November 24, 2004

November 24, 2004

Trout Lodge

DAY 160

 

WOW ! SNOW !

This morning started with a couple of hours of ice pellets, which turned into a couple of hours of big, fluffy snow flakes. Apparently some of the staff here have never seen snow before. I saw a young woman from Texas all excited about taking a photo of herself with snow falling around her, and a young man from Australia who had not seen snow before. It was big flakes of wet snow, so it melted immediately upon hitting the ground. Falling snow wreaked havoc on the roads around St. Louis, and the airport. Many guests arrived today, because tomorrow is American Thanksgiving. They were all talking about the condition of the roads, and the many fender benders. Amateurs ! Kansas City, which is a couple of hundred miles northwest of here, got about 6 inches of snow over night.

I spent most of the morning making phone calls in Trout Lodge. The most important one was the one that resulted in our next WorkCamper job. We are going to be working for the month of January in Livingston, Texas, at the C.A.R.E. Centre, at Escapees Headquarters. We have been planning all along to be spending Christmas at the Escapees RV Park at their headquarters in Livingston. Today I finalized arrangements to work at C.A.R.E. for the month of January. C.A.R.E. is Continued Assistance for Retired Escapees. It is an adult day care / "assisted living" centre for elderly Escapee members who need some daily assistance with "living", but who don't yet want to "hang up the keys". C.A.R.E. provides three meals a day, program activities, health testing and monitoring, transportation to medical appointments, etc. for Escapees members, most of whom are still living in RV's on the C.A.R.E. site. Their clients continue to live in their RV's, but spend their days at the C.A.R.E. facility. This enables Escapees who might need "assisted living" to remain living in their RV's, with their spouses, or even alone. Sometimes their need for assisted living is only short term, while recovering from illness, for example. After recuperation, they're back out on the road. Our work will entail working in the kitchen, driving clients to medical appointments, and answering the phone in the evenings after the day staff have left.

After a few weeks of doing quite well, Toby has been in poor shape yesterday and today. He doesn't want to eat. He's weak. His back end isn't functioningwell, so he's stumbling and staggering. He can't jump on or off the bed or couch. He's having a lot of difficulty going up and down the stairs from the living area to the bedroom area. He's cold. Whenever I can be in the trailer, I try to keep him covered and warm on the bed, the sofa, or cuddled on my lap. He needs help eating and drinking. Poor kitty !

My work shift today was pretty much a bust. The weather was bad. I was assigned to 2 afternoon pontoon boat tours, followed by 2 fishing trips. There were no sign-ups for any of them. I did some personal office work, spent a couple of hours in the trailer cuddling Toby, then helped for a short time with Thanksgiving decorations. This evening is cool and snowing lightly. Some of the staff are dressing somewhat like we do back home when it’s about 20 below ! I say again ... amateurs ! On the other hand, Program Angie is still wearing sandals on bare feet.

DSK