Arkansas

OK OK I know its been a long time since my last update, even though I said I would try to do better.  You know what they say, today is the first day of the rest of your life, so today's the day I will start keeping my blog updated! For real this time. 

So what have I been doing all summer?  Looking back, it seems like not much, yet I feel like I kept busy every day.  I'm at a Corp of Engineers campground in Mountain Home, Arkansas.  It's a beautiful campground, basically on an island on Norfork Lake.  I'm surrounded by beautiful woods and a lake view no matter where I look.   

I've been here all summer as a volunteer.  Initially I was supposed to do water safety.  My boss was a lovely young woman who was so enthusiastic about not only her job, but life in general.  I spent 3 days a week with her for the first few weeks.  We did water safety programs with area kids at various venues including Arkansas day at the local elementary school, and a fishing derby.  Basically she did a 30 minute presentation about the importance of wearing life vests and other ways to prevent drowning.  She really made it fun for the kids by turning it into a game.  My favorite was a relay race where 2 groups of kids raced each other after putting on life vests.  I was pleasantly surprised at how eager the kids were to help each other into and out of the vests and how enthusiastic they were in cheering for each other.  My job was to hand out stickers during the presentation when a child gave a good answer or asked a question.  The younger kids wee especially funny; they would raise their hand, jump up and down, "call me, call me."  When she called on them, more often then not they would looked shocked and say UMMMMM and never give an answer.  Again, I was amazed at the fact that these kids really looked out for each other.  If I missed an answer or tried to give a sticker to the wrong child, several would speak up in defense of the correct child, most often, the one I was trying to give the sticker to.  I wonder at what age we turn from that stage to the backstabbers and the credit takers we see in too many work places?  I moved from that job to a back up camp host.  At first I didn't want to do camp hosting, but after giving it a try, I really liked it.  I only worked 1-2 days a week, but my neighbors have done it full time, for years.  It seems like they knew everyone who came in & often people would stop by just to visit or go fishing with them.  I think I will definitely consider doing it again.  As a backup host, I got to go to several different campgrounds in our district.  That make the job a bit more fun and I got to see more of the area.

 

The reason I wanted to come to Arkansas was to hike in the Ozark mountains.  The first week I was here, I hit the trail.  It was beautiful, with great views of the lake and an abundance of wildlife, mostly turtles.  I probably saw 8 of them on a 5 mile hike.  The trail is rocky and slippery and I fell a few times.  Not my favorite thing since my knees are so bad.  I made it back unscathed, or so I thought.  My 'good' knee hurt a bit but I didn't give it much thought. 

 

About 2 weeks later I was out in my yard watering my garden and little Beefcake was doing some exploring.  I looked up at one point and he was marching down the hill like he had a hot date to get to.  Normally he just ambles along.  Well, I took off after him before he could get too far ahead.  He really seemed determined to get to wherever he was going and I couldn't catch him walking, so I broke into a slow jog.  OK one step of a slow jog is all I managed before I heard/felt a loud POP in my knee and felt excruciating pain.  To the point that I was bent over and couldn't move!  Brutus was oblivious (he's deaf) and kept on with his march down the hill.  Lucky for me, a truck happened by.  The guys could tell I was having trouble and stopped to help.  I said forget about me, please get my dog.  (You would never know he's almost blind too, at least I don't think he knows.)  By this time as pretty far away.  They chased him down and helped me back to my RV.  I knew something was terribly wrong and headed to the ER. 

Now, I drive a Dodge Ram 2500.  Its a huge truck, 21 feet long, so I can't just park it anywhere.  Of course the parking lot at the hosp was full but I found a place in the back forty and started to the ER.  Each step was very, very painful and by the time I made it to the building I was sweating, grimacing and had tears rolling down my face.  A little 70+ year old  woman saw me and said "honey wait right there, I'll get you a wheelchair".  She pushed me the rest of the way, bless her heart!  I don't know if she was a volunteer or just a kind person.  They did x-rays, which of course didn't show anything, but most importantly, they gave me pain pills and crutches.  Which honestly, was all I expected and wanted.  I had an appointment the following week with a local ortho. 

The MRI reveled a torn ACL, which I already had, and a torn meniscus, which was new.  My guess is that I tore the meniscus and ACL even more and aggravated  the arthritis.  So for the past two months I've been hobbling around as best I can.  No hiking or biking for me, which is really sad.  The pain was really bad and I guess the injury forced my other knee to work overtime.  In a matter of days, both knees were really giving me grief.  I'm not a surgical candidate due to the severe arthritis, which was really what was casing the pain.  I thought I would just get the regular Hylagan injections that I usually do when the pain gets too bad.  It's  thick gel they inject into the knee joint, 3-5 injections over as many weeks.  They are very painful, more so now, probably because I've built up scar tissue due to so many injections.  Believe me though, a few brief seconds of excruciating pain is well worth it for the long lasting relief I get.  This doctor suggested regular cortisone, so I thought why not.  OMG a much easier injection and I got pretty good pain relief.  I just came back from getting a 2nd injection in the injured knee, lets hope that does the trick.  The major test will be be how long it lasts. 

I did manage to get in a kayaking trip down the Buffalo River.  It was a perfect day, with lots of very friendly people with the same idea. I also took a trip to Branson, just to see what all the hoopla was about.  Nice city, but I didn't really want to go to any shows by myself.  I had a RV rally friend, Frank, come over from Little Rock for a week.  He brought his granddaughter and we had a really good time.  We went to Eureka Springs for the day and poked around some antique shops on the way there and back.  Alexis was a really sweet girl, about 8 I think.  We all went to the neighbors for fresh caught fish fry.  Their grand kids were there as well, so all the kids got some fireworks and sparklers. It was actually pretty fun even though I'm a notorious non kid person. 

I next convinced Frank to go to a LOWS rally, (Loners On Wheels), in Sarcoxie MO.  What a great group of people!  I made some good friends who I hope to stay in touch with.  I wish I was staying long enough to attend another rally, but alas, its time to move along. 

After the rally I headed to St Louis to meet up with another friend Lori.  I've been to a few FROG rallies with her and her husband Greg.  I just love them!!  We had a great time checking out the different restaurants.  I haven't eaten that well in a while. I also felt like a kid in a candy shop, with all the shopping in the area.  Mountain Home is a nice town but pretty small.  I didn't realize how deprived I felt till I saw all the malls and restaurants. 

After St Louis, I headed to Little Rock to meet up with yet another friend, Bob.  I know him from Habitat; he is a really interesting guy.  Retired (Navy) submariner and an electrician.  We are both safety trainers and he knows as much about computers and I do about electricity, so we kind of teamed up.  During this trip, I got to meet his wife.  She was a delight!  I really hope to see them on a future build.  I also met up with Frank again.  We went to the farmer market in town.  It was not nearly as big as ones I've been to in Portland, OR or Eastern market in DC, but still very nice. Even though he's lived in LR for years, he's never been to the Clinton Library, so we headed there next.  It was very interesting.  I'd never been to a presentational library so I didn't know what to expect.  Oddly enough, the thing I found so fascinating were the columns and columns of presidential notes.  For some reason, I just wanted to know the logistics of them.  All of the boxes are uniform, but I want to know about how the notes are stored inside.  Is each sticky note there?  What if one day he used a legal pad, they would have to be folded over to fit?  Did someone come in at the end of each day and gather up all the notes, what if he needed to refer back to them?  Or is it only official correspondence?  What if he was talking to the president of wherever and got bored and started doodling?  Were those kept?  My inquiring mind just couldn't let it go. 

 

There was a temporary exhibit of Chihuly Glass as well, what beautiful work!  Its basically some kind of blown glass but very elegant and complex.  And did I mention pricy?  The small bowls went for over $4000.  http://www.chihuly.com/

 

 

 

I've been super busy with a Habitat project I volunteered for.  What was I thinking!!  I'm one of about 30 Master Safety Trainers.  We travel to different Habitat affiliates and teach OSHA safety standards.  For the past several years this job has fallen to one guy.  He's incredibly knowledgeable and very passionate, but he's still one guy.  I volunteered to revamp the Power Point program we use.  After I completed about 8 presentations, 50 slides each, we decided to completely rework the exams.  Now I have to go back and make the slides match the new exams.  In addition, we've gotten feedback asking for a quick reference guide.  Now that that's done, another Habitat branch likes it so much, they want one.  Next on my plate is to do a training manual.  There is a small group of trainers working on these various projects and together we are really getting things done.  None of us are working on our own, we are truly sharing the load and its really nice to be part of an awesome team.  All the meetings and approval process makes me feel l might be missing the working life.  NOT!!!

I've been giving a lot of thought on what I want to do next.  While I love traveling the US, seeing new places I've wanted to see, I also really want to explore other countries as well.  This lifestyle is pretty expensive.  Initially, I was going to put everything in storage for a year and go teach English as a second language (ESL) somewhere.  Partially for the money and partially to travel.  But the more I thought about it, I realized I could just as cheaply live there.  After a lot of research and thought, I've decided to sell the truck and RV and move to Europe until I don't want to do that anymore and move on to my next adventure.  Initially I was thinking of Asia.  I've only been to Korea and then just for 2 weeks.  I thought what a great opportunity to really see something new.  I thought about China, or Vietnam, or Thailand, but realized I really wanted Europe.  I lived in both Germany and the Netherlands in the 80's and felt pretty comfortable starting out there.  But in my research, I came across a few 10 ten lists for expats.  Malta was near the top.  Malta?  Where is that?  50 miles off the coast of southern Italy, in the Mediterranean.  Its a former British colony which explains why English is an official language and there are so many expats. The temps are 70's and 80's year round, the cost of living is very low and they have excellent medical facilities, on par with the US.  So, it looks like sometime in November I'll be heading out to a new adventure.   In October I'm taking a ESL course, because you never know when I might need a job.  Good to have a plan B.  Of course in my case I usually have a plan B, C, D.... and they all compete for my attention.  Stay tuned, everything could change tomorrow if I come up with another really bight idea!

So, that's the past few months in a nut shell.  Next destination if the FROG rally in Goshan Indiana, followed by a Habitat build.  I can't wait for the rally, there will be 1000 people there!  Many of them I know from other rallies and the schedule in jam packed with all kinds of fun things to do.  One night I'm hosting a singles campfire, there are about 25 of us I'm told.

 

Links to pictures:  https://plus.google.com/photos/118205599704530902363/albums/6011915410866494193?authkey=COWGw8untf6gwQE