Satellite Beach to Doha

We will make the return journey in two parts. Everyone agrees, two, long, back-to-back flights would likely set back Carol's progress. We will stop over at the Doha airport hotel for two nights. 

Do you believe in omens? CJ uncharacteristically makes a premature exit from the motorway. Although instantly corrected, we pray it's not an omen of the entire journey.

We have changed our flight to Doha from a Seattle departure to an Atlanta departure. Our Delta flight to Atlanta is delayed three hours. We exercise Carol during the delay.

Delta delivers us from Orlando to Miami where we're met by rookie wheelchair driver Jimmy. It is a good thing WE know this airport. Jimmy passes by the place we must descend to catch the train and only realizes it when CJ questions where he's going. He does it again looking for the elevators. 

From that point we lead him until he loads us into a taxi for the ride to the International Terminal.

The International Terminal is a disaster. CJ calls for wheelchair assist from the curb and is told none are available. Since our Delta departure was more than two hours late, we're running late. CJ finds a wheelchair and a luggage car and is soon pushing both through a crowded airport. Fortunately, we know where the Qatar check-in is located.

They do not leave the wheelchair with Carol in the lounge. CJ makes do with a chair with wheels.

The flight staff are marvelous. After surprisingly disappointing food on the outbound legs, CJ's osso Bucco and polenta are excellent.

Carol sleeps through most of the flight to Doha which is a very good thing. CJ gets six or seven good hours of sleep, maybe more.

We pass over Poland and to CJ's surprise, a city of Tichy in Slovakia shows up on the screen. This is where both his paternal grandparents are from.

The plane continues crossing Turkey and making its way to Doha across Iraq. This route is becoming more uncomfortable with Iran and Israel facing off.

14 Days

We had never intended to spend 14 days with Pam and Randy. The days are peppered with visits by the PT's and OT's and a virtual appointment with an excellent doctor. By the end of the 14 days, she has made remarkable progress and is cleared to fly and return home.

She has two PTs with Joe the most excellent. He has her negotiate the two steps into and out of Pam's home and on his last day with her, gets her into and out of our rental car. She shocks all of us with the ease she manages it. She also wrong foots her first attempt at steps. According to Joe, the wrong footing should cause extreme pain. An indication of her healing progress is that she has none when she does it.

As a reward for her hard work, we schedule a 'field trip' on our last Saturday. Her brother Bill has driven from central Florida and her sister who lives near also joins.

Not Qatar Finest Day

After a very good flight from Atlanta to Doha, we have a horrible airport experience where things go from bad to worse and into the Theater of the Absurd.

Our airport experience is usually sublime. The green jacketed brigade typically make the move from the plane to the lounge a most pleasant experience. 

With Carol's injury, we need a layover in Doha to allow Carol time to exercise and move about. To make it easier on her, CJ books the Onyx Transit Hotel in the airport for two nights. That causes everything to go wrong and wronger.

It seems that local security rules dictate that one can only be in the airport in Doha for less than 24 hours. No where during the hotel booking process did it say that.

We are offered a range of absurd possible solutions and at one point CJ blows a fuze yet manages not to get arrested.

After 3 and half hours sitting in the wheelchair waiting area, he changes strategy. He chases down a manager and tells him a story. It is the story of a woman who has travelled in business class with Qatar 24 times and gets injured 3000 miles from her departure destination in Seattle. He tells of the change in flights and the horrible return option which was not described that dumps us in the closed Melbourne airport and midnight and that woman customer stuck in a wheelchair, at best, for six hours. He tells of making a hotel reservation for two evenings without any warning that it was illegal under the airport's security regulations. And he tells of now sitting in the airport for coming on four hours and being offered nothing but an absurd range of solutions and asks the manager a simple question. What did we as customers do wrong to deserve such abuse? ...and 25 times business class customers nonetheless!

He suggests that at this point the airline should figure out a way to fly us to Adelaide on the direct flight on ANY day in the next week they have two open seats AND that they figure out a way to get the two of us to bed in our hotel.

Within 15 minutes we are rebooked to Adelaide on the direct flight and working our way through a convoluted process to the hotel. It seems that since they have screwed us over for so long, it is now coming up on half past eight having arrived at 5pm. In a few minutes, if we leave and arrive back in the airport for tomorrow's 8:45 flight, we will be under the 24-hour rule.

Thanks only to the marvelous and extremely nice and competent two green jacketed wheelchair drivers, who do not believe the malarky they are feeding us related to our checked luggage, the four of us visit the baggage area and discover our bags unattended with no direction to anyone to transfer them to our flight. The fellows collect the baggage and are now pushing two wheelchairs, five pieces of carryon luggage, and two very heavy pieces of checked baggage. CJ is in a wheelchair also since his recurring groin problem has worsened with all the airport walking he was doing.

Alcohol is not allowed into Qatar. To complete this absurd evolution, we must exit the airport (for a few MINUTES), and check back into tomorrow's flight. Immigration make us purchase an Qatar entry visa for those few minutes. One of our drivers informs customs that we have nine bottles of alcohol but that the bags were never intended to enter Qatar, are only entering Qatar because we have been unwittingly caught in their 24-hour hell, and that the drivers promise the alcohol will be on its way out of Qatar in MINUTES. Sanity prevails at customs and we are soon on our way. 

The luggage gets checked. We clear immigration, again! At security our house key causes CJ's backpack to get checked. This is the second time the house key and its aircraft carrier key chain have been misidentified as a knife.

Arriving at the hotel, there is a long wait as the staff makes several fruitless phone calls to ASSURE, we have not entered the airport within 24 hours of our 8:45 departure. For all the trouble it causes, what is the purpose of this insanity?

None of this should have taken three and a half hours. We could have been taken to the lounge for four hours, rested and eaten. They could have retrieved us then, did all the things we needed to do to comply with the 24-hour rule and we would have avoided the anxiety and mistreatment. Actually, at one point they had proposed the solution but it was when we still had the 2am flight to Melbourne. That proposal was that we would have remained in the lounge until 2am, when we would have been required to enter and exit the airport. And since our tickets were in two day's time, we would have been required to wake at 2am the next day and do the exit/enter charade a second time! Go figure what sense this all makes.

CJ's Time at Pam's

We had intended to perform a thorough inventory of our 5x10 storage shed. It was a two- person task. CJ spends a couple of hours at the shed, gets depressed, and does some critical shopping. He returns with only the Mathew Hayden cricket bat shadow box.

With Carol focused on physical therapy, CJ is shopping for her medical supplies, picking up prescriptions, running errands, and solving the puzzle of packing for the return trip.

Randy has been preparing breakfast most mornings. CJ decides to make huevos rancheros as his contribution.

In the end two boxes will be shipped to Australia. One of them is offloading weight and volume.

For the trip, we have two checked very heavy bags. The weight comes from nine bottles of wine and spirits. Additionally, we have five carry-on items: CJ's backpack, Carol's purse, CJ's CPAP, small roller suitcase, and Carol's walker. We normally carry three or four items. Remembering we have five will be challenging.

CJ is fortunate to have Randy as a beer sampling buddy, their amazing pool for a refreshing afternoon dip, and the two of them when the effort becomes too much, and he runs out of energy before Carol wishes to be put to bed.

Real Food & Family

Carol is discharged from the hospital very late, and CJ drives to Pam's in the dark late on Tuesday, October 15. It's a good thing he's made the drive many times. Getting her into the car required the assistance of a good Samaritan resembling a retired linebacker. It took everything Pam, Randy and CJ had to get Carol from the car to the house and into bed.

Her first morning is fantastic. She does well in the walker although we realize a need for a wheelchair. A good night's sleep and a good breakfast appears to have done wonders.

By the end of the second day, we realize Carol motors about on the walker quite well in the mornings but fades as her energy wains as the day progresses. Nonetheless, she is making progress which exceeds our expectations.

The hospital has turned her care over to an excellent organization. She is visited by a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and has an virtual appointment with doctor.

The Wheels Have Come Off The Wagon

We were concerned about beating Hurricane Milton into Florida. Perhaps we should not have.

Instead of riding out the storm with Pam and Randy on the east coast, CJ rode out the hurricane in the Marriott Orlando Airport. Carol rode it out at Advent East Orlando hospital.

After 17 marvelous days on holiday in Paris and with family in Brittany, the wheels have come off the wagon. Day 18 begins with Carol on the floor of our hotel room screaming in pain every time she attempts to move. A group of five EMTs from the Orlando fire department take her to Advent Health Hospital - Orlando East.

The doctors spend the rest of the week attempting to figure out what is wrong with her. When there is more than one issue, diagnosis is a daunting task.

Carol apparently fell. A small shingles rash misled them. Her fuzzy answers to questions also sent them down the wrong road. 

Friday, day 20 is a bad day. She believes they've told her she has a life altering problem and she's beyond depressed. On Saturday we get better news, her shingles infection is clearing. She has a fractured pelvis from the fall. The fracture is what is causing the severe pain. The fracture does not need surgery and will heal with time. She needs rehab.

Instead of enjoying Pam's gorgeous swimming pool and the Atlantic Ocean a block away, this is Carol's view and my view.

We hope to get in-home PT at Pam's. The middle of our US holiday is cancelled.

Saint-Meloir-des-Odnes - The Village

Saint-Meloir-des-Odnes is a quaint little village with a massive church; a church out of proportion to the village's population. In ancient times, it appears the areas wealth was derived from potato farming and the town's wealth demonstrated by this massive church. The church towers over the village.

The church's interior is traditional.

The village center is a few square blocks.

The town hall, or Marie, as it is called in France.

Today there are traditional homes as well as modern interpretations of the tradition in the village.

The next two are pictures of the same house.

This home is a delightful interpretation of modern landscaping, modern design, yet embedded in the traditional Bretton house form. It is now a bed & breakfast.

This is a similar interpretation. It is directly across the street from the one above.

Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes Home

The first part of our time with Didier and Jocelyne was in their primary home in Plougavalin, on France's Atlantic coast near Brest. The remainder of our stay is at his childhood home in Saint-Meloir-des-Odnes, near Saint-Malo and Cancale.

CJ once followed Didier to the bare attic floor beams of this place. After serious renovation designed by Didier and much of the work done by him, he turned it into a magnificent second home of 'old stones'.

We stay in the room with the door at the top of the external stairs. It makes getting our two big suitcases easy to get to the room given inside there is the narrow spiral staircase.

When last we were here, the house on the right was not and the lot it sits on was a part of this property. Didier sold the lot to help finance the new home in Plougovelin. The house on the property to the right of that was also part of the original property. Didier's father built that house.

This ancient well, still working, and the apple tree across the street are also part of the property. 

The staircase was not built for the size of people today.

Since they are not going to return to the house for a month, the apples must be picked. Didier will use a ladder to drop them, and the ground crew will box them.

Didier's Paintings

When Didier decides to do something, he does it. He decided with no previous running experience to begin by running a marathon; and he did!

In the early 1990's, Didier decided to take up painting. These are some of his masterpieces. He loves painting on old wood such as a cabinet door.

These are two of the Avenger Class minehunters that our AN/SQQ-32 mine hunting sonar went on.

Apologies for the reflections from the window.

Typical Bretton clothing of old.

He has several seascapes. One once hung in three of our houses. We commissioned it special to go with a very particular fabric Carol chose to reupholster two love seats.

Pointe-Saint-Mathieu.

This is the second of three renditions of Le Mont St. Michel hanging in the Saint Meloir house.