Midwest Trip 131002

We have been here for just 24 hours, and Cindy has accomplished some of the first items on the list: an escorted doctor visit, lists of medications, face-to-face evaluation of the situation.

I have installed Wi-Fi on their iMac (for our own convenience), tightened a dangerously and precariously loose blade on their ceiling fan, and demonstrated to them the joys of the attic fan. (They have stopped running the air conditioner, because keeping the house at 61 degrees when the outside is 99 is so expensive. It is considerably less hot than that now, but the house can be sweltering anyway.)

Alas, however, they don't like the fan because of the dirt and dust that the incoming air introduces into the house and the curtains it blows on its way in. (To clarify: This is in the middle of the suburbs; there is no perceptible incoming contamination.)

The trailer, sitting in the sun but with windows open, is more pleasant inside.

It has been a bit warm; sunny, and obviously humid. However the nights are cool and filled with the sounds of lovelorn insects--something that we both miss. (Last night we had crickets, katydids, cicadas, things I don't know [never did], and a barred owl. Excellent!)

Rush hour through Denver yesterday morning and through Kansas City in the afternoon were nearly nothing. Furthermore, the arterials here in Independence were nearly deserted as we drove between the freeway exit and the destination neighborhood.

Very different.

The trip was tough but not difficult; the challenge was in its length compressed into as few hours as possible. For Cindy, the next weeks (expected to number four) may be far tougher. Her father and his wife are likely to feel similarly.

More later, should anything interesting occur.

Mark_
_Arcadia_
Independence, Missouri