Pivot day!

Well, just to prove that our luck isn’t endless, today was a day of unexpected events. I’d like to say we navigated smoothly through the challenges, but it was more stressful than I would like to admit.

We got up early to get Melissa to the dentist to get what we thought was a temporary crown 🦷. The dentist office that she picked was better prepared than we were. He looked at the post sticking up where the crown was and decided he needed to build up the tooth before adding the crown, so he ended up laser cutting back the gum to expose more of the tooth root, then added some material, let that harden, and then with a state-of-the-art scanner, scanned her mouth and then 3D printed a permanent crown, and installed it. Good news is there is no follow-up. The process took most of the morning

Dan, determined not to waste valuable vacation time, did laundry 🧺. When Melissa still wasn’t ready, he drove back to the camp site, packed up the trailer, dumped the tanks, and went back into town to pick up the groggy and sore patient.

The drive was mostly on local roads which slowed down our progress, and we found our next campground on a beautiful reservoir, but the RV spot we had was too uneven to get properly set up. We struggled for several hours to change plans. In the end, we ended up stealing the sight next to ours and luckily the renter (who arrived later) said they didn’t need the site for another day, so we stayed put. About an hour later, another camper offered us an even better site, but Dan was too tired to pick up and move again after trying to set the camper up for several hours.

After settling in, we took a short hike to a beautiful overlook, but I think we are going to call it an evening as soon as the sun sets

We were able to check in at home via our Starlink (bad cell coverage here) which was critical as Melissa’s mom had surgery on her knee (full replacement) and are happy to say she is recovering well at home

Looking back, it shouldn’t have been such a stressful day, but there are some important lessons:
- California state parks are not the same caliber of parks from other states
- it is difficult/impossible to make reservations one day out on-line and there is no longer anyone you can call to make changes
- well rested, and well fed allow you to keep your perspective
- when you focus on the big picture, it’s never as bad as it seems
-most people will offer to help you out when you ask if you are a good natured human.
-pivoting is a skill, if you don’t do it often, it gets harder to do.Read more