Road Trip

Carol and I are going to go on a "Road Trip" as we have not been on one for a while and need to escape the desert for a few weeks. I believe we will leave on the 22nd or 23rd and be gone until we get home or it is time for my throat surgery. Yes, I am going to have throat surgery to correct a run away muscle thatis choking off my esophagus. I am seeing a specialist at USC Medical Center on Monday so that we can schedule the surgery. They said it will be 4 - 6 weeks before I can get scheduled in with him as this is not an emergency. I can not eat much and throw up 10 times a day but it is not an emergency as stuff still gets through.

Back to the trip -- We are taking Slim's Toyota van and going up the California mid-section to Oregon, through Oregon to Washington and then over to B.C. Canada hopefully. The big difference in this trip is that we are going try and go on secondary highways as much as possible and stop to see every "Monster Ball of String" that is advertised to trap tourists. Oh, it will be fun. Also, we can count and record the GPS locations of the 12,043 Mc Donald's, Wal-Mart's, Dairy Queen's and Fried Chicken joints along the way too.

One has to wonder how do you finance this massive expenditure with gas at $4.50 a gallon ? -- Good question; we are going to spend our entire 2.2 % increase in Social Security ( the first time we gas up ) and after that its a crap shoot. Given that we may conk out in "Flap Jack" California which is two tanks a gas away. I can always wash plastic plates at a local Fried Chicken place and Slim can " pan handle " the 14 dozen yellow #2 pencils we are taking to be prepared for the "BIG BUST". We think it is a great back up plan. Actually, the Van gets great fuel mileage so the cost is controllable to a certain degree.

I'll send you little up dates of what is happening ,and if possible , a few pictures of interesting things as we go. We aregoing to have fun, enjoy ourselves and relax for a short time.