Hospital Visit

For those that have asked (and those that haven't), here are the facts. After playing Polish Poker with friends Monday evening, I started having funny feelings. Tightening in the chest, stopped to rest taking the garbage to the dumpster, a couple of blocks. Took blood pressure, and realized heart beat was irregular. Called 911, and had an ambulance ride at midnight. First diagnosed as A-Fib, eventually became Atrial-Flutter. After several tests, etc., tried to correct with cardioversion (electric shock, same as in 2000), but did not work.

Kept in hospital, dr assigned was friend Rick's cardiologist. Put on medicine to try and correct, but has not converted me yet. He said "It's not life threatening, go on your cruise, we will take care of it when you get back." I like this doctor!

I'm not experiencing as severe symptoms as Mon nite, so looking forward to a GREAT cruise.

Upon our return, if I don't convert on my own, we will again try cardioversion. If that does not work, then they will have to go in and interrupt (ablate) a portion of the abnormal electrical conduction pathway. Will be similar to angioplasty, but using an electrical charge. Usually successful.

Really looking forward to seeing the kids tomorrow, and enjoying our Cruise! We will NOT have internet access. so will be back on line the 7th of June. Will check for phone messages whenever we are in US ports, so feel free to contact us that way.

Palouse Falls, Washington

Our friends, Jerry & Karen, took us for a ride into beautiful SE Washington, to visit Palouse Falls. The Falls are on the Palouse River, about 4 miles upstream from the confluence with the Snake River. The canyon at the Falls is about 377 ft deep, the Falls are about 186 ft high. Another beautiful, and interesting feature is the rock formation near the top of the Falls, as you can see on these photos. We just HAVE to go back and do some hiking, there are trails to the top of the Falls, (you can see people in my photos) and to the bottom of the Falls. Also, a few days before we were there, a Tyler Bradt ran the falls in a kayak, setting an unofficial world record for the highest waterfall run. I have included a link to a video of that event, hopefully it will work for you.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/video/si_video/2009/05/13/0905.palouse.SportsIllustrated/index.html

Just For Fun 2 Answers, Also, Our Trip North

The babies.

Hope you all had fun trying to figure who the babies are.

Maria, you came close. You had the right family, but the wrong sex, it's actually Domenica. Laura says, "just look at her photos on Facebook, you can see the same face."

The other one, well, the cute cheeks are what made me do this in the first place. Cindy, very close, here is the companion picture from that day. Smile Paula!













Our trip North.

Left Las Vegas on Sunday, stayed just north of St. George, UT for 2 nights. Visited Zion National Park on Monday. Tue & Wed, we covered 900+ miles, and parked on the shore of the Columbia River in Oregon Wed night, stayed 2 nights there. Beautiful site, nice view of the river, but quite breezy, not comfortable sitting outside.

Friday we came on up to Soap Lake, will be here until Thurs. Met up with friends Jerry & Karen, having a ball getting caught up on everything.

"On The Road Again!"

Yep, we leave Las Vegas tomorrow morning. In light of my Thought of the Week, guess I will turn "Blondie" (our GPS) on, avoid getting lost.

I'm still waiting for someone to correctly identify either of the pictures posted earlier this week.

Not sure what internet access we will have until late next week when we get to Washington. But will try to connect somewhere on the road.