All's well that ends well

March 7 2014 Not knowing how extensive any treatment would be or what kind of specialist we might need, we decided to go to the emergency room at our local hospital. They took lots of blood for testing and we were seen by an emergency room physician.

She was not alarmed at all about the incision, in fact said it was healing nicely. In our defense, it had only started looking better in the last few days. She removed the stitches, gave us wound care instructions and said to continue the antibiotics until they were gone.

It's been almost a month since the surgery and other than a nasty scar, the ordeal is all but over. We're staying home for the rest of winter and the spring. We've joined the Planet Fitness gym here in Myrtle Beach and are continuing out daily exercise regiment.

Our next road trip will be Memorial Day weekend when we go to Virginia to get away from the noise of Black Bike Week and visit relatives. But it is a long way to the end of May, we may just have to take a short trip somewhere!

Going home

Monday March 6 2017 Millie's incision was healing from the ends inward, but the center still looked red. We were both still worried about the infection and had a discussion about what we should do. We decided to go home. In less than an hour we had everything packed, hooked up the jeep and were on our way. Departure from Peace River Thousand Trails campground was at ten minutes to noon.

We traveled north thru the center of the state on hwy 17, then hwy 27. We jumped on the Florida Turnpike north of Clermont, merged onto I-75 and took it to Ocala. We exited the interstate and took US 301 to I-95 north of Jacksonville.

We stopped at the Georgia rest center at dusk to let Maggie pee and briefly discussed spending the night. I decided to push on and we started the straight drive up 95. Traffic was light and we continued listening to an audio book we've had on since we left Wauchula.

At Florence South Carolina we left 95 and headed east towards Myrtle Beach, we put the last disk of our book in the CD player. About 75 minutes later we pulled into the parking lot at the Cane Patch, it was 1:30am.

Pioneer Days

Saturday March 4 2017 Pioneer Park Days in Zolfo Springs is in its 49^th year, the three day event is a antique Tractor, stationary engine and farm equipment show. There is also some historical exhibits of “Florida Cracker” life, a 300 space flea market, many food vendors and live music. Admission is $5.00.

In years past we rode our bicycles the mile distance from our campground to the county park. Because of Millie's wrist we played it safe and drove, parking just across the street. ($3.00)

I find the stationary engines the most interesting part of the show, They range in size from small salesman models to ones as large as a pickup truck. Many of them are running and it's amazing how quiet they are. 

Lots of flea market vendors, we didn't buy anything.

We ate from one of the food vendors set up by a local benevolent association, I think it was the Lions Club. The usual fried food, Millie had chicken fingers, I had catfish, we shared fries and a drink.

There is a large pavilion in the park and they have continuous music all day, mostly Bluegrass and country. The bands rotate throughout the day, we sat for the performance by a group called Swinging Bridge. They have been together for 20 years and were quite good. 

Willie Nelson

Friday March 3 2017. We have been following Willie Nelson's concert cancellations due to a lingering health ailment. We purchased tickets months ago to see him at the Plant City Strawberry Festival and hoped he would not cancel our date.

The show was still going on as of this morning so we drove the 50 miles to Plant City Florida. Arriving in plenty of time we decided to get our strawberry short cake before the show. We stopped at Brandon Farms Market, which is one of our favorite spots for this local delectable delight. Brandon Farms bakes their own cake and also offers ice cream when building the fresh strawberry masterpiece. 

Our bellies filled, we drove the short distance to the fairgrounds. Because of our little detour to Brandon Farms we entered town from the southwest. I'll remember this route because it avoids the heavy festival traffic you encounter going through the main part of town. We pulled right into our preferred parking lot and were soon strolling past all the carnival rides on our way to the Wish Farms stage.

The arena was soon filled to capacity, they said it was the first time an afternoon show had been sold out. There was no warm up act, at precisely 3:30 Willie walked his sister to the piano, picked up his guitar and started singing. No announcer saying “Here's Willie!”, no small talk about how wonderful it was to be there, no jokes, nothing. What he did do was sing one song after another for one hour and fifteen minutes. At one point he did introduce his band and I saw him take a drink from a SOLO cup just once.

Despite his resent breathing troubles, Willie still has his distinctive voice. His vocals are strong for an 83 year old, the only hint of his ailment was from some words spoken rather than sung. I never knew he was such an accomplished guitar player. I'm not a expert but I know good playing when I hear it and he is certainly a master of his craft.

We not only got to mark off a bucket list item from our RV travels list, but we genuinely enjoyed the show by one of the last great “outlaws” of country music.

Leaving South Florida

Back at the campground we acting as normally as we could. Millie was not in pain, none that she complained about anyhow. We passed the days as we had for two months, I went to the gym every morning, we enjoyed the warm weather and just took life easy. 

Site of new casino

We have been watching the progress of the construction site behind us and have found out it is going to be a casino. I guess we'll have to bring some extra change when we return next winter.

The campground had a Mardi Gras Parade and we participated in that with Maggie riding in her bicycle sidecar. The Canadian snowbirds here are very social and made up most of the parade, some of their costumes were very interesting!

The first of March was our scheduled departure from Southern Comfort Campground and South Florida. We have tickets to see Willie Nelson on Friday and were moving upstate in preparation for the concert. Before leaving we had an early appointment at the the Dermatologist office for the stitch removal.

The nurse took one look at the wound and said they are not ready to come out. They said they would give us the name of an associate in Clermont that we could follow up with. They made no mention of the infection.

Homestead to Wauchula

Our next stop was not in Clermont but in Wauchula. We were here for the Pioneer Days Farm show in nearby Zolfo Springs and to see Willie Nelson at the Plant City Strawberry Festival.

Our stay here in Wauchula was at the Peace River Thousand Trails Campground. Part of our RV timeshare, we stayed here for free, as usual all the full hookup sites were taken. We settled into a nice water/electric site on the lower perimeter of the park.

The day after our arrival we went to a local physician for a second opinion of Millie's wrist. He took one look at it and said he didn't need to do a culture, he was sure she had a bacterial resistance infection (MRSA) He prescribed a stronger antibiotic and told us to come back in a week. 

The Wauchula doctor seemed very competent and we liked him, we left his office with both a fearful apprehension about the MRSA and confidence in this new physician.

Life is an adventure

Life is a adventure, it's not always a good one but always exciting nevertheless. Our winter in Florida has been cut short by what I'm calling a medical urgency. That's a couple notches below a sirens and flashing lights emergency. We are home in Myrtle Beach and I've decided to chronicle the last few weeks in several blog entries. If you start here, hopefully it will easy to follow. 

On February 15^th Millie and I went to a Dermatologist in Miami. Millie had a small spot on her wrist for several months that would not heal. We were fairly certain it was one of the non fatal variety's of skin cancer and debated whether to treat it here or when we get home. Our schedule was wide open for a couple weeks so we decided to get it taken care of. Besides there are almost as many dermatology offices down here as there are palm trees.

The visit confirmed our diagnosis, and we decided to schedule another appointment to have the Squamous cell carcinoma removed. The following week we returned for the surgery, here's where our story takes a strange turn. After what we thought would be a very minor nip, Millie had a 2 inch long incision and about 20 stitches. 

We followed all the follow up care instructions, but every day when we redressed the wound it looked worse than the day before. I have promised Millie I would not post any pictures, but it was obviously infected and we were getting very concerned.

Car show

There was a car show on Sunday at the Homestead Bayfront Park down the road from us. Millie and I have been looking forward to going since we saw it advertised several weeks ago. The waterfront park is neighbored on both sides by Biscayne Bay National park but is owned and operated by Dade County. It has a small marina, large boat ramp, and a swimming beach on Biscayne Bay.

1 1/2 mile backup to enter the park

waiting to enter the park

Canal Street is a long straight road that accesses both the county and national parks, it is the only access and egress from both parks. Long before we reached the entrance, traffic backed up on the two lane road. I measured it on a map later and estimate the backup was 1 ½ miles long. Even after we reached the toll booth and paid to go in the park we were still stuck in the line of cars. The parking lot was full and they let cars enter as others left. One car out and one car in, as you can imagine it took a while to get to the bay front area where the car show was. 

a miniature corvette

a nice 57 chevy

Camero parked by the bay

T bucket priced at $16K

Hydraulic Mexican jumping cars

Classic cars and hot rods are cool, but not cool enough for me to come back here to see them. When we left the line of cars waiting to enter was just as long as when we arrived some four hours ago.

They started bringing in equipment on Saturday

Back at the campground construction has commenced in the field behind us. We still don't know what they are building, I'm going to walk across and ask someone before we leave for the season. So far all they are doing is scraping off the topsoil, if you can call it that. Under the thin layer of dirt is a porous plateau of karst limestone. It is under the entire state, but most areas have more soil over it. 

Scraping the soil from the limestone base

It's making a lot of dust, I was planning on washing the motorhome this week, I'm glad I haven't done that yet. We'll miss the convenience of parking our jeep behind the motorhome, almost everyone on our street parked back here.