Trippin' with Susan Straley

 It is Tuesday, October 29, 2019 and my mind and body are all over the place. Before I get into what I have been up to, I want to share a statistic put out by the Associated Press.   More than five million people in the United States have Alzheimer's Disease. We have just over 329 million people in the USA.  So five million is a lot, but it is less than two percent of the population. Now that figure doesn't tell us how many have dementia .  Remember that dementia is the set of symptoms.  You can think of dementia as the umbrella of symptoms.  Under those symptoms are many reasons, diagnoses, or folders .   Debbie Selsalvage says the folder under the umbrella with the most papers in it (people or cases) is Alzheimer's Disease.   There are many, many causes of dementia symptoms.  Some of them are curable.  That is why it is good to get to the doctor if you or a loved one is showing symptoms.  Sometimes it is just a vitamin deficiency, a tumor, or a medication si

Hello Friends and Folks Trippin' with me! It is Monday, October 21, 2019.  I am writing this from the relatively cool patio of my home in Inverness.  The windows are open, the fan is going, I am in my space in my place.  Tired and happy to be here. There are no ants crawling up my leg, no fellow campers playing country music. Last I wrote to you I was at the McDonald's in the early morning on Friday.  I was tired of being hot and disappointed with my beach snorkel experience at John Pennekamp State Park.  The park is known for it's reef and snorkel experience. I found the water murky and once the water got deep I could see nothing but the murk in front of me.  I got scared. I would swim back to where I could see the bottom, and then try again.  Maybe it was the slant of the sun, I thought.   But each time I saw nothing and the fear that something big might appear, was too scary.  I gave up. I was tired of waking up in the night with no breeze and feeling over-heat

I was up at 4:45 because I was keyed up about beating the heat on my cycling trip home.  I would be riding from Tarpon Springs to Inverness, a ride of over 80 miles.  It had been a few years since I had ridden that far, I was a bit nervous. It was predicted to be 95 degrees, humid, and sunny on Sunday.  I packed two thermoses of ice water, a bottle of Gatorade, and a baggie with salty pretzels and nuts.  If I am smart and keep re-filling my waters, I should be ok. My neck had stopped hurting during my day of rest.  I had bought a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide and was swishing it around my chipped tooth two and three times a day.  It had done the trick! Sunday morning is a good time to travel by bike.  The traffic is lighter because many sleep in or sit in church pews. I assembled my things and got them all packed on the bike and was riding by 5:30 in the dark.  I was glad I had packed my front light and a flashing back light because it was very dark when I departed Ellen's ho