Ouchy, Ouch, Ouch!

Well, our Life Unscripted strikes again!  Sunday after pulling into our ‘overnight’ stop at Mountain View RV Park I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking and next thing I knew I was on the ground looking up!

After a minute of recovery:  like… duh…. what happened? I stood up — or should I say, I tried to stand up.  OUCH!

Did I Break something?  Or Spring something?  All I knew at the time was that my right foot hurt like a son-of-a-gun!  I hobbled home (100 yards to Serendipity) and put ice packs on it (in the form of bags of frozen brussels sprouts), elevated the ankle and lay there in agony.  Mountain home is a SMALL town, and I couldn’t find a clinic open on Sunday (the next morning I found I could have gone to the Medical Center where I ended up on Monday). Not much sleep Sunday night

First thing Monday morning we took off for the Elmore Medical Center (right here in town) where we were treated, X-rayed, and had a few good laughs with the wonderful medical crew that attended to us.  After we got done with X-rays (while we were waiting on them to be read) we were peppered with questions about how we could afford to RV — interesting, sincere questions by people who clearly felt confined in this small town.  But we ended up laughing and having a good time with half a dozen of the staff.  I love the people we meet, but I felt so sorry for the woman in the bed next to us who was vomiting and in serious despair — and had brought her two kids along with her to the emergency room.  It’s been 4 years since my last visit to an emergency room (when Michael broke his foot).  I’m thankful for reasonably good health and I  realize at times like this how truly fortunate we have been.

Turns out it’s ‘just’ a bad sprain — nothing broken — thank heaven!  Of course a bad sprain can be a killer to heal because guys (mostly) can’t stand sitting around with their feet up, without putting any weight on the injury, for at least 3 days, and then only partial weight for more day.   At least with a broken arm, they put it in a cast and you sort of go on with living — just feeling al little clumsy.

Not so with crutches in an RV!  There is no room in a coach for crutches.  I’m not practiced using crutches.  Climbing 5 steps with crutches is an absurd humiliation much better avoided by putting the crutches aside and walking up the stairs backwards on your butt!  I’m having a fun time with all of this because it’s just hilarious.  We go thorugh life thinking we’re the cat’s meow and then something like this happens and you realize you aren’t much different from a little kid trying to learn how to walk.  Besides,  why not laugh at life’s falls and breaks — it’s so much easier than getting all pent up and ornery!

During a week when we are due for temps as high as 98º, and hitting 94º today we had planned the next few days so as to avoid the even higher temps in Eastern OR and Northern ID.  That said, we are not spending a total of 6 nights here and it’s getting hotter.  The A/C’s are cranking, I’m trying not to be bored, and Peg’s trying not to burn supper!  She really only cooks when I’m ill and aside from this last year I’m not sick all that often — so she’s honing her skills afresh.

The idea of walking on a painful ankle suggested that our plan for only 2 nights here and 5 nights near Yellowstone was due for a change.  I cancelled the Henry’s Lake State Park reservations and we extended here until the coming Saturday — not our preference, but the best medical plan.  So, if we are to make it to Minneapolis for Father’s day we’ll postpone our planned visit to Yellowstone N.P. and do that some other time.  We’ll have Saturday to Friday to make the trip to Minneapolis — a reasonable trip if we drive a little each day.

With the need to stay off my ankle as much as possible I think we’ll probably stay with Uncle Wally more than I would have preferred but that way we aren’t opening slides and such and it’s a less demanding (and more boring) way to travel.

Not a bad view for a roadside breakfast.

So, there you have it.  I was really excited about Yellowstone and now we aren’t going.  Such is life.  But life is still better in our RV than  in Sticks & Bricks so who cares.  We can see Yellowstone some other time.  Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll talk with you tomorrow.

P.S.:  I wanted to include this shot from OR-126 on our way out of Oregon.  We stopped for breakfast right here.  What a great view — couldn’t help think of that poem I had to memorize in high school — the prelude to Evangeline: “The Murmuring Pines and the Hemlock.”