Travel Now!

This is a long post, the final paragraph is probably the

best if you are in a hurry. In fact, I am going to put it here as well to make it easier on those of you who stumble across my blog:

Life is good right now. I can still walk short distances (but will use the wheelchair in the gardens). Although I am having some trouble swallowing and breathing, for the most part I am able to live a somewhat normal life. This is what is called – Living While Dying. Have fun. Enjoy life in all its glory. SEE what I am looking at, FEEL what is touching me, HEAR the songs of birds, SMELL the scent of the flowers. Laugh, love, and, sometimes, cry.

Back in August, 2008, when I finally found a neuro who

diagnosed me with MRIs and physical tests of autonomic reactions, etc., she told me that if there were any places I wanted to travel, I should go this year – not wait.

So, here we were. We had traveled to Montreal and back by motorcycle in 1996 but had done nothing but fly to Utila to dive since that time. I thought long and hard and started to prepare my “bucket list”. I came up with 4 things I really wanted to do.

First I wanted to go to Houston to have a reunion with my 7 cousins and their spouses and children. No matter what else I wanted to do that. The reunion was set for Easter weekend. I also wanted to see the Grand Canyon and all the National Parks in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The third place I wanted to see was the Pacific Northwest coastline from Seattle down to at least San Franciso. My final choice was to return to my beloved “spiritual home” of Utila. The land, the people, and the beautiful reefs that we had already been to 16 times. We knew the dive sites better than the divemasters in many cases.

So, what did we do to accomplish some of these goals? We went out and bought a used 24’ motorhome with less than 10,000 miles on it for only $15,000. It was from a foreclosure. We had a motorized lift for my wheelchair installed and my husband had a motorized lift for his BMW motorcycle installed at the back of the vehicle.

Part of our “family”, our cat, Tiki, traveled with us. She had never been anywhere in a vehicle other than to be crated to the vet so we had no idea how she was going to react. She was a trooper, however. During the day, while we were driving she slept on the floor where it was warm between our seats. When we stopped to eat or to walk around at a rest area, she hid under the table on or in her circle scratching post. She HATED the sound of the air brakes of the big trucks at the rest area. We also discovered that she was afraid when she saw the trees moving out the window – trees are definitely NOT supposed to move. So we shut the blinds. We had to take our showers in the RV parks because we had her kitty litter box in the shower! When it was cold in Arizona she became what we called “the lump”. She climbed under the blankets and stayed there until around 2 PM when she would finally venture out.

So we set off for Texas, spending a night with an old friend we had not seen for close to 30 years. It was as if we had just seen him the day before. Special friendships are like that. He lived in Lafayette, Louisiana. The next day we set off for Houston to arrive in Burton, Texas (where my cousins had a 3 ranches). We arrived there in mid-afternoon the Thursday before Easter. Every night we went to a different ranch and we feasted. There was a true chuck-wagon dinner one night and cookouts the other two nights. One of my cousins and her husband have a vineyard, a winery, and some cattle and they had recently bottled their wine and entered it into a contest in South Texas. They won first place. We came home with a case of it. It is good wine. I think I drank too much, however, since with all the meds I take I am not supposed to drink at all. But it was fun and that is what LIVING is all about.

Now, while we were out there anyway, we decided we would also go to the Grand Canyon, and as many other Parks that we could fit in. We spent several days viewing what we could. It snowed in Arizona and we were unable to get to Utah but what we did see was wonderful. The morning we left Flagstaff, it was snowing and 15 degrees out. Brrr. That was when Tiki became the Lump.

In May we flew to Utila. I cried when the plane touched down on the runway. Two of my closest friends live there and since the Utila Lodge, where we stay, has only 8 rooms and we had spent so many weeks there, it is truly a homecoming when we arrive. The staff greets us with hugs and tears. We have seen tragedy and love there and shared so many adventures with them. This year a 7.1 earthquake shook us up at 2:24 AM. It was very frightening as I had never been in an earthquake. It did some damage to the Lodge, which is built out on stilts over the water, and some minor damage to some of the homes. The stores had all their shelving fall over but no one was hurt. A nail store had 8,000 nails on the floor that had to be resorted and put away. I bet it took days to pick them all up! The next morning, while diving, there was another 4.1 earthquake while we were underwater. You could feel/hear the shockwave and the sand lifted up and shot out of the sandchutes in a horizontal line. It was pretty interesting.

In October this year, hurricanes permitting (we live in Florida and don’t want

to have a hurricane hit our house while we are gone), we are going on a sculpture garden tour. We are going to revisit Brookgreen Gardens in Myrtle Beach, S.C., then up to Hendersonville, N.C. to see my brother for one night, and on to Georgia to tour the Atlanta Botanical Gardens where Henry Moore’s sculptures are on display. I am really looking forward to it. This time we won’t take Tiki and will have a shower which will be a bit easier.

So, there is my bucket list – the places I intend to see while I can enjoy them. Life is good

right now. I can still walk short distances (but will use the wheelchair in the gardens). Although I am having some trouble swallowing and breathing, for the most part I am able to live a somewhat normal life. This is what is called – Living While Dying. Have fun. Enjoy life in all its glory. SEE what I am looking at, FEEL what is touching me, HEAR the songs of birds, SMELL the scent of the flowers. Laugh, love, and, sometimes, cry.