Good Byes.......

Monday August 3- Woke up feeling crappy again, I told myself I wasn't sitting around here all day. Jeff left early to go wait for our table is to be delivered. I decided to call the ENT to set up an appointment. I have to see if there is anything they can do to help. I'm waving the white flag. I got one appointment on the 10th and the other on the 18th. Maybe it will go away and I won't have to go. 

Tuesday August 4- I woke up this morning and my ears didn't crack. I know that sounds weird but every morning I can make my ears crack and today I couldn't. That I feel is an improvement. Went over to the house to finish hooking up the washer. Then of course I had to try it out. While waiting for the laundry I got some stuff put up on the cabinets. Jeff got the soundbar and dvr player mounted. We put up the shelf in the laundry room. Went back home and Belle is not acting herself. She is having more things show up. We did hear back from the vet and the news wasn't good. She had lymphoma. They said when diagnosed with this they only live for a few months...tops. We aren't sure how long she had had it either. We are watching her close because we don't want her to suffer.

Wednesday August 5- Felt pretty good today so I wanted to take advantage of it. Jeff drove the truck in to the new place. As soon as he left Hames Homes called to say the Manufacturer repair man was coming over to repair all the things that needed fixed. Jeff hung around there until lunch time. I stayed here and did some cleaning inside and out. I washed windows in the car and vacuumed her out. Belle is having more issues today. I even notices a good sized lump on the other side of her neck.

Thursday August 6- This morning I got a text from Slumberland saying our furniture would be delivered between 2-4 today. So that was a high point of the day. Then after much thought Jeff called the vet today to make an appointment for our Belle. After lunch we went to town to wait for some of our furniture. I brought a couple more tubs of stuff that needed to be put away. The furniture people got here at 2:10 and brought in everything. They did a wonderful job. I'm happy with all we got but wish it could have been everything. We came back to the park to check on the pups. We sat outside and gave Belle a pig ear...(her favorite). She had a good time destroying that poor thing.

Friday August 7- This was not a happy day. We are taking Belle in to the vet today. We have been struggling with what we should do and how long to wait. She is not comfortable. Last night she woke up in the middle of the night coughing and gasping for quite awhile. Jeff fixed her a steak for breakfast. Then we drove in to Center Point. Ruby was not very happy when we left without her. With the covid thing usually no people in the clinics office, but with this there was an exception. They were extremely caring and compassionate. They treated Belle as if she was there own. It was horribly hard to say good bye. She was such a good dog. She brought us so much joy. Our lives will surely change without our Belle Belle around. We drove back home and Ruby noticed Belle not being there right away. She was acting funny right from the start. When I got home I decided to keep busy. Judy is coming up for the weekend and I needed to get some groceries for the weekend. Seth and Katie are having a cookout tonight. I got to the store, home to put away the groceries, made deviled eggs and a big salad by the time Judy arrived. We just hung around and visited for a while. Then we left a little early so we could stop by the new place to show her the place and see what we've done. Then over to Seth and Katie's. I still needed to cut up watermelon and cantaloupe. It was nice outside and we had lots of fun. Seth set up the TV outside so we could watch the Blackhawks....win!! We had a great time with good food and good company.

Saturday August 8- Judy and I stayed up late last night. We didn't get up until after 7..I had to hurry up to the shower house to clean. I got back and made breakfast. We cleaned up and Judy and I went to town. That watermelon I cut up yesterday was so good Judy wanted to get one for herself. Then we went to T.J. Maxx, Sams, and Walmart. I had a list of things I needed to look for. Well I found them and some others. It was so hot out there and wearing those masks, it just makes everything so difficult. We got back and stayed inside to cool off and watch a movie. Then we fixed supper, which turned out pretty good. It cooled off enough we could sit outside for a bit. 

Sunday August 9- We sat outside this morning while it was cool. It started to rain a little which sent us inside. We decided to head back in to Walmart to get the memory foam Judy was looking at yesterday. Then on the way home we took the long way and got pizza at Tomaso for lunch. We came back and ate lunch. We sat outside and visited while watching the campers pull out. We also watched as the Griffey's pull in. Our walk in sites were full when they arrived but they did manage to get the last walk in site in the second loop. Judy left to go home and we had leftovers for supper. Jeff went to Palo to jam tonight. I went up and talked with  Griffey's for a bit.

Monday August 10- Oh boy what a day!!!! We left to go to town. We are still looking for that check. We had planned to take it to the bank in North Liberty today. When we arrived to check the mail, the check hadn't arrived. I had a car full of stuff. We didn't bring Ruby because we planned on going to the bank. As we were putting things away a severe weather warning went off on the TV. Oh no...I checked the radar and we had enough time to get back to Ruby. We sure didn't want to loose another dog. Jeff drove a little above the speed limit to get back. I grabbed Ruby and went to the shower house. Jeff got the stuff he needed and joined us. When Jeff was running up the wind had already picked up. Carl the park ranger had texted me saying 80 mph winds were expected. The warned all the campers and I have to say that the shower house was fairly full. We have made the trip up to the shower house many times but this time I'm so glad we did. We had a HUGE storm. They called it a derecho. It basically was a category 3 land hurricane. They said the winds were up to 140 mph. Not only was it strong winds but it lasted for what seemed like forever. When the winds died down and we went outside to see, everyone couldn't believe there eyes. Campers turned over, whole trees down, big branches down, and everything that wasn't nailed down was blown around. It was a mess.

The power of course was knocked out, but also cell service was spotty and internet. We tried to call Justin but his cell service wasn't working. Did talk to Seth but it was hard to hear everything. Seth said his house is a mess. He lives in an area where they have lots of big huge trees. Well not so much anymore. They had them down all over, you could hardly see there house. One landed on there house and put a hole in there roof where the water was running in. The good news nobody was hurt. These are a couple pictures of Seth's house.

We waited for the rain to stop and we made our way very carefully to town. We checked on Justin first since we couldn't get a hold of him. Then to Seth's to make sure they were all ok. Then we had to go see what damage was done to our new place. As we pulled in to the drive I noticed a lot of skirting was missing, one window was broke but just the outside pane, and Jeff's brand new grill was mashed up pretty good. He hadn't even got to use it yet. Then we noticed a big branch from our one tree had landed on the back corner of the place. We had a lot of siding cracked and then on the roof we lost some shingle on the ridge vent. I was extremely happy that it wasn't just demolished. Here are a few pictures of our place.

We made our way back to the campground. As we drove through Palo it was unbelievable the damage that was done. It snapped off telephone poles like nothing. Trees were everywhere. Houses with trees on them, roofs just blown off, roofs peeled off of the big metal buildings. Lines down every where. We started picking up our stuff and everyone elses that were around us. We found one of our kayaks clear across the park and down in the woods. Just such a mess, Boy am I glad I rode this storm out in the shower house. We settled in for the night in the rig with no power. We knew it would be days before the power would be up. All I can say is WOW, never seen such a mess.

Tuesday August 11- Today we got up and accessed our damage a little. We were extremely lucky. We lost the bed cover off the truck and it was dinged up some. The spark took a hit on the passenger side door and also had some dings and scratches from flying debris. Our 5th wheel looks pretty good to with only a few dings on the side the wind came from. We went back to town to get a closer look at the new place and do some cleaning up. I picked up the shingles in our yard and all the skirting that had landed in our yard. I also picked up some sticks and branches laying around. Jeff went up on the roof and saw what he needed to do there. When we went inside there was water all over the kitchen floor. It was from the thawing freezer. I cleaned that up and hung the towels on the swing outside. It is really hot out there. When we got back to the camper it was so hot. Jeff said we are moving in to the new place now. So I started loading up the car with more stuff we would need. 

Wednesday August 12- Back over to the new place to move more stuff. We are going to be staying here because it is just to hot in the rig. Jeff went up on the roof trying to cut some of the branches off the roof. It is way to big to use a hand saw and trying to find a chainsaw is nearly impossible. We started unloading stuff from the frig and freezer. It is also really hard to find ice. The whole town is without power. Our daughter in law's dad found some ice and bought all he could. We got ice, they got ice and Seth got ice.  I called the insurance about the truck, car and camper to let them know we would be having some claims. We stayed the night in our new place with our new sleep number that was on the floor. We had the windows open and we could hear everything outside. We did not get much sleep.

Thursday August 13- Still no power but we have a gas stove so we can do some cooking. We made coffee this morning. We  have also started cooking some of the stuff in the freezer that's thawing, before it goes bad. We went to get Ashton and Hailey this morning. Ashton is coming over to help Jeff with the tree removal. Hailey is coming with me to Justin and Molly's to watch Maddyn. Justin and Molly had a long weekend trip before all this happened. So we are having a girl weekend. We came back over to the new place to fix lunch then back so Maddyn could get her nap. It sure was quiet while she was sleeping. You forget how much you depend on electricity. When Maddyn got up from her nap I got the scissors out to cut off her rat tail, mom had a hard time doing it. Seth and Katie brought us some food from Iowa City. They weren't hit as hard there. While in Iowa City they bought a generator. So us girls went over there tonight to watch the Blackhawks get beat. Back to Justin's to get Maddyn to bed.

Friday August 14- Still no power. Boy it was hotter than blazes in that upstairs bedroom. Didn't get much sleep. Maddyn didn't have any problems sleeping.  When Maddyn woke up she started calling to us. We went downstairs and made some breakfast. She wanted to go for a walk around the water. We started right after breakfast, thinking we could beat the heat. Well it was already hot, Maddyn again did no complaining about the heat. After the walk we went over to our new place to fix breakfast for lunch. We did that on the grill. We have lots of bacon to get rid of.  In the afternoon Hailey and Maddyn played in the sprinkler. It just wasn't enough water so we decided to blow up her pool. That takes a lot of energy. We did find a bike pump but that was hard too. We finally got it blown up and filled it with water. The girls had fun and cooled off. We counted that also as a bath...

After cooling off we came in to fix a bite for supper. This was our melt down day. I fixed Maddyn something but all she noticed was she had no chips. That was the last time all she ate was chips. She was upset. Then every time I tried to grab something out of the cooler it was floating. I literally had to dry off the ham and turkey before making a sandwich. Then as I was getting Maddyn calmed down Seth brought over ice. I look and Hailey is starting to cry. She says her eyes are burning. Long story short she must have rubbed her eyes after eating her jalapeno chips. So her appetite was gone and she was upset and quiet the rest of the night. Maddyn couldn't understand why Sissy wouldn't talk to her. That was quite a day for sure. I really miss my frig and a.c. We heard back from Progressive about the truck. They sent me a link to take pictures to do a virtual claim. Slumberland called also to set up a delivery for our couch since it was cancelled because of the storm.

Saturday August 15- Still no power. Up around 7, but really was up quite a bit through the night. We had some weather coming at us and Hailey was pretty nervous. It split before arriving so we didn't get any rain. I did see some lightning. It did cool off  just a bit. Jeff brought over sausage and bread. We had sausage sandwiches for breakfast. Katie came and got Hailey. I think she was done babysitting. The  fun kind of left. Maddyn and I went to our place to make a lunch. We had lots of meat that needed to be cooked. We made lots of chicken and Iowa chops. I fried up some potatoes and made some baked beans with cottage cheese. We invited our neighbors Richard and Vickie over to eat. We had so much. Jeff had rigged up the inverter from the camper to run the small frig. Then Seth called to say there power was on. That was good news indeed. They have so many people from all over working to get everyone up and running. I brought Maddyn back to take a nap. As she was napping our, Justin's power came back on. I have to say I did a happy dance. Jeff came over around supper time and brought some of that leftover meat. I made some mac-n-cheese  and mashed potatoes. Maddyn got to pick what she wanted for supper. That's what we had, oh I talked her into some green beans too. I had Jeff bring over the laundry so I could get that caught up. Maddyn was very happy to be watching movies. The internet was still out so no TV, just movies. I didn't even care if we were watching Frozen and Shrek. After giving the frig time to cool off I loaded it back up with what was in the coolers.

Sunday August 16- It was nice to not sweat while trying to sleep. I slept better. I fixed her some breakfast. Jeff called to say our power came back on late last night. Maddyn and I watched movies. Jeff went to the store to try and get some groceries. Justin and Molly got back to the house around  noon. Jeff came and picked me up and we went out to the camper to gather more stuff to bring in. We had the truck packed up full. Got back and unloaded it all. I spent the rest of the day putting away and organizing. It was quite the weekend. So happy to have power. We are so spoiled. We are lucky to have our power. There are still so many people out there waiting for power. They have way more mess to clean up than we did. I'm grateful for all I have....until next time.