Funny thing, that trip to the clinic. I’ve had this background burning pain in my bladder the last couple days that worked its way to the foreground. Bladder infection? Something going on, thought I’d better get it checked. Totally asymptomatic, except for that burning, not while I pee, but before and after. Feels like I have to pee, even when I’ve just finished. The clinic doctor couldn’t figure it out. No bladder infection. Might be some kind of urinary tract infection, but didn’t present properly for that. Blood in the urine. Might have something to do with my enlarged prostate. She told me to take antibiotics if I got a fever and to go back to my doctor to get my prostate checked again. Aha! Took a while to connect, but, there it is. Blood in the urine. Uneasy bladder. Been there. It has been fifteen years, but been there. Kidney stone. That’s what this feels like! Blood in the urine. Vague pain. Here it comes. Nothing serious. Serious pain, but not like having some debilitating disease. Most likely resolution, I’ll suddenly be overcome with pain, Judy will rush me to the hospital, they will give me morphine and squeeze as much fluid through me as fast as they can until the stone passes. Last time, they didn’t even have to check me in. They flushed it through, then sent me home to sleep off the rest of the morphine. Shouldn’t take more than a couple days from whenever it starts, really starts. Maybe in an hour, or a day, or a month…..
Santa fe
A misty morning; nice for a bird walk. Saw some snow geese, redheads, canvasbacks, scaups, a hooded merganser, mourning doves, collared doves, kestrels, shrikes, harriers, robins, an American pipit, a spotted towhee, tons of white crowned sparrows, tons of juncos (Oregon and pink sided). I love the dark-eyed juncos; don’t see nearly enough of them, plus all the other usual suspects like house sparrow, starlings, rock doves, ravens, etc. The fog lifted to scattered clouds for a cool easy drive to Santa Fe. Know how some freeways are trucker’s freeways and some aren’t? Some freeways are mostly just cars driving along, but some freeways, like Interstate 80 and Interstate 40 are clogged with trucks. There are likely to be at least as many trucks as cars. Guess those routes get them where they need to go over the terrain of least resistance. Anyway, we drove highway 60 across New Mexico and discovered it is a railroad highway. Know how you’ll drive along and see a train or two all day? Highway 60 parallels east/west railroad tracks, side-by-side tracks, and you can generally see two or three trains at any time. These trains, out in the open country, travel sixty-five miles per hour, exactly the same speed we were traveling. We could drive for twenty minutes right next to the same train. Trains loaded with trucks. Arrived in Santa Fe at the same time as the snow flurries. Perfect timing. Checked in to the RV Park, Santa Fe Skies, a quick trip to a clinic for some minor repairs, drive by Monday’s client’s office to locate it, a stop for some Mexican food (not hard to find Mexican food in Santa Fe), and a drive past the rec center with the racquetball court to make sure they really were closed late on a Sunday night. They were. Home safe and sound and warm inside the house. Let it snow. (We hear they’re gearing up for the blizzard of ’06 in Denver).
Portales
Leaving Las Vegas. Las Vegas is located on a giant shelf next to the Rocky Mountains. It’s not in the mountains, but it is still at 6,500 feet. We decided to drop off the shelf and head out into the plains. We dropped 2,000 feet when we left Villa Grove, Colorado for Las Vegas, New Mexico. We dropped another 2,000 feet by driving a little farther east. We’re at Oasis State Park right at the eastern border of New Mexico, just north of Portales, at 4,500 feet. Cool and foggy. Birded the little pond. Got to watch a harrier hunt the prairie. A quiet mild weekend.
Mysteries
Lessons learned. I’ve talked before about all the warning bells and buzzers we have in this coach. We discovered a new one. The first time we heard it we were blowing down the freeway in the Texas hill country. Down a hill, across the bridge at the bottom, bounce, “dong, dong, dong). Warning bell, then it stopped. Later, another bump, another “dong, dong, dong”. High speed, slow speed, bounce the coach and you get the warning bell. Has to be suspension, right? Air suspension, maybe a leak in a bag, a brief low air alarm, then resolved? Never any indication on any of the gauges, just the warning bell, then nothing. Phone calls for service. Tech support. Then the solution. Over the phone. Nothing to do with suspension. A jack slipped. We have two leveling systems: air leveling and hydraulic jacks. We’ve used the hydraulic jacks maybe two times, to stabilize the rig in really high winds. The alarm that tells you if you’re trying to drive off with the jacks down is tied to the hydraulic fluid reservoir for the jacks. The fluid in the reservoir goes down when the jacks are extended, then it comes back up when the jacks are retracted. He said next time we hear the warning “dong, dong, dong”, push the jack retract button and that should take care of it. We weren’t traveling right then, so we didn’t actually have the opportunity to test the theory until later, but it was attractive for its simplicity. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. And now that we’ve driven again? He nailed it. The jacks are up. The warning bell is gone. All mysteries should have such simple solutions.
Villa grove
The view from the campground.