Doctor's A-OK, Dinner with friends, Elk City Oklahoma

Saw the doctor on Thursday, he was happy that I had lost more weight, and said all looked good.  Told him that I may not see him again until the fall of 2018, but I made an appointment for Spring of 2018 just in case we are in the area again.  Asked him the signs I needed to know if I lose so much weight that my blood pressure meds need to be reduced.  He said, "If you are in the 120's over 70's, and you stand and feel light headed, then reduce by 1/2 a pill."  Let's hope I get there before I see him again.  

Wednesday night we were going have dinner with Jana and Mike.  Jana worked with me in Pine Bluff at the Library...I hired right around 20 years ago now.  Her and Mike got married shortly after Marcia and I got married.  We love seeing them, and with the storm that passed through Wednesday, we had to postpone the dinner until Thursday.  Only thing bad was it was too short at just two hours long...but Skruffy needed to be fed.  First time we ate at Olive Garden since being on our diet, and we were surprised to find five or six things on their menu that we could enjoy with slight changes in the sides that come with the meal.  It was sure good, both the food and especially the company.

My intent was to drive as far as Shawnee, Oklahoma…but when I got there, I decided to keep on driving.  Ended up in Elk Creek, which is about 50 miles from Texas.  It will make tomorrow’s drive a mere 165 miles.  Can’t go much further than that because we will be there for two days as we explore Palo Duro Canyon State Park.  Looking forward to that…

Ready for Departure – 7:30 am Brake Job

Our time here at Maumelle Park outside of Little Rock is coming to an end.  Since we have a 7:30 a.m. appointment at DJ’s Auto Repair in Maumelle, about 20 miles away from the park.  I plan to pull out of our site around 6:30 a.m., so today we pulled out the RV, backed in the car, took the RV to the dump station, then backed it into the site.  I re-hooked up the electric, the water, and hooked the car up.  Put the slide back out, and we are sitting here ready to go.

This gives you an idea of just how long these sites are in the park.  One could easily get a 45’ motorhome in along with a tow car.  My only complaint about this and the Fort Smith Corp of Engineers Park is that the sites could be a bit wider…just three more feet would be so nice.  But hey, if that’s all there is to complain about….

Well, there are our new neighbors that I could complain about.   Although signs say, “No Parking off asphalt”, they have parked their boat out on the grass/dirt next to their site.  When this “redneck” pulled in, with his wife pulling the boat with the jeep behind him, and their daughter and grandchild out in the street, the said “redneck” starts backing up into the site before the wife can even get out of the jeep.  He then puts his head out the side window and yells, “Hey, I could use some help backing up here…”, and she gets out, runs over and starts to help him.  “Over to the left some more” she says as she motions with her hands too…   “I KNOW, I GOT THIS FAR BY MYSELF ALREADY DIDN’T I!”   Well, if I were her, I would just gone back to talk with the daughter…but she bite her lip, (which looks like it had been bitten many times instead of talking back) and continued to help him. 

This is the first time we have been back in this non-reserve area of the park.  It is also the first time we have been here over a weekend…boy, this place gets busy.  However, few cars drive through our area, but many RVs do because you have to drive through to get to the dump station.  I thought more folks would have cleared out of here by now (4 pm Sunday), only three sites have cleared out in our area, with the new neighbors filling one of them.  The folks who run this park have worked here for 13 years, and this is their last year.   They keep order, but are not 100% sticklers to the rules…which is probably a good thing.  I hope who ever takes their place does as good of a job as they do.

Saturday we met Jana and Mike at the Colton’s Steakhouse in Benton, which is southwest of Little Rock, for an early dinner.  As usual we had a great time visiting, were there for three hours, and can’t wait until our next visit.  Jana started at the Library nearly 20 years ago, and has been a full time worker for 18 years.  Her and Mike got married just a few months after Marcia and I did.  Although I had a lot of good staff members working at the Library, Jana was definitely one of the best.  She handled the Reference Floor which included 16 patron computers, the Reference Collection, the Genealogy Collection, the Periodical Collection and the older, sometimes referred to as the Rare Book Collection.  When she first took over as the Reference Manager she took charge of the Obituary Project I had wanted done where we entered all the deaths from the old microfilm and older papers we had on hand into a database.  She completed the project, which included nearly two hundred thousand entries if my memory is correct, in what I considered record time.  The library now gets weekly requests for copies of obituaries due to this online index.  Each filled request brings in around $7.50.  By the time I retired, this was bringing in around $2,000 per year in income, and helping people with their genealogy research, and from what we found out after offering it, lawyers research confirming the death of someone, and even people looking for birth parents due to adoptions.

Well, we hope tomorrow’s brake job solves our issue, is finished in time so we can travel east, and doesn’t cost us too much $$$$.  However, we are prepared to stay the night if needed.  Wish us luck…and you can bet you will get a review on DJ’s, that is for sure.

For my Sis…

Sister Sandy, saw this picture and just had to take it, just for you. 

Do you see why yet????

How about now???? 

Do you see it yet????

Now you see it…actually them.  Took the doggies out for a walk this afternoon and ran back in to get the camera when I saw these SEVEN turtles sunning on this log.  (Of course, you can almost count the reflection as Turtles too, which would make it fourteen.)

    

Here are the seven, three in the first shot (upper left), four in the next shot (upper right), and that little thing on the long log in the middle did not turn out to be a baby turtle, just part of the log.

As I was getting a picture of the turtles, I hear a pounding from above…and after awhile this little guy settled down for some banging and pounding in a position that I could finally get a picture of him.

Reminded me of when I lived in the the 5th wheel in Pine Bluff before I retired…use to see these little guys all day long, especially in the winter when the leaves where off the trees.  Gotta love them woodpeckers!

Speaking of Pine Bluff, every year we come to Little Rock we make it a point to see Mike and Jana, and this time we had dinner at Olive Garden.  Jana worked for me at the Library, and was one of the best staff members I ever hired.  Marcia and I were able to attend their wedding back in 2011, and we just really enjoy seeing them.  We were in Olive Garden for about three hours, and could have stayed for many more hours had we not needed to get back to the doggies, and they back to their doggies down by Pine Bluff.

Saw this good looking guy too….he was really singing away.   Tomorrow is my appointment with the doctor, and we head out of town for Florida as soon as we can after the appointment.  As for our colds, we are much better, but this cold seems to linger on, and mornings are the worse after laying down through the night. We plan to make Vicksburg tomorrow night, near Tallahassee on Friday night, and home by early afternoon on Saturday.

Bye Bye Arkansas

Tomorrow morning we head out of Little Rock, into Mississippi, and down south.  Lived in this state from January 1st, 1991 until my retirement in 2012, nearly 22 years.  When we first moved here, my youngest was 3 months old.  My children's mother got her teaching degree by the time he was in 6th grade, and she is still a very successful teacher in White Hall, a community close to Pine Bluff.  When we first moved here the local PBS station shut down every night, or was it just Sunday night, and they played this song above.  It really does tell how Arkansas "grows" on you. 

While here, we had a very enjoyable meal with our dear friends, Jana and Mike at Applebee's.  I think we were there for over three hours, and we wish we could have stayed another three hours visiting.  There will be a next time, that's for sure.

Saw my doctor today, and although my high blood pressure is coming down, he changed out one medication and encouraged me to loose more weight.  In the past year and a half since I last saw him, he said my weight had not changed....guess I need to do more of those hikes that I pass up from time to time. I asked him if I should wait until the results of the blood tests, and he assured me that I should head on out, and he would call me with the results in a few days.

On our way back to the motorhome, we just had to stop at Corky's, my favorite BBQ place in Little Rock.  We had a late lunch, early dinner, an got a rack for the road for tomorrow's dinner.  You can now buy Corky's BBQ in some grocery stores, and if you order off their website, they can deliver just about anywhere pretty fast since the headquarter location is in Memphis where FedEx has its headquarters.  

Above is picture from the Internet (public use ok) of the Buffalo River.  There is so much beauty in Arkansas, and yet it is overlooked because what many first see is the flat, cotton and soy bean fields between Memphis and Little Rock.  When you live here for awhile, it really does, as the song say, "Runs deep in me...."  For us, we are signing off from Arkansas until our return visit next year.