The plan was that we'd swing by my house for a day or two and then continue on to Texas, where my mom would get her second cataract surgery (the first eye is doing beautifully). While she recuperated (with my sister looking after her the way she did after the first surgery), I would go back home in my car and get rid of more of my stuff and visit with my kids and friends.
My mom called her ophthalmologist to schedule the surgery, but he can't even examine her until September 13th, at which time he'd set a date for the surgery, after which she would need to recover for three weeks. And that would put a serious dent in our ability to see autumn or to get through the Northeast before snow socks the place in. So she decided to wait until later for the surgery.
So that means we should be able to leave for the Northeast in September, which also means that I won't be going back to California until after our Northeast loop, probably December sometime.
We only stayed at my house for one night, because (unlike people who work for a living and know these things instinctively) we found out yesterday this is Labor Day weekend coming up, and we certainly didn't want to be on the main highway out of Southern California with all the long-weekend vacationers.
During our brief stay at my house, I managed to pick up all my mail, get into trouble with the association management over where I parked the RV (I can't wait for my house to sell so I don't have to deal with them anymore!), clean up trash (somebody parked in my driveway and applied window tinting to their car while I was gone and left their trash there), pull some weeds, dust, and play Dominoes with the kids. Then we left this morning after rush hour and had minimal traffic.
Our second stop was El Centro (the first was outside Alpine, where the temperature was still cool). When I took Scooter outside at the rest area, it was as though I had walked into an oven. The thermometer in the motorhome window (granted, it was on the sunny side) said 120 degrees.
We're staying tonight at an RV Park in Dateland, Arizona ("Home of the World Famous Date Shakes"--I took my kids there one year when they were younger, but none of us was brave enough to try the date shakes), and even after dark, it's still a blast furnace out here. At sunset, we watched thunderstorms in the distance that filled about a third of the horizon. But the rain hasn't made it here. The owner's wife said her thermometer this afternoon read 116 in the shade. It was down to 100 by sunset.
People talk about it being a dry heat, and that does make a difference. But it's still heat. More than plenty of it and no end in sight. I thank God often that I live after air conditioning became commonplace.
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