Change of plans

After what’s happened over the last few days, my last post seems near prophetic.  

In a nutshell, I said that we try to travel without campground reservations, as that allows last-minutes changes if something comes up. And two things have come up.

First, the day I wrote that post our tow car engine noticeable “stuttered.”  Twice.  So instead of driving to our next planned stop -- a campground near a river in the Ozarks -- we looked for a campground near a Honda service center.  A military RV park at Scott Air Force Base was just 8 miles from the closest Honda dealer so we booked a spot for three days. 

About that same time, Cooper’s health took another bad turn, so Jim put Cooper back on his meds and we took him to a vet clinic in Carlyle, IL, for an anti-nausea shot. My brother’s vet clinic in Ohio gave him one when we were in Ohio this summer and it really helped. But Cooper is still up and down with the nausea. Also, he can’t consistently get in and out of our motor home. The same thing happened when we were at Atwood Lake with our friends Sandy and Carl. Once we left Atwood, however, Cooper started going in and out of the rig again, so we thought the issue was resolved. Now he’ll walk in and out of the rig in the morning, and out again later in the day -- but at night he just won’t walk back up either of the two ramps Jim uses to assist him.  His not walking up the ramp is a problem because he won’t let you carry him without a struggle.  

Bottom line: We are on our way home to Salt Lake City where we can eliminate the stairs problem with a little construction job on our home’s steps.  We’ll figure things out from there.

Cooper looking handsome despite feeling under the weather.

While we were figuring things out about the car and Cooper, we stayed at the military RV park at Scott Air Force Base. Just outside the base main gate was an aircraft display. Top to bottom: Boeing Stratotanker; C141B Starlifter; and a C-9A Nightingale.

This is a C-130 Hercules, used to air drop troops, fight fires, and for aerial refueling among other duties.  The military plane that crashed earlier this week in Afghanistan, and in which 11 people died, was a C-130.