It has been a few days since my last blog and I should have done this sooner.

We are finally returning home after 21 days on the road.

We have just completed another successful RAM clinic in Oklahoma City, OK where we made many new friends and saw old friends from past clinics in the area. We also missed some friends; Jenny, who recently moved with her family to Colorado; Rhonda, who couldn’t make it this year; and Joe, one of our RAM team who had to stay home due to health issues. We missed having them with us more than they can imagine.

We woke up this morning to a storm happening northeast of the city at sunrise. The sky was filled with lightning and beautiful colors. We both just stood at the window of the hotel room and watched it with awe until it had passed from view.

There are two rest areas on I-40 in Oklahoma before we get to the Arkansas state line. One of them is where the last picture of Rip, our big brown dog, was taken after the Oklahoma City clinic in 2010. His health began to fail rapidly at this clinic and our main focus was to get him home to his own vet.  Even now, as we pass this rest area, we still can’t bring ourselves to stop there and I try my best not to cry. It is hard to believe it has been over 4 years since we lost him. I can still remember sitting in the floor of the semi-truck with his head in my lap on the ride home, praying for him to last until we could get him home to Dr. B.

We had time between the Brownsville, TX and Oklahoma City, OK clinics to do some sightseeing (almost unheard of). Thom and I took the back roads up to Oklahoma City from south Texas and it was a wonderful change from the interstate. We went through small towns, around courthouse squares, drove through the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma, and across plains that were filled with sunflowers. We saw longhorn cattle, gorgeous lakes, and had lunch under a beautiful tree with a cool breeze blowing over us. Thom made the comment that it was almost like a Jeep trip, except we couldn’t explore the dirt roads. I made plenty of notes for places to return and we look forward to that day happening soon.

While we waited to set up the Oklahoma City clinic, we got the chance to visit a couple of interesting places.  The Cowboy Heritage Museum and Red Rock Canyon State Park were both very interesting and we enjoyed them each in a different way. They each deserve their own blog and so this will happen in the near future.

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas today we began to see storm clouds to the north of us. The sky was filled with roiling gray clouds and a tint of pinkish orange. As we followed the road, we made a turn toward those clouds and the wind began to pick up. You could see the dust flying high and you could feel the semi shake as the wind hit us broadside. In my mind, I tried not to envision pictures of trucks I had seen turned on their sides from high winds. It was both exciting and scary at the same time. I can truly understand why people are storm chasers. Seeing and feeling something that has so much power just overwhelms your senses.

A few minutes after beginning to get some rain from the clouds, we turned east again and left the storm behind us.

We are now sitting in a truck stop in Heth, AR and if all goes as planned, we will be home tomorrow.




 







 













 

In a rare day off for the RAM team, we were able to visit the beach and it was quite wonderful. The beach we chose to visit was at Boca Chica State Park, an undeveloped Texas beach park. On the way to the beach, we stopped at the site of the Battle of Palmito Ranch. This was the site of the last battle of the Civil War on May 12-13, 1865. The victory of this battle went to the Confederate soldiers, however they learned that the Civil War had ended 32 days earlier when General Robert E. Lee signed the surrender documents on April 9, 1865. As we stood at the site of the last battle, it was hard to imagine men fighting in the cactus and heat of south Texas. Although a beautiful area, it is such an unforgiving landscape.

 While at the beach, a large family was grilling their lunch and it smelled wonderful. Of course, Thom, being Thom, walked over to the husband and asked what spices he had used on the meat. We found out that there was a small grocery store where you could order all of the spices together and marinate the meat for you. They asked Thom if we would like to eat with them, but there were 7 of us and we certainly didn’t want to eat up all of their food, so we politely said no thank you. As we were getting ready to leave, one of the sons came running up to the van with a plate of food for everyone to taste and the mother arrived with hugs for everyone. You wouldn’t have thought that one plate could hold enough food for 7 people, but we all had plenty to eat. There was chicken, sausage, potato salad, pico, and rice. The food was sooooo gooooood. It made our mouths water just to look at it all!




We learn a lesson every time we step out of our comfort zones. In this instance, I believe that some of the team were amazed that people would be so giving of what they had for no reason other than kindness. It is a beautiful world with wonderful people in it. All we have to do is open our minds and be willing to interact with people who are very different from ourselves.