Settling in to our new Van

It’s been about a year since my last post. It’s taken some time, but Maria has come a long way since her diagnosis of heart failure. She has gone from an ejection fraction of 26% to 50%. She accomplished it through determination, exercise diet, and lifestyle changes. I should say that we accomplished it, as I have made the same changes with her. In addition to Maria’s health journey, my father passed away since I last posted. He almost made it to 90 years old. The last several years were rough for him, as his Alzheimer’s progressed. My point is, it’s been an eventful year.

Before Maria’s diagnosis, we had taken some trips in our little Recon camper. Our most ambitious trip was a three week excursion from Phoenix to New Orleans. It was our intention to go to Miami, but the weather didn’t cooperate. We had to turn around due to flooding. There was also a gas pipeline crisis that had us concerned. Still, it was a great trip. We weren’t able to travel for a while after Maria’s heart issues. We focused on exercise and adopting a low sodium diet. It’s a challenge to keep sodium intake under 1500 mg per day. Once you start reading labels on packaged foods, you realize how much salt is in everything. We’ve found workarounds, and I think our food is pretty tasty, but grabbing a quick meal at a drive through is a thing of the past.

During Maria’s recovery, we adopted two kittens. We started with just one, Kiki. At about 6 months old, we decided that she needed a friend. That’s when we found Violet. Her name at the humane society was Maria. It seemed like a sign. The kitties have bonded really well with us and with each other. Once we were at a point to want to travel again, we had to figure out what to do about the cats. It doesn’t seem fair to leave them alone for extended periods of time. We’d have someone come check on them, but they’d still spend a lot of time alone. They are used to having us around most of the time, so that seems cruel.

We realized that our little Recon camper would never fit us all on an extended trip. Now here we are, the owners of a new to us 21 foot camper van. It’s quite a bit bigger than the 16 feet length of the Recon. So now we are in the process of settling in and personalizing. We brought the kitties in with us last night to let them get familiar with the van. They seemed to settle right in. I believe we may have some adventure cats in the making.