November 1, 2009 - They're in Germany

Thank God for our sister, Peggy - I wouldn't have a clue what to report on. It seems as though all is going pretty well so far . . . here's the first report from Germany:


"Friday our journey begins at 8:44 am in ****, where we are on stand-by. Minus one person - ****, Skeeter's wife. She backed out at the last minute. I guess she had her reasons. We are the last to de-plane in **** and Skeeter excitedly tells us, and the flight attendant "Look at that". Laying there in the aisle is a probable .22 unspent bullet! My theory is that an air marshall has flown with us incognito.

Met up with ****, Nicole, and Brooke. Only had about 15 to 20 minutes to spend with them. Aunt Becki had seen a shooting star just that night and so she knew we would have a successful outcome.

We made our 1:55 pm connecting flight to Germany (Again on Stand-by) and the plane was full! I was really happy because I knew that was the summit. Nothing could stop us now. Except for the crying baby, Skeet had an excellent aisle seat in a last row, in the middle of the plane. Right behind him were the restrooms. Our seats were twenty rows away, so we checked on him every hour and got him up every hour. But he was all alone and didn't care for any of the three movies they showed, couldn't reach his laptop, so he couldn't watch any of his movies. He was bored out of his gourd! He said "You know how much I hate an MRI? Well I hate this even more". It was mostly a smooth flight. We arrive in Frankfurt on Saturday at eight something in the morning. We took the high speed train, paid $200 something for a round trip ticket. They had to bring a special cage device and jack it up, then ramps were laid out to get Skeet in his wheelchair on and off the train. Got in to Cologne around noon (for them and 4 am for our bodies)

Rented a car. Whatever you hear about parking - just think the worst - and you got a pretty accurate picture. Really small cars parking anywhere they can get to, no pickups. I haven't seen any fire hydrants. Maybe they are just really well hidden. Or maybe the cars are parked in front of them, keeping them hidden. Rarely will you see handicap reserve parking, but even so, vehicles are parked there and unless maybe their plate indicates handicap, they do not have the placard in a visual place. Made it to the hotel, after the stupid navigation system in the car took us in a circle back to where we started from. The hotel is fairly simple to get to from the train station, even though it is about two miles away. Skeeter was really feeling weary, dizzy, dehydrated, nauseated by the time we got to our rooms. At first, we were given connecting rooms but his was not handicap equipped. By the time we checked him into the handicap room, there was no longer a room available for us on the same floor. So, Jim came and checked on Skeeter and he was in the bathroom all by himself! Using only a desk chair to slide across the floor. All of us wonder what Germany thinks handicap means? Skeeter was really missing **** and wished she was here..

Sunday in Germany Trick or Treat:
What a breakfast this place puts out! I tried to eat a lot because we had to pre-pay for **** and I was trying to get our money's worth. We weren't allowed to take any plates back to our room, so we stuffed our pockets. The hotel allowed us to change our room and we took the room that connects with Skeeter's. Skeeter took a shower after coming back to our rooms. Handicap friendly - NOT. You have to step into a high bathtub and sit in it and use the hand held shower head. He was in there for a fairly long time. He said ten minutes of that was trying to get out of the bathtub. I told him he could have called to me I was waiting right outside his door. I think I need to remind him that I have seen his baby butt before when changing his baby butt diaper.

**** and I try to get Skeeter to go with us to find the Hospital/Clinic by telling him we will stop at a McDonalds and get him a happy meal. He won't do it. Well, turns out that is a good thing. It took us all day. It was night before the stupid navigation system finally spoke up and said "You have reached your destination". Well yeah, after we made our way back to the hotel and they printed out Google map showing us how to get there. (And changed the navigation to speak english instead of german). I finally found a sign with a red cross on it so I told **** to follow that one. He thought it would just take us to a red cross building but I felt it was universal for Emergency . Depending on traffic, it will take us no longer than ten minutes to get there tomorrow morning. Boy let a bunch of Yahoo's loose in Germany and what have you got? Lost tourists that can't speak or read the language.

Skeeter isn't sleeping well and I'm concerned that he won't be in the best condition to receive his treatments.

Bye for now - more tomorrow"

And, here are my thoughts . . . That "air marshall" was really an angel sent to make sure they all had a safe flight and **** is really Skeet's lucky charm.

Just want to add that I hope to visit the family in April or May and I have every intention of taking Skeet to the supermarket so that he can walk and cluck like a chicken and embarass the poo out of me!