What was that about "Time Flies When You Are Having Fun"?

 Humph!  Of course we aren't really having all that much fun these days!  My wife's ankle surgery went well enough but, oh boy, it ain't pretty.  This x-ray shows both the long screws in one area and the plate in the other.

The outside is pretty nasty too.  This long incision is the plate.  The nurses who have come to help have both said that this is looking really good.

The other side, where the big screws were placed isn't so great.

The doctor's assistant covered the nasty part there with a bandaid.  It was a 2" x 4" bandaid that we are changing once a day.  What fun.  And then we got a boot which I neglected to photograph.  I would imagine most people have seen someone wearing one.  It's not comfortable so my wife is avoiding it as much as possible!

So now I've got a new job.  I'm the cook, housekeeper and wheelchair attendant just about 24 hours a day.  Happily we almost always have leftovers from a meal so that cuts the cooking down but it is still quite a day's work.  Of course I'm happy to do it but it is very different from when there were two of us splitting the chores.  This house was designed for older people and we really see how much difference that makes now that we are wheeling around.  It is one story with a tiny bump to go over to get into the garage.  The doors and halls are all wide. There aren't any grab bars but you can bet we'll be installing a couple in the near future. 

Sometimes we talk about moving from our home here to some place more temperate.  But we do have mountains on almost all sides here.  This is the sun rising on one of the mountains to the West just over the line in California.

Watching that every morning is pretty special.  And we get to see the sun go down on the mountains in the East.  It doesn't get old and makes us reconsider ideas about moving.  

Gotta go check on my patient.  Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands!

Happy Juneteenth!

Juneteenth is an official US holiday celebrating the date two years after the end of the civil war when slaves in Texas were notified that they were free. It is celebrated in 28 states and the District of Columbia.  It strikes me as odd that we have a federal holiday that isn't celebrated in all states.  Isn't that odd?  Well, to be honest, I don't know how many states OFFICIALLY celebrate the 4th of July.  Anyway, obviously the end of slavery is certainly something to be celebrated even if it was 2 years after it ended in the rest of the country.  It would be great if slavery did not exist anywhere in the world!

Personally we are having another trial:  just after we returned from our trip to San Simeon my wife slipped in the shower and broke her right ankle in at least two places.  Well, gee, that gives you a new way of life!  Our local EMT's did a fantastic job of getting her out of the shower and off to the hospital. Then the hospital took a couple x-rays and wrapped her ankle up.  Unfortunately there was a problem somewhere and it was a full week before we got to see a surgeon!  We drove into Las Vegas to see him and he said it should have been set immediately.  So he managed to work us into his schedule the next afternoon.  What a bunch of idiots we have here in Pahrump!

So now we have a walker that was forced upon me back when I fell.  We have crutches that were forced on my wife at the local hospital.  And we have a wheelchair that I went out and bought because my wife's foot hurt too much when she tried using the crutches or walker.  What a deal!  Now we have a followup visit with the surgeon later this week.  Here is what we've seen of my wife's injury so far.

The outline shows the major fracture.  There are also some parts in the interior that are broken but they don't really show up well on the x-rays.  On the outside it's a little different. 

We were told that she shouldn't put any weight on it for at least 2 weeks.  It hurts enough that she didn't need to be told twice.  Anyway, that's been our month of June and it won't be speeding up as far as I know.  Talk about life in the fast lane!  

Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands!

A little trip to San Simeon!

 Last week, before the holiday, my wife and I took a little trip to San Simeon, CA.  It is a very small place on the coast about half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  It's main claim to fame, of course, is the Hearst Castle.  William Randolph Hearst's parents lived in this area and became quite wealthy when gold was discovered in the area.  Then Hearst managed to make a couple bucks himself and he decided to buy land around the California coast that he loved and to build a little country place.  

These days the Hearst Castle has been turned over to the state of California.  There are various tours you can take and we took the simplest, the Grand Rooms tour.  Most of the tours are 70 minutes long and cost $30.  Our tour started outside then we got to view the swimming pool, a main room, a dining room and a pool room.  The visit starts at the visitor center down at the bottom of the mountain.  You park your car and are loaded into a bus and driven the 5 miles up the mountain.  Then you get out and meet your guide.

You start with a nice little climb up various stairs to get to the front door.  On the way you pass a couple of 2-3,000 square foot guest cabins that have been used for various visitors back in the day.  Here's the front entrance.

Looking the other direction you see they had a pretty fine view of the world!

This is a closer view of the front door.  The photo doesn't do the gold color of the door justice.

We didn't get to try the front door though, we went through a little side entrance.  They don't want people touching things and that door would be getting a lot of handprints if it were used!  We headed directly for a room that was just a 'living room'.

That's our guide on the far right.  There were modern carpets on the floors that we were supposed to stand on and there were a couple of guide helpers to keep an eye on us visitors.  The next photo shows the inside of the front entrance; all gold leaf.

The picture above is of the stone work above the fireplace.  Of course there was a fireplace in every room.  The smallest one we saw was about 6 feet wide by 4 feet tall.  With stone work all around, of course.  

This is the dining room.

I was standing in front of a fireplace and, though you cannot see it, there was another at the other end of the room.  We also got to see the outdoor swimming pool.

There was also an indoor pool for those cold winter days.  So that was our tour of the Castle.  

We were staying in a motel that was right on the beach so that was fun.  It is a dog friendly place and at least 50% of the visitors had a dog!  It was pretty amazing.  The only unfortunate thing was that the shore has about a 10 foot drop to the beach and both of the safe paths to the beach were closed!  So getting beach time was going to be difficult.  There were many stops along the road, CA-1, where you could get a good vista but again no beach access.  

We did eventually find beach access at the William Randolph Hearst Memorial Beach.  My wife even got to walk the dog in the water.  We were told that Chinese Shar-Pei dogs didn't really like water but our guy took it in his stride.  He did kind of hop a bit but he was fine with it.

There is one other thing that is really interesting around San Simeon and that is the Elephant Seal Vista Point.  Apparently the female elephant seals come down here with their young about now to moult.  Apparently they do not eat while moulting.  The males stay up in Alaska eating and getting fatter.  Then they come down and moult.  Anyway, we got to see the females and the young.

Nope, they aren't dead, they are just losing their fur and some skin.  I thought this one posed very nicely.  

And this one shows the moult in process!

So that was our four days in California.  We did go down to Morro Bay mostly to see the Rock!  And we hit Paso Robles for lunch.  We managed to avoid all the wineries though!  This was taken on the road back from Paso Robles to San Simeon; in the distance you can see Morro Rock.  It's an amazing area.

Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands!