bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We ate breakfast, walked the dogs, and took off for the Square Dance Festival. This morning was a workshop, on Plus calls, by Hunter Keller. It was from 10-11:30. We had thought they were serving lunch, but no, it was just junk. So we left and went hunting for lunch. We ended up at Mellow Mushroom. We had liked Mellow Mushroom in Florida, and this was was very good also.

We returned home and took a nap. We ate dinner and left to go back to the Festival to dance from 7 to 10:45. We had a good time, especially since our teacher Dennis, his wife Teresa, Helen & Jeff, Dan & Kathy all came this evening. So we had some folks we knew there. We had a good time, but because there were more folks attending, we had more trouble hearing. We are really glad they are moving the festival for the next two years to Sun City West. We won another door prize, this time, an ugly fish key chain.  Below is after the Grand March into the room on Sat. night  by the local clubs.

Above is Hunter Keller on the stage and Lee Hailey dancing in front of the stage. As you can see, there was a patriotic theme, so we are wearing our red white and blue!

A special thank you to Linda who came over on Fri and Sat nights to give Karlie her pills and to walk the dogs!

Sunday- OMG! This was the worst day we have had since my father was so sick and died in 2001.  We woke up and Karlie literally fell over on the bed. It was like she was drunk. She could barely walk. Since she has the mitral valve prolapse, we thought that she might have thrown a clot and had a stroke.  Her rear end was going one direction and the front the other, plus she was making strange movements with her head. She also vomited.  We were terrified! I called the Vet office, fortunately they are open on Sunday, and made a 2 PM appointment, the first they had available.

With our prior dogs, when they made their last visit to the Vet, I did much better, and could keep my act together until the deed was done. This time, I kept crying all day!

The Vet, did a very thorough exam and decided that it was questionable if she had a stroke, or if she had Senior Vestibular Disease. He flipped her over on her back ( much to her dismay) and her eyes were really weird, rolling all over the place. He decided to treat her for the dizziness. So he gave her nausea medication and said to call if she was not better by Tuesday. Whew! We dodged a bullet there!

Bob has been taking both dogs to the grass at the end of the street, then returning to the MH. We put Karlie on my lap and he takes Roxie for a long walk. Karlie is sick enough, she does not mind doing this! Usually, you cannot take one dog without the other one. This continued through the day with her on one of our laps. She did not eat dinner but at least the vomiting stopped.

We spent a quiet afternoon and evening and ate dinner at home. We watched some TV.

Monday- Poor Karlie is still dizzy. She falls down when trying to squat to pee but she is a little bit better when she flaps her ears, she is doing it more gently and is only losing balance and not falling over. She is drinking but not eating.

I worked on some articles and Bull’s Eye RV Repair arrived to clean out the washer/dryer. They pulled the machine out and Bob installed the shelf. He is not sure that this is going to work, but we will see. The guys cleaned out the trap and re-installed the machine.

We did not play Spades as we were decided to stay with Karlie. We had a quiet afternoon at home. At 4, we took both dogs with us and went to a potluck happy hour at Judy and Fred’s. Susie, their dog, and Mandy, Barb and Syd’s dogs, were there. Karlie sat on one of our laps the entire time. Poor Linda had to be re-assured that it was nothing that she did to cause Karlie’s dizziness. In reading up on this, it is caused by ear damage from ear infections. Since Karlie has floppy ears, she has had a number of infections over her lifespan. Bob did walk her home and she did okay on the walk.

Tuesday- Bob stayed at the MH while I went to Maj. Since Karlie was still dizzy, I called the vet. Then I went to my  Assessment at Banner Physical Therapy for my shoulder.  The PT gave me some exercises to do daily. I return next week.

I returned home and the Vet had still not called. We ate dinner and then Bob left for the Astronomy Club. I checked my phone and the Vet had called at 6:23. My phone had not rung. Somehow the ringer got shut off. So I texted Bob, but he had forgotten his phone. The vet had recommended that we pick up 25 mg of Meclizine for the dizziness. So I asked our friends if someone could take me to CVS to pick it up. Linda arrived and took  me to CVS where I purchased the med. I returned home and gave Karlie her pill. Bob returned home around 9.

Wednesday- Karlie is less dizzy. I am not sure why the Vet did not give her that to begin with! She is doing so much better, so we stopped the nausea pills. But she only took about 8 tablespoons of peanut butter throughout the day. That was the only thing that she would eat!  We tried everything! She is drinking water….

Bob took the car to United Car Care because we have transmission fluid leaking. It is just a small leak, but they discovered that the Power Transfer Unit is not working. AGAIN! This was the problem we had, under warranty, right after we purchased the car, that burned up the rear end. According to the repair facility, this is a common problem in Ford all wheel drive SUV’s. $1786! We are not happy, as this was only 40k miles since the last time this occurred!

I went to the Stampin Up Card Class at 9. Bob returned and was waiting for me when I retuned  home. We decided to do the repair on Monday, so Bob called them back to have them order the parts.  We decided to go to Taco Tuesday at the café here at the park, Fat Freddie’s. 2 for $3.50. Not too bad! We returned and had a quiet after noon and evening.

Thursday- Karlie is almost back to normal, but still not eating.We are offering her everything. She likes peanut butter a lot so she will eat that and she is eating some turkey. Not much of either. 

I went to Maj and Bob continued to work on his projects.

We had lunch at home, then took a short nap. We ate dinner at home and went to Sun City West to Square Dance.

Friday- We left at 8 to go to catch the park bus to the Verde Canyon Railroad trip. This was a nice day. The cost was $80 pp. The senior rate for the train is $59.99 but we had a group rate which included lunch ($9) worth of food. Plus the round trip transportation.

We took off a little before 9 and drove the 1 hour 45 minutes to the depot. We wandered through the gift shop, museum,  and grabbed lunch. The train boarded at 12:30 and then left at 1:00 for the 4 hour trip. Below is my selfie in front of the engine. This was before we left

The train has these two FP7 locomotives, that are two of the only 10 remaining in North America. We traveled through two National Forests and a designated wilderness area. The train travels through a protected corridor at the river’s edge and the canyon is lined with towering red rock pinnacles. .

Above is Ray, Bob and MaryAnne waiting to board. While we were eating lunch we had run into Mary and Norm from the Escapees SKP Genies. We had a happy reunion with them. They live in Prescott and were traveling on the same car with their Tiffin Allegro club. Even in the outback of AZ we run into people we know!!

The above two pictures are of caves ( ancient Indian ruins) where the Native Americans lived for about 4 thousand years. They moved on in the 1400’s. Interesting, in the museum, the miners in the area  had noted that the Chinese cooks could speak the same language as some of the Native American’s. They shared a same dialect!

As you can tell above, there were 19 cars on the train.We traveled in the Tucson car.

The train travels along the Verde river, which was very clean. The railroad was put in in the late 1800’s to move gold and copper, which were mined in the area. We were told that the only way into the canyon is via the train.

Rock formations that look like two frogs and a lizard. Below is a turtle.

We went through a tunnel (680 ft.) and you could not see either end. It was very dark. The tunnel led out of the canyon and into the Perkinsville valley and ends at the Perkinsville ghost ranch. The ranch is still owned by the Perkins family.

At this point, 20 miles, the train was stopped for 15 minutes, while they moved the engine from the front of the train back to behind the Caboose. Below it is passing by.

Now we started back to the east. During the ride they had a recording going of various sites to observe. Between when the tape pointed out sites, they played music. I think we heard every train related song you can think of and many more that you do not remember! Just as we were starting the ride back, they played the Monkees Last Train to Clarksville, although we were on our way to Clarkdale! They even played Petticoat Junction! Most of the passengers went back inside the car. Bob and I stayed outside, sitting on the opposite side to view more of the scenery.

Note the rock formations above. The colors are not coming through very well, but you can see how it looks like someone just placed rocks in lines. We also saw an area that we thought was an earthquake fault line, noting that the lines were different. The colors were also very different at each level of rock.

Note above, the different rock formation from the prior picture. We also saw deer, and eagle flying, and a coyote wandering.

We arrived back at the station, used the facilities, and boarded the bus home.

Karlie has been doing well, so we were not too concerned about her. Barb was going to walk her, but she bailed, as she had to go to Sun City West,  and sent Syd. The dogs did fine. They are so good when others come in and take them for a walk. The person just has to pick up their leashes and they go to the door to have them attached. They go straight to the grass, do their business, and return to the MH. Syd took them out twice. Thank you Syd!!

We arrived home at 7. I dropped Bob off at the MH and went and picked up Chinese take out for dinner, while Bob walked the dogs. First time we have had Chinese in a long, long time!

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