Phannie

Phannie
Photo taken near Monument Valley, Utah

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Bathroom Checks Out Okay

It had to happen.  In six years of RV travel, we have been fortunate in avoiding a debilitating illness that would disrupt our plans.  Until now.  On our planned day of departure from OKC, I awoke with terrible stomach cramps and began the series of, uh, rituals that are generally associated with gastric distress.  After thinking back over the previous day's food ingestion, it seems likely that I picked up a bug from a real dive featured in a segment of Food TV's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  There were a couple of items I ate that Sandy didn't, and we suspect one of those was the culprit. 


Anyhow, I was in no condition to drive, so we advised the park that we would be staying an extra day.  Although I felt quite weak the next morning, I decided to drive Phannie home, and the trip was completely uneventful, thankfully.


At one point, Sandy sweetly offered to drive, but she quickly withdrew that suggestion, perhaps upon noticing all the color drain from my already pale face.  Now, my dear Sandy has many gifts and talents, but dealing with machinery, especially vehicles, is not one of them.  She will be the first to admit that she hates driving and has no sense of direction, and I'm pretty sure she has avoided a significant accident this long because of the many prayers that go up when people find out she is driving somewhere.


Garages are particularly challenging for her, and it should be noted that she has managed to collide with a center post, a side post, a freezer (twice), and she has even collided with a vehicle I was driving!  Some time ago, she called my office in a panic because, in attempting to back out of the garage in our Suburban, she had struck the right side of the garage door frame and tore the tail light assembly off the car.  When I arrived at home and raised the garage door, I found the Suburban parked sideways in the garage, a configuration she somehow attained while trying to maneuver farther away from the side of the garage.  After sitting immobile in my car for some time, staring at the image before me, I finally strode over to the Suburban and extricated it from its position.  Sandy appeared at the door about that time, visibly miffed--not because of damaging the car, but because she had missed her hair appointment.  She quickly called her hairdresser and explained what had happened, to which the hairdresser replied, "Oh, this is not good, girl; you need to find a way to make it your husband's fault!  That wasn't difficult at all, as I heard Sandy say back to her, "Well, it WAS his fault; he parked too close to the wall!"  


You may now have discerned that it is not entirely necessary to feel sorry for Sandy as I relate her escapades in this blog.  She gives as good as she gets, and I get away with less than you think.


Perhaps now it is clear why it might not be the best idea to put Sandy behind the wheel of a 40-foot, 32,000-lb. motor home.   The things that could happen in such a circumstance are limited only by one's imagination.


We had only one other hiccup while we were in OKC.  At one point, we lost power to all the AC plugs, and when I attempted to reset the circuit breaker in the coach, I found none of them tripped.  An RV tech happened to be in the park that day and showed me where to reset the inverter circuit breaker in the battery bay.  I guess the PDI was not as decent as I thought when we picked up Phannie.


How did Sandy occupy her time when I was attending training classes?  Well, she has some favorite TV shows, and she's reading Laura Bush's memoir.  She also likes to keep up with friends and family with e-mail and Facebook. 


Sandy checks Facebook




So this closes out the shakedown cruise.  We got to know Phannie a good deal better, and we think we're going to be great friends.    

5 comments:

  1. I think a lot of us fellas don't make good passengers. I'm nervous with anyone driving regardless of who it is & the only place of comfort for me in a vehicle is the driver's seat. That's quite a track record Sandy has & her reponse to the Hairdresser sounds like something most of us guys have all heard before........

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  2. Excellent report on the first of, hopefully, many such excursions in your wonderful coach.

    You are a brave man my friend!! I think you exceeded my descriptive limits when writing of Sandy's driving experiences. I need to be very careful or I will find myself relating even more to the outdoors after being tossed from our 360 square feet of living space.

    We look forward to more travels....

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  3. I have to agree with Gordon on this one..you are indeed a brave man..to discuss your wife's driving ablitites..I drive, but don't like it too much when Doug is in the car...he makes me nervous..always muckin' with all the buttons!!..geesh can't he just sit still..I haven't killed him YET!!..have a good one..hope Sandy hasn't thrown you in the 'dog house'..we know it is all in 'good fun'..we all know our limitations!!!

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  4. NOT good when something you ate can make you soooo sick. We were headed to OK City and had reservations at Twin Fountains for the 22nd of July but had to return to Dallas to be with a friend. We still plan to visit Twin Fountains soon.

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  5. I am a bit behind in my reading but glad I caught this one. The story of the car and garage is soooo funny. I still feel sorry for Sandy. Poor girl.
    Our daughter lives in Houston. She is here in Ohio with us for a few days. She said she doesn't remember the last time she was in 50 degree weather. Yes...you two best find some place else for next summer. Enjoy the ride!

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