July13, 2010

From Great Falls, MT, N47°29.386’ W111°19.942’

Day 40

This morning I cleaned up the Jeep again. It doesn’t look like rain today but the wind has been blowing for two days. There is a chill in the air this morning.

Gerri stayed at the motor home to catch up on the wash and I went to see Glenna at the same time the therapist came for her for group exercise. The group met in the dining room and afterward lunch was served. Benefis was making a promotional video and we were in it. I have no idea when or where it may be shown. I took Glenna back to her room after lunch and another therapist came for her.

I had some shopping to do, so I went to Sam’s. I am a terrible shopper, Sam’s had no lemons or limes and the bananas were too green to buy. I had to ask where the hummus was. I left Sam’s and did a geocache nearby. I then headed to Smith’s to finish my shopping. Smith’s had limes and nicer bananas.

I think I mentioned before that our space in the RV Park is very unlevel and has a very high step when the coach is leveled. I had been using a portable step and a cinder block. It was not easy to get up to the coach steps and enter. The park manager let me use some concrete blocks he had. They were 15” square and 4” thick. I laid down four of them in a square and put my portable step on top. That still left a giant step up to the coach steps. They have been doing some cosmetic improvements around the park and I saw a wooden pallet that came with some landscaping stuff. I ask the park management if I could use it after some hesitation and saying he had to return the pallet to Home Depot. He then said to go ahead and take it, Home Depot would wait.

I put the pallet down as a first step and put the concrete squares on the pallet and my portable step on top of that. Except for the spaces between the boards on the pallet I now had steps that were easy to navigate when entering the coach. A trip to the scrap pile at Home Depot got me a piece of particle board to cover the spaces between the boards of the pallet.

I got back to the rehab center after supper. Glenna was back in her room, she said she had macaroni and cheese which she ate a lot of. Why do I doubt it? I know she’s feeling better, she wants to come home. I told her she has to stay in therapy until she can master stairs. I left a little after eight, she told me it would be a long night there alone. I had to leave, they lock the doors at 8:30.

On the Las Vegas front, Gerri’s mother is home from the hospital. Hollis got her prescriptions after taking her home. Hopefully she will get some rest and not set an alarm to wake up early. A wound nurse will come to her home to clean and change the dressings each day until she can start driving.