March 18-24

From a dampish, warmish Texas,

Jim and I left Chillicothe on Saturday morning, but first I must backtrack some --

Jim had a sweaty night on Thursday, but seemed to get through Friday okay. I joined Pat at HyVee for coffee at 4:00 and when I returne home about 5:00 - I found Jim draped over the back edge of the truck - in the midst of a Meniere's attack. Evidently the prelude was Thursday night. I went downstairs and got the walker and we eventually got him into the upstairs bedroom where he sweated for another two or three hours. I gave him some dry food to munch on eventually and about and hour or so later he was moving around the house slowly. He had spent some of the time I was gone loading the truck with suitcases and I guess this brought on a full blown attack.

He had a good night and we left about 7:00 on Saturday a.m. to head towards Austin. I drove two or three hours during our drive to Ardmore. There is a good "steakhouse" there that we enjoy. We had a smooth drive on to Austin on Sunday morning.

I know Iwill leave out some of the things we have done so far - a marvelous Mexican breakfast this morning, a marvelous reuben sandwich last night, a drive to the Johnson ranch where we saw the visitor's center, but will return for a further visit another time we are here, ate at Johnson City at a local cafe - good chicken fried steak as well as chicken fried pork chops, I took the guys to Twin Peaks (a local girlie bar) today, we ate Greek food on Sunday evening, etc.

Dara taught a night class on Monday evening and left about 6:30 for San Marcos this morning. We ae meeting her for Ethiopian food later today.

I don't think I've mentioned the mess we had when we sent a birthday gift to Dara the middle of February. We insured the package for $400 - and it never was delivered and signed for by either Doug or Dara. The Pflugerville post office insisted they had delivered the package and that Doug had signed (although he was at work with a driving time of 45 minutes - one way). Jim filled out paperwork at Chillicothe and that eventually brought a turn down from a regional office since the box had been delivered and signed for - according to the local delivery person.

Anyway, Doug set up a time for us to go meet the local post mistress today and we were greeted with a very different story. Carrier now says the signature does not look like Doug or Dara, and that maybe he delivered a block away (street is Valley rather than Village) and that the local post office inspector was going to the house today to see if they had accidentally signed for the package. I'm guess they will not admit to this as this month long absense of the box would probably mean a federal follow-up, but at least it means that maybe we will get the insurance returned to us. Thank goodness we had kept a receipt of the original sale, insurance paperwork, etc. Hopefully I can give a positive report next time.

We plan on spending much of Wednesday with Doug and Dara. We will begin the trip back to Chillicothe on Thursday. I will then get in contact with my local doctor to see if he has received a report from the urologist - and what I should do next as I am not too happy about waiting until the middle of June.

Be safe.
B.