April 23-25, 2010

We haven't updated the blog in quite some time. Although I will not include pictures here, we felt that we needed to post some sort up update, so that anyone following the blog would know we were still here :-)

On April 23, we left for Big Pine, California for the opening day of trout season. We try to make this an annual trip, most of the time the only trip to the Sierra mountains that we make in any given year. That's really too bad because it is such a wild and beautiful area. So many places to go and so little time . . .

We arrived on the 23rd and the following day was the trout opener. We did a little fishing, catching enough for us to have a nice appetizer before supper on Saturday night. We met several of our friends up there as well as my brother and sister in law. We always enjoy sharing a campground with good friends and family!

Sunday, April 25, was my mother's birthday. I called her on the way home to wish her a happy birthday and to tell her that we would not see her until later in the week when we would get together to celebrate with her. Boy was I wrong . . . mom called us at home at about 8:00. She had come home from evening services at church to find my dad unresponsive, basically comotose. An ambulance rushed him to the hospital, where he was intubated. If you are not familiar with this term, it means that they put a tube down his throat and put him on a machine that breathed for him.

After a few days dad regained consciousness, although he was never quite the same. He had days of being very lucid, but for the most part, he was not 'himself'. Ten years earlier, dad had his right lung removed because of lung cancer. His left lung was not in the greatest shape and as time marched on, it continued to deteriorate. The doctors told us that dad's remaining lung was simply not capable of continuing to support his life. After about 3 weeks in the hospital, we brought dad home, where he was placed in hospice care. God bless my mother for the wonderful and capable way that she cared for dad during that time. On May 25th, a Sunday afternoon at 4:10 pm, dad went to be with the Lord.

Although we have camped since then, San Diego (with our grand daughter), Buellton and Carpinteria, we have not taken the time to write of these (very short) trips. Our big vacation this year was an antelope hunting trip to Wyoming that we took without Boldlygo.

On October 16th, we went to the RV show at the Pomona fairgrounds and purchased a brand spanking new trailer. It is a Dutchmen 277RLS which is the model with the rear living area, complete with dual swivel chairs (his and hers :-). We don't have a pickup date yet for "Boldlygo II" but we will be blogging of that experience as well as our first camping trip with the new Boldlygo. Talk to you then!!