2020 — Where do We Begin?

Our last blog was December 29, 2019. Here it is January 17, 2020. We’ve been busy! Keith’s brother John arrived the end of December. We had an uneventful New Year’s Eve, but a great New Year’s Day dinner, traditional black eyed peas, and collard and turnip greens! By the time John arrived we had Dad a new cell phone, a new lift chair, gas logs for his fireplace and the house pretty well cleaned up. We began the new year by getting Dad situated with a scooter that comes apart into five pieces so he can take it apart and put it in the car, and then take it out of the car and reassemble it to go shopping or just out and about! He will keep that in the car and uses his stick or walker in the house.

Keith and John investigated Home Instead, an in-home care service that will come a set number of hours a week and clean, cook, and make sure things are going well for Dad. They also checked out several retirement / assisted living communities. Dad doesn’t think he is ready for that quite yet, but we all did go have a visit, tour and lunch at a retirement community one mile from Dad’s home called “Sand Plum”. Keith, John and I all loved it. Sign us up we said!! Although it was a great visit and Dad really likes it, he has chosen to remain at home. Yes, he can cook quite well, clean up after himself, etc. But he did make a deal with the nice gal at Sand Plum that he can come down and have lunch and socialize whenever he would like. If or when the time comes, he agrees he would like to live there. For that we are thankful!

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Keith and I and especially John were really happy when Bill arrived to spend four or five days with us all! We always have a great time together and I am sure Dad appreciated the change of pace (or should I say face?) John and Bill left on Monday the 13th to get back to Palm Springs. At that point Keith and I decided it was time to let Dad have some time to himself and we’d venture out. So we made appointment with Camping World to have some regular maintenance done and some issues taken care of on Coach.

We took a different turn at this point and booked us a VRBO near Tahlequah and Lake Tenkiller in far east Oklahoma (about 1 1/2 hours from Tulsa). The price was right, but we didn’t read the fine print about the size! We’ll post a picture of the outside of our cabin in our next blog!

We have 103 square feet all to ourselves! Pictures here are all taken from the same corner of the cabin (kitchen area) you see the bed, the bathroom , kitchen and electric fire all right here!

Yesterday we drove pretty much all the way around Tenkiller, which is large reservoir made when the Illinois River was dammed up back in the sixties. When I met Keith he owned a 10 acre parcel on the south eastern side of the lake, so we were going over to see that area. Wondering if it was now built up with mansions, or hillbillies. We finally found the right area, although we could not pinpoint the exact parcel, we hadn’t been here in about 25 years. It was prettier that I remembered and just a short distance from the Tenkiller Dam. Some hillbillies, some nice homes.

After locating the approximate area of the old property, we stopped at a convenience store and the gal told us there wasn’t much to do in the area but there was a bald eagle nest up the road at the Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge and some nice trails so we thought we’d check that out. We drove by the eagle nest (not something too unusual for us being from both the Puget Sound and Rocky Mountains!) But we did take in a nice hike, a little over a mile, around Horton Slough. The dogs loved it, saw some red cardinals and other forest birds. But it was after we left there and driving up the road that we spotted a LIVE ARMADILLO!! Right there next to the road, just rooting around and minding it’s own business. We were so excited! Usually armadillos are only seeing on the road, with all four legs pointing upward! (Video upon request!)

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Today we drove back into Tulsa to retrieve the cord for the laptop, grab a few things from Coach and check on her status. We are here in the cabin until Wednesday, we hope Coach will be ready to roll, but if not, we may check in to different living arrangements! Dad was happy to see us, a whole day alone, he is doing fine! On our way back we detoured in Muskogee to see the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame (free). We had an hour and half before closing time and that was just enough to see the memorabilia from Merle Haggard, Mel McDaniel, Patsy Cline, Leon Russell and David Gates (both attended Keith’s alma mater Will Rogers High)!

Tomorrow we are driving to Poteau, Oklahoma and meeting our friends Harley and Kerry. We will go to the cemetery so Keith can pay his respects to Harley’s parents who were very good to him for the year or two those two boys palled about in their childhood! Then we are thinking of the four of us (and Goober and Kona) driving over to Ft. Smith, Arkansas to see what’s going on there!

For now, back to listening to the rain on our tin roof, watching Andy Griffith and …………