Lamentation and a Short Trip

My extended fall trip has officially been cancelled. 

There was a last-ditch effort to place Justin in a small group home just outside of Whitewater, which would have been great for Justin's complex physical needs and convenient for attending college also. He interviewed with the owners and felt that he really  made a connection.  Justin was told by Care Wisconsin that he was their leading choice among three candidates for the group home.

That fell through due to "contractual issues."  Somehow, we went from being number one on the waiting list for Care Wisconsin and the group home's top choice for placement to "it's out of our hands."  We asked for transparency regarding the contractual negotiations, and they wouldn't even give us the name of the group home.  "That's done now."

As a result, Justin is staying home.  He misses his best friend who lives on Justin's dorm floor. 

When things broke down, Care Wisconsin threatened to put Justin in a nursing home if Julia and I didn't cover the hours.   Now that's an interesting way to manage Medicaid dollars. 

Yesterday, we started the process to move Justin out of the managed care system to IRIS, which is self-directed care.  Justin will be given a budget for his care needs and hire caregivers from the money budgeted. As we understand it, with the MCO cut out of the process, there will be more transparency and better wages available to caregivers.     Justin will have an IRIS fiscal consultant and us available as resources, but he will be responsible for hiring, training, and managing his employees.

The transition takes awhile, so Justin will probably be stuck with his parents as his employees for this semester.  Let's hope that neither of us gets sick or blows out our backs. We were told by Care Wisconsin that it would take 8-10 caregivers to cover Justin's needs in the dorms.  At home, it's the two of us without any other back-up.   

The good news is that we won't have to worry about Justin laying helpless in bed when caregivers don't show up in the morning or sleeping all night in his wheelchair when a caregiver doesn't show up to transfer him to bed at night.  We live here so it's hard not to show up.  In order to stay sane, I'll continue trying to take short trips each week with the Scamp until the snow flies or hunting season, whichever comes first. 

Last week, I drove an hour west to Gov. Dodge State Park and camped in the rain.  It was wet, muddy, and dark, but the Lost Canyon Trail was still beautiful. I didn't have to worry about social distancing; there simply wasn't anyone else around.

Outcroppings

 

Stephens Falls

I like cooking in the Scamp on cooler, rainy days.  Here, I cooked mushrooms and slices of onion to serve with a pepperjack cheeseburger.  On the side, I have spinach sauteed with garlic and olive oil. To keep this post on blog topic, the Yeti is filled with home-brewed kombucha.

 

Rain?  Callie doesn't care.  More trails, she says. And maybe some of that burger.

Chippewa Recreation Area: Side Trips

On my second day of this trip, I woke to a fridge that was heading towards 50 degrees.  Oops, out of propane.  I carry two propane tanks, but my dual regulator hasn't worked right for a couple of years.  When one tank runs out, I have to manually switch over tanks to the side that does work.  

Why haven't I replaced the faulty dual regulator?  Well, I probably should, but the reviews complaining about quality control in dual regulators has not inspired me to make the purchase just yet.  

The empty tank did give me a reason to take a side trip to Gilman, Wisconsin, the nearest town to the Chippewa Recreation area.  Apparently, people in Gilman have different ideas about respiratory viruses.  As I entered town, a church sign advised me not to worry about the pandemic; instead, pray. 

Hmm, this was going to be interesting.  I drove to Cenex, a farming cooperative style gas station and confirmed the presence of propane exchanges.  After gassing up the Frontier, I put on my mask (required by state law in Wisconsin for indoor spaces) and went on in to arrange for the propane exchange. 

The first thing I noticed was that none of the customers or employees in the store were wearing masks.  Then, when I asked for a propane exchange, the clerk motioned me to lower my mask.  "I can't understand you," she said.  I spoke slowly and loudly through the mask.  She frowned, rang me up, and we went out to complete the tank exchange.  

"That was really weird," I thought to myself.  State law?  When our governor issued the mask order, a number of county sheriffs and local police agencies indicated that they would not be enforcing the law.  "My first duty is to the constitution," one sheriff proclaimed.  I'm not sure what the story is in Gilman, but there was no enforcement during my visit.

Gilman is famous for its swinging bridge.  

It moved up and down quite a bit as we crossed, but maybe it needs wind or something to swing.  

On another day, we took a little drive to two other national forest  campgrounds that I wanted to see: Eastwood and Spearhead Point.  Both had pit toilets and no hookups.  

Eastwood's main attraction to me is that you can walk the Ice Age Trail from the campground itself.  I will probably come back here someday for that purpose.

View from the Ice Age Trail

 

 

 

I think Spearfish is mainly for people who enjoy fishing, but there were some sweet waterfront campsites.  P12 was my favorite.

On the way back to my campground , I took the back roads.  Along the way, I saw a sign on County Highway G that surprised me.  "Road to Dispersed Camping."  Nearly all of the dispersed camping in Wisconsin's national forests is for tents.  When I followed this road in, I could see that this was an area set up for trailers.

I wish I could report that it was a great dispersed site for trailers, but it was not.  There were four trailers packed into a tight circle, and they all had big contractor style generators.  There was a steep,rutted road leading down to the river that might work for truck campers, but not my Scamp.  At the bottom, there were basically two sites, and both were occupied by tents.  For anyone wanting to check it out and for my future purposes, it was about 1/2 mile west of Miller Dam.

I returned home at the end of my six days to say goodbye to my daughter Allie, who has left the nest for California.  She had a few minor car issues on the way west (learning a lesson not to drive with cruise control through the mountains), but made it to a friend's house without too much trouble. She begins a job search in northern California.

This weekend, we squeezed in some grape and apple harvesting from our property.  The cider turned out great.  We were hoping to make wine but we need a few more grapes to make that happen next year.

An interesting color for grape juice

The final project of the summer was installation of a hickory floor in the kitchen.  When we first bought the house, we put in hickory floors in the living room and the bedrooms and tile in the kitchen and bathrooms.  I wish we had done the entire first floor in hickory.  This time, it was the kitchen.

Hickory is a hard wood and a very durable surface for residents with power wheelchairs (son Justin).

Chippewa Recreation Area

Last week, I ran away from home to the forest--specifically, the Chippewa Recreation Area located within the Nicolet-Chequamegon National Forest.

Close to Perfect

My first night was not perfect.  Allie was having a slumber party on our property with two of her closest friends, so I got the heck out of town on a Saturday night without any reservations.  I called the Walmart in Medford, Wisconsin and was told that I could overnight park.

However, once I arrived, I was told that I couldn't park in the customers' lot.  Instead, I should park in the back where the trucks unload.  There was a sign with good news and bad news.  It said that trucks were not permitted to unload from 10 pm to 7 am.    It also said there was no overnight parking by order of the Medford Police Department.  I went to the front desk again and was told that no one pays any attention to that sign.  

That advice was on the money.  I slept undisturbed until 4 a.m. when the first truck blasted through right next to my window while making a 180 turn before backing loudly into the loading dock.  After the first truck, more trucks rapidly arrived and carried out the same tight turn.  

I was out of there at first light and on my way further north. About 30 minutes before I arrived at my destination, deer started crossing the road just in front of me.  After that happened, I was on high-alert for what took place next.  A large black bear crossed the road just ahead of me.  There was no danger of a collision, but I got a very close look at the bear and a chance to observe how fast a bear's burst is.  No one is going to outrun a black bear with that kind of burst.  Fortunately, they are almost always running away from humans, not towards them. 

On my way into the campground, I passed a large pop-up camper, and I wondered if they had vacated a good campsite.  No worries.  Even early on Sunday morning, there were ample campsites, and I chose the best, least expensive one.  Premium sites on the lake are $18; standards sites are $15.  Visually, my site was also on the lake, but there was a small common day use area directly behind my site, so it was classified at the lower rate (site S18).  

No electricity or sun for solar, but they do have hot showers for a buck, flush toilets,  water, garbage and a dump station.

Site S18

 

Day Use Area behind my campsite

At sunset, the loons and sandhill cranes bragged in song about how wonderful it is to be in nature.

I spent 6 nights here.  I'll break down the trip into another post or two to include a couple of the side trips that I made using this campsite as a base. The only thing I didn't have was decent internet service. 

New Glarus Woods State Park

Faced with involuntary servitude this fall, Julia and I escaped to a nearby state park last week for a few days.

New Glarus Woods is about 30 minutes south of Madison, Wisconsin. It’s a small park with a rustic campground ($15 per night).

The park has several assets: a great 5 mile nature trail, a beautiful restored prairie, and a bike/footpath into the nearby town of New Glarus (a tourist destination with Swiss themes).

Good thing it’s plastic

Someone tell Callie that it isn’t real

On the negative side, the park was poorly maintained during our visit. There was lots of trash in the parking lots and some at our campsite. A broken water spigot was left running all night. State park staff drive through without picking up or making repairs. Not their job I guess.

There are no electrical hookups. Sites are very wooded, making solar a game of catching a few rays by moving ones solar panels frequently. Generators are not allowed in Wisconsin State Parks.

Nevertheless, we made the best of things. We did lots of hiking. Julia kayaked the Sugar River. We picked up Amish baked goods and vegetables at a local farmer’s market, and we took in a wine tasting and appetizers at the local brewery/winery/distillery in nearby Monroe.

We had campfires every night, and it was a welcome respite, ahead of a possibly challenging fall for our family.

I’m going to squeeze in one more late summer trip while I still can.

Uncertain Times

It's been about a year since I took the Scamp on a multi-week trip.  To most people, that doesn't seem like that long.  To me, it seems like forever.  Worse, despite my earlier optimism, this year's extended fall trip is slipping through my fingers.  

Why?  My adult son Justin is in a power wheelchair full time and totally dependent upon care giving.  He is able to move his fingers and head/neck, but that's about it at this point.  While he has been supplied with caregivers under Medicaid for the past two years, the agency terminated services when Justin's college closed the dorms in the middle of the spring semester, sending him home.

We were led to believe by Justin's care manager that finding another agency was not a problem, but that's not been the case.  He has received twelve rejections.  We don't know exactly why because we aren't privy to the negotiations that take place between the care manager (operating with Medicaid dollars) and the care agencies.  She blames Covid, but we just met with an agency that denied that Covid was the issue.  Rather, the issue is finding enough staff to cover the needed hours and obtaining the authorization from Medicaid for the needed hours.

As an example, because Justin has an advanced form of Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, transfers between bed and chair or toilet/shower and chair are very difficult and must be completed by mechanical means (a Hoyer lift).  I used to just pick him up and move him (150 lbs), but that can now cause dislocated shoulders or broken ribs for Justin, so his doctor told me to stop doing that.

One agency told us last week that two people are now required to move Justin safely with a Hoyer lift.  We've always done it alone. The new requirement would create a whole different set of staffing needs and hours not yet approved by the state.  We were also told that we could continue doing it with one person because we are Justin's family.  So it's not safe for a professional caregiver to do it, but his untrained father, mother or sister can do it.   I can only shake my head.

Early Morning Fog

Meanwhile, daughter Allie is moving to northern California at the end of August.  She will be staying with one of Julia's college friends until she can find her own place and a job.  We are nervous and excited for her.  After graduating from college last December, it's time to follow her dreams. Such a weird year.  So much uncertainty. 

Anniversary Camping

I have a very good wife. However, if it were not for the pandemic, we would probably celebrating our 32nd anniversary at a fine restaurant. A small silver lining, I guess. We are camped in southwestern Wisconsin at Gov. Dodge State Park for another mid-week adventure.

About a month has passed since our last state park campground, and I have to say that occupancy has significantly increased, even though it’s the middle of the week. Fortunately, the sites are large and well-spaced. We aren’t using any of the public shared spaces, although many people are using the bathrooms and showers.  

The weather is amazing in the kind of way that almost makes up for Wisconsin’s long winters: mid 70s during the day and 50s at night.

After a beautiful night by the campfire, we got up this morning for fresh-roasted Peruvian coffee made with a manual drip cone, followed by a big egg scramble and Julia-baked zucchini bread. Then we walked out of our campground and hit some beautiful uncrowded trails.

I haven’t been to this park in over thirty years, and I’m not sure why. I had the mistaken view that it was mostly flat and open. There are some beautiful restored prairies.

However, a lot of the park is heavily wooded and hilly. Our favorite trail is the Lost Canyon Trail, which leads to another side trail and to waterfalls.

We have a bunch of issues to work through with our adult children after this week’s escape. Getting caregivers for Justin to return to college is always a challenge, but we’ve hit a major roadblock at the moment. Allie has been pitching in as Justin’s primary caregiver, but she wants and needs to start her own life after graduating from college last December. 

For a few days, we will hike, have some good food/drink and enjoy each other’s company in the great outdoors.