Saturday afternoon we stopped for the night.  Katie and I went exploring and I took a few pix.

We’re talking water, electric AND sewer! Woohoo!

There was a woodland area where it looks like they started to build a road and just gave up.

We did have an excellent dinner grubhubbed from a place called “Georgia Bob’s” featuring pulled pork, sausage, fried pickles and freshly prepared pork rinds.

The impending snow storm is changing our travel plans a bit. We will try to get to Southern Illinois today, so that there is time to drop us in Kankakee (Carole Ann will pick us up and take us to the city, while John and Kim head south to Princeton, hopefully avoiding freezing temperatures, or scoring a place which permits them to heat this vehicle which does not like freezing temperatures much!

Ken and Rita Ortman got up in the dark this morning to hug Carole and Harry good bye and to wish her well with her speech therapy.  It was such a lovely send off.

We were up at 0-dark-thirty this morning so that we could get on the road.

Kim has outfitted the RV with everything a person might desire – the coffee was ALREADY BREWED when we climbed aboard. Carole and Harry are snoozing in the back bedroom, Kate and I are at the dinette. John is at the wheel and Kim and Bob are riding shotgun.

When we turned on the radio, Tom Petty’s “Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee” came on, and looking around this deluxe accommodation, that would seem to be the case.

The organization of this team is impressive.  We all worked our checklists, and we think we’ve got everything, though I guess we’ll find out.  I’ll post some pix when we’ve got a bit more connectivity.

Carole was in good form this morning.  We find that when she’s relaxed and not thinking too hard about it, bits of speech just zoom out.  She said “I love you too” to Jim in phone convo last night, and we heard “What!” coming out of the bedroom this morning. Can  the exasperated version  HAR-RRRRRY!” be far behind?

Carole and Carole Ann are Facetiming

In developments totally par for the course, no rehab beds were available today.  Meanwhile Carole made progress, saying her own name, which is actually kind of a big deal because that “k” sound is way back in the mouth and not something easily demonstrated or mimicked.  So she found it in her own memory which is pretty cool.

Family has been discussing a range of options if rehab is not available tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Carole has been medically released for transfer to the rehabilitation facility.  Unfortunately, there are no beds there at the moment.  We are hoping this will change on Monday.

Due to an error in communication, Carole was given morphine IV last night.  For obvious reasons, rehabilitation facilities want their patients stable after 24 hours of oral medication only.   So she may be discharged tomorrow, but Monday is more likely.

Carole has been cleared by Cardiology – her heart is working as they want it to.  We are hoping for a transfer to rehab, possibly as soon as today!

Carole’s pacemaker is duly installed and performing properly.  They want to watch her for a day to make sure everything is going well, and perhaps then we can talk about moving on to a rehabilitation facility.