Our RV Adventures

Well, this morning started off exciting with a call from our son-in-law Lowell about 9 am telling us that Brandi was in labor so they weren’t going to have to induce it.

Then our son, Chris called about 15 minutes later to be sure we had heard the news.

Hearing this, we went ahead and booked Jan a flight out of Chicago Midway this afternoon at 5:50 pm and she finished up her packing. She’d done most of it last night in anticipation of this happening.

We left Elkhart about 1pm, stopping off at a CVS to get a new battery for Jan’s watch. She took it off Friday, November 30th, her last day of work and hasn’t worn it since. So it definitely needed a new battery.

When she retires, she retires!

Of course, things can’t go too smoothly. About 30 miles down the road we had a flat tire on the right rear of the truck. Nick had been nagging me to get a new tire on it since it was really showing its age, and some of the metal belt, too.

My tire pressure monitor system alerted me that I was losing pressure in that tire, luckily right before an exit, so I pulled off thinking I would find a tire place to put on my spare. But as luck would have it, by the time I got through the toll booth the tire was down to about 10 pounds, so I pulled over to a nice big parking area and started changing it myself.

I was thinking that after all the ragging Nick had done he would never let me live it down. However I really had the last laugh (well, as much as you can laugh while changing a flat, anyway), because as I was removing the old tire i found a nail sticking out of it.

So take that, Nick!

We got to Chicago Midway about 4:30 pm, in plenty of time for Jan’s 5:50pm flight, only to find out that it was delayed until 6:50.

Bummer!

We had both brought something to read in case this happening, but ran into a problem.  I had planned to stay at the airport until Jan’s flight took off, but we found there is nowhere to sit outside the gate area. We were hoping for a restaurant or something so we could sit and wait until it got closer to her boarding time. But no luck.

So after talking it over, Jan said I should just go ahead and start home. After thinking it over I told Jan to go thru security and as soon as she got checked in at her gate, I would go ahead and leave.

She called about 20 minutes later, so I headed home. I was surprised to find almost no traffic on the way out of Chicago, I guess because I was on the toll road, but it was smooth sailing all the way.

Got back to the rig about 9 pm, and am now tracking Jan’s flight on a website called FlightStats. You enter the airline and flight number and it shows you a real-time map of the flight position, along with the speed, altitude, and distance from the destination.

Also talked with Lowell who said Brandi is doing fine. They’ve given her a pill to keep things moving along, and are still looking for Master Landon to arrive tomorrow sometime.

As it stands right now, it’s 10:47 pm EDT and Jan’s plane is 22 miles at 3500 feet, doing 315 miles an hour.

FlightStats says Jan’s plane has landed, so now I’ll wait to hear from her after she meets up with Chris.

It’s 11:04 and Jan just called to say she’d met up with the kids and they were going downstairs to get her luggage, and that she’d call me tomorrow.

Glad to know she’s safe and sound in Houston.

More tomorrow.

Quote of the Day:
Remember, ‘stressed” is just “desserts” spelled backwards. Make the most of it.

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Today turned out to be a lot busier and more eventful than we had planned, but it started out pretty normal though,

About 11:30 am Jan fixed sandwiches for lunch using a new Cranberry Horseradish Mayonnaise she bought the other day. Boy was it good!

Then after lunch I went outside to take off the last four cargo bay doors to take over to Michele at Phoenix Commercial Paint.

Jan decided to go with me since she wanted to do some shopping and I was going to do some more canvassing for gift cards and coupons for door prizes for the upcoming rally.

After leaving Michele’s we headed down toward Goshen because I also wanted to exchange something at the Tractor Supply Store down there. However about half way there we realized that I had forgotten the bag with the stuff in it.  Oh well.

And as on our last trip to Goshen, we ran into construction. This is getting ridiculous. A trip that should have taken about 30 minutes took us almost 50. It seems you just can’t go anywhere without something being rebuilt.

Noticing a Panera Bread along the way I stopped off to see if they had enough Asiago Cheese Bagels to complete Nick’s collection, since he didn’t get all he wanted yesterday. And luckily they had some.

Leaving Panera, our next stop was the Sam’s Club right down the road to stock up on essential household items, and then we headed home, by a different way to avoid the construction. And, of course, we ran into more construction. Different construction, but more of it. This time it took us over 20 minutes to go about a half a mile to get through it. There are only a few roads around here that head north and south and they’re all under construction. At same time!  Geeez! (Put in your own swear word here)

Finally getting back to the rig about 3:00 I was about to head out when Nick called and asked me to meet him at the park meeting building to talk about how he’s going to setup things for the vendors and visitors for the rally.

By the time we were finished, everyone decided it was time to go to supper so we piled into the truck and headed back down to Goshen. Can you see where this is going?  Yes, of course you can.

Even though we took a completely different route than the two this morning, guess what? More construction. This time we had to go three or four miles out of our way to get around it.

Now for the scare.

About half way to Goshen we got a call from our daughter Brandi. We were expecting one since Wednesday is the day she sees her obstetrician, and she always calls us with a report. But today the report was upsetting.

Instead of being on her way home, she was in the hospital. At her doctor’s office they found her blood pressure was very high, so high that they told her to go straight to the hospital.

She said she didn’t know anything else, but that they had her on an IV and were monitoring her. Jan told her to let us know when heard anything.

Hanging up the phone Jan went into a small meltdown, but quickly realized there was nothing she could do until we got more news.

We decided to continue on to our dinner destination, South Side Soda Shop and Diner 

And I’m really glad we did, because the place was good enough to get Jan’s mind off the situation, at least for a few minutes.

South Side Soda Shop was featured on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” with host Guy Fieri, and it was easy to see why. The food was delicious, and they have some really unusual dishes, including Phillychili,  chili served over pasta in a large ice cream sundae glass, and Spiral Fries.

Spiral Fries are made by taking a large potato and cutting it in one long spiral string, dumping it all in a basket, and frying it up. It’s basically just one VERY long french fry. And VERY good.

Nick, Terry, and I had sandwiches, and Jan had the Crab Cakes. And we all agreed how good it was. We will definitely go back. I want to try the PhillyChili.

For dessert we all had a piece of their award-winning pie. It wasn’t quite as good as we had at The Pie-O-Neer in Pie Town, NM  this past June, but it was good. You can read more about our visit to Pie Town here.

Leaving the diner about 6:30 pm Jan called our son-in-law Lowell to check on things since she didn’t want to disturb Brandi. Lowell was in the room with her and said there had been no change. Her BP was still high.

With the news still unsettling, we started talking about Jan flying back to Houston tomorrow. It’s1300 miles, a two day trip by car, and a three day trip by RV. And because our cargo bay doors are off being painted, that’s not really feasible, anyway. We figured I’d stay here to take care of the cats and handle the repainting stuff and Jan would fly down for a week. Terry said they had a suitcase Jan could borrow, so that helped a lot.

As we were discussing things, we stopped by OfficeMax on our way home so Terry could get some stuff for the Gypsy Rally and Jan wanted some new pens.

We got home about 7:45, and about 8 Lowell called with some good news, Brandi’s blood pressure was down, and they were thinking about sending her home and putting her on bed rest for two or three weeks until the baby comes. We were all very relived, but we told him Jan would be ready to fly down on short notice if needed.

Then about 8:30 our son Chris called and said things had changed and her blood pressure was back up and they were thinking about inducing labor tonight or tomorrow. So back in panic mode again. But at least, even though it’s still almost 3 weeks until her due date, the baby is already heavy enough to be full term.

Chris said they were going to decide about 10 pm what they were going to do. And a little about 10 Brandi called and said they had decided not to decide yet. They were putting her on a 24 hour monitoring program and would made a decision tomorrow night.

So we’re stuck in the holding pattern again. just waiting to hear.

I guess at this point, the old cliché holds, that no news is good news.

More tomorrow…

Quote of the Day:
Remember, no matter how you slice it, forbidden fruit still tastes the sweetest.

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