Bennett Springs: Trials in Trouttown!!

We travelled to Bennett Springs State Park, MO, on Tuesday, July6th.   We’d spent Monday afternoon packing but, unfortunately, by Monday evening I was feeling ill. In our 30 years of marriage, Ken has only witnessed me not able to keep food down the two times I was pregnant and the three times I mixed wine and shellfish (I finally figured out that combo and haven’t touched it since!!)  We have no idea what caused this time but it wasn’t a fun few days for me.

I thought I was feeling a little better Tuesday before we pulled out but it wasn’t long before I was getting sick again, not able to keep down anything.  I lay on the couch while Ken did the 5 hour drive.  There was a considerable amount of traffic through Osage Beach and Camdenton but he did fine without me in the navigator’s seat.

Except for a small number of full  hookup sites at the bottom of the hill, the sites here at Bennett are 30amp with no water or sewer.  In site #446 we are next to  the water spicket and are able to get a spot through the trees for satellite.  My nieces Sheila and Darlene, and their families have the sites right across the road.

I still wasn’t feeling all that great on Wednesday so I sat at the rig and finished the 4th of July blog while the girls went to the pool and Ken and the guys went fishing. Bennett is one of a few Missouri State Parks that now has wifi available at their main buildings so I stopped by the restaurant to get on the internet.

Camping here with family has the added advantage that the three families split cooking duty so we had Tuesday evening hamburgers and Wednesday evening nachos.  We did roast beef sandwiches on Thursday.  We also take turns doing breakfast every other day or so.  The rest of the time it seems there is more than enough leftovers for lunches and snacks.

Ken got in some flyfishing with the guys.

 

 

 

The girls came down to watch and the Dad’s allowed them to pull in a few of the catches.

Although, for the most part, they do catch-and-release, they decided to keep enough fish for one night’s dinner for the group.  That meant doing the cleaning before we left the stream.

 

Unfortunately, our trout dinner for the next night was not meant to be since when we awoke on Thursday morning, the cooler that had been iced down for the trout was turned over and the trout were gone—some raccoons had a pretty nice meal of trout fillets!!

 

 

Despite lingering rain on Thursday everyone seemed to be making the most of the day.   Tony and Kent set up their own little workshop under the awning, making up new fishing flies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girls thought the rain was great and were able to have a great time getting wet without having to head down to the pool!

 

Ken decided that he’d use the ugly weather outside to do a quick cleanup on the inside of the rig.  As it turned out, it was a costly quickie.  Ditka hates the vacuum cleaner and jumps all around it trying to attack it.  Ditka made an attack as Ken moved the sweeper toward the stairwell.  Ditka slid across the floor and down the stairwell.  Ken didn’t think much of it but we then noticed that Ditka was hobbling.

It was apparent after awhile that Ditka had really hurt himself in the tumble and would put absolutely no weight on his back left foot.   Ken could feel that the hip was out of its socket pretty far but it needed more help than Ditka was allowing Ken to provide.

The poor little fella was obviously in a lot of pain.  You could tell he wanted to lay down but couldn’t negotiate his hind-end in a way that wasn’t too painful to lay down.

Worse yet, he  needed to go to the bathroom but just stood by a tree, obviously perplexed about how he could lift a leg when only one rear leg was operational!

This injury didn’t look like something we could put off for 5 days until we were back in Quincy.

We made some calls in to the nearby town of Lebanon and were able to get a vet appointment at 2:30.  After a brief examination the vet confirmed that the hip was definitely dislocated but that she’d need to put Ditka under to get Xrays to determine the damage and attempt to correct.   She asked us to come back at 5pm and she’d give us the results.  This made for a pretty messy afternoon since the vet was 1/2 hour from our campsite, we had Ken’s nephew and great niece visiting at 4:00 and we were in charge of the evening’s dinner. 

Ken’s nephew, Jim and great-niece, Adrianna, dropped by about 4pm while we were on our short break back at the campground.  Jim is a firefighter/EMT in Lebanon so its only 11 miles for them to get to Bennett Springs.   I was not the greatest hostess since I was fretting about Ditka, and trying to organize the evening meal for the group at the same time.  To make things worse, we heard that as Jim pulled out after us to leave, he hit one of the big rocks by the campsite with his SUV and so it was a short and costly visit for the poor  guy. Sometimes, days are just like that!!

When we arrived back at the vets at 5pm, she showed us the Xrays and they were an ugly sight.  The hip was too far out of place and there was either tendon swelling or blood clot in the joint socket so even when she was able to move the bone back to where it needed to be the socket would not hold it.   She said that she could not see how it could be put back in without surgery and then it would likely require some cutting on the bone to make it stay…..omg,,, this from a stumble down a couple of stairs.

We all agreed that we did not want the surgery away from home so the vet stocked us up on some strong painkillers to keep Ditka more comfortable until we are back in Quincy.  She also sent the two Xrays so that we could show Dr. Jim back home the extent of the injury.

Ditka has pretty well been out-of-it for the better part of 24 hours.   Sox was a bit manic when I brought big brother in and laid him on the rug and he wouldn’t move.  It was heart-wrenching to watch her nuzzling and pushing around at him trying to get him to wake up.  In just the last few hours now he has started getting around a bit and has even accepted that he is going to have to do his business without the male leg-lifting routine. 

So let’s see so far this week I’ve been sick, the raccoons took our fish, its been raining, Jim scratched a rock down the side of his SUV and we’ve got an injured dog with $150 in bills so far that are probably only the start if he really needs surgery.  You know what….despite the trials we are still having a great time in ‘trout town’!!

Hugs, C