A Long Day But a Great One

[I'm writing this on Saturday, but have been unable to post photos on this blog page. It let me post photos on Thursday's blog, but not since. For the time being, I have posted the five photos which are referred to in this blog on my Facebook page. If you're not connected to me on Facebook, please do so. If you're not on Facebook, I apologize and will do my best to get the trip photos posted on this blog.]

Yesterday was a long one, with 13 hours on the road from the time we left Pierre, S.D., to the time we pulled into our motel in Rapid City. Those cities are only about 250 miles apart, but we took the scenic route. First we revisited the fantastic sunflower fields we had discovered on Thursday, to take some photos. Linda dressed appropriately--all in yellow--and I took a couple of photos where she's hard to discern in the field of head-high flowers. (One photo belongs here but is on Facebook.)

She had dialysis on the Rosebud Reservation, a 100-mile drive from Pierre. The hill descending into the town of Rosebud was lush with green growth, a much more welcoming sight than the barren Navajo Reservation we visited in the Arizona desert last year. It briefly made me think life could be good there, though I was assured that more than 75% of the residents there live in serious poverty, with only the business owners doing well.

I'm posting photos below of the memorial quilts that cover the walls of the dialysis unit. When a patient dies, they create a quilt as a memorial. The elderly woman who has done the most quilts was in the chair next to Linda. They're quite beautiful to look at, and a wonderful way to remember members of the dialysis "family" that all units have. They were kind enough to let me take photos of the quilts, though of course I couldn't take any photos showing patients. (See photo now on Facebook.) They have about three dozen patients there, and Linda referred in her blog to the display in the lobby. Each patient's photo is there, along with his/her number of children and grandchildren, favorite tv show, and favorite meal. The emphasis on children is part of the Sioux tribe's dedication to its children more than anything else.

Once we were liberated from the dialysis center, we headed for the Badlands, which I had visited only once before, on my first cross-country trip in 1970. On that trip, the Badlands were the first sign I had of the magnificent geological wonders of the West, and it changed my life. I was awestruck on that trip as I saw many of the famous national parks I'm trying to share with Linda on this trip along with last year's, and that's why I wound up spending 30 years living in the West and criss-crossing the always fascinating terrain. So I was glad to share this with Linda.

She was blown away by it and told me it's the most spectacular place I've taken her to yet. That's a strong statement considering that last year, we saw the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, the Arches, and more. But I could see her point. This was like driving through the heart of my favorite park, Bryce, but not on a rim road as at Bryce, but right down in the middle of the pinnacles and colorfully eroded rocks. I remembered all the canyon-like features below the road level from my 1970 trip, but had forgotten how much of the splendor is alongside you on the road.

We spent nearly two hours in the park yesterday, all the time watching a massive, dark storm to the west. We talked to people today who were stuck in that storm and had to pull over, but all we saw were the brilliant lightning bolts in the distance and wondering if the dark clouds above us were going to open up as well. We felt a few drops but that was all, and know we were very lucky. Perhaps our new friends at the Rosebud dialysis center were looking out for us, having helped us map our route to and through the Badlands. At the last viewpoint, we saw two bighorn sheep in the field below, and after making a turn into an unpaved road came upon another half-dozen, including several rambunctious lambs. (See photo now at Facebook.) A great capper to the first of the Western wonders on this trip.

I hadn't been to Wall Drugs before and we were hungry, so we stopped there. The place became a thriving business in 1931 when the founder of a struggling store began giving away "free ice water" which lured travelers inside. I partook of some free ice water with my dinner while Linda enjoyed ten cents' worth of coffee--and then, of course, we spent another $60. I wonder how that works. But we did need that pair of binoculars (when we moved to Cherry Valley seven years ago, we put all the important stuff in one carton, including the binoculars, and haven't seen that carton since), and the uncensored edition of Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage, not to mention a great present for one of Linda's grandsons. How convenient that all of that stuff was at one place!

Now it's Saturday morning and we're about to head out for a day of exploration. First stop is Mount Rushmore, 25 miles south of here. From there we'll go to Devil's Tower in northeastern Wyoming. I've never been there--one of the few famous places in the West that I've managed to miss--but have this strange compulsion to go there. Then we'll head west, toward Cody, though I suspect we'll wind up spending the night around Sheridan. It's going to be a great day wherever we wind up. We'll catch you again then.

The Badlands

What can I say about the Badlands in South Dakota, Freakin' Awesome. My first look at the scenery blew me away.  What a wonderful thing nature is, this planet of ours is spectacular. At first glance you think you are possibly on Mars, the rock formations are so majestic and the stripes of different colored rocks so intense. The experience for me was strangely spiritual, one I'll never forget. Seeing the Badlands made me forget I had just left dialysis.

That was a great experience too, it was on the Rosebud Reservation, part of the Sioux nation in S.D. Great people, very friendly, professional, super treatment. I'll let Gabriel go into a little more in depth in his blog about the dialysis center. He has some great pictures to share, so stay tuned. I wanted to mention the difference between the two dialysis centers I have visited on reservations. The center last year in the Navajo Reservation, located in Tuba City, Arizona, was so impoverished, with wild horses and packs of dogs running in the streets. Bleak is the word that comes to me to describe the area. The center was very adequate, the staff very professional.  Perhaps the landscape made all the difference this time, South Dakota being way more green and welcoming as opposed to the desert. In both cases there was heat, yes, heat--the car said it was 110 degrees when we got in after dialysis after being parked in the lot. It did drop into the 90s after we got moving, but still.

I was struck by how the staff at Rosebud seemed to really care for and honor with ceremony all their patients, living and deceased. There was a collage of photos in the lobby of all their patients with details of their lives and families (the idea I am taking back to my unit, and hope they implement). We ended the perfect day with a stop at Wall Drugs in Wall, S.D., a huge tourist attraction. They sell everything you can think of, books, jewelry, leather goods, boots, sunglasses, stuffed jackalope heads, yes even drugs. They had a nice cafe inside where we ate a late supper of chicken fingers and a hamburger, but best of all was the coffee, yes as advertised 5 cents a cup and great coffee at that. I had a dimes' worth.

Well, that's all for now. Let me tell you guys what happens now that I have finished my blog. My wonderful husband edits it, yup he goes through it and makes coherent, well punctuated sentences. I say why be married to a super wordsmith and not get all the good benefits. That's all for now, lots of hugs

6 a.m. in Pierre, S.D.

It's early Friday morning as I write this blog. I just drove down  to McDonald's for my coffee fix, a large coffee, so I'm good to go all set to write my account of the last couple days. This motel is great but offers no free breakfast, like the others have so far.  Great room though, very powerful air-conditioning.

So let's start with dialysis on Wednesday in La Crosse, Wisconsin, a very large, 34-chair, state of the art unit, professionally staffed. I had a very good treatment, uneventful just the way it should be and the way I like it.

When Gabriel picked me up, we went back to Mike's and we all met Mary Ellen at the local coffee shop for coffee and smoothies. Mmmm good.  Then on to the river boat ride on the Mississippi. That was a blast, I really enjoyed the boat ride, it was a great time.

I really hated to leave the Hauperts' hospitality, but on the road we go. This road was long and filled with cornfields, soybean fields and sunflower fields, lots and lots of all. This country is so beautiful and so productive, you have to see it to fully appreciate it. So today hopefully going to Wall Drugs, the largest drugstore in the U.S., they have had billboards up for the last 300 or so miles. I'm going to get a cup of coffee for 5 cents, yes 5 cents, maybe I'll get 2 or 3. More to the point I hope to get my first look at the Badlands and site of the Battle of Wounded Knee. I'm very excited. More to come. Lots of hugs.

We Can Stand the Heat

The last part of today's 519-mile drive reminded me a lot of our drive across Nebraska last year. That day, we spent the whole afternoon slogging through 102-degree weather to get to Scottsbluff, with the sun's brutal glare in our faces. Today it got up to 100 around 4pm, just as we arrived in Mitchell, South Dakota--not all that far from our route across the Nebraska. We spent an hour in Mitchell at the Corn Palace--more on that shortly--and had a two-hour drive left to tonight's stopping place in Pierre. During the drive, the temperature ranged between 99 and 102, and even the air conditioning didn't keep us from feeling damp. It's nearly 9pm as I write this and it is still 94 degrees here in Pierre. Except for the first day of the trip (today is day #6), it has been in the 90s every day, with more heat ahead until we get to the Rockies sometime this weekend. But we can take it.

It was hot on the Mississippi River boat trip yesterday as well, close to 90 degrees, but there was shade on the boat and it didn't drain us. The 90-minute trip (including a dinner of Domino's pizza and refreshing beer) was quite enjoyable, starting at the confluence of three rivers: the Mississippi, the La Crosse, and the Black. No ballpark there, however, just plenty of water and lots of trees (none indigenous to the area). We went up to Lock #7 on the Mississippi, where a large riverboat was waiting to be lowered to the level where we were (see photo below). Earlier, we had passed an overturned boat that had failed to slow down as it reached the lock, sending 11 passengers hurtling through the channel (all survived).

We met a fellow from Oregon on the boat whose father is in the Army Corps of Engineers and worked on many of the large dams along the Columbia River. He wondered what the name of this dam/lock was. The answer: #7. There are 27 locks along the Mississippi, starting in Minneapolis, and only the two southernmost ones have names. He was disappointed to learn that the folks in the Midwest didn't have the inspiration to name things. Here's a photo of us taken on the boat:

We were so comfortably in La Crosse that it wasn't easy to leave, but we had lots to see, though not much of it along the southern edge of Minnesota traversed by I-90. Minnesota may be the "land of 10,000 lakes," but I think we saw only one or two of them in the space of about 300 miles. South Dakota is much more interesting, especially the stretch between Mitchell and Pierre. Parts of it seemed completely covered by vast fields of sunflowers. On the north side of the highway, the bright yellow flowers faced us (and the sun); on the south side, not as much yellow was visible, as the flowers faced away from us to drink in the sunlight. The acres and acres of sunflowers were a glorious sight.

Then there was the Corn Palace, a different way of highlighting nature's abundance. Begun in the 1890s as a way of putting Mitchell on the map, it has succeeded in providing a unique, strange, and wonderful spectacle to visitors. Every year, the exterior of the building (which is currently utilized mainly as a site for college and high school basketball and volleyball--a women's volleyball team was practicing during our visit) is remade, using corn. I say "remade"; the exterior is a series of murals (newly designed each year) made from all parts of corn cobs. Here's a shot of the entrance:

Everything except the minarets, turrets, and wording is corn. It costs over $130,000 a year to redo the building (there are permanent murals along the walls of the sports arena), and it takes most of the spring and summer (the Indian corn is the last to ripen). Here's a closer view of the mural on the left:

That gives you some idea of the design, but you need a closer view to appreciate the intricacy of design and construction. Try this:

That's a lot of corn, folks! I hope you like the photos. When we did the blog during last year's trip, I couldn't figure out how to place photos in the blog, so this is a big breakthrough for me. Now that we're about the start the most scenic part of the trip, I'll try to let images speak for me a little more. 

Hot Times in Wisconsin

On last year's trip, we had a stretch of nearly two weeks when the temperature was over 90 degrees. Of course, we were in the southwestern deserts at the time, exploring Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. This time we're about as far north as you can be in the U.S., and it's still over 90 degrees every day. Maybe we're bringing it with us. We're perfectly capable of having a hot time in cool weather, but haven't had a chance to prove it.

The visit yesterday with Judy was very heartening. We didn't go out there again on Monday evening because Tom said Judy wasn't up to it, but she feels her best early in the day, so we got there a little after 9am and stayed until noon. She's on assorted pain medication and bopping around her house in a wheelchair, but she was smiling and talkative, and her ribs have healed enough that a few belly laughs didn't ravage her. It would've been nice to spend more with her on Monday, but we're very glad that we had the time we did.

Our friend Mike is a professor of economics at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and Mary Ellen is a music professor at Viterbo University, also in La Crosse. We hadn't met her before but have known Mike for ten years. He makes one or two trips a year to Cooperstown for research at the Hall of Fame library on baseball economics--he's the big expert on salaries--and we always have him over for dinner. He's been waiting a long time to host us, and yesterday he cashed in that wish in a big way.

He had told us he was inviting "a couple of friends" over to dinner with us, but it turned out to be dinner for a dozen people. Mary Ellen was teaching all day, but Mike's classes don't start until next week. So he had plenty of free time to prepare dinner for twelve. The day before, he made the desserts: two massive tortes, one blueberries and one peaches. But we sat in the kitchen and watched him put the rest of this fantastic meal together over a period of two or three hours. He was ably assisted by their youngest daughter, Louise, who's 15 and did some of the prep work.

It's hard to express how impressed we were by Mike's meal. Just seeing how effortlessly he put everything together was impressive, how little fuss he made, yet by 6:30, when the guests were gathered, he trotted out more things than I'll be able to remember. I'll just mention the two main dishes. The biggest deal was the seafood paella, cooked in a massive pan. Let's see: lobster claws, mussels, shrimp, catfish cheeks, sausage, green beans, corn, onions, and more. Terrific. But Linda's favorite was the watermelon and crabmeat salad, served over broiled yellow squash and topped with "Arnold Palmer vinaigrette" that included black tea, lemon, honey, and olive oil. You get the idea.

The food was wonderful, and the conversation was brisk. There were two or three doctors there, a high school pal of Mike's, some teachers, a student or two, and the special guests all the way from New York. Lots of great stories about plagiarism, my favorite being the Speech class where the students were supposed to create a speech about a great event, and one kid actually recited Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Then there was the student from Thailand who copied his whole paper from Wikipedia and told the teacher he had written his paper in Thai and used the computer's translating function to put it into English, and by some wild coincidence it came out looking just like this other thing.

It's 9am right now, and in a little while we're driving up to a bluff overlooking La Crosse for good views of the area, and then it'll be over to the dialysis center in Onalaska. Late this afternoon, we're taking a boat trip on the Mississippi River, which we're looking forward to. Then tomorrow it's on to South Dakota.

Wisconsin is Great

I hope you're all with me, because so far Wisconsin has been a blast. First of all my dialysis treatment on Monday in Waupaca was great, with the exception of my blood pressure dropping a little low, I think they took a little too much fluid off me. I took it easy for a while and felt much better after a couple hours. Feeling better I became hungry, silly me, nowhere to eat in Redgranite, where we were staying.  Let me just say, The Piggly Wiggly, a market there, left a lot to be desired.  After looking around I settled on some sliced turkey and swiss cheese, which I rolled up and ate. Yummy.

Well I finally got to meet Judy, she was a delight.  I was happy to see her doing so well. She's come so far, she's strong with strong faith and I'm sure will continue to do well. I met her husband Tom and her sister Vicky, who are both there and taking very good care of her. I enjoyed the three short hours we spent there.
Then onto La Crosse to stay with Mike and Mary Ellen, wonderful folks. I wish I could figure out how to put stars on here, because I would give the dinner Mike made five or ten of them.  I will let Gabriel describe the meal (he's so much better than I am) in his next blog. Wel,l into my day, another dialysis treatment this morning. Talk to you soon. Hugs, Linda

So Here's the Story (Abridged version)

Here we are, in the middle of the latest Midwest heat wave, which was interrupted yesterday morning by a massive thunderstorm in east-central Wisconsin. That's where we were at the time, driving Linda to her first dialysis treatment in Waupaca. The lightning in the distance was spectacular, the deluge of rain not so much fun for driving. It was pouring when we dashed into the dialysis center, but by the time Linda got out a few hours later, it was 93 degrees with 137% humidity. Wunderbar!

While Linda was having dialysis, I drove the 30 miles to Redgranite, our destination for the day. The motel wouldn't let me check in early, and I headed (literally) around the corner to visit my ex-wife, Judy. Linda, in her last blog, mentioned Judy's recent car accident, but I'm sure you'd rather hear the story of how this person is still in my life to begin with. I could write a book about my friendship with Judy, so this will be the much-abridged version.

Judy and I got married on my 30th birthday, in 1981. We were opposites attracted by our proximity in the poker room at the Bingo Palace, where I had my first employment in the poker industry. I guess we were unconventional from the start--we ran away from Las Vegas to get married elsewhere. The marriage lasted three years; the only thing we truly had in common was the ability to make each other laugh and laugh and laugh. We still cared about each other but simply realized that we were not going to make each other happy.

So we became friends, and the friendship endured. We could entertain each other, but had the luxury of not being responsible to or for each other. We could have our fun and say "see ya." She also became my "family." Both my parents died while we were married, and Judy became the person who knew me and understood me best, and who wanted most for me to be happy. For the next decade, we often traveled together and sometimes lived together, platonically. I left Las Vegas in 1995, about the time she got involved with her husband now, Tom, who had worked for us when we were part of the management team at Sam's Town in the late 1980s.

Tom gave up poker dealing to become a truck driver, and in 1997 they moved to central Wisconsin where he was from. They've gotten stronger and stronger over the years, and Tom has really come through in taking care of her and everything else since her accident last month. She has found a contentment she was never able to find in Las Vegas, and the current Judy is the best version yet. Until yesterday, I hadn't seen her since 2002, so when we planned to make the first stop of our trip in Redgranite, it seemed like it would be nothing but a happy reunion.

Then she had that accident, a head-on collision in which she escaped damage to her brain, face, or spine, but pretty much broke everything else. She was in an induced coma for much of the first week, had a tracheotomy to help with breathing, reconstructive knee surgery, and more. All of her ribs were broken, which concerned me for our visit. Inevitably, I make her laugh, and I was afraid that I would crack her up--literally. But her ribs have healed, and I was happy to hear her laugh robustly more than once.

She just got home last Friday after nearly five weeks in the hospital. Her sister has come from Oregon to take care of her so Tom can go back to work. She is using a wheelchair around the house--the recovery from the knee surgery will take 12 weeks--maneuvering it with one hand since her other arm is currently out of commission (shattered collarbone and severed nerves). I spent about an hour and a half with them, and it was a good visit. She's on assorted painkillers and other medication, causing a dreaminess that is enhanced by the beatific feeling of someone who has just escaped death.

But the visit ended abruptly when she needed to lie down and needed medication. Her pattern is to feel her best in the morning and gradually feel the pain and discomfort more and more as the day wears on. We had figured on another late-afternoon visit with Linda joining us, but when I called later, Tom said that Judy wasn't up to visitors. So we're going to see her for awhile this morning before heading to our next destination at the western edge of Wisconsin. This will be a good visit, I'm sure, not the extended time we figured on spending with her before the accident, but good nonetheless. And then we'll head west.

Third day into the trip

It's almost like I was here before, I'm sitting in a Comfort Inn somewhere in Wisconsin writing my Dialysis blog. The last two days spent on the road I was able to see lots of corn fields and soy bean fields as we crossed over Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, very lovely scenery, although it's very flat country, very green  and very lush.  My first treatment is this morning, I expect it to go smoothly. I'll let you know.  I'm more excited about visiting Judy, my husband's ex-wife, after dialysis this morning, I'm looking forward to meeting her. Judy has suffered recently from a horrible auto accident, she is recovering, and I can't help but feel a good dose of Gabriel and meeting me will help in her recovery. I sure hope it will anyway. I want to send a big hello to all my friends and family who I hope are reading this, I wish you all were with me sometimes to share the trip. I can tell you one thing I'm happy about is the weather. It's hot and nicely humid, I love this weather and hope it keeps up. Driving west with the sun streaming in on my legs, is heavenly. The high yesterday was 94, Yipeeeee. Well that's it for now I'm off for another cup of coffee, to kick start my day. Love to all and lots of hugs.

A Long Day But a Good One

It's almost 9pm Central time, and we're getting settled into our room at the Comfort Inn in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. About 500 miles and 12 hours ago, we were getting ready to leave last night's motel room in Ashland, Ohio, and we had no clear idea of where we'd stop tonight. It's all part of the adventure.

Linda has her first dialysis treatment of this trip tomorrow in Waupaca, which is about 100 miles from Fond du Lac. A few days ago, the last time I talked to the folks in Waupaca, they presented us the option of having dialysis first thing in the morning, arriving at the center at 6:30am. Although that's the time we're hoping for on the last two treatments of this trip, I didn't like the idea for tomorrow. It would have forced us to drive all the way to Waupaca today, and as you can see from the way things turned out, that would've been too much driving. So I went for the 11am arrival time instead. This way, we don't have to get up early, and if we hit the road by 9am we'll be just fine.

I planned today's travels as a three-part trip. First we traveled--more or less--the Lincoln Highway for the first 240 miles. We did 100 or so miles of the Lincoln Highway in Iowa last year and thought it would be a more interesting option than taking the interstate all the way from Ohio through Indiana to Chicago. We were a bit disappointed in the part of Highway 30--established in the 1920s as the first cross-continent highway and named after Abraham Lincoln--we drove today. We thought it would take us through a lot of small towns, much like another cross-country route, Highway 20, which is two miles from where we live. Highway 20 goes through a little town every five or ten miles. It isn't as fast as an interstate, but you get to see what places look like where people actually live.

Not so on Highway 30 going through central and western Ohio. Apparently nobody lives there, because we only got as close to a town as the highway sign pointing to the local road going to the town. All we saw were corn fields, soybean fields, and. . .well, that was about it. Way in the west of Ohio, we saw the largest array of wind turbines we've seen anywhere. We happen to find them diverting to look at, not to mention the sensible way to harness power for the future of humanity.

It was more of the same as we crossed Indiana, lots of corn and soybeans, with a few more towns within sight of the road, and eventually I-90 and the industrial eyesore of Gary and points west. Then we were on the outskirts of Chicago and Part 2 of today's plan. I didn't know how long it would take to get through Chicago, but however long I imagined it might take, it was nowhere as bad as the reality. I thought we'd get a break by traveling through Chicago on a Sunday afternoon.

But the people in charge of the roads around Chicago decided that the weekend--the entire weekend--was the best time to throttle traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway by closing two lanes. So it was that it took us more than two hours, more like two and a half, to go 20 miles from the south edge of the city to somewhere near O'Hare Airport. It was brutal, not to mention 94 degrees, but fortunately our little Toyota does not believe in overheating even when going bumper-to-bumper for more than two hours with the air conditioner on.

There's only so much you can do to get through more than two hours stuck in traffic. We tried. We listened to the last part of the White Sox game, and happened to be stuck right next to the ballpark when the game ended. Even though we heard the last out on the radio, we weren't ready for what felt like something dropping out of the sky onto the car's roof. No--it was the fireworks they set off after winning the game. Next up was music, a Bob Seger CD with a lot of favorite songs.

That didn't get us through the whole ordeal either. So we wound up having Linda read to me. Ordinarily I read to her almost every day, and we've been reading a terrific novel, the sci-fi classic Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. We're about three-quarters of the way through and wanted to find out what happened next. Earlier in the day, just after escaping Ohio and entering Indiana, we stopped at a rest area, set our lawn chairs under a shady tree, and read for 30-40 minutes. Having Linda read to me was a treat. She did four or five pages and. . .a miracle! Traffic started moving.

It was nearly 6pm by the time we got moving and entered the third part of the plan. This called for getting to Milwaukee and stopping someplace after that. We wanted to bite off part of the drive to Waupaca, and we did accomplish that, since Fond du Lac is about 50 miles north of Milwaukee. Now it feels very good to be relaxing. Linda is stretched out on the bed and says she isn't moving until morning, when she'll write her first on-the-road blog. I don't blame her. So it was a long day but a good one. Except for getting caught in the seventh circle of Hell on the way through Chicago, everything went smoothly. We had good music, good literature, a good meal along the way, some baseball, and a comfortable room not too far from where we have to be in the morning.

And in the afternoon, Linda gets to meet my ex-wife--won't that be fun!

Away We go..........

Well folks, off we are again. I can't believe it's been year since our last adventure, but it has. I'm really excited to be off again, to meet old friends and new ones. I've been really busy getting ready to leave, lots to do. I'm having my kitchen and dining area painted while we are away, so emptying out the rooms has been busy work. Yes, I am taking pickles with me again this year, sweet bread and butter pickles, to pass out along the way. I made 30 pints of pickles, I enjoy making and giving them away. We will be on the road for 3 weeks this year, just the perfect amount of time to be away, I missed so much of the beautiful autumn in upstate N.Y. last year, I selfishly didn't want to miss this year. Well off to pack some stuff,I expect a perfectly wonderful trip this year, thanks to my Super Husband and all his planning. Stayed tuned for some hopefully fantastic, fun-filled adventures with Travels with Dialysis.

Here We Go Again

Since we took our big 31-day road trip last September, Linda and I have heard from many people who followed our adventures at this blogsite or through the National Kidney Foundation. That was quite heartening, partly because we did some cool things we wanted to share with family and friends, and partly because we wanted to enlighten people we don't know about the possibilities of traveling successfully on hemodialysis.

Well, we're hitting the road again soon, so it's time to return to this blog and invite all of you to come along with us again. We leave a week from Saturday, on August 24, and will return on September 16. Our departure is one week earlier than it was last year, and we're staying on the road one week less. We admit that we were dragging on the final week of last year's trip. We had had too many restaurant meals, too many hard motel beds, and too many long drives. So we'll push ourselves a bit less this time.

A bit. We still have an ambitious itinerary with a fair amount of exploration. Last year we focused on the southwest, spending ten days in southern Utah and northern Arizona. This year's main target is Wyoming, one of my favorite states, a vast landscape of mountains, forests, and range land. It is the most sparsely populated state, with fewer than 500,000 residents; it is 10th in square miles and 50th in population. That's more than wide open enough to attract us. I've seen a fair amount of it, especially the two big parks in the northwest corner, but Linda and I will be traveling some areas I've never seen before.

Wyoming is also sparse in terms of dialysis centers, with fewer than ten in the entire state. As I began planning this trip and contacting dialysis centers, I quickly ran into problems. One key to my goal of spending the most time in the Yellowstone/Grand Tetons/Jackson Hole are was getting dialysis in Cody. Located 50 miles east of the east entrance to Yellowstone, Cody is a terrific little town with a trio of wonderful museums (my favorite features the Western art of Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington) and a summer rodeo (we might catch the final night). It also has the only dialysis center in that quadrant of the state. So when the nice lady at the dialysis center explained in June that the center was moving over the course of the summer and they weren't accepting visiting patients at this time, it was a big setback.

If Linda couldn't get dialysis in Cody, the nearest centers were well over 100 miles away. To the east--the direction we'd be coming from--was a center in Sheridan, about 150 miles away. To the southeast--the way we'd head when we left the Tetons--was Rock Springs, closer to 200 miles distant. In theory, it would be possible for Linda to have dialysis on the way in to Cody and again on the way out, though that would leave us just three days in between for Yellowstone and the Tetons. I didn't want to rush through that area. I wanted to do what we did last year around Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon, namely take the time necessary to explore the side roads, the different views, the special places that can emerge as the most memorable of the trip.

There was another problem which arose when I called the centers in Sheridan and Rock Springs:  they are open only on Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Linda's normal days are Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. It appeared that if we wanted to travel in Wyoming, we'd have to switch her dialysis days. Another alternative would be to have dialysis in South Dakota before heading west into Wyoming, but calls to centers in the Rapid City area only helped me learn that there were no chairs available in that area. I was told that there are a lot more dialysis patients than there were a year ago, making it more difficult to allocate chairs for visitors. Suddenly the whole itinerary was in danger of collapsing like a house of cards.

We decided to commit to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday dialysis schedule for the whole trip. It will actually be better for her at the start of the trip. We're leaving, as we did last year, right after her Saturday morning treatment, and instead of having her "stretch day" on Monday, she'll have dialysis that day and won't have a stretch day until the following Sunday. The inconvenient part will be the end of the trip. If she has dialysis on our last Friday on the road, she can't wait until the following Tuesday for her next treatment back in Cooperstown. So she'll have an extra dialysis treatment on Saturday, making two days in a row that will start with a five-hour chunk of life-saving.

It was time to get on the phone with Davita, the company that runs the majority of independent dialysis centers around the country. They were tremendously helpful in making last year's trip go smoothly, but I hadn't called them yet because they don't operate any centers in Wyoming. The only place last year where Linda had dialysis somewhere other than a Davita center was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where the center is operated by FMC, their competitor.

Once again, the call to Davita was a long one, as we had ten treatments to discuss and officially request. He got right on the phone to centers in western South Dakota. That was the tough one. We knew her first two treatments would be in Wisconsin, where we're visiting friends. But we had found nothing between the western border of Wisconsin and someplace in Montana to be named at a later date if that turned out to be the only possibility.

He called eight or nine centers and called me back twice, first to tell me what the two or three possibilities were (90 miles in different directions from where I really wanted us to be), then to tell me which one has a chair for Linda.It's in a little town called Rosebud, on the Oyate section of the Pine Ridge Reservation, near the site of the Wounded Knee massacre and uprising. Last September we visited the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, and this time we'll be in Sioux territory. That should be interesting.

With the first week taken care of, we moved on to Week Two, beginning on Labor Day, September 2. Ideally, we could get dialysis in Cody Monday and Wednesday of that week. We could get there sometime over the weekend and not have to be to the next destination--somewhere else in Wyoming--until Friday. That would give us a good amount of time in the Tetons. To that end, I had sent a copy of the blog from last year's trip to the woman at the Cody center, so she would see how serious we are about doing everything we can on our travels. Davita found a chair available in Bozeman, Montana. That could work, though it would be 100 or so miles in the wrong direction. The first 45 miles of the drive, from the north entrance to Yellowstone and Gardner, Montana, is one of the most spectacular in the northwest, with Jim Bridger Canyon winding through a valley spread out on both sides of the road. We could make a loop up there, west a little, then south and back into Yellowstone through the west entrance.

That call was about three weeks ago. As I write this, the second Friday treatment site remains uncertain. By the time the Davita agent talked to the center in Rock Springs, they had no chair available. Same in the little center in a small reservation in the center of the state. Casper might have a chair. They wanted to wait until closer to the requested date to make it official. So we're optimistic about that. Meanwhile, a few days ago, I called my friend in Cody, who told me that they haven't even made their move yet. Now they're not sure what the timetable will be, which means she can go ahead and do what she wants until they tell her otherwise. What she wants is to set aside a chair for Linda on the first Monday and Wednesday in September. Now we're all set. Except for Casper and the last two sites on the trip.

That was the main part of the puzzle, and with dates and places set, I could move ahead with the rest of the preparations. That's an obvious key to travel on dialysis: take care of the dialysis first, know where those time and place commitments must occur, and build the rest of the itinerary around it. With eight more days of planning available, I'm sure it will all fit into place by the time it matters--and we'll be on the road again!