Another landmark for us

 Today, we went to church at Guilford in person. We haven’t done that for well over a year. The service was held outside. It was prepared by our pastor, but it was actually conducted by a group of lay leaders. There was a choir, and both Ellen  and I sang in it. Without masks. All of that is new. It was wonderful to see so many of our friends once again in person. After church, we came home, had a quick lunch, and then went down to the covered bridge where two Morris dancing groups were dancing. One had Andy Davis on accordion, and his son Arthur, was dancing. That was fun. After that,  Ellen and I took a walk. A good day.

Church service at Guilford

A good week at home

We got home Monday night and Tuesday morning, I started the LSVT-BIG physical therapy program at Maple Valley Physical Therapy. I have now completed my first week. What is LSVT-BIG? Here is a blurb:

"LSVT BIG trains people with Parkinson disease (PD) to use their body more normally.  People living with PD or other neurological conditions often move differently, with gestures and actions that become smaller and slower. They may have trouble with getting around, getting dressed and with other activities of daily living. LSVT BIG effectively trains improved movements for any activity, whether “small motor” tasks like buttoning a shirt or “large motor” tasks like getting up from sofa or chair or maintaining balance while walking. The treatment improves walking, self-care and other tasks by helping people “recalibrate” how they perceive their movements with what others actually see. It also teaches them how and when to apply extra effort to produce bigger motions – more like the movements of everyone around them."

I can already see that it is making a difference. It is hard work and I leave my hour session pretty wiped out. Each session gets a little more challenging. Who knows what I'll be doing by the end of July! But I just took a walk with Ellen this evening, and I was able to go farther, faster and more easily than a few weeks ago. I do the hour session four days a week at MVPT, and also a 10-15-minute round of exercises at home twice a day. I'm told I'll be doing the home exercises the rest of my life. I think it will be worth it.

This is MVPT, where I do my therapy and I think that is my therapist, Amy, on the right (it's a little hard to tell with the masks. Everyone, including me, wears a mask). 

This has become a very familiar space for me. 

Thursday, Ellen and I went to Bennington to visit Mary Anderson, her daughter Erica and her family (husband Tom, and children Julien and Clare, who live in South Africa and are visiting), and Tom's parents, Len and Nancy, who live in Hingam,  MA and were also visiting. I performed the wedding of Erica and Tom, and also performed the wedding of Erica's parents, Mary and John. That doesn't happen very often! We had a lovely time together. I had not seen Tom since the wedding (18 years ago?). We had a meal together, broiled salmon, sweet potatoes, salad, and we contributed sweets we got on the way to Bennington at Grandma Miller's bakery (added to a cheese cake Mary made). A feast! Erica manages a biogenetic lab in South Africa and Tom teaches in a primary school. It was wonderful being with them all. One of the things we did was share stories about John Nissen, Julien and Clare's grandpa, because they were pretty young when he died. That was a really good thing to do! 

Here's the group, all except Clare, who took the picture: l. to r., front row: Ellen, Erica, Julien, Tom and Len.  l. to r. back row: Me, Mary, Nancy

Here is a portrait of Clare, Tom, Erica, and Julien:

And here is a picture of the goodies:

Yesterday we went to see Katie and Savanna and had supper with them. Today, Ellen went to visit her friend, Jane, in Norwich, VT and John came over and spent much of the afternoon with me. So it has been a full week in a good way.  

I'll close with this photo of the scene behind the church at dusk - where I am right now:

A lovely time of day!

 

 

Home! Safe and sound!

We got home last evening after 9pm. Ellen was pretty wiped out but she made it ok driving from Oberlin, OH to our home, over 500 miles. Yay, Ellen! We both slept really well in our own bed. The air was fresh and cool, it was quiet, the bed was comfortable - all the things you hope for on the road but don't always get. The house did well in our absence; it smelled good when we came in the door, everything was working fine. And Ellen's garden actually thrived in our absence. It must have rained a lot. 

I just had my first Parkinson's Therapy session. The LSVT BIG program. It involves a series of exercises both sitting and standing that involve expansive, exaggerated movements. I went through them all with the therapist,  Amy, and I'll do them at home twice a day. In addition to the home exercises, I will have a session with her one hour a week, four days a week, for four weeks. It is all designed to re-program the brain. I was able to do more in this first session than I thought I could do. I'm sure it will help. 

It's good to be home. Free rehearsals start at Marlboro next week. We will have a Mary Cay Brass-led singing workshop next Tuesday, in-person, only for the vaccinated, at Westminster-West Church. That will  be fun! I also will start making arrangements to get the body work done on the car. But by golly, our little car did well, despite bumps and bruises. 

So nice to see this familiar view out the car window at the Dummerston Church, looking at the fire pond toward the fire station.

Behind the church in Dummerston

 

We are on the road

 Ellen is feeling better and we got on the road at 8am. I think we are on schedule to get home tonight! Amazing!

An unexpected glitch

We were booked to be in Clarion,  PA in a Quality Inn tonight, but we stopped in Oberlin, OH at the Aladdin Restaurant - a favorite Middle-Eastern eatery where we have eaten many times before - for an early supper, and Ellen hadn't eaten very much when she began to feel ill, and pretty soon she felt really ill. She managed to get out to the car and sort of collapsed there, feeling nauseous and faint. She never actually passed out or threw up, but felt she was close to doing both. That went on for about an hour before she felt able to get up out of the driver's seat and walk around a bit. By that time it was clear she was not going to be able to drive to Clarion, PA, which was another 200 miles or more, so I used the phone to find us a room nearby in a Motel 6, and I drove us there and that is where we are now. Ellen has had a bad reaction to raw garlic in the past and we suspect that is the explanation this time; if so, she will probably feel better in the morning. We'll hope for the best. 

Motel 6 in Amherst, OH

On the last stretch of our trip

Well, here we are in Bartlett, IL. It is Saturday eve, July 3rd. Fireworks are going off here and there in the distance. We have had a nice day with family here, and it started with Bartlett's Fourth of July Parade, which started just a few blocks from Maggie and Jerry's house at 10a.m. We walked to a corner where we could watch and got there about 10:20a.m., so we missed some of it, but we saw a lot. It was very homey. No marching bands. Just a few modest floats. Lots of groups of people doing various things. One of my favorites was this group of Hispanic women dancing:

Spanish dancers in the 4th of July parade

Here's a couple more:

Bakery float

This seems to have a Neptune theme, but I'm not sure why

At about noon, members of the family arrived for lunch: Peter and Lori (it was Lori's birthday), Becky, Daniel, and Suzie in Everett, WA via Portal. It was like she was there with us. We had pizza and chocolate birthday cake. Unfortunately, I COMPLETELY forgot to take pictures! Oh well!  We hadn't seen Peter and Lori since 2019. But it didn't seem that way. We just had a good time as usual. 

Friday, we drove from Rock Valley, IA to Bartlett. We came across northern Iowa on Rte. 18 to Mason City, then worked our way SE to Dubuque, and then west on US 20 to Rockford and down to Bartlett. It was a lovely day, an enjoyable and uneventful ride. We stopped at  Culver's for food and ice cream, and snacked out of our food box. Enjoyed the Iowa countryside. I read aloud and we also listened to CD's. It was a typical day of travel for us, the kind we really like. 

Tomorrow, the Fourth of July, we plan to head due east on I-80 all the way to Clarion, PA where we have a motel reservation. Monday we will go NE through the western PA countryside to the southern tier expressway, and then follow a very familiar route home. Tuesday I am scheduled to start a rigorous physical therapy program for Parkinson's. 

The trip back

I am writing as we drive through the Oglala Sioux reservation near Pine Ridge, South Dakota. We are going through a very interesting part of the country, and it's sort of a shame we can't stop and check it all out in some depth. But that would not take hours - it would take days and even weeks. Last night we stayed in Newcastle, WY at the Fountain Inn. We had never been in Newcastle before. It's actually a nice little town. More attractive than many Wyoming towns are. The Fountain Inn had only a 2.5-star rating, which had me a little anxious in advance, but it turned out to be fine. It had a very comfortable mattress and a super walk-in shower with grab bars, which made it perfect for me. It was also clean, non-odorous and had a good, quiet AC. It cost $107 with tax, which is turning out to be average for this trip. 

The Fountain Inn, Newcastle, WY, from an old postcard

There was no motel breakfast, but that meant we got to eat at Donna's Main Street Diner, which was just the kind of local hang-out we like to find. Each booth had a little spiral notebook, Tell Us Your Story, with a pen - you could write a blurb about yourself and what brought you there, and read other people's blurbs. I had never seen that in a diner before. 

Three scenes of Donna's Main Street Diner in Newcastle, WY

Just this morning we have stopped briefly at Jewel Cave National Monument, gone by WInd Cave National Park, brushed the Badlands, gone through Hot Springs, SD with its 35 historic sandstone buildings, and are now within hailing distance of Wounded Knee. We have also driven through some beautiful scenery. Jewel Cave is reputed to be the largest cave in the world - most of it unknown, unmapped. That would have been the perfect place to explore along with our read-aloud book on this trip - Underland. But I suspect that even with all the time in the world, I probably would not have been able to navigate the cave tour. In any case, we didn't make it beyond the Visitor's Center. But that was interesting, and Ellen found postcards!

The Evans Hotel, one of the monumental sandstone buildings in Hot Springs, SD

Jewel Cave N.M.

Ditto

A scene from Jewel Cave - I did not take this photo!

Yesterday, we said our goodbyes amidst tears and hugs, and drove from Alpine up through Teton N.P. to Yellowstone N.P., and went out the East entrance. We saw bison up close, and got pictures. Wild flowers in profusion and great views of Yellowstone Lake and old burn areas. Traffic wasn't too bad. After leaving the park, that route took us through Cody, WY, where Buffalo Bill has been fully exploited - lots we could have stopped to explore there, but we didn't. Then we went through Worland, Buffalo, Gillette, and down to Newcastle. A 550-mile, 14-hour trip! Long day! The scenery was wildly diverse as we drove along.

Ellen and Max - saying our goodbyes

Max, Paul and Jenny - we love you!

A beautiful view of the Tetons as we drove through Teton N.P.  But there isn't much snow this year. Usually at the end of June, there is more.

Bison crossing the road in Teton N.P.

A big one!

Yellowstone Lake

Old burn, new growth

Scene in Yellowstone toward Cody, WY

Picnic spot near Cody where we ate a little lunch

Two scenes from Shoshone National Forest near Cody

A maverick Museum of Aerial Firefighting near Worland, WY

Bighorn National Forest near TenSleep, WY

Today we will drive across South Dakota on US 18 and SD 44, and we have a motel reservatlon in Rock Valley, Iowa, just over the line from South Dakota. It will be another 500-mile day and I expect it will be after 9p.m. when we get to the motel. But Ellen is doing well. We both are. It's sort of a miracle.

Later: We actually got to the motel in Rock Valley by 8:15p.m. The drive across South Dakota was ideal: the road was turnpike quality, but with no other traffic. Ellen could go along at 70 mph much of the time, which is why we made such good time. The route took us through beautiful grazing and agricultural countryside; it was a beautiful day, not too hot, we were going East, so the sun was not in our eyes most of the day. (On the ride  out West, Ellen was often looking right into the sun later in the day, which is a real strain). We snacked out of the box, listened to music, I read aloud from both Marfarlane's Underland, and from Jill Lepore's, These Truths - which we also brought with us as an alternate to MacFarlane. It all went very smoothly.

And here we are in a very nice motel, The Heartland, in Rock Valley. And it is less expensive: $84 instead of $107, and that includes breakfast.