2004 – 05 . . . Journal Entry #4 – Summer - Don't Know What We're Going To Do

I have not done well keeping the journal up this year. There was so much of the same old - same old. Sharon says I go through this every summer when we come back but every year it feels different. This year, I just haven't had the motivation to keep in touch or even keep record of what we've been doing.

Travel Medical Insurance

This whole year has been a lesson in travel medical insurance, medical services and the heath care systems. Because, in three years, we had not claimed anything from the medical travel insurance, we decided to take $1000.00 deductible.

With Fred's trip to Emergency, his infection, chiropractic services, meds, etc., when we finally got all the reimbursements back from Alberta Health Care and Blue Cross, we found out that it costs us about $600.00 more than it would have even if we had bought the insurance with $99.00 deductible and about $75.00 more than if we had no travel medical insurance at all - but then, would we want to travel without any travel medical insurance?   Once we got home and all the claims came in - it was quite an eye opener.

And so on to our Summer, 2005

We have been in no rush to do anything this year, so our journey to Kelowna was deliberately slow and we stopped a lot. Our first stop was at a place called the Cedar Grove at Grey Creek. We spent a few days on the east side of the Kootenay Lake parked in a cedar grove next to the river. Wonderful smells and sounds of the rushing water (the water was really rushing as it seldom stopped raining) and different wildflowers that I had never seen before - like this "mountain lily".The area (especially Crawford Bay) hosts a number of very unique artists. We had a great visit with a weaver working on a gigantic double loom, a blacksmith, a fellow making brooms and one very talented gal blowing glass.

Then we stopped at Midway, BC (half way between the ocean and the Rocky Mountains) at our favourite little campground and one morning watched a red-headed woodpecker attack the tree right next to the trailer.

Onto Kelowna and three very successful presentations. We even got our 5 seconds of fame when the local TV station came and video'd part of our session for the 5 o'clock news. We were there for almost a week and then onto Revelstoke, B.C. where we met a friend and went up to see the dam, went out to the hot springs and caught a cold.

We did manage to stop at Craigellachie where the last spike of the trans-continental Railway was laid. It was quite a feat and many lives were lost - a tribute to the thousands of workers!!

The "Other" Last Spike

But the most extreme working conditions, perhaps in the world at that time, were in the mountain ranges of British Columbia. Men were mangled or killed by falling rock, by slides, by avalanches, by runaway horses and above all by the incessant blasting. Huge rocks hurtled out of tunnels like cannon balls. In 1881-82 at least 6000 workers ... were shipped ... from Hong Kong . The railway would not have been built without them. Death was far more frequent among the Chinese than the other groups. The litany of death reads “crushed by a log,” “killed by falling rock,” “drowned,” “smothered by cave-in” and of course death by explosion. Scores also died of scurvy, 200 in the first year alone. They received little notice or medical care.

After the dignitaries left on that gloomy November morning, the workmen persuaded the photographer to insert another plate and they posed for their own version of the “Last Spike.” They knew who really built the great railway to the Pacific.

A trip to Glacier National Park to meet the friends who took care of us in Yuma and a few days out around Pincher Creek with other friends rounded out our summer adventures.

Like I said, I've not taken many pictures but here are a few I think are special.

I'm into Writing . . . You Know!

With all the rain and such, I was able to finish Chapters 3 and 4 of my "Tails" book. My association with other writers has helped me get out of my funk. I realized that my process is to start out gung ho on a project - then realized how horrendously BIG it is . . . slink off somewhere to lick my wounds and encounter a "Eureka". This is when I do what I call REC the writing - that is revise, eliminate and consolidate. I'm starting to feel a lot more in control now. I'm now onto Chapter 7.

Back to the Medical Crap

Much of our summer has been taken up with "what's going on with Fred's hip/leg? " With all the complaints we've heard, I was surprised at how responsive the Health Care system has been . . . BUT . . . (and there is always a but, isn't there?) - they are so territory-sensitive - you end up going from one to the other because GP are restricted from ordering the tests - that's the territory of ONLY the specialist - the physio therapist couldn't refer us to the specialist so we had to go back to the GP to get the referral to the specialist - and they wonder why medical costs are so high! Anyway an MRI did not shed any light on what was causing the pain. Try physio . . . therapist says he didn't think it has anything to do with muscles or nerves and got his hand on one instrument to test Fred's circulation - he thinks it might have something to do with the circulation. Back to the GP because the physio cannot refer Fred for an MRA (angiogram). So back to the GP. He can't order an MRA either so onto a referral to an internal medicine specialist. Uh-huh, he says, as he exams Fred . . . and he orders the MRA. That takes a few weeks to organize and the appointment is set for October 5th and then back to get the results a week later. The doctor told Fred, if it is circulation, there is a procedure in Lethbridge, but Calgary offers a far less invasive procedure, (if it is a circulation block). If that is the case, who knows how long it will take to get it done in Calgary - if that is what it is.

So now we are looking at maybe the first of the year before he can "get fixed"-once we figure out what it is. Then the Travel Insurance folks want him to be stable for at least 3 months.

Long story short - we have cancelled our travel insurance and have no idea what we are going to do or when. Other than that, we are both fine!

2004 – 05 . . . Journal Entry #3 - Rain, rain and more rain = flowers, flowers and more flowers

It was not the best weather winter . . . but oh, the wild flowers!

We did leave Quartzsite and move onto Yuma about the middle of February. No matter how much we like the desert it was oh, so nice to get onto the dry, unsandy pavement. We thought we would stay on the pavement until there were two days without rain . . . it never did happen, so we left anyway and headed off to a California State Park - Anza-Borrego Springs.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

The main attraction in the Park is the wildflowers. Because there was so much rain this season, the flowers were not only very early they were in great abundance. I wanted to get a lot more pictures than I did but then everything has its limits!!

Here's just a few!!

Brittle Bush

Henderson Canyon

Barrel Cactus

Desert Lavender

Desert Primrose

Ocotillo

Desert Vervain

Desert Lily

The Desert Lily was quite a find, it can only be seen in bloom about every 10 years or so.

The downside of all the rain was a lot of dead trees and cacti. Because many of the trees and cacti are adapted to retain moisture, many of them got too much water and rotted from the inside out. We saw a number of trees (such as the Palo Verde) and cacti (the Saguaro in Quartzsite that had 45 arms) rot and collapse.

We stayed at Borrego Springs for less than a week and travelled around quite a bit but were not that terribly impressed - except for the wild-flowers.

On to the hot springs in Holtville Hot Springs. We were surprised at the number of people we knew from last year and realized that many Canadians spend the majority of their winter there. Besides the hot springs, it seems the primary activity is going to the flea markets in Calexico, California (right on the Mexico/California border). Now these are much different from the swap meets you generally see in Yuma or Quartzsite. From what we heard, a lot of the stuff is manufacturers over-runs, returned merchandise from department stores and discard supplies and equipment from places like large hotels replace them routinely every few year. The big thing while we were there was the duvets - now tell me, why would anybody want 20 duvets? The rationale was generally that they sold for

$2.00 to $5.00 each. Still!!

Too many people . . . too close!!

If it hasn't been obvious, we are really not joiners. We joined the Escapees group because we thought we might be able to find other RV'ers we had things in common with AND we wanted to attend the Escapade in California as our last adventure before heading north. (We envisioned the Escapade as being very similar to the Seminars in Kelowna).

Holy Cow!! As the time got closer, I felt more and more like I didn't want to go. Now, Kelowna has maybe 150 RVs . . . as word had it, this Escapade was expecting over 1200 RVs. That's a lot of people but I was willing to give it a try. We arrived early in the morning (we are usually early for everything) and watching them getting all those RVs parked was like watching a dance troupe run through its most complex routine. Needless to say, we were not stacked but very close to it. We were on was the back lot in the fairgrounds and I'm sure the field over the fence had just been fertilized with the left-overs from the barns so the flies were abundant.

The sessions I attended gave me some good information and I did meet some folks with common interests (writing, computers, photography and using digital cameras and editing software) BUT the rooms they held them in were not very good. They were either too small or too big with horrible acoustics. Mind you, I wasn't feeling too good (I think I had a sinus infection and I know I had a urinary infection AND I just found out that Buddy, our dog had just died) and that could have influenced my perception.

I did talk to the editor of the Escapee Magazine and may have an article or two to submit.

Ready to go Home!!

With all that, I was ready to head on home. Fuel cost are getting pretty spendy (as they say down there). In California we were paying up to $2.40 per American gallon but they were still less than gas prices up here.

We stopped for the weekend in Quartzsite and visited with friends there, then went up to Mesquite, where we waited out the snow storm that was happening around Salt Lake City. The next night was spent in Idaho and then we drove right through to Lethbridge.

Even with the six months of mail and dust it was good to be back in Canada and good to be home.

2004 – 05 . . . Journal Entry #2 - Circumstances Determine Activities . . . New Experiences

It's now almost the middle of February and if I don't get this done and uploaded soon . . . it's going to go on and on!! I've put updates in boxes instead of doing a whole new page.

Where Should We Stay??

The Deming Escapee Park experience was so good, we decided to try THE PARK experience a second time and stayed at the Escapee Co-op park in Casa Grande, Arizona. Wow, another good experience! We dry camped ($2.50 per night) in both places. We did not feel we were expected to partake in all their activities but still felt welcomed.

Unfortunately, the bad often comes along with the good. They ain't all the same!! The Co-op Escapee park at Benson and again at the one in Yuma, the attitudes were certainly different. It seemed if you weren't a long-term visitor, you weren't worth the investment of a conversation. So much for good RV park experiences. So our choice again was to go out to the desert where we can have our space, our independence and others who want to get to know their neighbours, no matter how long the relationship is going to last.

We've actually been here in the desert for almost three months . . . probably the longest we have ever stayed in one spot. It's been interesting . . . having the generator, a good system to get water, a good waste disposal system and access to the internet through a WiFi system has made such a big difference.

Health, Systems and Insurance

Our first experience with the American medical system and our medical travel insurance happened in Yuma, Arizona where Fred developed a horrendous infection and we were exposed to the costs of the American health care and drugs!! The trip to Emergency cost $150.00 for the hospital AND another $300.00 for the doctor INCLUDING a $79.00 surcharge because it was on a Sunday, $163.00 USD for 15 antibiotic pills - holy cow!! Then we went down to Mexico with the prescription and it cost $46 USD for 14 pills!! . No wonder the Americans are so upset about the cost of their health care and drugs. Dealing with our Medical Travel was another learning experience!!

The good was being able to set up the fifth-wheel on some friends' (Sallee and John) lot in the Foothills (Yuma) while Fred lazed around trying to get better - he just hated it!! John took on the task of teaching me a lot of things I really didn't want to know about how to deal with all the ins and outs of surviving in the fifth wheel. With John and Salee's gentle persuasion, we decided that if we were going to continue in the non-park environment we enjoyed so much, we were going to do things to make our lives easier. We invested in a Honda generator (2000) and a power mechanism to set up the fifth-wheel. This was, if the sun didn't shine, we would still have power, we could use the microwave and above all, we could make toast in the morning and I could do the 5th wheel jacks without needing a muscle building course.

BUT THEN Fred also managed to pinch a nerve in his back and we ended up Chiropractoring it for a while and finally found a terrific doctor in Algodones (Mexico) and a cortisone shot . . . that cost us $40.00 . . . so we'll see what happens. This whole experience has deeply effected what we do. We've set up rather permanently . . . we're not travelling much and certainly not walking much.

Fred is getting better and better and we've actually been doing a lot more exploring . . . the Bar in the Desert . . . the greening of the desert . . . etc.

The Bar in the Desert is called the "Nellie E Saloon" and sits on an old mine camp site north of Parker, Arizona and about 5 miles in on "Primitive Road". The place is powered strictly through solar and only opens on the weekends and holidays from Labor Day to Memorial Day. The fellow who built the place has gathered junk and treasurers from here and there to construct an outside cafe, a bridge across the wash, cooling towers, his house and a small church chapel and the bar. The bar and chapel have stamped steel ceilings from a factory in Missouri.

Makes for an fun day and, of course, a new experience!

The Rains

The rains . . . a new experience!! In the past four seasons it seldom rained (We called it the 6 inch rain . . . one rain drop every six inches). This year the rains keep coming and coming and coming . . . there is so much humidity that in the morning the ground sparkles with the dew and everything is wet.

We've managed to see our first real flash flood. We have always wondered about the signs along the highways warning drivers about FLASH FLOOD AREA and DO NOT ENTER WHEN FLOODED . . . now we know. As we stood at the edge of the wash ( a creek to us) the water began whooshing down the wash. The roar woke us in the middle of the night and by the time the sun came up, the wash was dry again. Just amazing!!

The Greening of the Desert

The Sanoran Desert is certainly not what we always thought the desert would be. Instead of rolling dunes of fine sand, the desert around here is what remains when all the fine sand blows away. It is primarily course sand and fine gravel. At fairly regular intervals creosote bushes dot the landscape almost as if they had been planted. Most of the creosote bushes sit on a mound of vegetation (some are desert wild flowers and some are just wild desert grasses).

Actually the creosote bush is a very interesting plant. One plant can live for hundreds of years. Apparently to ensure the plant will have enough water and nutrients, the roots give off a toxic substance that prevents vegetation from growing nearby. Heavy rains wash away the toxins and allow other plants to grow but the toxins return when the creosote plant needs them again. Creosote has a very pungent odour that is especially strong when it rains, or there is a heavy dew. It's also reputed to have a number of medicinal properties.

We are parked very close to the Kokopelli again this year and you can see just how the vegetation has taken over. A creosote bush is in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

They are actually concerned about desert fires when the grasses dry.

Time to Move on

We've been here long enough and it's time to move on. We plan to leave this week and expect to stay around Yuma for a short while and then move into California - probably Holtville (where the hot springs are) so we can explore more of the area.

We will be at the Escapee Escapade in El Centro, California on March 20th to the 25th and then head north.

Supposedly, I will have another article published in the RV Times in their #104 March/April, 2005 issue.

2004-05 Journal Entry #4 - Don't Know What We're Going To Do

---

(Click on the Thumbnails for full pictures)

I have not done well keeping the journal up this year. There was so much of the same old - same old. Sharon says I go through this every summer when we come back but every year it feels different. This year, I just haven't had the motivation to keep in touch or even keep record of what we've been doing.

Travel Medical Insurance

This whole year has been a lesson in travel medical insurance, medical services and the heath care systems. Because, in three years, we had not claimed anything from the medical travel insurance, we decided to take $1000.00 deductible.

With Fred's trip to Emergency, his infection, chiropractic services, meds, etc., when we finally got all the reimbursements back from Alberta Health Care and Blue Cross, we found out that it costs us about $600.00 more than it would have even if we had bought the insurance with $99.00 deductible and about $75.00 more than if we had no travel medical insurance at all - but then, would we want to travel without any travel medical insurance? Once we got home and all the claims came in - it looked like this. This was the first eye opener.

Item Cost Reimburse

Chiropractor

Difference $195.23

Hospital-Emergency & Emergency-Doctor

Difference $467.79

Doctor - Mexico

Difference $20.13

Drugs Difference-$29.78

Total medical expenses - $811.93

WITH NO MEDICAL TRAVEL INSURANCE

Medical Travel Insurance @ $1000.00 deductible

$666.00 + $811.93 = $1477.93

Medical Travel Insurance @ $99.00 deductible

$788.00 + $99.00 = $887.00

*****************************************

And so on to our Summer, 2005

We have been in no rush to do anything this year, so our journey to Kelowna was deliberately slow and we stopped a lot. Our first stop was at a place called the Cedar Grove at Grey Creek. We spent a few days on the east side of the Kootenay Lake parked in a cedar grove next to the river. Wonderful smells and sounds of the rushing water (the water was really rushing as it seldom stopped raining) and different wildflowers that I had never seen before - like this "mountain lily".

The area (especially Crawford Bay) hosts a number of very unique artists. We had a great visit with a weaver working on a gigantic double loom, a blacksmith, a fellow making brooms and one very talented gal blowing glass.

Then we stopped at Midway, BC (half way between the ocean and the Rocky Mountains) at our favourite little campground and one morning watched a red-headed woodpecker attack the tree right next to the trailer.

Onto Kelowna and three very successful presentations. We even got our 5 seconds of fame when the local TV station came and video'd part of our session for the 5 o'clock news. We were there for almost a week and then onto Revelstoke, B.C. where we met a friend and went up to see the dam, went out to the hot springs and caught a cold.

We did manage to stop at Craigellachie where the last spike of the trans-continental Railway was laid. It was quite a feat and many lives were lost - a tribute to the thousands of workers!!

The "Other" Last Spike

But the most extreme working conditions, perhaps in the world at that time, were in the mountain ranges of British Columbia. Men were mangled or killed by falling rock, by slides, by avalanches, by runaway horses and above all by the incessant blasting. Huge rocks hurtled out of tunnels like cannon balls. In 1881-82 at least 6000 workers ... were shipped ... from Hong Kong . The railway would not have been built without them. Death was far more frequent among the Chinese than the other groups. The litany of death reads “crushed by a log,” “killed by falling rock,” “drowned,” “smothered by cave-in” and of course death by explosion. Scores also died of scurvy, 200 in the first year alone. They received little notice or medical care.

After the dignitaries left on that gloomy November morning, the workmen persuaded the photographer to insert another plate and they posed for their own version of the “Last Spike.” They knew who really built the great railway to the Pacific.

A trip to Glacier National Park to meet the friends who took care of us in Yuma and a few days out around Pincher Creek with other friends rounded out our summer adventures.

Like I said, I've not taken many pictures but here are a few I think are special.

I'm into Writing . . . You Know!

With all the rain and such, I was able to finish Chapters 3 and 4 of my "Tails" book. My association with other writers has helped me get out of my funk. I realized that my process is to start out gung ho on a project - then realized how horrendously BIG it is . . . slink off somewhere to lick my wounds and encounter a "Eureka". This is when I do what I call REC the writing - that is revise, eliminate and consolidate. I'm starting to feel a lot more in control now. I'm now onto Chapter 7.

Back to the Medical Crap

Much of our summer has been taken up with "what's going on with Fred's hip/leg? " With all the complaints we've heard, I was surprised at how responsive the Health Care system has been . . . BUT . . . (and there is always a but, isn't there?) - they are so territory-sensitive - you end up going from one to the other because GP are restricted from ordering the tests - that's the territory of ONLY the specialist - the physio therapist couldn't refer us to the specialist so we had to go back to the GP to get the referral to the specialist - and they wonder why medical costs are so high! Anyway an MRI did not shed any light on what was causing the pain. Try physio . . . therapist says he didn't think it has anything to do with muscles or nerves and got his hand on one instrument to test Fred's circulation - he thinks it might have something to do with the circulation. Back to the GP because the physio cannot refer Fred for an MRA (angiogram). So back to the GP. He can't order an MRA either so onto a referral to an internal medicine specialist. Uh-huh, he says, as he exams Fred . . . and he orders the MRA. That takes a few weeks to organize and the appointment is set for October 5th and then back to get the results a week later. The doctor told Fred, if it is circulation, there is a procedure in Lethbridge, but Calgary offers a far less invasive procedure, (if it is a circulation block). If that is the case, who knows how long it will take to get it done in Calgary - if that is what it is.

So now we are looking at maybe the first of the year before he can "get fixed"-once we figure out what it is. Then the Travel Insurance folks want him to be stable for at least 3 months.

Long story short - we have cancelled our travel insurance and have no idea what we are going to do or when. Other than that, we are both fine!

Stay tuned for the next episode in the saga of Fred's pain!!

Journal Entry #3 - Rain, rain and more rain = flowers, flowers and more flowers

(Click  on the Thumbnails for full pictures)

It was not the best weather winter . . . but oh, the wild flowers!

We did leave Quartzsite and move onto Yuma about the middle of February. No matter how much we like the desert it was oh, so nice to get onto the dry, unsandy pavement. We thought we would stay on the pavement until there were two days without rain . . . it never did happen, so we left anyway and headed off to a California State Park - Anza-Borrego Springs.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

The main attraction in the Park is the wildflowers. Because there was so much rain this season, the flowers were not only very early they were in great abundance. I wanted to get a lot more pictures than I did but then everything has its limits!!

Here's just a few!!

Brittle Bush

Henderson Canyon

Barrel Cactus

Desert Lavender

Desert Primrose

Ocotillo

Desert Vervain

Desert Lily

The Desert Lily was quite a find, it can only be seen in bloom about every 10 years or so.

The downside of all the rain was a lot of dead trees and cacti. Because many of the trees and cacti are adapted to retain moisture, many of them got too much water and rotted from the inside out. We saw a number of trees (such as the Palo Verde) and cacti (the Saguaro in Quartzsite that had 45 arms) rot and collapse.

We stayed at Borrego Springs for less than a week and travelled around quite a bit but were not that terribly impressed - except for the wild-flowers.

On to the hot springs in Holtville Hot Springs. We were surprised at the number of people we knew from last year and realized that many Canadians spend the majority of their winter there. Besides the hot springs, it seems the primary activity is going to the flea markets in Calexico, California (right on the Mexico/California border). Now these are much different from the swap meets you generally see in Yuma or Quartzsite. From what we heard, a lot of the stuff is manufacturers over-runs, returned merchandise from department stores and discard supplies and equipment from places like large hotels replace them routinely every few year. The big thing while we were there was the duvets - now tell me, why would anybody want 20 duvets? The rationale was generally that they sold for $2.00 to $5.00 each. Still!!

Too many people . . . too close!!

If it hasn't been obvious, we are really not joiners. We joined the Escapees group because we thought we might be able to find other RV'ers we had things in common with AND we wanted to attend the Escapade in California as our last adventure before heading north. (We envisioned the Escapade as being very similar to the Seminars in Kelowna).

Holy Cow!! As the time got closer, I felt more and more like I didn't want to go. Now, Kelowna has maybe 150 RVs . . . as word had it, this Escapade was expecting over 1200 RVs. That's a lot of people but I was willing to give it a try. We arrived early in the morning (we are usually early for everything) and watching them getting all those RVs parked was like watching a dance troupe run through its most complex routine. Needless to say, we were not stacked but very close to it. We were on was the back lot in the fairgrounds and I'm sure the field over the fence had just been fertilized with the left-overs from the barns so the flies were abundant.

The sessions I attended gave me some good information and I did meet some folks with common interests (writing, computers, photography and using digital cameras and editing software) BUT the rooms they held them in were not very good. They were either too small or too big with horrible acoustics. Mind you, I wasn't feeling too good (I think I had a sinus infection and I know I had a urinary infection AND I just found out that Buddy, our dog had just died) and that could have influenced my perception.

I did talk to the editor of the Escapee Magazine and may have an article or two to submit.

Ready to go Home!!

With all that, I was ready to head on home. Fuel cost are getting pretty spendy (as they say down there). In California we were paying up to $2.40 per American gallon but they were still less than gas prices up here.

We stopped for the weekend in Quartzsite and visited with friends there, then went up to Mesquite, where we waited out the snow storm that was happening around Salt Lake City. The next night was spent in Idaho and then we drove right through to Lethbridge.

Even with the six months of mail and dust it was good to be back in Canada and good to be home.