bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- I had a 9:30 PT appointment and Bob decided to go with me. By the time we left, Bob was really pale, so we stopped and got him a snack. He felt better after that. We headed to Walmart to pick up his prescriptions and grocery shop. Of course, his prescriptions were not ready! 45 minutes! Hump! It ended up being 55 minutes and the milk was getting warm!

Finally got through at Walmart, put the refrigerator stuff in the cooler in the car, and we went to Souplantion. We had seen it and thought we could give it a try. Bob could then take his antibiotics. An interesting restaurant. They serve salad, soup and pasta. You walk in and pick up a plate for your salad. You walk down the salad bar, a very long, nice salad bar, but you only get one run through it. You pay at the end, then go to your table. From there, you can go to the soup, bakery, and pasta bars, as many times as  you want.  The salad was good, the pasta ( mac and cheese, white 4 cheese mac and cheese, and a fire spaghetti with peppers) were good, but low is protein. The soups were mediocre, to say the least. My turkey soup had one small piece of turkey and Bob’s clam chowder had no clams. There was corn bread which was awful and a brownie muffin which was terrible.  We won’t go back, as it was just lousy.

We returned home, unloaded the car, and took a nap. After the nap I went to Target to pick up distilled water for Bob’s CPAP and to use in the medi-pot. Walmart has changed the height of the bottles and they are too tall to fit in our cabinet. At least Target has them in the lower size( like a gallon of milk).  I did not feel like cooking, so we decided on Boston Market. We had never been real fond of the one in Waldorf, but the one in Van Nuys was pretty good. We had dinner reservations at a really nice restaurant, but we cancelled as Bob is still not feeling well.  We are waiting for the antibiotics to kick in and the Phenergan with codeine to minimize the cough. We watched Richard Gere in Arbitrage.

Sunday-  An apple a day makes the time go away! We headed out this morning to the Northridge Mall to the Apple store. The IPad never downloaded the IOS 5 and they are now at IOS 6. I have not been able to download any apps. It took about 20 minutes, so that went well. At least until we got home….

We stopped at In-an-Out Burger for lunch. This is a very popular So. California burger chain. Everyone we have driven past has had long lines, so we decided to give it a try. The burgers were very good and Bob thought the fries were better than average. From him, that is a compliment!

We stopped at Petco. then we returned to the motor home and I tried to download some more apps and re-load some of the stuff I lost in the upgrade. Could not do it, so I spent about an hour on the phone with Apple. We finally got my password and ID straightened out. I have had problems since someone stole my credit card number and bought a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff on Itunes last summer. Now my Ipod and Ipad are working better!

Bob took a nap and I ran to Ralphs to return the DVD and pick up Bob’s cereal. I also bought some bottled water, since Target only carried the distilled water. We are going to need bottled water soon, as we will be boon-docking in January.

We packed up the Christmas stuff. I usually do this on New Years, but it is time to get started packing up stuff and getting the motor home ready to travel .New Years Day is going to be busy with the Tournament of Roses Parade!

Do you think Roxie likes looking out the window? Note the butt on the back of the couch! Karlie just thinks it is all boring!

Monday- Work, what can I say!  Bob was still sick so he stayed home most of the day. When he had a burst of energy he started on getting the motor home ready for travel.

Tuesday- Happy New Year! We were up at 5 AM to head to Pasadena to the Tournament of Roses Parade. You can attend for free, but have to spend the night there, sleeping on the street to hold your place. That was not for us! We bought bleacher seats ($65 ea.), they had seats for $55 and $90 also. We also paid $ 30 for parking and $10 for a program.

NOTE: I took 188 pictures, so I am going put in highlights, some of which you would not have seen on TV if you watched the parade.

Since we left early , the drive was not too bad. We left at 5:45 and arrived at about 6:30. People were everywhere! There is a blue line near the curb, and everyone has to be behind that line. People had started arriving yesterday at noon to stake out their seats. We saw everything from portable camp chairs to nice oak kitchen chairs.

You could park your RV for $500 for the night. Some people stood up up the roof to watch the paraded, but most put their lawn chairs out. At least they had their own bathrooms! Since we were in the bleachers, we had private porta-potties behind the bleachers. You had to show your ticket to use them. They had TP and were relatively clean. For those who watched the parade for free, there were six porta-potties on the corner, for all those people!

Every few feet, there were food vendors cooking these hot dogs. They smelled wonderful, but since they were cooked with green peppers, they would have made Bob very ill. There was a very, very busy McDonalds next to the bleachers.

Here is some more of the crowd. The temp overnight was in the 30’s. but it rapidly warmed up to a high of 60.

Of course, there were the assorted weirdo’s! There were also the religious nuts; most of them were polite, just walking by with signs. One was a real strange character, walking the length of the parade route, with a megaphone, preaching fire and brimstone. He was actually scaring the kids and the crowd became very angry at him.

We bonded with the folks who were sitting around us. There was a family in front, a family behind and two women on my left. So that was nice! Just strangers who came together for a few hours. We took their picture and they took ours.

The parade started at 8:00, but we were a little past the middle of the parade route, so the floats did not arrive at our location until 8:50. The first event was the motorcycle police who came down the road, to clear the road of people. This group performed, doing different formations.

Finally, the first float arrived. The theme this years is : Oh, The Places You’ll Go!  This float was presented by Wells Fargo.

Of course the Goodyear Blimp was flying overhead.

This is the American Honda float “ Follow Your Dreams” which celebrates childlike imagination and Honda’s belief in the power of dreams.

Next came the Marine Corps Mounted Color Guard and the US Marine Corps West Coast Composite band. Everyone in our bleachers stood for the these great folks. Interestingly, the bleachers in front of the church across the road, did not stand for the patriotic floats. Our bleachers seemed to have our act together as we stood for all the armed forces bands and floats.

Number four was the City of Torrance” Follow Your Dreams float. The emphasis is on education and reading.

Number five was Hawaii Pa’u Riders. A group of 16 riders adorned with flowers from Hawaii.

Behind every group of horses, were the ‘pooper scoopers’!  These folks were a so funny! They would march in the parade until they had to stop to scoop up the manure. At which point, the crowd would go wild, and cheer. The pooper scoopers would then high five or do a little dance for the crowd. It was a hoot!

This was a ‘Flyover of the Air Force B-2 Spirit’, the Steal Bomber. It flew over twice. The wingspan is 172 feet, more than half the length of a football field and it weights 175 tons. You could not hear it!

Above is the Nurse’s float. “ A Healing Place” . In 2007, five registered nurses in California formed Bare Root, a non-profit organization to raise money and build a float to honor nursing professionals worldwide for their tireless efforts. Being a nurse, this was my favorite float.

Another favorite float was the Beverly Hills Pet Care Foundation” Follow the Stars-Adopt a Pet”.

A tear jerker was the “Donate Life- Journey’s of the Hear"t” . The 10th donate Life Rose Parade float transports 30 riders representing deceased organ, eye, and tissue donors,  living donors, and transplant recipients through a magical heart-filled worlds. On the loops were pictures of deceased donors.

A fun float was the RFS TV “ Classis Tractor Fever” with the tractor’s cruising down the street. The music was “ Big Green Tractor” by Jason Aldine.

The finale went by, and then there was a long line of tow trucks, of every size, with their horns blaring! We have now crossed this off our bucket list. What a fantastic event!

There were 93, floats or marching bands. So it took quite a bit of time for all of them to pass. The parade route is 5 miles long. One gal was walking barefoot the entire length. In one group was a little boy, about 5 years old. One band walked the route in clogs! Many of the participants danced the entire route.

This year, there was a couple who were married on a float and one of the military floats had an unexpected surprise for a wife and son, when the father, who is stationed in Germany, jumped off the float to greet them. We did not see the wedding or the guy jump off the float, as that occurred near the beginning of the parade.

There were no trash cans on the street, so Colorado Blvd was covered with trash by the time the crowd cleared out.

It took us 1.5 hours to reach the 210, three blocks away, due to the traffic. We cruised home and took a nap!

Wednesday- Back to work, like another Monday. As Bob said, this is Monday and tomorrow is Friday!

Bob cleaned the carpeting today. It really needed it. We had a lot of stains.

Thursday- My last day of work! It was a really nice day at work. I feel like I really made a difference in some peoples lives. I ended up fighting for a walker for a patient and to get another patient into the Skilled Nursing Facility he wanted to go.

There are several major changes to Medicare to save money. One is for walkers, you have to have the right diagnosis to qualify for a walker. Wheelchairs now require that you can only ambulate less than 75 feet, indoors. Medicare does not care about outside. To obtain a hospital bed at home, you have to have either CHF ( congestive heart failure) or COPD. At least that is the way it is on the west coast. I am finding a lot of differences on the west coast vs. the east coast. Especially with Medicaid. Medi-cal does not cover any rehab. So if you have a stroke, you are just out of luck!  I am telling all my patients, once they have equipment, do not get rid of it! BTW, you can buy wheelchairs and walkers at Walmart or Walgreens for a lot less money than at a medical supply store!

So it was a nice day. When I was having Laura sign my timesheet, she asked me to come on staff, again. Said no, again, but it is a nice place to work!

Friday- Here are pictures of our site at Balboa RV Park.

We were off at  a little before 10 AM,leaving Balboa RV Park,  heading first north on Balboa Blvd, then turning right onto Roscoe. We went north on the 405 for about 2 miles, then east on the 118, then followed the 210 all the way to San Bernadino, where we caught I-10 east.  We had a nice drive and the traffic was not bad at all.

I drove behind Bob to run interference in the traffic, which most of the way was not necessary. Note the snow covered mountains in the picture.

We passed through Palm Springs on the interstate. We had been told that there was a windy canyon just before Palm Springs. We have had high winds the last two days, so we were happy that the winds had died down. Going through this canyon, we must have driven five miles through windmills. Lots and lots of windmills! There was also a field of solar panels. We exited I-10 at exit 134, turned right on Cook Rd ,left of Gerald Ford Rd, then left on Frank Sinatra Drive to the Emerald Dessert RV Park for the Alfa See Ya’s pre-rally. There are 27 Alfa coaches, with about 54 members! We were not here very long before people we have met in the past started stopping by to catch up on everyone’s adventures.

This resort is night and day different from Balboa RV Park. This is a very nice place, with all the amenities, pool, hot tub, WiFi, fitness center, and wide sites, etc. This is the way retirement is supposed to be!

We walked over to the activity center and picked up two books at the book exchange. We need to take two books back to the exchange. Not hard to do, since I have a bag ready to exchange.

At 5 PM we had a get-together, BYOB, then a catered dinner at 5:30. Dinner was baked ziti, a salad, veggies and garlic bread.

    

Of course there was a welcome speech by our Wagon Master, telling us about the events for the next 4 days, here at the park and the caravanning on Tuesday to the FMCA Western Rally. Around 7:30, we returned to the motor home, watched TV and promptly fell asleep on the recliner/couch, before we actually went to bed at 10 PM.

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