40 year high school reunion

I love in-flight sunsets  this one lasted a long time as we were flying towards it :)

The flowering sage was pretty outside the hotel. 

I went to Joan’s (aka Jody) house to visit with her BUT first some random shopping and an estate sale!! The haul was trains and I called on the expert via phone. 

And yes I had to get all this into one carry on suitcase and a small bag. I made it work and even scrounged for bubblewrap behind Ross. Hahaha. I don’t believe in buying something that a store tosses all the time!! Would have been $10 at the dollar store for enough to wrap all these!

Anyway. We visited for a few hours then Linda showed up and we visited some more before going to the event. 

I won the basket for furthest traveled. The gift basket I chose was purely for the koozies of Barstow 20 year reunion (apparently they overbought that year) and a Chiquita Rosita restaurant one.  The other things were kids vitamins, pepto, pregnancy test, KY jelly and condoms. Not sure the reason. Linda took the KY, condoms and pregnancy test for her 19 year old and Joan took the vitamins and pepto. I just wanted the koozies. The most MORTIFYING part was everyone was yelling “who is she?”  Yeah. I made ZERO impression in high school. Hahaha. I only went to see two people. Mission accomplished. 

And we missed the group photo as they had finished the events and turned up the music and the lights down. So we left. THEN they turned them back on and took a group photo. Quite a few of us missed it. Sadly. 

There IS proof we were there :)

Linda and i prearranged to be at the same hotel then we discovered Nancy Lorelli Yomogida and her husband so we got to visit with them a bit more Sunday morning. 

Photos while driving around. 


That is smoke in the distance. From THIS fire that expanded greatly in the three days I was there. Here is the shot of them as we were landing 

LOTS of smoke. 

While I was meeting with Marlene Tarbox Frazier there was a BIG storm with lots of phone warnings about flash floods and when we walked out we discovered there was hail. Lots of hail!

It was so fun to see Marlene. She was part of the Mormon crowd that hung out. We were the “bad kids” of that group! 

Food was good. Company was better!

Yes, I crossed running water going to Joan’s in a flash flood warning.  I’m crazy like that. We said our final farewell and I headed back to the hotel to get packed and just chill :)

Good morning Barstow and farewell 

Canon pass. Traffic was a bear. Good news?  Liz sent a message at 5am California time. Better news I was already awake due to my super early morning. 

Smoke was NOT cleared with the one small storm either. 

Traffic traffic traffic. BUT a I was super early to allow for me to go to Sam’s club for gas on my way to the car rental return. 

New pool liner

Why it was needed. Book at that fading!!!

Ewh!!

There is a divot in the left side and a dribble to the deep end for a smaller leak…

The hole on the far side of the pool that is 1/2 the size of the drain was a BIG leak. 

Smoothed out and newly padded for the liner :)

BLUE!!

Starting to fill again!



FULL and note the covers on the returns and the drains are BLUE as well. Pretty

Adventure in thrifting Florida

I really wanted this. It was $400 which is a steal!  They also had a HUGE German clock with little side houses. Also $400. I don’t feel comfortable transporting a clock in my rattling car but this would have been fun. Not quite at a point of putting that sort of money into this yet!!

Really wanted this but it was gone. I was looking at a few pieces online that I could see prices and they were more VERY reasonable down south!

This fish was the GREATEST find!!

This fish at World Market!!


This was very tempting!!

Dinner was a let down. Should have know not to go to a chain restaurant!! The view could NOT be beat even on a sputtering rain day. 

Fish tacos with pickled onions. It was interesting 

I didn’t want to find out WHAT this was. It wasn’t there anymore to find out :( it was interesting looking!

I saw a buccaneer in St Augustine. Interesting!!

I DO love the views while driving around. 

This one was tempting to turn around and go to this garage sale type sale. 

THIS entry to the golf course house. I found nothing there BUT the prices there were reasonable as well. 

I found some jade plants on the ground. I picked them up and am going to try to root them. 

And just like that I’m back home on the back porch with coffee and it was 70 degrees outside. Beautiful weather to return home to!

Jacksonville Mayo Clinic testing

This has a lot of poop and medical talk so if you’re not interested in getting grossed out just skip this Post and know I will know one way or another my way forward the 8th of August and i will update the blog at that point.  Why did I do this?  For answers as to why I still have bowel issues some 7 years after the journey started. 

We got there before we could check into the hotel so we went to a few thrift shops.  My new friend. I really should have gotten him for $20 :)

How was it?  Horrible. Why? Lots of reasons. First is the number of enemas I had to do and they are very uncomfortable for me. Hate them. I guess I should invest in a real one that is a hanging and not the fleet ones that kill me!  BUT I got to check in the hotel early and do that one there before going to my appointment. 

On to the hospital. Test 1 was a test on my squeeze power. Well they couldn’t get the device in. The poor gal working on it kept ending up in the dead end portion of my bowel. Frustrating and painful. Soooo they had to call the doctor in to help. He was really good got it right in. Sigh. Finished part of that test because of my “complex anatomy” they couldn’t do the ballon test (expulsion test). They were afraid they would damage my bowels if they did that test. Ugh. 

Oh well on to next step - X-ray. I can do that. And I did. Easy and done.  We went to a local restaurant for dinner on the bay - Dock Side. I had shrimp and even ate my fries because I I wanted to!  I was feeling the need for comfort.  I had an egg McMuffin at 6 or 7 am and a salad for lunch in Mayos cafeteria. Is it a good enough justification? Not really but I ate it!!  I wanted to just eat what I wanted. 

Day two was more insults to my body (started with enema #2 the night before and another @10:30am). Then on to the specimen collection which takes a blood test AND poop specimen. Do you see a problem here with how will I possibly give a sample?  Yeah. Me too. So I had the talk to the folks on there. I could mail it in for high cost as it would have to be frozen and overnighted BUT if I sent it on Thursday it may not get here in the right time to the right place. I stressed over it for a while. I had to give blood and have the sample within three days of each other. So I waited to make the decision to stay another night and/or force my bowels to perform before the lab drop off closed at 6pm. 

I had another test at 1pm. That one was horrible. 
It was an MRI to testing function as well. It takes jell in the vagina as well as in my rectum. Yeah. They could NOT get the thing to go IN my rectum. Period. Apparently my scar tissue is very small (small pinky size opening) and would NOT give for anything bigger. Period. Explains why I always have squirrel turds. They won’t come out any bigger because my butt won’t open that big. How scary is that?  After they tried for a bit they once again called in the doctors. I had 4 people trying to get this damn small rubber rounded tip tube to go in a few inches onto my rectum. Sigh. They were to the point of getting a pediatric one. THEN they decided to just remove the tip (which was the size of a thumb maybe) and just try the syringe. It was hard BUT thin. And it worked, they were able to get the jell in and they said that was the most important part. So we moved on with the testing. 

Reading the reports I think function is NOT what it should be (shockingly). BUT we have to wait until the 8th for the final reports. Soooo after all that trauma and two hours in that test due to delays and length of the actual test it was time to eat as I was fasting all day. Test #1 required 12hr fasting and test #2 required 4 hours fasting. So by the time I got out of test 1, there was no eating until it was all done which was now 3:30pm by the time we were done.  

Mayo revamped their cafe in the last 6 years. Very nice! The food choices weren’t the same as before and the prices have certainly gone up, but it was heathy and tasty. 

Loved the fresh avocado!

Walked the grounds a bit between tests. Found a baby gator!

We went to a Greek place for dinner/linner and debated the lack of poop in my body and the stress and strain of trying to poop on demand and I made the choice to stay another night. We both had another change of clothes so it wasn’t a horrible idea. It was either that OR come down another day - a full 4 hrs drive down/back on another day and fasting the whole time. Could I do it? Sure. Was it worth spending another night on hotel and relax a bit?  Yes. 

So I booked the hotel on the beach for a bit more money just so I could walk the beach and relax. I did walk the beach. I laid out by the pool between running upstairs to finish evaluating the blue goo (jell). And by 6:45 I had success with the help of some glycerine suppositories. Will this affect the testing?  Who knows but we do what we have to do to see if we can complete the efforts.   So tomorrow morning I will drop it off at the lab and be done. If it’s not enough we will have a repeat and I’ll know what to expect and plan my own test order!  Had I done THAT test first I would have been fine. It would have worked out well. Sigh. Live and learn. 

All that and we had another dinner out. This time in the beach at the hotels a bar/cafe. So it’s been a nice finish to the horrible testing. AND I’ll know of the nerve thing would even work on me or if the physical device is the answer. Who knows. Maybe neither is the answer at this rate but we shall soon know.