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RV

Judy came back Tuesday night. We wanted some quiet time together, so we decided to take the motorhome out for a weekend shakedown cruise. It hasn’t been out much this summer. We hope to take the usual January Texas trip, so it seemed to be a good idea to see if everything still worked.

I left work early Friday afternoon and we got on the road by three o’clock or so. We decided to head north and maybe on Saturday we’d check in with Bill and Marge on the farm in Wheatland. As we got into Wyoming, it was getting dark when we saw the exit to Curt Gowdy State Park. We’ve been seeing this exit for years and years, and have no idea what Curt Gowdy State Park is like, so we headed off the twenty miles to the west.

It is off-season. There was only one other camper there, and he wasn’t even in the best site. It’s a mountain park. We got set right next to the lake, level, and ready for dinner in the fading light. It was then I noticed the overhead light fading faster than the outside light. Our house battery was not holding its electrons. That meant no juice to run the furnace overnight at this dry camp. It was already down into the thirties. We decided we’d rather spend the night plugged in at the KOA in Laramie. It was a wonderful warm night with the furnace blowing.

We slept in, then headed northeast back across the mountains, the back way to Wheatland on another road we’ve been meaning to get to for years. (It was very lonely and scenic.) We popped out right at Bill and Marge’s. We spent the afternoon and evening visiting with them and wandering all over the farm. We got up the next morning well after the rooster and guinea fowl did, and spent half of Sunday visiting as well.

We drove home, dropped the motorhome off at the repair shop with a list, watched the Broncos win, and even squeezed in a short hour of racquetball for me.

What a wonderful relaxing weekend.

S
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Update

Judy put her shoulder recovery on hold, and has been back in California for awhile.
Back about May, the prediction for her dad was eight to twelve weeks. Well now, five months later, he is still trucking right along. He continues to think he is within a day or two of death, but the hospice workers continue to pronounce all systems strong.

He has been living alone at his apartment. He has had trouble with his balance and has taken to falling down. He regularly calls for help in the middle of the night.

No-one lives right there with him, so it’s time for a managed care facility. Of course he never thought that was a really great idea, but they got him moved into the best place they could find yesterday, Saturday.

A couple more days in California for Judy and I’ll get her back in Colorado for awhile again.

Looking forward to that.
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Judy

Time for a medical update. Right in the middle of all the family and friends issues in California, Judy tore the muscles in her shoulder. It takes awhile to get through all the necessary diagnosis and scheduling, so she has been in constant pain for weeks, and not able to travel. California will just have to wait.
Today we got the surgery with the same orthopedic surgeon who did her knee a couple years ago. The knee was a roaring success. This is the basic rotator cuff overuse injury. He repaired a tear in the front, and reattached a complete separation in the back. She now has a titanium screw in her shoulder to help draw the tendon back to a reattachment with the bone. He was able to do all this with the scope, so the recovery should be lots less hassle than it would have otherwise been.

For now, her arm is in a sling strapped across her chest, with instructions not to move it. She gets to start physical therapy in two weeks when the tendon has had a chance to reconnect. The surgeon predicts unrestricted use of the shoulder in six weeks.

There is a “pain pump” also resting in the sling which meters a tiny amount of anesthetic through a little tube directly into the repaired joint. It should last until Sunday, then we just pull the tube out. Meanwhile, Judy is recovering from the general anesthesia and pain medication, and is pain-free for the first time in four weeks.

It is all good. We expect to play racquetball on her birthday in December.
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Close encounters

I got there early. Sunday, in the most remote part of the park, I did not have a close encounter with a bison. I fished the Lamar River for a couple hours in the afternoon. I found a nice bend in the river with an undercut bank on the other side. I never saw the bison. At dusk, I walked back to the motorhome and drove off to find a place to turn around and head back to the camp. As I drove back past the fishing spot, there was a lone bull bison standing on the bank, directly above the spot where I had been fishing.
On Monday morning, two hikers did have a close encounter with a grizzly, two miles down river from where I was fishing. The bison carcass was three weeks old, so the hikers thought it was safe to go down and take a look. The grizzly popped up out of a gully to defend his prize aggressively. It ended peacefully. The grizzly got to keep his carcass. Two hikers have the story of a lifetime about how they got to run all the way back to the car in wet shorts. Now there are fresh bear warning signs up at the trailhead. I fished the Soda Butte Creek.

We floated the Madison on Tuesday and Thursday with Rick the guide, and got close to a whole bunch of fish. Actually, Bill got closer to more fish, and bigger fish than I did.

On Wednesday, Bill and I wade fished the Madison by ourselves. The river, and the fish that were presumably there, pretty much kicked our ass.

Friday, we loaded up and took the scenic loop over the Divide, around to the lake, along the river, through Hayden Valley, over Dunraven Pass, down through Tower, the Roosevelt Lodge, past Slough Creek, through the Lamar Valley, and finally to Pebble Creek Campground. Back to the remote top-right corner of the Park.

I took Bill back to show him where I caught all the Yellowstone cut-throat trout on Sunday and Monday. I could show him where they were, but I couldn’t show him any fish. We went to the Lamar River. It was dead quiet. We worked and worked and worked the water. Nothing happened. We went to different water. We went to Soda Butte Creek. It too was dead quiet. Just like there were no fish there at all. We started at the Butte. We walked and fished our way down-stream. Nothing happened until down by the Bison. Then the fish started rising. But we still couldn’t catch them. They were clearly eating now, but we couldn’t see anything on the water. All we knew was that they didn’t want to eat what we were offering. Finally, by putting my reading glasses on and putting my face right down next to the water, I could see the tiny bugs. There was a hatch on. It was a hatch of very very tiny little brown indistinct bugs. And they were the only thing our trout wanted.

By now the trout were lined up right on the bubble-line, one each ten feet or so, each rising for a gulp, and dropping back down, then rising again. We went through our fly boxes and found the two tiniest, cruddiest little brown bugs we could to tie on and offer. It worked. We caught lots of fish the last hour or so. We fished until it was too dark to see the flies.

I didn’t get to my run until late that night. Just as the moon set, I went out for a run in the starlight. At the turn-around, far-point of my run, I stood alone in the dark and listened to the wolves howling all around me. It made me shiver. The wolves are clearly back. And they belong.

Bill and I both left on Saturday morning. Bill went back across the top of the park through Mammoth Hot Springs, then north-west up into Montana. I went out the Bear Tooth Highway, the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, by the Big Horn River, through Thermopolis, the Wind River Canyon, and past Hell’s-Half-Acre. Ten minutes after I left camp at 7:30 in the morning, I got a full, unobstructed view of a bull moose. He crossed the road and worked his way up the hill to my right. I just pulled up and stopped to watch. I got to be a moose-jam of one.

Thirteen more hours and I was home.

Judy was glad to see me. The puppy pretty much wiggled herself inside out. The Broncos won. The cat pretended he didn’t care I was back, but I’m sure he did.

What I did this summer.

S
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Exercise

I had a difficult bicycle ride yesterday.
It was an off-day for racquetball. My ankle is a little sore, so I can’t run any distance right now. So I decided to take a bicycle ride for my exercise.

I headed out to ride around Harper lake, up on Davidson Mesa, in the northwest part of town. (Yes, all the way to another part of Louisville). But on the way I decided to go down the street that has the house with the yard train in the back yard. I haven’t been by there in a couple years and thought I should see how he’s doing. He’s doing very well! The layout is complete now. It includes mountains and tunnels and trestles and towns. It covers the entire back yard. It required lots of observation and admiration.

After about twenty minutes I managed to pull myself away and continue on to the bike path around Harper Lake. But just as I got to the other side, I encountered the sailboat regatta! Nine boats in all. Each one about two feet long. A radio-control regatta.

After the additional observation and admiration, I got back on track for the bicycle ride, but from here it was all downhill back to the house.

Sometimes it’s just really hard to get in a good exercise.

S