Welcome to the final day of my South Carolina trip! On the formal itinerary for this trip, I had set aside today for a hike at Congaree National Park. But when my visit to Fort Moultrie failed (Day 4), I decided to shuffle the itinerary … Continue reading South Carolina Trip Report (Day 8)
On the morning of Day 7, I awoke at an appropriate time, after an appropriate amount of sleep. So…yay! My plan for today was to visit the South Carolina Aquarium, then wing it. NOTE: If you are thinking of going to the SC Aquarium, the … Continue reading South Carolina Trip Report (Day 7)
Good news, everyone! For the first time on this trip, I had a night free from restless limb syndrome! In fact, I woke up very gradually, feeling like I’d finally had a good night’s sleep. But I hadn’t. It was 3:30 AM. So I played … Continue reading South Carolina Trip Report (Days 5 and 6)
I have not slept well at all on this trip. But this hasn’t been my usual “just can’t sleep” insomnia. This has been restless limb syndrome (RLS), which is far worse. I consider it a form of sleep deprivation torture. With RLS, I actually feel … Continue reading South Carolina Trip Report (Day 4)
The first day of my South Carolina trip was pretty much unplanned (and unphotographed – so sue me). We started by driving into the town of Pawleys Island. This place has a nice beach, but seemingly not much else. We spotted a “Pawleys Island Historic … Continue reading South Carolina Trip Report (Days 1 thru 3)
If James Brown is the godfather of soul, is “Weird Al” Yankovic the godfather of novelty records? Or would that be Dr. Demento? And who is the godfather of boy bands? And why is it always god? Are there any devilfathers out there? Actually, “devilfathers” sounds like some kind of snack food. Maybe deviled ham and deviled eggs served in a sandwich, where the bread is actually devil’s food cake. Which leads me to wonder, why is Satan so heavily involved in our food? And are deviled eggs allowed in heaven? I demand answers!
Anyway, none of the above is relevant, because I’m just here to talk about my upcoming trip to coastal Carolina! Next week, I will be heading to the south end of the North Carolina coast to spend a day or so with some long-time friends from Iowa who will be visiting the area. From there, I will be heading into South Carolina. I will be seeing Myrtle Beach for the first time, though I’ll just be passing through. The bulk of this trip will be spent around Charleston, SC. Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, Capers Island, and multiple mansions/plantations are on my itinerary. And we must not forget the Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge! On the way home, I will likely visit Congaree National Park and/or a pinball place in Rock Hill that I recently learned of. I bid you eye dew, or something.
Happy Thursday, and welcome to part four of my March 2019 trip around Arizona! (To start at part one, click here.) This week’s installment is the grand finale, the one place in Arizona where all of the world’s tourists want to go: The Grand Canyon! … Continue reading Arizona, part four (March 2019)
There is no carpet in my house. All my floors are either hardwood or tile. I have a Great Pyrenees – a giant fluffy dog whose hair collects pine needles, leaves, and various other detritus from the yard, then deposits it all on the floor once he comes inside. And of course, there’s the hair itself – shedding. For these reasons, I make it a point to sweep the entire house (with a broom) once a week. Recently, I bought an electric leaf blower. It’s a low-end model, so it’s not very powerful. So…today I tried using the leaf blower for my weekly house sweeping!
The results were not as I had hoped. But they were also not as I had feared. I had been afraid I might end up blowing a bunch of papers off desks and tables, or that garbage might get blown out of the bins. None of that happened. What I had hoped for was to “push” a pile of leaves and dog hair to the front door and blow it out of the house. Instead, the dog hair and leaves AND a copious amount of dust went airborne. With the exception of a few larger objects (twigs and pine cones), the hair and detritus refused to be corralled. On the plus side, I was able to easily get dust/hair bunnies out of some normally-hard-to-reach places. And I made it through the whole house in much less time than it usually takes with a broom. But I’m going back to the broom next week.
Welcome to another exciting edition of ThrowBack Thursday! This week, we are “throwing back” a whopping THREE YEARS! Last week, we visited the super cool town of Jerome, followed by the tourist-clogged town of Sedona. Now it was time for something completely different: a volcano … Continue reading Arizona, part three (March 2019)
I mentioned a month ago that I was trying Yet Another Drug for insomnia, and that I would reserve comment until I had been on it for awhile, since previous treatments had worked initially but not in the long term. Well, I think the long term has arrived, so I can confidently say this one works! Mostly. The drug in question is Mirtazapine. My Parkinson’s specialist told me to take half a tablet each night, and to increase to a whole tablet if the half tablet wasn’t working after about a week. It wasn’t, so I did. After a week at the increased dosage, it still wasn’t helping. So the doc told me to increase it again – to a pill and a half. Since then, I’ve been getting between five and seven hours of sleep almost every night. Five hours is not ideal, but it’s a definite improvement! However, I still have the occasional night where I wake up shortly after midnight and can’t get back to sleep. Such nights are happening no more than once a week now, and I can handle them at that frequency.
Throwback Thursday this week will be part three of the Arizona trip I took a few years ago., with the conclusion coming a week later. There will be no Throwback Thursday for the two weeks after that. Instead of writing about trips from the past, I will once again be excreting near-realtime Trip Reports. This time, I will be road-trippin’ to the South Carolina coast, mostly in the vicinity of Charleston.
In other news, I’m considering moving again. House prices are going berserk here in the Charlotte area, and I have been receiving unsolicited offers for far more than I paid when I bought my home just a year and a half ago. The obvious problem is, I would have to pay an equally inflated amount to get another house in the area. So, I’m back to where I was when I quit working a couple years ago…pondering a move to Somewhere Else. I saw in the news recently that Mankato, Kansas is offering financial incentives to folks who want to move into their fine city. But “Mankato” sounds suspiciously like “Mansquito” so I’ll probably have to pass.
Voyages with Parkinson's 