Patty’s Parents Start Next Life, 3rd week Buffalo NY and other stuff

July 29 – August 06, 2014 

Man oh man how things change so quickly!  This was the next to last week for us here in Buffalo for the summer and it has gone so very fast!  This past week has been very retrospective for me and Patty as well as just being plain emotional.  Patty’s dad Tom has been going downhill with dementia but now he is in a nursing home!  To me it just seems like yesterday I was playing golf with this guy and joking around about life.  I was today looking through some computer pictures and found some of Christmas 2010 that were taken at Patty’s parent’s house before Tom had any problems.  That was just 3.5 years ago!  Sigh!

Most days this past week our plans have been centered on Tom in the hospital.  Tom had an internal catheter surgically placed a couple of weeks ago and it has been a challenge to keep it from being infected.  Last Wednesday Tom was unable to get out of bed and his wife Shirley and daughters Sandy and Cheryl were also unable to get him up.  So they needed to call for an ambulance to get him up and taken care of at a hospital.  At the hospital it was found that he had another infection that went septic and was causing him to be very weak.

Over the past week Tom has become stronger and most days he relates to his visitors.  However, due to the dementia, he doesn't remember things like the day, year, or how old he is; he is 83 by the way.  Because he is stronger, on Tuesday the 5th the family had him moved to an assisted living facility near his house.  This facility was only to be temporary until a suitable place is found with an open bed. This may take a while!  Anyway, this place close to home turned out to be not suitable, but that was not known until after he was taken there.  The family has found a better place for him but it is a bit farther away for everyone to drive to.   It looks like he will be moved on Thursday the 7th.

Tom coming off the transport from hospital to the assisted living facility
on Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda, NY.

We did manage to do a few other things last week besides being at the hospital.  We had a very nice evening out to dinner with Patty’s sister Sandy and her husband Mike.  We went to a local restaurant near to us on Grand Island called Dick and Jenny's. Then on Monday the 4th we went to the “Taste of Clarence” which was in Clarence NY, a suburb of the Buffalo area.  

Very nice place to eat on Grand Island NY.

Dinner at Dick and Jenny's with l-r: Mike, Sandy, Patty, Me

These are showing up all over the area.  The Bill's Football team is up for sale and one of the bidders is Bon Jovi who it is rumored will take the team to Toronto CN.

This is across the street from the Clarence NY Post Office.  The town put up banners with the area fallen in the military.  One of those fallen was Patty's nephew Travis who is pictured on the banner above.

The Buffalo Blues Brothers car at the 'Taste of  Clarence".

Buffalo Blues Brothers performing.

The "Taste of Clarence" also has a car show.  I'm not a car guy but this one was interesting.  It an 1981 electric car.

On Tuesday the 5th as we were coming home from the assisted living facility we heard on the radio that the rock group Heart was playing at Artpark in Lewiston NY. Lewiston is just 10 miles north of our RV site.  We decided to go for it and attend the concert. The concert starts at 8 pm so we needed to eat and get tickets as it was now already 5 pm! I went online and was able to purchase the more expensive tickets in front of the stage, how cool!  We threw a couple of burgers on the grille and that was dinner.  We were on our way by 6:30 pm.

The Heart concert was great, much better than most concerts I have been to.  Nancy Wilson can really sing! Her sister Ann can sing as well but Nancy hits it out of the park! We got to the stage a little after 7 pm and then worked our way to the front.  We got to within 20 feet of the stage edge, it was a great center spot!  They only played for about an hour and twenty minutes but it was non stop.  They ended the show with 3 Led Zeppelin songs, the Immigrant Song, and Misty Mountain Hop.  I can’t remember the other song though. Nancy’s voice is perfect for the old Zep songs because she can still do Robert Plant’s voice as it was when he sang the songs.  If you ever get a chance to see Heart it is well worth the time.  

Arriving at the Heart concert.

Looking up at the stage lights.

Our Front of Stage tickets!

Ann and Nancy Wilson take stage.

Ann can really move around the stage!

Ok, just a spot about RV tank dumping for the RVers out there.  In a previous post I showed how far we are currently from the sewer connect, about 40 feet and slightly downhill from it.  I don’t have anything long enough to slant that much sewer hose to the sewer inlet. This means that the hose will completely fill up except for the last couple of feet to the RV connection.  So I can’t leave the grey tanks open and fill the hose up because they will fill with sediment in the month we are here.  

So what I have been doing is leaving the tanks closed and dumping when the black tank is full which is about a weeks’ time for us.  This is not really a big deal; however, getting the hose clean is some work each time I dump since the hose fills up after each tank dumps.  I really want to get a lot of clean water through the hose after dumping the black tank.  This means that I first dump the black tank and then disconnect the hose from the RV and walk it back to the sewer inlet to get everything out of the hose.  Then I fill the black tank back up with just water from the flush line and then dump that through the hose and again walk that back. Next, I do both grey tanks the same way, one at a time.  As you can imagine, this takes quite a bit of time to accomplish, about an hour.  OK, now done with the RV stuff!

We are now nearing the end of our time here in the Buffalo area for this summer.  This is the first year where we are staying for a month or more at our family destinations.  So far we did a month in Indiana and now we are just finishing up here in Buffalo.  We are headed next to Keyport New Jersey on the Atlantic Ocean.  We have found that a month is good amount of time to get really connected where we are.  It would be nice if we could remain at each location all of the time.  It is still amazing to me at how hard it is leave a place but at the same time look forward to the new place we are going.  Each place starts to feel like home.  I guess it is true what they say in this lifestyle that your home where you park it.

Patty's brother Tom and his girlfriend Kat stayed over at our RV one night last week.

Stay tuned!