Charleston, SC (visit niece and banging tree limbs)

On the 14th we drove from east, central Georgia after visiting the Browns to Charleston, SC.  Tim's oldest niece, Sarah, lives there.  Sarah works two jobs, as a CVS pharmacy tech and at a medical/surgery center pharmacy.  She starts classes this fall at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston to achieve her doctorate degree.  She is a very busy young lady.  It just so happens that her boyfriend, Kyle, lives in Charleston.  We were lucky enough to meet them for dinner.

Niece Sarah, Linda, Tim, & Sarah's boyfriend, Kyle

I am told Kyle shaved just for the occasion.  We must be special.

We stayed at the Campground on James Island, which is a county park.  The park is almost a destination vacation spot.  Besides a very nice full service campground, there is hiking, biking, swimming and site-seeing.

Above picture shows the view from part of James Island.  Numerous people were fishing on the dock.

When you come by the entrance to the campground at night, this huge owl is there to greet you.  Much of the paved roads in the park have electrical outlets on both sides.  We learned the island park hosts a tremendous Christmas light show.  The only problem with getting to and from the island with a tall RV like ours is that you'll bang every tree limb in Charleston.  Our bus is 12 foot 3 inches to the highest hard spot (satellite doom), but extends another foot with two flexible antennas.  Charleston doesn't trim three limbs, so we did it for them.  The banging noise was unnerving.

Up next: another proton pal visit in Virginia.

Ken Brown

The drive from Jax to our destination in Georgia was a little longer than we expected.  We arrived at a small RV park in the woods east of Jesup.  The RV park has brand new utilities for electric, water and sewer with new garbage cans.  The owner met us on the short gravel road which led to the RV park.  We got hooked up and settled in.  A squadron on bugs invaded us.  After a winter drought this area has had rain everyday for three weeks straight.  The bug population had exploded.
We called fellow proton patient Ken Brown to meet for dinner in Jesup.  Ken and his lovely wife, Marcia, live in the country on the other side of Jesup near a village called Surrency. 

Linda & Linda with Marcia & Brown

Ken is a pastor at a church in Waycross.  Marcia recently retired after a long career as a high school math teacher.  Ken finished his treatments about a week before Tim.  Ken and Tim's daily treatment times were usually close to each other.  We kidded each other that we'd keep the treatment table warm.  Marcia & Ken stayed at Fernandina Beach near Jax.  I found out that Ken's family lived in the Tampa Bay area decades ago and Ken & Marcia have visited many times.
We had a great visit and dinner and said goodbye and best wishes with big hugs.
Next day we drove to Charleston, SC.

UFPTI revisited

We arrived at UFPTI early before the weekly prospective patients, patients, and graduates luncheon.  Usually parking is tough to find, but we were early enough to get into to patient treatment parking lot.  Tim entered his code as he had done over 40 times between January 16 and March 14.

Tim in front of UFPTI

 Proceeding toward the lobby we said hello to Roscoe, the parking attendant.  He always has a smile and a pleasant word to say to make patients and visitors welcome.  Inside the lobby we greeted the receptionist, Dinah who welcomes everyone.  Dinah has a big smile on her face as we greet her.  We don't recognize anyone else in the lobby nor the therapists who come out to get patients.  Tim asks Dinah if Rachel or Ramon are working.  Ramon is off and Rachel is at lunch.  We ask to see Rachel when she is available.  From the lobby we head upstairs to lunch.  We meet two patients at the table.  One patient is halfway through 39 treatments and the other is a week from finishing.  They are both doing well.
Tim's favorite therapist, Rachel, approaches him from behind (that's not a good thing if you know what I mean.)  At least she didn't have a balloon in her hand.  Hugs followed after no balloon was in site.

Tim's favorite therapist, Rachel

Rachel and Tim held a very friendly banter during his treatments.  They would tease each other relentlessly.  Rachel is an Alabama girl with a heavy southern drawl.  She would call Tim to the treatment gantry from the gowning room with a long drawn-out "Mister Tyyyyyyylllllleeeeerrrrr".  Rachel has a great personality, extremely friendly and very knowledgeable regarding her job and the patients.  Tim never looked forward to his daily radiation treatments, but the therapists made the treatments bearable.  Rachel and Ramon were two gems among the great group of about a dozens therapists who treated Tim.
After lunch we drove the bus to east, central Georgia to near Jesup to met a fellow proton patient.

We left today, Tuesday June 12th.  Plans were to leave about 9 a.m.  Well, we pulled out of the driveway of the house a little after 11 a.m.  Kept finding more stuff to do before we could turn the key on the coach.

Linda with Muffin & Tim holding Snoopers ready to leave

We took the above picture of us and the bus on our driveway the day before, Monday, June 11th.  Our old, elusive cat, Snoopers, is a pain in the _ _ _ to catch and put in the bus especially the morning we try to leave.  So, when Tim was lucky enough to catch her Monday early evening, we decided to take this picture and throw her on the bus to spend the night before we left.  It worked!

Driving through Tampa today was a breeze.  Sometimes it can be a headache.  You never know.  We got to within 25 miles of Jacksonville and saw a very dark storm front ahead.  We pulled over and got a quick bite to eat hoping the worst would pass.  It did.  We drove in light rain until reaching our campsite at Pecan Park RV Resort in Jacksonville.  Tim stayed here from January 16 to March 14 during his treatment for prostate cancer at the University of Florida Proton Therapy Center.  Seemed like home away from home.

Linda & Tim at Pecan Park RV Resort

Fortunately, the rain ended and the sun came out.  We decided to take a walk around the RV park after the 4 plus hour drive.  The RV park wasn't nearly as busy as when time was there during the winter.  A coach pulled in next to us after we got parked.  We found out they bought in 1999 a new Country Coach Prevost bus conversion from Lazy Days RV.  They said our coach looked similar to their coach except for the paint job.  They sold their bus a year after they bought it and later bought another coach.

After our walk we drove to the old Riverside neighborhood to eat pizza at a local joint.

Carmines Pie House

Tim had eaten at Carmines a couple of times during his treatment.  They were very busy for a Tuesday night, but we got seated at the bar and ordered.  We enjoyed the pizza and had some left over for another day.

Tomorrow we'll attend the weekly lunch at the Proton Therapy Institute, so Tim can say hello to some of the staff and therapists who treated him.  In the afternoon, we'll head to Surrency, GA to visit a couple we became friends with during Tim's treatment.

Getting ready

10 days before we leave on June 12th.  I'll bring the bus home on Sunday, June 10th, so Linda can pack her things and check what I have already packed. Linda goes through the entire bus double checking everything.  Plus this trip we're taking things for our children's families for the June 22nd wedding of Linda's oldest nephew. Our kids won't have to bother with the stuff at the airports and on the planes.  We also have our first grandchild, Caden, making his first plane trip for the wedding.

 I keep extra stuff on the bus, so I don't have to pack much.  I always pack too many clothes. Linda will check my things also.

I think about the planning we've done for this trip.  Usually Tim spends 6 months prior to departure reading magazines, books, travel guides and looking a paper maps.  This trip was planned almost entirely using the computer.  Online websites and maps enabled us to figure out where we wanted to go, stay, and see.  It's amazing how technology has changed our lives.

We've have some upgrades done to the bus this year, so we hope everything works.  We installed a 32" HDTV in the salon in place of the 26".  The finicky Bose audio surround sound system was re-connected.  We hope it runs during the complete trip.  Usually it stops working for no reason along the way.  We can switch to the speakers from the TV, so we're not without sound.  Linda has to watch Fox News and both Tim and Linda watch sports including the European Cup Soccer Championship, Wimbledon Tennis and of course, the Olympics.

We also had a new dash gauge display installed.  The old display ran from a PC computer running Windows 3.  The old display was starting to blink and sometimes refused to boot.  We're amazed that it lasted this long.  How many of you have a PC or MAC that was built in 1998 still running....nobody!

The bus has three roof air conditioners/heat pumps that are also 1998 vintage.  The front unit has been giving us some trouble for a couple of years.  It gets used the most because of the windows in the front of the bus.  We installed a new unit, which required upgrading the electronic control boards in the other two units and a new Comfort Control Center (3 zone thermostat).  Hopefully we'll keep cool this summer.  The bus has five air conditioners, so it's hard to keep up with them.

Come Tuesday, June 12th will put ourselves and two cats aboard....1 unwilling cat and 1 willing.  We have thought for the last three years the old cat, Snoopers, was on her last trip, but she keeps pulling through.  We've had her super charged at the vet this spring, so we think she'll complete another trip.  The young cat, Muffin, will go anywhere.  She doesn't care as long as she's with Linda.

Our first stop will be Jacksonville to plays tennis with friends Tim made while being treated at the University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute for prostate cancer between January 17 and March 14.

See our future post after our Jacksonville visit.  Stay tuned....