Back with more of our adventures as we continued to travel south...
Headed for Arizona
On
the day that we were supposed to be packing up I went through what I
now know was a bout of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
; a condition that I developed in the aftermath of doing my second Liver Gallbladder Flush. It left me completely
wiped out, and so we delayed our departure from
St-George by one day.
We
debated for a time which route we should take to go to Sedona, Arizona,
where we'd planned to spend 21 December 2012. The drive passing to the
east of the Grand Canyon is nice, but then going through Flagstaff can
be tricky in the wintertime. The town is located at some 7000 feet in elevation, so you
certainly don't want to get caught in a snow storm. Plus we were
concerned about climbing that high while pulling our trailer. In the end
we opted for the western route which took us through Las Vegas even though I was
worried about driving through a busy multi-lane city, especially as we
were getting closer to the 21st. Just like Matt Monarch pointed out in
this video, Don and I experienced the days leading to this famous date as becoming increasingly chaotic and stressful.
Thankfully
the journey went without any serious hitch, but boy oh boy, it was a
challenging one! I don't remember the both of us being wound up that
tight EVER! Don was especially tense from the driving and I was going
through a tough patch, being back to liquid foods for the second time
that month, in the hope of getting a handle on whatever it was that my body
was battling.
At least it was a gorgeous sunny day and
we very much enjoyed our drive through the beautiful gorge between
St-George and Mesquite. We found ourselves on a curvy road surrounded by
majestic rock cliffs.
And just like that it was suddenly over; we were back on the flat plains!
Driving
through Las Vegas turned out to be much less of a deal than I expected.
(Thank Goodness!) Let's just say that we were glad that we weren't
stopping there, as the whole energy of gambling was the last thing we felt like
encountering that day. I did catch a shot of the Vegas busy-ness from
the window, though.
On the east side of the city along the 93 we drove by the beautiful Lake Mead.
We had made arrangements to stay with folks from the
Boondockers Welcome Club,
outside of Kingman, AZ. Our hosts have carved themselves a lovely spot
in the desert, complete with several trails zigzagging their property.
It was cold and windy but we still very much enjoyed exploring their
little corner of paradise.
Our close friend Diane had
planned to meet us there from Santa Barbara in order to spend the
holidays, but unfortunately she was stranded with a bad cold. While we
were all very much looking forward to spending this time together, in
hindsight I can see that it was just as well as I wasn't much fun to be
around.
I took these photos the next morning just
before we left. If you were to place them side by side you'd get a
paronamic view of the landscape seen from the property.
Red Rock Country Here We Come
In
keeping with the intensity of the time, the drive to the Sedona area
also proved to be tough. As Don put it, it felt like we were being
'hunted' down. We even came close to having a couple of accidents (not our fault). Eeek!
Not sure what was going on but the sky was completely layered with chem trails that day. We'd never seen anything like it!
That's
the mountain in Flagstaff in the distance, shortly before we turned
south on the 89. We had to modify our initial route and drive through
Prescott Valley in order to accommodate our trailer.
At
long last we finally did make it in one piece to the campground in
Cottonwood, where we had booked a few nights. After some difficulty
hooking up our power (they didn't have the right plug) we were at last
able to settle down in our home on wheels. Phfew! Let's just say that we
were mighty glad at the prospect of not having to go anywhere for a
short while!
Miss Puss Goes to the Vet
Our
challenges weren't over just yet, however. While staying at the Verde
Valley RV Park, Miss DaPuss got into a fight with some kind of critter
one evening, something that had never happened before in spite of all of
our traveling. When she came back in shortly afterwards (now that was a relief!)
she didn't seem hurt at first, but when she tried eating her re-hydrated raw food,
she starting pawing at her face. Some research online suggested that
she might have something obstructing her throat so we examined her
mouth. It turned out that her top right canine had gotten knocked
and was lying totally flat against the roof of her mouth. "How on earth
did she manage to do that," we wondered.
She wasn't able
to eat or drink and the tooth soon became infected. Poor thing! It
couldn't have happened at a worst time either as the next day was a Sunday so all
the vets were closed and the following day was Christmas Eve.
Thankfully we were able to have her looked at first thing on the morning
of the 24th at a nearby animal clinic. The vet was just as puzzled as
we were as to what caused her tooth to flatten like that. They were only
open for a few hours and couldn't perform the surgery right then, but
at least we left with some pain killers and antibiotics for the
infection. (Man, did we ever have a hard time giving these to Pu!) They did help but I still had to puree her food in the
blender to make it easier for her to eat. I thought it was kinda ironic
that we both had to eat liquid foods for some time! ;-)
We
took Puss in again on the 26th in order to extract the tooth. The
surgery went without incident and she was such a good girl all the staff
fell in love with her. X rays showed that she actually suffers from a rare condition where the teeth start to recede to the point that they disappear. And so the root of her canine was completely gone! At least this explains how it came loose as it did; it wouldn't have taken much pressure to knock it off.
I'm pleased to report that she has quickly recovered from her injury, although she remains quite skittish when it comes to going out.
Phfew! What an adventure!
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