Parkinson's and the Western Road Trip

 

Why did I move to Texas and some other thoughts.

I know many of you have wondered and some have asked why I moved 800 miles away, especially considering my health. There are several reasons. Since the hospital bought my house, I had to move someplace, so I decided to move where it was warmer. The other reason I moved so far away, is my health. In 2002, I put Frank and Rusty, Kenny and others through a lot. I did not want to impose upon my family and friends again. Parkinson's Disease is a very nasty ugly disease. And besides the shakes which are a major pain in the ass, the other sides effects are worse. Sometimes now, I drool or slobber like a St. Bernard dog. It disgust the hell out of me. The hyper sexuality is very frustrating, I feel like I am 15 again again but while my mind says go find a woman, my body says what the hell do you think you are doing. The muscle weakness is also very frustrating. While Parkinson's is a degenerative disease of the brain, it effects the whole body and I realize the body is controlled by the brain. So let me explain. I look at Parkinson's as more of a disease of the head, it adversely effects the throat and the sense of smell as well as vision and hearing and ones balance. It is a horrible disease. But so far it has not caused me any additional pain. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worse pain possible, I cruise at 5 and have since the wreck. I have spikes to at least 8 and sometimes 9. But this was the case when I lived in Lebanon too.

So what lies ahead? Parkinson's will kill me. Most of us suffering with Parkinson's will either die from pneumonia caused by aspiration or we will choke to death, often on our own saliva or from injuries received in a fall. I have fallen 13 times, 5 in Lebanon and 8 here in TX. I have not been injured. I have been lucky and either landed on the bed or on the love seat. In the end if I have not choked to death or died from injuries received in a fall, dementia will kill me. I would rather someone shoot me than to lose my mental abilities. I have lost some mental abilities, especially in math. I can still beat the cashier telling me how much change I have coming but any higher math is tough.

Some of the other lesser know symptoms of Parkinson's is what it does to ones emotions. I can be reading a murder mystery and come to a tender part and start crying like a baby. Sometimes just talking about certain things, especially Carol and I will start crying.

From my current symptoms, I am in the middle stage, where my walking, swallowing, posture, and voice are adversely effected. For example, I can't always move my left leg, it is like it is nailed to the floor; eventually it decides to move and off I go, but I may have to stand there for a couple of minutes.

I looked at homes in S. Carolina, FL, AL, MS, LA, TX, southern MO and northern Arkansas. There was a house in LA on Caney Lake, I really really liked, but it needed too much work. And then I looked at the pink house here in TX. The roof was pink, the garage door was pink the window trim was pink. I go inside and the floor that was not tiled was painted pink. Everything was pink except one bathroom and it was a super bright lime green that just about knocked one down. I asked the Realtor if the lady had had problems with breast cancer and she said no, so I asked if she was gay and she said no, she has a boy friend. Then with just a gut feeling I asked my Realtor if she was gay and she said yes. She just did not look at men the way a straight woman does. It was obvious and it did not make her mad. She was married and they have been together 12 years I think she said. But the next house was here in Mt. Pleasant. I knew as soon as I opened the door of my truck and set a foot out that unless the insides were destroyed, this was the place. A peace came over me, a very weird and strange feeling for me. Usually the only time I feel something like that is when I am way out in the woods some place. I feel it at Reelfoot Lake when I am in the Cypress Forest that is out in the middle of that lake. It is a great feeling and I like it. I also felt it at Monument Valley in the summer of 2021.

This has been a summer of travel. The first leg was out through the Western states. I left TX and went north to OK and then on north to Dodge City, Kansas, a town I had wanted to see. I took a picture of Gunsmoke St. and of a 1903 Baldwin Steam Locomotive. It was powered by oil. I climbed into the cab and those old engineers had to be some rugged people. There were 3 seats in the cab, with steam radiators under each seat for warmth. There was no padding on the seats, just steel. Ouch.

From Dodge City, I headed on north to Sydney, NB to spend the night. There are more wind turbines in western Kansas than there are people in Western OK. Some of the farms I passed in both OK and KS were beautiful. They were well maintained, fence rows were clean, the machinery looked in good shape. I did not see any junk laying around. From here I headed north and west to WY, and to US HWY 287. I had driven 287 from south to north but I wanted to drive it from north to south. It is a very pretty drive. The first time I drove it was in the spring and they had had a lot of snow, thus the desert was in full bloom due to the snow melt. It was beautiful. This year it was still pretty but the desert was not in bloom. At a bait and fishing guide service I bought a WTF tee shirt. Where's the fish?? Butch Minnick is now the proud owner of that shirt.

My next stop in WY was at Evanston, WY at the Sheraton Motel. I went there for a Bison Burger and steak fries. Sadly, they had quit serving both. I raised hell. When I had that combination in 2016, it was the best burger and fries I have ever had. It even beat the ones at the Tom Boy in Lebanon.

From there I went to Twin Falls, Idaho. Twin Falls is home to Shoshone Falls, which at 212' is higher than Niagara Falls in NY. It is not as wide as Niagara but very impressive. This is close to where Evil Knievel attempted to jump that canyon. Once one sees this terrain, they will understand what a farce that jump was.

And then on to Boise, Idaho where I caught up with some friends that still live there. John and I had a great visit and served together in the USAF at Mt. Home, AFB. Rosemary and I also caught up on our lives. Boise has changed so much since I lived there. When I lived there the population was about 75,000. It is over 200,000 today and growing like fertilized dandelions. That is amazing growth in a 50 year time span. One can no longer tell when they leave Boise and enter Meridian, Id. At one time it was about 8 miles between them if I remember correctly.

I left Boise and headed southwest through extreme southeastern Oregon headed for Lake Tahoe. I had flown over Tahoe but I had never been in Reno or at the lake. That is some beautiful country. The air at the lake at a unique odor. A very pleasant odor that I can't really describe. The Parkinson's adversely effects one sense of smell, but I liked what I could detect. While at Tahoe, I met Blackie, a lizard that was gobbling up all the ants he could see. It did not bother him that I was right there watching. But something had nibbled on him as part of his tail was missing. While in the Tahoe area, I was staying at Carson City. And from here I took a couple of side trips to Virginia City (Ponderosa Country) and to Silver City. Sadly they are both tourist traps. I bought 2 bars of Bonomo's Turkish Taffy. It turned out that the 5 cent bar from when I was a kid is now $3.98 each. I was in shock. Ken and Alberta enjoyed the taffy. In defense of that horrible price, much of this area is closed due to snow in the winter, so the tourist trade has so support them with a very short season. Not everything was open when I was there. While in Tahoe, I saw a pervert that almost got me in trouble. There were 2 portable toilets, one blue and one pink. The building was open and also had restrooms. The pervert, a guy, went in the pink one. If I knew I was strong enough, I would have pushed it over.

Carson City is a nice town and has a free City Museum that is well worth the time. At one time the U.S. Mint had a facility in Carson City. The museum has one of the machines used to produce coins.

It would have been great to see it in operation but it is just a display. Coins bearing the CC mint mark are very valuable. I have only seen a couple and I was too tight to buy them. From Carson City, I headed south to Lake Powel in Arizona. I met Gertrude, another lizard in AZ. Lake Powell is at least 20 feet low and maybe 30 to 40 feet. Much more and it will be a mud hole. I wanted to explore more of Arizona but like Jerry Mundell said, the roads in AZ and NM are horrible. The road was so bad, I cut back north and east to Utah and Colorado and the 4 Corners Area. The 4 Corners area was closed. I don't know why. From here the next stop was Monument Valley. For all of the violence that was filmed here, it is a very peaceful place. I felt the peace kind of rollover me, like snuggling down in a blanket. It was nice and very relaxing. I want to go back.

In Utah, I stayed at Cedar City and in the nicest motel I have ever stayed at. I traveled for 16 years in the computer world and I have stayed in motels from border to border, east to west. It was the Abbey Inn. The room was nice, the staff was great. There is a house behind the motel and that is where they serve breakfast. There was a staff of 5 serving breakfast. It was almost like a restaurant but it was all complimentary and very tasty. I don't remember the rate, but it was very reasonable and beats any of the big chain motels. While in this area, I took in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. Bryce is beyond amazing and worth the trip. Zion is nice but kind of a let down after Bryce. I would go back.

The next major stop was Durango, Colorado. I wanted to ride a steam locomotive. It is a narrow gauge track from Durango to Silverton. Sadly the fuel is diesel and not coal or wood. And it stops several times to take on water. The engine is a 1903 Baldwin and it was made for a standard gauge chassis but this one is mounted on a narrow gauge chassis. One has an hour to hour and half for shopping or lunch in Silverton. There is a great leather shop in Silverton. I bought a new wallet and a checkbook cover. If I were to ever ride this train again and I would like to, I would get a seat in the back of the train. I was in the 3^rd car back and there was a lot of diesel soot. It stinks and at times the engine is really putting out the smoke. The scenery on this strip is worth it. They turn the train around in Silverton and you have the same seat going up as coming back but you are on the other side of the train. I highly recommend this trip. It was great. On the way back some of the cars were flashed by a young woman on the siding and a moose was in the water on one side. Unfortunately, I missed both. There is a motel on the same block as the train station and that is where I stayed I would give it one star but it is very convenient to the train stations, saves 20 bucks for parking at the train station lot and it is withing easy walking distance of shops and restaurants. The main problem is that it is old and needs a lot of TLC.

From Durango, I headed south and east through the northeast corner of New Mexico on my way to Lubbock, TX. In Lubbock I had a nice visit with Rose Huckleberry. Sadly I did not get there early enough to see her Grandson's farmer's market. From Lubbock, TX I headed home to Mt. Pleasant. It was 4860 miles round trip, that does include getting lost once or twice, but how can one get lost on a road trip?