Review: What it Takes to Save a Life

 What it Takes to Save a Life: A Veterinarian's Quest for Healing and Hope

by Kwane Stewart

So inspiring that when I reached the end that I immediately looked into volunteering at a pet-friendly homeless shelter. Or contributing to his visiting veterinarian charity.  But I'll need to think over the logistics of all that.

This is a candid and very unstructured memoir of a veterinarian who practices among the homeless people of LA (or other places; I got confused) in his off-hours. He starts his career at an animal shelter with a very large kill-to-adopt ratio, but he is able to make a huge improvement before moving on to other jobs.  Cool--I only wish there had been more detail about how he did it.

And the rest is an intriguing mix of stories from his younger life (a difficult one but with loving parents who got him through); current-time autobiographical details; and stories of the homeless people and animals he cares for. With a smattering of essay-type material on subjects such as why homeless people's animals are usually much better behaved and socialized than non-homeless people's. Mostly it's due to their being close to their owner--24x7.  With much together time, dogs learn how to make us happy. And us them, too.

Lovely book--I only wish it had been twice as long.

Review: My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy

 
by Clint Hill

A photographic memoir of Mr. Hill's time as a secret service agent protecting Jackie Kennedy.  Lots and lots of lovely and revealing photos, plus fun stories of their time together.  Although all this occurred in 1961 through 1963, a little bit before my days--I was born but knew nothing about anything--I found it a fascinating look at history, especially the part where she met the queen.  They were both in their early thirties (Elizabeth II was 35 and Jackie 32) and oh, how young they looked!  Such brilliant smiles!

I'd never known anything about her before, other than she eventually married the amazingly rich Aristotle Onassis, so I assumed she was just another political snob. But she wasn't at all--she was a devoted mother, a great horsewoman and horse lover (and dog lover). She was genuinely interested in history and culture; studied much during their travels so she could fully understand what was going on in the countries. And she spoke fluent Spanish.

Wow.  And I grew to really like Mr. Hill. The premise of the book is that he and his daughter are going through all the old stuff stashed in his house to prepare it to sell. They're especially looking for a medal he received for bravery, but he had no interest in finding it. What they found instead, though, was a poignant trip down memory lane for a very loving and honorable man.

Review: Kept: An American Househusband in Paris

 by Gregory E Buford

So many smiles crossed my face while I was reading this!   I wanted it to go on and on...but I guess he hasn't written the next one yet.  He and his family are leaving Paris and heading for someplace new at the end, and I'll just have to be patient until they get there and he gets another book written.

In his first book his wife was stationed in India. His many adventures were a little off-putting at times, with the culture shock making me scratch my head and wonder how he could stand living in such a peculiar place.  He took it all in good humor, though, made some lifelong friends and enjoyed his time immensely. 

But this one is even better, and maybe a little bit funnier, too.  His three kids are a hoot!  Loved it.

Review: Dead stop

by Barbara Nickless

Intense and gruesome, almost to the point when I had to skip one of her murder scene descriptions so as not to trigger my overactive imagination. But other than a few TMI moments, I was glued to the pages and turning them rapidly.  Very, very rapidly.  The mystery was first rate, but the action was not for the faint of heart.

The detective, retired marine and current railroad cop, is investigating a murder of a woman on the train tracks and her investigation leads to a paper with a series of numbers written on it.  They look like a railroad crossing identifier...except the crossing doesn't exist in any database. What gives?

Great stuff.   Maybe a few too many bodies scattered along the way. But that seems to be what to expect from this series, so be prepared.

Review: Birding at the Bridge

Birding at the Bridge: In Search of Every Bird on the Brooklyn Waterfront
by Heather Wolf

I enjoyed her other book very much, but this one is not what I hoped for. After reading a brief introduction about why she was birding that particular area and what she hoped to find, I expected chapters of exciting observations. But it was very commonplace and dull, mostly--little one or two page snippets about specific birds she saw, where and when, but not in enough detail to be more than the slightest bit interesting.  

Occasionally--but seldom--she told about her excitement in finding the particular bird at the particular place.  But usually it was just the name, a picture, and a very brief description.  I only "finished" reading it by skimming and picking out the few that interested me.

Magnus Returns From Thor, Day 5

Saturday, 9 November 2024

Bye to Boomland and all the geese--

We were able to get a quick and early start next morning but we drove in rain almost all day.  The destination was the North Little Rock KOA, where I'd made a reservation because it was full hookup, I had a membership to get 10% off, and it was on the route.

Very much on the route.  Note to self: if you choose a campground beside a major interstate highway, you will hear the major interstate highway.  All night long.

Of course, when we're inside Magnus the Mighty Motorhome we hear nothing.  Even with the TV off.  Which never happens.

Other than the noise, it was an okay KOA.  I wouldn't stay there again unless it was necessary.  Crowded to the gills--all those people, and all so close together!  I shudder.  And all had dogs (or cats)  I hate private campgrounds

There were two dog parks and some space around the tent camping area where I could walk Molly.  In the rain.  And squirrels all over, which made for a very exciting walk.  Until it quit raining, and then everyone brought their dogs out to walk.  I wish I had an old, calm dog who could be trusted to let other dogs alone and not pick fights. But instead, I have Molly. The bully.

And that's about it.  Next morning we got up early, hauled out and went home.

NOTES
1. When making plans, weigh heavily against private campgrounds.  Except the few with little business and lots of space around.

2. Off-season parks without reservations are a strong option.

3. Neither of us likes traveling without Molly.  It's easier, especially in motels and big cities.  But who wants to spend much time in those?  We'd rather be out walking muddy trails with the pup.

4. Don't order steak unless you're at a steakhouse. Unless you think it's close enough to being a steakhouse that you can trust them.  Or not.

Magnus Returns From Thor, Day 4

Friday, 8 November 2024

Still getting up earlier than we need to for such short drives. Today's was about 3-1/2 hours, as simple as getting on I-70, going to I-57 and taking it south aways, then getting off at Reeves Boomland.  Oft seen; never visited. I don't think.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway the people at campgroundreviews.com said it was self-service and only $20 for full hookups in a level, grass and gravel lot, with a pond and trees across the road. And that's what it was, exactly.  Although no one mentioned that the pond would be full of Canada Geese--cool. Plus a single Kingfisher that I saw on the second loop around the pond.

 

Very nice. The only slight issues were the highway noise and the lack of company. Yes, I know that lack of company is not typically an issue for me, but the park was wide open to the road with no fences or gates or anyone on premises to keep an eye on your stuff while you were gone.  There was one other RV parked there when we arrived and another one came in later. Good--at least there were two other big honking expensive vehicles there so that we didn't stand out like a sore thumb.

I saw a woman get out of the second RV and direct it into the site, but other than that I didn't see any of the other people.  Which is also fine. I just wanted vehicles around, not people. And certainly not people with dogs.

The only other issue was the goat's head stickers in the grass.  Where ever campers go they carry the annoying little seeds around the country. This was my first encounter with them farther north than Oklahoma, but there they were.

So anyway, Molly got her two walks around the pond and a later walk round and round the campground (that's when we found the stickers).  Ed and I got our walk down to Reeves Boomland where we bought candy. And then it was time for showers and supper.
 

The venue of choice was Lamberts Cafe, Home of the Throwed Rolls.  Which was a literal interpretation. At first a guy came by and scooped fried okra onto our "napkin" aka paper towel.  Then a guy came by and tossed me a roll.  It was good although that didn't prevent me from lathering it with copious amounts of whipped spread to make it even better.  I turned away the molasses lady not thinking that it was probably sorghum molasses, which I love.

My vegetable plate was so-so. Great turnip greens but the other stuff (beans, cucumber, beets) was just okay. I didn't get a second roll.   When I was about finished eating, a guy came out and threw rolls all over the big dining room from a cart in the front.  Just as I was getting ready to put up my hands, he ran out.  And by the time he came back I was out of the mood.

Ed's chicken-fried steak was okay but not great  But he filled up on fried okra.
Verdict: try it again, now that I know how it works, but definitely order something different.

 

Magnus Returns From Thor, Day 3

Thursday, 7 November 2024

That was the day I'd originally slated to be leaving home to start the trip to Wakarusa and pick up the Magnus. So we're a couple days ahead of plan, which is great. I guess.  Instead of leaving home, we're headed to home.

We got a pretty early start. It hadn't been all that cold overnight. Supposedly in the mid-thirties, but I don't think it got there.  

The plan for the day was to go to Lincoln Trail State Park near the Indiana/Illinois border. They didn't take reservations after October, but all the reviews I'd read said that walk-ins (RVs without reservations, not human walkers) could find plenty of pull-thru sites.

Still, there was much anxiety about not having a reserved, assigned and paid-for site waiting for us at an unfamiliar campground.  It ended up being a fairly easy drive, though, and when we pulled in the signage was clear--check in with the park host, pick your site and pay for it. 

Which actually worked. The host and hostess were just then packing up their RV to leave for the winter. They'd been there since March and were clearly ready to get moving--to visit family for the holidays, then head to Texas for the cold months.  Nice lifestyle.

But they took time to help us pick the best site and pay for it and make sure we were all set up before they left.  It didn't take long to hook up, so we had all afternoon to ourselves. Ed and I took a walk down to the boat ramp, and when we returned, the hosts were gone. Their RV was still there but site looked "battenened down" and the two pickup trucks were missing. We didn't see them again.

Great place, great hosts. And a great price--$20 for water (didn't need it but water fill spigots were nearby), 50-amp electricity, and a dump station on the way out.   Birds abounded and even a stealthy hawk--either a Broad-Winged Hawk late for migration or a Red-Shouldered Hawk who didn't have the rich coloration.

Good night!

Magnus Returns From Thor, Day 2

Wednesday, 6 November 2024

The Holiday Inn Express had a pretty good breakfast with service starting at 6, so I set the alarm for 5:20. And did NOT hit snooze.  Somehow it took the whole 40 minutes for me to drink coffee, pack and walk Molly (me), while Ed used the time to drink coffee, pack and load the Jeep. We were at the breakfast buffet by 6:10, and headed out of town shortly after 6:30. Not bad.

The drive from there to Thor was about 5 hours but we were going to lose an hour somewhere near the Illinois/Indiana state line. We never did figure out where. But we were on site a little after one p.m. and getting the runover from the repair manager.

They did a great job, fixing everything they'd agreed to fix, and even adding in a couple of things we hadn't asked for. We were muchly happy.

And then our work began. Again. We had to unload the Jeep into the motorhome, flush the tank, and set up everything we needed for spending the night on the lot there.  There were about five other RVs sitting on the lot but I never saw a person in or around any of them. Other than the guys in the service center--who kept the service bay door closed--and the people in the office, I saw nobody.

It was going to be odd being the only humans sleeping in the middle of a parking lot in the middle of a manufacturing/light industry area.  There were big trucks going by a couple of times, although not in our immediate location, and little of anyone doing much of anything anywhere. Molly and I took a long afternoon jog up and down the deserted streets. We jogged on the street a lot--why not? and only had to jump up onto the sidewalk or grass a few times.

After our exercise, Molly got left in her motorhome while Ed and I went to get some supplies for the trip home. It was getting late by then and the time change on top of the DST change a few days back was playing havoc with out internal clocks. In other words, after buying steaks and fish and eggs and stuff at the Wallymart, we stopped for fast food on the way back. Groceries, gas, and fast food--all complete.

And home. And once again, eating Jimmy John's in the evening gave me horrible nightmares. Worth it. (I guess)

Magnus Returns From Thor

Tuesday, 5 November 2024

Since the Thor service manager didn't call us on Monday, like he promised, Ed called him today. This morning, early. And he said it was done.  All done--and if they'd only bothered to tell us the night before, we'd have been ready to leave!

We left anyway. I got up at 7:30 and started getting ready almost immediately, and I believe we pulled away at about 9:15. Luckily we'd left most of our stuff piled on the floor, ready to shove into suitcases and take off.  In the end the only things I forgot were Molly's chew toy and the lunch I was going to make.

We stopped for gas at Geyer Springs Road near Little Rock and made it all the way to Salem Illinois before stopping for the night. I'd made a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express there which was pet-friendly for a $25 fee. But even though I mentioned the pet twice--once during the reservation and once at check-in--I don't think they ever charged me the pet fee.  The price (ridiculously huge) charged was the same as the one I saw on the web page.

I ended up having to call the hotel to make the booking because the web page didn't have a way to select "pet" rooms. Which was good, because then I could be sure to get one. Funny, though--when I told the desk clerk what I wanted, she first proposed the double-bed suite room for $170, and when I demurred at having to pay so much, she immediately located a king bed normal room with accessibility features. Which we didn't need but at least the price was better, about $140.

There was a Jimmy Johns a mile away from the hotel, so we got gas and then stopped in there to pick up sandwiches. By the time we'd eaten, walked the dog--they had a fenced run, yay!--and got ready for bed, it was nine o'clock. Old TV series (Green Acres and Hogan's Heroes) put us to sleep.

Jimmy Johns so late at night gave me awful nightmares.

Magnus Goes Home to Thor, Day 8

Thursday, October 31

Holiday Inn Express turned out to have a pretty good buffet breakfast. Eggs, sausage and bacon, bagels but no cream cheese!  Peanut butter had to fill in.  And juice.  We ate quickly and got on the road by seven-ish. We got in to Princeton where we stopped to pick up whataburger by 6:45.  Drove in rain all morning--horrid.  Not heavy rain and not thunderstorms, thank heavens, but nearly constant.

And home.

Magnus Goes Home to Thor, Day 7

Wednesday, October 30

Oh, the day of stupid mistakes.  But first, the normal stuff.

Our hotel had a tiny little breakfast laid out. Plenty of coffee, fruit, oatmeal and muffins, but nothing for a meat-eater like Ed to subsist on.  So we popped over to a nearby restaurant--Kylies or some such--for eggs and stuff. I had biscuits with gravy, which were very good (yes, I know gravy is made with meat drippings, but I loooovvve it and never make it at home) except that it was more than I wanted. The two biscuits were served with the gravy on top, so I couldn't do one with gravy and the other with jelly like I prefer to do.  But it was still pretty good.

Then we checked out and headed up to Elkhart to kill a few hours at the RV Hall of Fame Museum. Since we were passing right by the repair shop, we stopped to talk to the service manager but he didn't have a firm date yet. No problem--he promised to call us later and he did.

 

 

The museum was pretty nice.  Lots of old RVs from the 1930s up through the 1970s or so. I wished the placards had been more informative--often they were sketchy. But we got to go inside about half of them and could figure out the features for ourselves--like the water tank approach, the heaters and lighting and all.

 It is so amazing to think that back before I was born, people were already loading up their gear into a box on wheels and traveling across the U.S. to see the sights. I mean, we all have an image of the covered wagon pioneers--they traveled to find a new home. And the dustbowl refugees of the depression--they loaded up their lives into pickup trucks or wagons and moved to California.  But these exhibits were of people like us--people who had a home but took vacations in Florida and Grand Canyon and Yosemite and all those scenic place. How cool is that?  Our grandparents--MY grandparents and I'm a grandparent myself--were going places.

I was bowled over.  There wasn't much else--the modern RV exhibit was limited to this one extremely huge and ridiculously ugly big thing.  And behind that was a display of pre-fab modular homes and a big sales pitch about why these were so much superior to the old mobile homes and even better than bricks-and-sticks houses.  They were nice, I'll admit, and seemed to be designed to withstand a hurricane or maybe even Texas turdfloater rainstorms.  Interesting; not exciting.

And now to the disaster.  With a couple of hours to kill, I decided to make a reservation at the hotel for the night. I got online on my phone with it's three-by-six inch screen and found the hotel I'd chosen previously--the Holiday Inn Express in North Springfield.  Except...it was in Springfield Illinois and I had not made a note of the state.  So when I reserved a room, it ended up being in Springfield Missouri. Nine hours away.

Our Thor tour was supposed to take an hour, from 3 to 4. But we were the only two people on the tour, and we kept getting into conversation with the nice guy--the product design manager for several lines of motorcoaches including our Palazzo. It was fascinating, very. But we weren't done until after 4, and we headed down the road with me driving and Ed supposed to navigate.

Which was impossible. Springfield Missouri was nine hours away and Springfield Illinois wasn't on our route. He figured that out quickly, and we kept heading south while he tried to make sense of my reservation.  Eventually we realized the error, so I asked him to just navigate toward St. Louis, and when my driving shift was over I'd get on the phone and try to fix the error.

Which I did, I think. I still haven't seen the refund for the non-refundable room, but the guy on the phone got us a reservation in Effingham Illinois, about 4-1/2 hours away.  The other mistakes made were me trying to do this on my phone without having pencil and paper and a flashlight available--he kept telling me numbers and asking for numbers and addresses and I kept having to switch my phone back and forth, looking them up and trying to remember them.

But he was very patient. For some reason I couldn't hear him at all when I put the phone on speaker, even when I turned the volume way up. Weird.

But we made it, stopped at Jimmy John's and got supper, and settled in by 9:00.  Note to self: eating JJs at 9pm is not a good idea. I woke up with nightmares more than once. Probably screaming in my sleep.

Magnus Goes Home to Thor, Day 6

Tuesday, October 29

Chicago wakes up,

 

 

 

I got to walk the Magnificent Mile, or at least a part of it. Not all that magnificent--lots of big buildings but not as great as Philadelphia, and lots of shopping but nothing as cool as the open air mall at Honolulu's Waikiki beach.  We took the walk after breakfast to kill some time before we headed out.

 


 

 Some history of the hotel

Inside the hotel

No 13th floor!!!

Outside the hotel (I think)

 

 

Walking around the area, after breakfast:

The plan for the day was to go back to the Thor manufacturing area and spend the night in an inexpensive hotel in Napannee, about 10 minutes south of Wakarusa.  And on the way there, stop at the Indiana Dunes National Park and do some hiking and see some birds.

And that is what we did...but not quite. We saw two mute swans (new bird for me!!!), a mess of mallard ducks, and some Canada Geese. And we did less than a mile of hiking.

 

Sorry to be such a jerk about it, but Indiana Dunes was the lamest National Park I've ever been to.   It appears to be a tiny dis-contiguous set of small parcels of land, mostly along the lake, joined together by local highways and interspersed with tiny townships. Some areas along the lake have parking areas with permits required by the township. This is something I've seen along the ocean, but not in "the middle" of a National Park!

 

We didn't see more than a few gulls and I failed to identify them. I did see a Bald Eagle at the marsh where the ducks were.  And a great blue heron.  The problem was that it was very windy and I had on blue jeans and uncomfortable tennis shoes.  I'd worn the shoes all the previous day and they were making my toes hurt.  So it was very beautiful, but there weren't any birds and I didn't feel much like hiking the little pathways.  We stopped at Old Baldy, a "huge" dune, and walked the trail to the beach there. About 1/4 mile.  They wouldn't let you climb on the dune...why?  Dunno.

 
And the park map was horrid so we had trouble finding anywhere else worth walking to. I guess I should have researched better. Usually you can ask the people in the visitor center and get better instructions than you can find online, but when I asked the guy at the center about the auto tour route he didn't seem to know what I was talking about, and for the hiking directions he just waved his hand at on the map.  He was nice and we talked about various things, but not very informative.

Then we went on to Napannee and checked into our hotel, and by then it was time for supper. We chose to go to Heinnie's Family Dining (and Bar) which was a 25-minute drive up to Elkhart and worth it.  Good salad, great waitress, good grilled fish and wild rice, and a rib-eye steak that was perfectly cooked.  They had slow roasted prime rib, too, but Ed chose the steak instead.

 

We were stuffed and happy and tired, so back to bed it was.  Very nice hotel, too--a local place, not a chain, and it gave us 10% off for being Thor repair customers.

Magnus Goes Home to Thor, Day 5

 Monday, October 28

My alarm was set for 5:30, but I got up a half-hour earlier. And then, rush, rush, rush to get ready for the service techs to come at 7:00. Which they did, right on time.

Sadly, they missed us--Ed was dumping the tanks when they came by our parking spot.  When he got back, he had to go flag down a guy.

Before that we had a near disaster of great proportions. Ed started pulling away from the site with the electric cable still connected. Possibly it would have just pulled the cord out of the socket and dragged it along the ground, but the plug is pretty hefty and might have stayed in place.  I saw him moving and ran screaming toward the front so I could flag him down, and--unbelievably--he heard me!  And stopped in time. Whew.

Then when the tech was looking over our issues, the jacks wouldn't level us.  That's never happened before with this motor home. Weird coincidence.  It kept saying the battery was low.  But even though it was chilly-ish, having gotten down to 34 degrees the night before, it wasn't cold enough to explain that.  So, we don't know.

We were finished by 8:30 and headed to Chicago.  Only problem was, when I'd made the plans for the day, I didn't take into account the time change BACK to central time for the day.  I'd known that Indiana was in the Eastern time zone, but not that our day in Chicago would be back in Central.  So that gave us an extra hour to kill.

 There it is

My plan to kill time if we arrived before the Museum of Art opened was to walk through a couple of parks and look at birds. Not a good plan. It was chilly and breezy and all the parks appeared to be closed for the season or simply deserted of bird life.  If I'd been alone, I'd have found a coffee shop, acquired a cuppa, and sat in the sun to people watch.

But that sort of thing never seems to appeal to Ed, so we walked through Millenium Park, saw the famous "bean", and then walked down to Lake Michigan and back. We didn't go out Navy Pier, a famous amusement park, because just the walking we did was enough to do a number on Ed's hip and back. He needed the exercise, but not like that--yuuck. No fun walking in pain.

 
 

 

 

 

The bean in Millenium Park:

When we got back it was near enough to lunch time (for our stomachs, at least, since they'd already started adjusting to eastern time) that we just went down to the parking garage, sat in the Jeep, and ate lunch.  Very neatly polishing off the last of our camping food.

Then the museum. Like wow and then some.  I was bowled over often, and I'm not all that easily bowled over.  Among other cool things we saw were
Some Monet,

That American thing,

Le Gran Chatte or whatever,

Plus a medieval armor display and a whole lot of other stuff.

We were very tired though. All that walking and standing would make anyone tire, and Ed had started off in pain. And didn't take an Aleve pill.   Plus, even though the first couple of hours in the museum were very pleasant, around mid-afternoon tons of people flooded in.  It was almost impossible to stand and stare at a the paintings from a decent distance without ten or twenty people wandering around in front of you.

 So after our many hours of gaping at art, we headed for the exit.  The StayPineapple hotel check-in time wasn't until 4pm, but we arrived at about 3:30 and the desk clerk didn't have an issue with that.
.
The only other thing I'd planned to do was to walk the "Magnificent Mile", a fancy shopping and business district in downtown.  But Ed was clearly too tired.  He'd have done it if I asked, but I looked at the situation and decided it was just too much.  We ordered delivery from Giordano's and watched an old Harry Potter episode.

The food wasn't very good.  The guy at the service center said that the whole deep-dish Chicago pizza was just a gimmick and that real Chicagoans ate the Tavern Style.  So that's what we ordered.  The sauce was good but the crust was like a biscuit crust and not tasty at all.   And I couldn't figure how how to use the online menu to do a half-and-half, so I just got Ed 's meat pizza and shared it.  No yummy veggies. So sad.

Nighttime views from our hotel windows: