Since starting our fulltiming adventures in 2012 there is one thing that we have learned that is fundamental to being happy - be flexible! Sure, you have to make plans and have a general idea of what you want to do and where you want to be at any given time, just don't carve any of those plans in stone. So far this whole summer has been one change in plan after another, we have been practicing our flexibility skills to the max.
It started with our blowouts (two of them) on the trailer at the very beginning of our trek west from Georgia to Texas. Our planned layover in New Orleans had to be skipped because the downtime for repairs used up the days we had set aside for touring The Big Easy. However, there is body damage that will need to be addressed and will need a trip to the factory to be done. That is an unplanned trip to Kansas. A call to the service manager revealed that we can't get in until August 22, almost two months from now. So we'll just duct tape the loose sheet metal down and go about our travels until then. But then again, maybe not.
The last post ended with mentioning something about a tooth ache. Within a few days it was painfully clear that this was an issue that was not going away without professional help. So it's off to the dentist for John where he learns that his tooth ache is a raging infection from an abscessed wisdom tooth. The next ten days were spent taking antibiotics to knock the infection down so the tooth could be extracted.
As scheduled, we arrived for the tooth extraction. John to get the tooth pulled, Cyndee to drive home because the dentist said that John would be in no condition to drive. But before we began, the dentist repeatedly asked John if he wasn't sure that he wanted to see an oral surgeon instead. He said that a wisdom tooth could be a real challenge to remove without sedation and all he had was Novocaine injections. Being without dental insurance, a $200 extraction was way more attractive than a multi-thousand dollar oral surgery. So John told the dentist to get to pulling. Poor choice.
Despite doubling the number of numbing injections they just were not effective at getting to all the nerves affected by that giant tooth deep in the jaw. With clamps attached, the dentist would begin pulling on the tooth and as if a marionette string were attached, John's leg would go straight up in the air. The dentist backed out and said he would go no further, he was calling an oral surgeon in Amarillo and setting up an emergency extraction.
Amarillo is an hour's drive away and within two hours there is a gaping whole where there once was a wisdom tooth. John was thoroughly doped up, doesn't remember getting home and feeling pretty good until everything finally wore off a couple days later.
Thinking that the tooth would be extracted and that we would hang out a couple of days and then hit the road again was pure folly. Doing simple things, like breathing, was painful. Doing something like bending over would make chrome gnats appear. John was in no shape to prep the rig for travel or drive. Time to be flexible.
A couple of days turned into four and four turned into eight, soon the end of July was approaching. We enjoyed the extra time with family and friends but day after day it was 100+ degrees. The heat was wearing on us and we started looking to Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado for some mountain-cooled air where we could hang out until our appointment at the factory in Kansas.
After hours of searching on-line it was clear that we would not be going to cooler climes. There were no campgrounds that had a space available big enough to hold our rig with more than one or two nights open. We needed three weeks. We get to exercise our "be flexible" muscle again.
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