Old Virginie

We have arrived! Well, we did that yesterday. The trip was good. We left Wednesday afternoon. Things did not go quite as expected on Wednesday.

I got everything packed and arranged, and got the car loaded. Anne and I figured we would stop at Wendy's and get a quick lunch before her pt. Well, we pulled out of the driveway and started down the street. Anne shrieked STOP!!! Said she saw the guy next door fall flat on his face. I turned around and pulled into his driveway. This is Helen's house. The pink one next to us. Helen has gone into a nursing home--she has Alzheimers and is too bad for home care now. The family has all been at the house, selling off some of the things, and the house is on the market now. All have left, except for the brother-in-law who was staying with her. Anne and I dashed out of the car and he was still face down in the side yard. He had been working in the yard, watering, etc. It seems he tripped over the hose, and was a bit stunned. He absolutely could not get up. He is a big man, quite tall and I bet he is 250-300 pounds. He was red as a beet and soaked with sweat. He asked us to help him get up. After about 10 minutes of struggling, we got him onto his knees and upright. That was about as far as we could get him. Although several cars passed, no one stopped till a nurse-type went by, and stopped and asked if we needed help. YES!!!!! She wouldn't help with lifting, as she said she had bulging disks. Oh well. She did have the bright idea of looking for a chair. I found one in the garage, although it didn't help a lot, as we couldn't give him enough assistance---just Anne and me---to get him into it. We had asked if he wanted us to call anyone or call 911 and he had said no. The nurse kept saying he should be checked (although she made no effort to call) and he kept saying no. We couldn't get him in the chair, and Anne went and got my cell out of the car and called 911. They are just down the street on Murrell, so it didn't take them long to get there at all. I was glad she called---I couldn't see getting him in a chair even, and just leaving him. I imagine he would have been okay, but we just couldn't do it. Especially since we couldn't even get him in the chair. Once he knew Anne as calling, he managed to go on his knees to the bottlebrush tree--just a couple of feet away, and managed to pull himself up. He still wasn't really ready to walk, mostly held on to it, then used the chair as a walker and headed for the garage. He was right there at the front of the garage when the EMT's arrived. They got his to sit down, andchecked him all out. He is about 77, has diabetes, some heart trouble and bad knees. His vitals were all fine, he declined to go to the hospital. They got him into the house and gave him water, and left just before we did. Anne went across the street and got Joanne, and she came over while the EMT's were there, so there is someone nearby to check on him as needed. By the time we left, it was too late for lunch.

Off we went to pt, which took the full hour this time. We stopped and got some food to go after that, and then went on up to get Mike at the car place. Even with all that, we were less than 15 minutes late getting him.

We had a good trip on Wednesday once we were on the road. We drove for about 4 hours, and got to Damien, GA. Spent the night there at a Hampton Inn. It was really nice.

We got a good early start Thursday morning, were on the road by 8.15, after filling the gas tank. We made good time, had good driving conditions the whole way. We saw two accidents on the way. They had already happened, but fortunately traffic wasn't backed up in our lanes. The first was a semi on its side in the median. The southbound traffic was all backed up and there were police and emergency vehicles there already. The other accident was on our side. It was a van off the road, down into a gully type thing off the shoulder. Just the one vehicle. Anne and I think that the guy had a tire blow violently---she saw some gouges in the road. There were a number of semi's and other vehicles that had stopped, no police yet. It looked like there was more than enough help, so we went on.

We got to Jo and Eric's just before 5 p.m. Their house is really nice! Very pretty, comfortable, etc!!!! It was great to see Jo again and to meet Eric! We are having a good time visiting, etc. Mike and Jo are out right now, examining all the plants, etc. I think Mike has his camera, looking for photo ops!

Becky and the kids will be over before too long. It will be good to see Becky--haven't seen her since we lived in Virginia. And we haven't seen the kids yet at all. Wow.

We will head out for Maryland and the sheep and wool festival tomorrow morning. Hurrah, although it will be sad to leave Jo and Eric. We are having such a good visit with them, just wish it could be longer.

Take care and more later! No photos till we get home, didn't bring the cord for downloading onto the computer.