Accident Looking for a Place to Happen

I think I need to stay home, locked in a safe place!

Remember how Bill smashed my hand while putting up drywall?  My hand was doing pretty well until I ran that very same knuckle into the door jam of the RV.  Now, really. I had four other perfectly good knuckles that I could have rammed into that lousy piece of metal but, no, I had to re-injure the same poor knuckle that was trying so valiantly to heal! Boy! Did that hurt. I could feel it all the way up to my elbow and my hand again looked like the Dough Boy.

Okay - I made it through another hand episode. Everything was okay until we reached Sioux Falls and I had to take the sway bar off the RV hitch so Bill could back into our site. It was hot and rainy and, my first mistake, I was hurrying in order to beat the rain and to appease my darling Bill who was drumming his fingers with my slow motion. Any RVer or boater or whoever knows the joys of getting ready for a trip in the pouring rain or dealing with an inpatient spouse. That morning we had pulled out of Custer, SD in the rain. We had dried out on the trip across SD (did you know that SD is a very long state driving from the SW corner to the SE corner?) and I had no desire for a repeat of the wet performance in the evening.

Then my second mistake. Not paying attention to what I was doing. Well, actually, the hitch stuff is Bill's MOS. I take care of the inside stuff and he takes care of the outside stuff so I do have an excuse when dealing with the hitch business. Anyway, I pulled off the wrong securing pin first. When I pulled off the other one, the stupid and very heavy piece of equipment fell on my right ankle. Now that really hurt!

I could have said a few choice words but instead I spent the next few moments hopping around on one foot and swearing under my breath that I would never again in my whole life touch that lousy sway bar. Originally, I thought about swearing that I would never go anywhere again with the RV but I knew I would not live up to that oath. Not touching the sway bar was a better bet.

In the meantime, the running van with Bill still drumming his fingers was sitting in the middle of the road, blocking all traffic, and the campground host was waiting to direct Bill into our site. No sympathy from either one of them.

The RV finally got situated in our space and I limped around getting my jobs done. It wasn't very long before my ankle looked very similar to my hand – except that my ankle was a much darker color.

Today we drove down from Sioux Falls, SD to St. Joseph, MO. I kept my ankle up on the dashboard and admired the scenery as we drove down I-29. I really like this interstate, especially the part of it at the lower part of Iowa into Missouri. You can really see the bluffs off to the east with the flat prairie to the west. And again, lots of green fields.

But there is one thing for sure – tomorrow we are going to the old section of St. Joseph, MO and no swollen hand or purple ankle is going to keep me from wandering around the historical section!

Oh – one neat thing did happen while pulling into the campground in Sioux Falls. With all the airplanes flying over, I realized we were at the end of the airport runway. Then the overhead sounds changed so I looked up – in time to see an osprey fly over in helo mode and banked hard to the left. Obviously, it was coming in for a landing. Bill looked up in time to see it. He told me later that he had never seen an osprey flying in helo mode, only in airplane mode. I quickly called Eric to ask him if there was an AF base up here that had ospreys but he was busy chasing our two little granddaughters out of the parking lot at his squadron building and couldn't talk to me then. Oh well - it was fun seeing the osprey fly over.

This is all I have to say for now. Keep your fingers crossed that the pictures I'm trying to download will load okay. Or else this post will have only words.

And then – more later . . .

P.S. - I tried to download pictures.  No go.  WiFi is too slow.