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Cleveland Rocks

Lisa Vaught
Oct 3, 2015
3 min read

Hello!

First, an update, my brother has come through a very long surgery with flying colors. He is not in pain and seems pretty perky for someone who had big surgery yesterday! We are all thrilled and hope this will be the end now of the tummy troubles he has been having as well. Now that I know he is doing good, I will share with you our recent trip!

As you might know, if you follow this blog regularly, our Vaught family had an interesting and exciting trip to the Cleveland Clinic at the end of August. It's taken a month to slog through the pictures...nearly 500 of them. I have a penchant for taking a lot of photos, then pitching the dregs. I figure if you take a bunch of shots eventually something will turn out right! In this case my little digital nikon got a workout!

We went to Cleveland seeking out help for my tum. I've already been practicing much of what the Functional Medicine department there prescribes for belly troubles and am 75% improved from what I was the same time last year. I am hoping after this visit, and subsequent follow ups that I can get that closer to 100%. So, that's the background for our trip.

We rented a car, since our autos are over the ten-year mark. It seemed a prudent idea, and not getting caught on the side of an interstate, with a broken down car! I am blessed to have a folding electric wheelchair, that fits in most vehicles. We elected to get a larger car, and not a jeep or a van since we can fold the chair and get it in, and we thought a car would be way more comfortable than a jeep or van. We thought!

We got a mid-sized car, that as my husband of few but succinct and devastatingly ironic words described as the 'rolling log wagon' by the time we got home. Unfortunately, it really is the rolling log wagon. A very nice new car that rode as stiff and hard as an auto with no shocks! Even Frax got a disgusted look on his face when it came time to hop in the back. Frax is a fine traveler but he came to despise our ride too by the end of the trip! Ah well, once again, better than having a broken down car on the interstate!

Our weather couldn't have been brighter or more beautiful. We drove through the last of a rain squall or two leaving Knoxville, but by the time we rolled into Cleveland, it had blown itself out. We arrived late...and wouldn't you know, the hotel had not held our room that we had booked! They speedily got us another room at another hotel in the area, but it was very disheartening.

Worn completely out, Bill, Frax and I plopped ourselves back into the rolling log wagon, and negotiated our way through unfamiliar streets using our portable GPS unit. At another point it might be amusing, but when we powered up our GPS, the rental car company's GPS decided to come alive...leaving us witnesses to two GPS units talking to one another. I don't think either of them liked one another. Each was voiced by a snippy, autocratic voiced computer. They both seemed surprised to hear one another. Our GPS had a superior tone, since it was she that we were listening to as we drove to our new hotel in the wee hours of the morning. The rental GPS took on an annoyed voice, demanding that we keep her turned on so she could recalibrate! I was tasked with figuring out why she had turned herself on, and more importantly, turning her off! Frax tilted his golden head to one side tiredly and listened to the chatter, a “those stupid humans” look painted over his sweet uncomplaining face!

I got the rental GPS to finally power down and shut up about the time we arrived at our new hotel. We got signed in quickly and blissfully fell into bed, knowing we had a full day of it, our arrival at the clinic being at 10am, and it already 2am in the morning! We collapsed in a pup pile, snoozing in a heartbeat, just glad to have a quiet space for a few hours that didn't rattle and bump a long...like a rolling log wagon!