Sorry I have been so bad at updating this. I keep starting to and then something else comes up so it has been a work in progress for a couple of weeks now.
WHEW! I managed to stay a little bit ahead of the storms but still got caught in the rain off and on and drove through lots of cross winds. Luckily, no tornadoes and no more floods. Our last night in Nashville, Bill and I decided to brave the storm and headed over to the Grand Ole Opry convention center to get a bite. I had been there for the National Assoc. of Pediatric Nurses conference a few years back and thought Bill might enjoy seeing it. It was as I remembered, almost like being inside a slice of Hawaii. Waterfalls, rivers and palm trees. Quite magnificent. One problem, they only had one out of nine restaurants open because of the rain and electrical outages and they were on at least an hour wait. We had passed a steak house on our way there so went back there for dinner. It was closer to our campground anyway. And by the time we left the steak house it was pouring again. At some points it was raining 7 inches an hour if you can believe that. Once again, I have never been in such a downpour in all of my life. That night the Grand Ole Opry and Convention center both flooded. We were camping less than a half mile down the road and we are so lucky we didn’t get washed away. After confirming the airport was still open and Bills flight hadn’t been cancelled we were relieved to find that his flight was still departing on time. What we didn’t anticipate was that the freeway to the airport would be closed. So we had to find an alternate route, along with all the other traffic, so we were at a crawl all the way there but we lucked out and made it just in the nick of time. BTW, if it hadn’t rained most of the time, Bill would have worked on the RV. He climbed over it, he climbed under it, he grimaced at every creak and shimmy. Then the rain came! Haha. Once he realized he couldn’t do anything, he gave in. Mr. fix-it had to take a break LOL! And we really had a nice time together despite the weather. Played a lot of Backgammon, did a lot of crossword puzzles and actually ate pretty darn good. He says I should write a book of recipes for cooking in an RV. Yeah right. Maybe I should challenge Bobby Flay to a Throw Down. Haha.
A busy week after that in Bowling Green and Louisville, Kentucky. I stopped by another NBC TV station to see if they wanted to do a story but their camera men were all out on assignment. Everyone was covering the flooding disaster. I never got a call back from the station in Shreveport either so I am assuming they scrapped the footage they shot. It’s hard to compete with a 500 year flood. I saw one of the coolest things ever driving out of town. A huge pond had formed from all the rain and there must have been 25-30 deer all around. Some were bent down drinking and others were chasing each other through it. About the time I saw a place to pull over so I could take some pictures a semi traveling the other direction layed on his horn and scared the you know what out of me and the deer and I missed the photo op and there was no place to turn around for miles. It sure was awesome though.

IZA, KAROLINA AND PADRAIC (big sister Maia was away at college in the Netherlands)
That next weekend I got to go stay with my best friend from Boulder, Colorado, Iza, and her family who moved to Bloomington, Indiana and we had the greatest time. We biked to the farmers market and went on a 4 mile hike. Then the rain came again.
There were flood warnings announced for Bloomington on the radio as I was driving north into Indianapolis but I think they were being over cautious at that point. I really pounded the pavement alot there because of parking difficulties and had to stay in a hotel as there were no camp grounds within the cityand I was in Indy for two days with26 stops. I was glad to have a hot bath while listening to the rain outside so I wasn’t too disappointed about not camping.
One thing, no two things I can honestly say about the midwest. One. They love grass. And they love fresh mown grass. Every where. I have never seen so much road side mowing in my life. I mean along the highways and roadways in the middle of nowhere. And lawn mowing. And such massive lawns. Everybody has riding mowers. I’ve never seen so many women mowing lawns either. Two, such beautiful trees and so many variaties. With all this new this rain the trees are bursting with new leaves. Every shade of green imaginable and some of these trees are older than dirt, judging by their size. I know, trees can’t grow without dirt. Crazy.
Okay, so I am sitting here tonight, Thursday May 20th in my campsite at the Woodchip Campground (don’t let the name fool you, there’s plenty of mowing going on here too) and am preparing to store the RV tomorrow and fly home for a few weeks. I am exhausted and glad I don’t have to face one more day in the trenches for a while. I managed to add on a few more stops than originally scheduled so made it to 232 medical facilies. 22 more than scheduled. Crazy when the original goal was just a mere 215. But I guess I had to up the ante once I got in the groove. After all, the more the merrier right?
The owner of this campground is a pastor of a church and he donated my site for these two night plus one when I return and his daughter is giving me a ride to the airport tomorrow. That is a first for me. I’m lucky to squeeze a 10% discount out of most owners and that usually only amounts to about $3.50, so I am extremely grateful and appreciative of their support. I can go home now knowing that many more physicians will be educated about ALD and with the passing of two more boys over the last week, that means a lot to me and everybody affected.
My 6th annual golf tournament fundraiser is June 12 so I have my hands full when I get home with finalizing all the details for that and the next leg of this adventure. I need golfers, merchandise donations and hole sponsorships so please pass the information on. Details and on-line registration are available on my website. Some of my family is coming to golf and support the cause so there will be a welcome reunion and reveling as well.
Cheers until next month. Janis