Thursday, October 13, 2011

time flies...

So much has happened, and it is hard to write, even if nothing bad happens!

We went on a road trip - the very reason, in a way, for the title of this blog, yet I was so tired that I did not get around to write while traveling.  Let's make amends:

The first night we spent in Shreveport - very little to report, really. Seems to be an industrial town, and we just passed through.


The second night we were in St Louis:  a beautiful city, even though most Americans here in Texas will not admit that.

Why could it be?  We drove in a carriage, we went up the Arch, we slept in the Hyatt (!), played in the park, and did not eat in the Starbucks because the twins threw a fit.  Their vanilla steamers were too hot (it wasn't, really, they were just difficult *sigh*)  The Museum of Westward Expansion was very tortured - trying to celebrate American expansion to the west does not marry well with celebrating Native American culture, yet they did their convoluted best. Dear Americans - some of us love you just the way you are...


Then on to Indianapolis!  Farmland all the way there, pretty little towns with pretty churches and general stores just like in the South African "platteland" - that does not translate.  Let's call it small towns, it literally means flat lands.

I knit some while Jacques was driving.


 
In Indianapolis we lived on "medical alley" - because we were there to get Jean's contact lenses.  Dark ones, so he can see inside without his dark glasses. (Jean has Achromatopsia, more about that at www.achromatopsia.info, I cannot explain it well in a few words.)

The staff at the low vision center were as close to perfect health care providers as you can get.  They did not call me mommy.  They did not talk down to Jean.  They listened to my answers (they did not even make him do any color recognition tests, trusting me that after 7 years I know he cannot see color.  Plus - it will make no difference in the treatment. Thank you very much.)  They gave him some lenses to experiment with, he sorted through them, knew within a minute which color he preferred, and this color improved his functional vision with two lines! Anyway, he then tried on the contacts, loved them and did not want to take them out again.  They let us take them.  Jean in action:  Dr Windsor asks him: "What color were your previous lenses?" Jean: "I think pinkish orange, but I am really not the person to ask.  That's the very reason I am here!"  He said it sweetly, in a way that left all of us laughing.  He is such a sweet boy.

After three days in Indianapolis, we headed home through Louisville and Memphis, taking a boat trip on the Ohio river in Louisville, and visiting the Memphis Zoo.



Sorry, no pictures of Memphis Zoo yet.

Finally, back home to Austin.  There and back again in 8 days.  May there be many more of these trips in our future!

This weekend we will be camping for the first time as a family. It will be fun.