a thump thump thump that is exhausting. I think my boobs have dropped another inch.

We have settled into our on the road pattern, which we both love, on the move, always adjusting our route, and pondering the different things we see. I wish we could do a little more sightseeing, but although Don’s swelling is much better, we still need to keep moving in case it gets worse. We also are looking forward to the less steamy weather in VA, at least we hope it will be less steamy. Right now, I think we are in the Amazon.

Live Steam

We hustled down to Antonito and scored two tickets on the train, riding in splendor in the fancy parlor car, brand new and spiffy, we were plied with drinks and pastries the whole time. But the whole point of this is the steam engine!

When we got there, one of the engines, a 1925 Baldwin Mikado type, was just getting steamed up, and sitting on the ashpit. We were like girls seeing Elvis. We watched it go around and move some cars, and then it was time to get on the bus for Chama. There are a number of different ways to ride the Cumbres and Toltec, with busses to take you back to where you started. The route is a remainder of the narrow gauge rail route that went from Antonito to Durango, this is the only part left . It runs up over the Toltec gorge, at times over a 4% grade! 2 ½ % is all a regular line can do.

The cars to ride in include our nice parlor car with plush seats and a tin ceiling, circa 1870.the other cars are 1880-1930 vintage, and there is an old box car redone as a café/curio car, and a gondola car where you can stand and see everything, narrated by a docent with microphone. The docent was informative but didn’t feel he had to talk all the time.

Black, hissing and the compressor clunking, the engine sits. Grey steam and smoke come out of the stack, and steam leaks lazily from other places. The lordly beings that control this great black creature strut a little, they are dirty and it is very hard work, especially shoveling the huge chunks of coal, but they know that in our eyes they are near gods. The engineer sports a black bowler instead of the usual peaked striped rr cap, a very dirty face and flashing eyes. He has little time for us, tired of railfans I think, but he loves this engine.

We board and the engine gives a great blast on the earsplitting whistle, no other sound in the world quite like it, almost an animal scream. The stack blows dark, black smoke as the engine begins to move, and the shuddering ch ch ch goes faster and faster, the joints on the rails hit the wheels clickety clack, and the coaches sway. Out the windows on a curve we can see the engine pulling, smoking steaming. There are counterweights on the drive wheels which put the drive arms further out and they are very visible, working like the endons on a pulling horse. Some of the passengers are just admiring the view, others have a grin on their faces, a grin that gets bigger every time the engine whistles for a grade crossing. The engineer clearly loves the whistle too, and plays it like some giant musical instrument. The steam leaps into the air, escaping through the whistle to freedom. On a good grade, they blow the bottom dump, a way to get rid of any crud on the bottom of the boiler, and release a cloud of steam, hissing and obscuring everything for a moment.

When I was learning about the steam engine that is a static display in the museum in Campo, I thought the great hulk was pretty nifty, and knowing how it all worked was great. I remember effusing about it to the head of the steam department, and he sighed, and said it was just a dead thing when it wasn’t running. I think I understand how he feels a little better. It is “only” a machine, but starting it up and running it while controlling what is basically a giant explosion on the edge of happening, makes it seem very alive. It breathes and snorts and thumps while still like an impatient race horse, and then when sent forward, clouds of steam and smoke and whistling are more like an unleashed dragon. Most machinery that pulls things have all the action hidden inside, pistons and gears are secrets, but on a steam engine the driving rods are right there, all bones and tendons and stringy muscles working like mad, and covered with black soot and gleaming with oil.

This mountaineering rail line was built in 9 months, mostly by hand, there are two tunnels and plenty of track laid on a rock shelf. Not quite as spectacular as Carrizo Gorge, but pretty grand all the same, we pass through aspen groves where the sound of the engine seems to rattle through the leaves, and then peer over the edge to the bright green valley below, where cattle graze.

At every grade crossing there are rail fans with their cameras, some follow the train the whole way, nearly jumping up and down with excitement. At a huge rock, called Kodak Rock by the train people, there are 3-4 intrepid climbers on top waiting for the perfect shot. I would rather ride it than shoot it, but you can see that we have plenty of company in our fascination with trains!

(This is a picture by a fellow train nut, Marty Bernard who visited here too )

Back at Antonito, we detrain, do a little shopping but keep turning to watch the engine switch cars around ready for tomorrow’s ride. Even the next day, driving on by, we slowed and looked wistfully at the engine getting ready, smoking quietly.

If you have never ridden behind a steam engine, better go do it, it’s a vanishing breed.

Adios San Juan

The San Juan Mountains are beautiful for all the visual reasons, high, jagged, bits of snow, visible for miles around. Don spent 4 summers here, workamping where we are now, driving the tour Jeeps all over the terrifying mining roads, and acting as Alpine Host up in a basin called Yankee Boy. So the first thing we wanted to do was rent a Jeep and go up into Yankee Boy. The road up goes by the campsites I ran, and then gets gnarly. We have driven Darth up there, but chose not to, he really is just too long for this mountain goat driving.

The road has been much improved, they even did some blasting on the narrow shelf road that scares me the most, and then we were up in the glorious basin, stuffed with wildflowers of all colors and sizes. There are still pockets of snow, melting and sending moisture down the steep slopes, and the peaks all around protect the basin from the worst of the winds.

This is the third time I have seen this glorious display and it never fails to amaze and delight. Tall cow parsnips waving like giant Queen Anne’s lace, blue larkspur, peach and pink Indian Paint Brushes, blue bells, wall flowers, purple asters, fleabane, showy alpine daisies, sunflowers, tiny sedums and bistort which is a white tuft of flowers on the end of a long stem.

If you sit down, you are in a forest of flowers, and you can see the tinier ones that are a little out-shouted by the showier ones. Cameras run amok, people stand stupefied by the sheer number of flowers, or perhaps the altitude, we are up above 10,000 feet.

I keep puddling up, especially on the way down, for it is here that Don wants part of his ashes spread, a little on the flowers, a little on the stream that rushes through. It is all too beautiful, and I realize with a pang that I will never see it again with him, at least in his real self. To comfort both of us, I say his spirit will be just at my shoulder, and we can see it all again or new and wonderful places.

The campground he worked at is under new management and repairs, we are allowed in as old friends of the lady that runs the office, a lot of his old buddies are down the road in a newer RV place, so we go for happy hour, and have a jolly visit.

Next day, we rent another Jeep, this time a Rubicon which has lockers and been lifted 2 ½” and sway bar release, and 33” Kevlar tires. We almost need a mounting block to get in, and it is RED. Up the precipitous and rather scary Million Dollar highway above Ouray we go and into the mountains. This time we go up Corkscrew Gulch.

This is between the two Red Mountains that have sweeps of iron laden gravel running down their sides, an impossible collection of wild colors, bright orange, rust, maroon, kakhi, ochres, very pale yellow and blinding white when the sun shines on it. The road begins with a stretch of rolling bumpy dirt in the pines, and then we arrive at the foot of the corkscrew, a series of steep, tight switchbacks carved out of a massive, white and peach colored rock slide. As we climb and inch our way around the corners, the view of the Red Mountains gets bigger and wilder, until it is a vivid panorama. Off to both sides, the more sedate gray rocks of the San Juans rear up higher and more rugged, but the sweep of those colors down the slope is magnificent.

Up at the top of Hurricane Pass, we stop for photos, overlooking the tropical blue of Lake Como, then climb up to California Pass where we can see for miles in every direction, mountains and green lush valleys and lakes down below.

On the sides of most slopes, sometimes way high up, are the mines, holes dug mostly by hand, gray tailings spilling down the slope. How did they get up there ? How did they get ore down? A lot of times, if there was ore to make it worth the trouble, by cable cars. On some places we see ruined structures, sluices, loading docks, but mostly just holes. A few folks got rich, but most just got tired.

We stop for lunch by a small lake, there has been good rain and old snow cover, so the lakes are all full, and eat our sandwiches while the dog forages for rodents under the pines.

Then we grind our way back down the corkscrew, meeting folks on the way up in various stages of glee or terror.

Don was put on oxygen after the biopsy probe collapsed his lung, but even up there at 12,000 feet, he didn’t really need it that much. Once back down to 6,000 feet, he has decided to monitor his heart rate and etc, and not be bothered with it. Besides being a serious nuisance, it keeps him from moving around and makes him feel old and useless. Medically, maybe a good safety thing, but psychologically, a weight he doesn’t need. We’ll keep the equipment until VA.

Next day we head south, meaning to be on our way, but while eating ice cream in a park, I pointed out that we were close to the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway, a big star in the rail fan world because they run steam !! We jumped on this, went to Antonito CO found a campground and next morning, with a rainbow in the sky, went to see if we could get tickets.

Exeunt Omnes

Leaving the North Rim was very hard. Packing up, especially after spreading out in expectation of a 6 month stay is hard work. Training our replacements and worrying about them and feeling like we let the place down was hard work. Saying goodbye to people was hard work. Actually, that was the hardest of all.

Cancer might be lying in wait for any one of us, at any moment, but like the even more likely fatal wreck on the highway, we put that fear aside and carry on. Then when it comes close, the fear grabs us, and a tiny voice says that could be me. So it’s not surprising that our leaving made a lot of people sad. Many shared stories about their own cancer survival, or of others close to them, and urged positive thinking, prayer, and sometimes alternative cures. It was as though we had nicked a vein of need and fear. Cancer feels like the wrath of God, and we mortals can only cower together and hope it passes us, like an aimless tornado in the body.

An isolated, ephemeral community like the North Rim produces a quick intimacy, so that we become a sort of instant group of clans, divided by our daily work area, but still together in isolation and with the difficulties of dealing with the general public. So, on many levels, it was hard for us to go and hard for others to see us go. And besides, it is ravishingly beautiful there.

We had dinner in the Lodge the last night, and were treated like royalty, the best table right by the window, watching the last sun on the canyon pick out rocks and pinnacles and then the sky faded peach to gold to green. The new cook has upped the quality of the food, and it was superb. I wore my heavy silver dollar necklace, and felt like a queen for that hour.

So down off the mountain for the last time, the tall ponderosas left behind for junipers and then just sage brush, the grand staircase of red, tan and white cliffs ahead of us. The night we drove into St. George, the sunset was magnificent, and as we drove west, the light lingered on the red rocks, and glowed in the sky. Today, though, it is hot, the Vermillion Cliffs shimmer, and then a series of thunderstorms roll through, lighting zagging in the distance, and then a downpour, so we stopped for lunch at a small place tucked under the cliffs where friends work, and bought lunch for a pair of young men with car trouble.



We drove by Tsege, where sandstone is swirled and piled up like whipped pumpkin pie filling, and turned at Kenyata, red bluffs all around, and into Monument Valley for the night.


We love this wild architecture of erosion, the great buttes and fingers of red sandstone loom in the sky, full of portent, ageless and even their iconic role in so many cowboy movies doesn’t change their power. They are as aloof from the tourists bumping around on the dirt roads as they are from the Navaho homes scattered at their feet.

In the morningI drive Darth Vader out into Monument Valley so Don can get his fill, and on the way out, the sun breaks through and highlights certain towers, we are soaking up this wild western magic for the bad times ahead in the dense, humid, over grown and crowded east.

Then we are headed out of the red rocks for the high country of CO. The red cliffs are swirled with grey, like someone’s fimo clay project, and Mexican Hat where the red cliffs have ruffles. We climb and climb and the ground becomes tan and grey, the air smells like Montana, a kind of dusty floury smell. We stop in Cortez for the night, at the casino campground, but not for the gambling. Neither of us has any suspension of disbelief about the odds, and besides the tobacco smoke is horrible. I find it hard to watch people smoke these days, although Don quit 25 years ago and we don’t know the cause anyway, but it looks a lot like playing stickball on the freeway.

In the distance, we can see the San Juan Mountains, that’s where we are headed, to Yankee Boy Basin where we met. We stop at the Anasazi Heritage Museum in Dolores, and find an extraordinary collection of the artifacts of the Old Ones. I wondered at Mesa Verde where the stuff they found was hiding, and I think it’s all here. Archeology and archeologists is the theme, with lots of hands on stuff to do, and probably a good film although we didn’t stay for it.



I climbed up to the ruins of the Escalante Pueblo at the top of the hill, over looking the McPhee Lake. There is a kiva and the knee knocker doorways I first saw at Chaco Canyon. The impetus for this museum was the archeological survey done before they put the dam in and drowned the valley, but it has grown to include other areas of the region too. A great place if you love the ruins as we do, but not for those who are on a bus tour, counting coups of the places they visit as quickly at possible.

As we move along, Don calls more and more people to let them know, hard for him to say it, and hard for them to hear it. I lean against him for support, and worry about what lies ahead.

Today we are at the campground in Montrose CO where Don spent many summers as workamper, and drove the tour jeeps up on the terrifying old mine roads, and where he stopped to give a ride up to the high up campground to the lady who was supposed to clean it. We are going to rent a Jeep and go up there and play.

Heavy Heart

I've been too sad and too busy to post these stories, until now.

About two weeks ago, Don decided that his cough and some shortness of breath needed to be taken to a doctor. At the hospital in Kanab UT, and X-ray showed a mass in his lung, and a CAT scan showed it more clearly.

So he went off to St. George to see a lung Dr, and had a biopsy done.

During the procedure, his lung collapsed. Not really a huge deal, happens fairly often when you poke at lungs, since they are a spongy collapsible sac that is pretty much held in place by air pressure, and sort of mildly stuck to the chest wall. A tube was put in to get the air rearranged, and the lung is back to position. After some monitoring, Don was sent home with oxygen to await the test results, for a week.

The oxygen system consists of a gray sort of R2D2 machine that purrs along, extracting pure oxygen from the air. He wears the standard double pronged nose tube ( canula) and has enough tubing to go anywhere in the RV. There is another concentrator in the Lodge office for work time, and cylinders on a trolley for in between.

Getting this all lined up was a little nerve wracking as someone dropped the ball and the second load wasn’t delivered on time, but the young man who delivered it reassured me that if we need anything just call and he will be on his way. It turns out he is related to the guy who brings the mail down from Fredonia Az every day, so although the physical distances out here are huge, it felt strangely like Wales. The small (2,000) town in MA where I raised my kids, where everyone knows everyone and most are related.

Don is, as you might imagine, both scared of what the future holds, and angry that his body has failed him, especially the very visible badge of infirmity, the oxygen. There are a lot of things we want to do and see, sort of imaginary pictures on the wall, and they have dimmed. It is always possible that this will be repaired and we can carry on, but the odds have shortened.

We got a phone call saying that the mass is indeed malignant. At first it made me want to run and hide, just sort of go in some closet until it is all over. But the fact is, that there are many types of cancers of the lung, and this is not the worst, because inoperable, small cell cancer. ( Yes, I did go on line and scare myself a bit)

So today is Sat, July 11, and we have to wait until next Friday to learn more. We will go into St. George that Thurs night, hit the Super 8, and be ready for the doctors and their machines in the morning.

Plan A would be to get whatever done and return to the North Rim, where I can still work while he recuperates. But since he will likely need ongoing procedures, and bad lungs at 8,800 feet is a bad idea, more likely there will be a move.

Plan B, thin at best, is Don taking the 5th wheel to civilization for treatment, leaving me to work.

Plan C, we both leave for somewhere near medical attention, preferably where I can work off our site fees at least.

So many people here have been so wonderful to us. The Front Desk team, having lost several desk clerks is still pulling together and doing a great job, as if to show Don that he trained them well, and that although they would like him back, he is not to fret. Don has pretty well chosen his crown prince and the assistants to be, so they should be OK if we have to leave.

A wonderful man who has been driving the employee shuttle van idly asked me a few weeks ago if he could train as my substitute just in case. It didn’t seem that urgent then, and it would require changing the way we handle funds, so I let it slide. He has now had three mornings of training, and since he is both better at numbers than I am, and worked at a Post Office in a former life, he is pretty well up to speed. This particular Post Office has a lot of idiosyncrasies, some due to lack of standard PO machines (like no postage meter or cash register) and some due to its role as banking office for the operation. It was a daunting learning curve for me, as you may recall, and still has very hectic days where it’s all I can do to get through it all. He “soloed” today in the Post Office, so he’s ready to fly it now.

An amazing number of people here have shared their cancer survival stories, and Don reminds himself that his aunt, who as a young woman lost a lung to TB and was given 6 months to live, lived a long life to age 80.

Me, I am of two minds. I like challenges and emergencies. But I also fear being a long term caretaker again, and am not happy about the idea of being planted in one place.

Today, Friday July 17, we learned that Don has stage IV lung cancer which has now spread to his liver. We stood at the oncologist’s office and looked at the PET scan files. Since cancer cells live at a high rate of metabolism, the isotope that was injected gets collected faster there, and the tumors light up like miniature supernovas. We could see the one in the lung, but also more and bigger blobs of light in the liver. Since the cancer is now on the road in there, operating is useless, and so is radiation. Chemo may well lengthen his life, and we haven’t ruled that out.

It seems best to head for VA where two of his daughters live. So, on Monday we will very sadly leave the North Rim, and head out on the last great road trip while he can still drive. We will revisit some favorite places, stop and see family and friends along the way, and end up somewhere in the Richmond area. There we will see another oncologist, and ponder treatments. We will continue to make short trips as long as it is still fun. The doctors remind us that there is no way to predict how this will go, nor how long it will take for sure. 6 months seems to be the average for what he has.

So gentle reader, the tone of this story has taken a sad turn, but an interesting one. Many questions, some never will be answered. Tears, regrets that he will never see these magnificent rock formations again, that we won’t go to Alaska together, that he won’t get to ride a mule down into the canyon. I will lose a darling companion.