Then Jean's son, Richard, decided to move to another city and in order to help him have a free week in which to move, Jean offered to take his daughter, Vivian, age 7, on the trip with us. So on July 1, we started off.
Here's a picture of Vivi having fun making faces in the back seat of the car.
And here we are driving across the Annapolis Bridge.
Below are our gracious hosts, B.J. and Mary Ann, who shared their beautiful contemporary house, complete with swimming pool, with us.
And three people cooling off at the deep end of the pool. The weather was horribly hot, in the 90's and very, very humid.
On July 2, we went to an outdoors music concert in Lewes. My friend, Jean, has her back to the camera talking to her sister, Mary Ann.
On Sunday Jean and I drove down to Ocean City, MD where Rocky and I used to live. The Boardwalk has spiffyed up, and the crowds are still there.
Here's the house where Rocky and I used to live. Originally, it was the 2nd floor of a house that was built on concrete blocks in the old Ocean City town district that was about to be torn down for a new bank building. Rocky bought it, removed it from its concrete blocks that was the first floor, and moved it over to the west side of Sinepuxent Bay, and added a large addition to it that was our living room and a wrap around deck. The people who have bought it now have added a second floor to it, torn down the L-shaped deck on this side and changed the entrance to the other side. I barely recognized it and wish I could have seen what they've done inside!
The day after the 4th, Jean and I drove to Baltimore where I had my appointment at Johns Hopkins the following day. That night we went to the famous Inner Harbor (shown below) where I ate Maryland blue crabs. They were the smallest crabs I'd ever had; the legs were too skinny and small to have any meat in them. The spice wasn't as hot as I'd remembered, either. But just as well since I was nervous about my appointment the following morning, and my tummy wasn't in optimal shape for spice and beer. (I drank only 1 Sprite and 1 beer with 7 small blue crabs. Jean declined to eat any.)
My doctor's appointment went well once I got in to see him. They have a very efficient process for seeing patients, they told me, but there was a snafu that affected me and caused my waiting time to be longer than it should have been.
But my frustration about that was short-lived when the doctor reassured me that there are alternative ways to try other than surgery and wrote me a prescription for epidural injections to be administered by an Orthopedist in Abingdon. Then I return to Baltimore in 3 months for one of their check-ups to see how I'm doing. Unfortunately, easing the lumbar pain isn't going to help my breathing difficulties. So I just have to wait and see whether a new general practioner will be able to help in that area. My family practice physician is retiring. She has been my doctor here in Bristol for 28 years, so that's caused an unexpected search for a new doctor. Since I'm moving to Abingdon, I'm hoping to find a good GP near my new home.
Overall, I'm glad I went to Johns Hopkins and saw Dr. Kabaish as he was straight forward, but did not predict a dire future as the Bristol doctor had done.
