Wow! What a change it has been, having Allison with me up there on the rope in front of the crowds!

I swear we're bringing in about half again as many people as I used to get on my own, and most are dropping tips in a small pottery jar.

We don't have to take cash, but when we leave a jar sitting around like that with "Tips" written on it, well, people do sometimes give.

Any source of extra cash in a business enterprise like Birchland Carnivals is always appreciated. In my case, and Allison's, and that of a few others, most of the tips and a fair bit of what we get from entry fees to the tents goes toward our possibly getting a college education.

It's the last day of the fair here, and we've been pulling stuff down for a while now, as the place hasn't been very busy.

We'll be rolling out of here in a few hours. We have to go right across the country, to Victorville, California, by next Friday afternoon or evening. The fair we're heading to opens at noon on Saturday, so we will have to do all of the set-up of whatever rides we use before then.

I guess it's good that we actually have a few days to get there, I hate when we have to race across the country in a day or two. Being able to take our time means we can make stops to have a bit of fun here and there, see sights we're interested in and just slow down and breathe.

We rolled out around mid-morning on Monday, heading west on I85 for about an hour before we circled around Atlanta to reach the I20.

From there, we planned to follow I20 westbound until it merged into I10, then take that the rest of the way to San Bernardino, where we would bypass the city again, catching the I215 north until it meets I15, then follow the I15 into Victorville itself and the fairgrounds.

As I said already, there was no need to rush to get there, but I can't help it that the miles just seem to roll by as we go along.We weren't driving as fast as most folks, so we didn't get to Shreveport, Louisiana until late afternoon due to taking pit stops every so often.

We split the group between the Travelodge and Motel 6 motels in Bossier City, a suburb of Shreveport. People headed off in various directions to get meals for now and snacks for overnight. Mom, dad, Allison, myself, Tina, Ricki, Lisa, Kerry and Albany dined at Joe Cobb's Bar-BQ.

When we were satisfied and happy from the good food there, we stopped at a food store and picked up some snack items.

Mom, dad, Allison and I shared a unit with two beds and spent a fair part of the evening watching shows on the TV until we started yawning.

We may not have been doing a heck of a lot, I know mom and dad switched the driving each time we stopped, but when you are usually winding down by mid-evening, or late evening while working at a fair like we do, you tend to get used to going to bed at certain times.

We weren't really active today, so the simple fact of that, plus the good meal earlier and it being after ten PM had us all ready to sleep.

Mom made sure that we folded the chip bags to prevent any from falling out, then placed the five half-empty bags into one reusable cotton bag. There were still a few cans of the pop we had bought in the small fridge in the unit, we'd take them with us in the morning.

Once everything had been cleaned up to her satisfaction, we all changed into our nightwear and wandered off to dreamland.

We were out of the motel by just after 9 AM, having all had decent showers, although dad's was half-cold, the hot water ran out while he was in there. He laughed, looked at us and said, "I guess that's what I have to expect when I share space with three women."

We all giggled as we headed out to the RV, then met up with the others, where everyone decided to head to Denny's for breakfast.

We were back on the road perhaps an hour later, once again sated and happy.

Tuesday evening, after skimming through Dallas early that afternoon, we stopped at El Paso, doing much the same as the previous night.

We split up the group again, this time between a Days Inn on the north side of I10 and a Quality Inn on the south side of the interstate.

The decision of the whole group was to stay close to the motels, so we ended up eating at the Texas Roadhouse nearby.

The next morning, that would be Wednesday, we hit an IHOP just off the I10 for breakfast, then were off again just after 9:30 AM.

Even with the occasional pit stop and switching drivers , we reached the Deluxe Inn in the city of Indio by 6:30 PM.

Perhaps we were in luck, I'm not sure, but the motel had enough units available for all of us.

We wanted something different that evening, so we piled into the El Mexicali cafe. There wasn't enough seating available, so we ended up eating in two shifts. Mom, dad, Allison and I ended up going in with the second half of our folks and enjoyed a variety of decent Mexican food.

We hit Denny's again the next morning, yep, Thursday. After another good breakfast, we were off and running once again.

We had already crossed the country, the last bit of the trip from Indio to Victorville took two hours as we ended up stuck in rush hour traffic.

What a laugh, calling it rush hour when the cars are pretty much stalled on the highways and other roads for the whole time.

We finally reached the fairgrounds just after noon, talked to the guy at the entry area and were slotted into one of the rear sections.

He sent someone with us to show us where we would be setting up our tents and stuff, then returned to watching the entrance.

We were leading the pack, so we let the guy ride with us, and a few minutes later, he directed us to a spot and said, "There."

I don't think he said anything the whole time he was in the RV with us; not a talkative guy, I guess. Hmmm... it takes all kinds, right?

Anyway, we had everyone gather around and discussed the set-up of the tents and other items. By what the guy at the entrance had said, there would already be booths with games like the ones we have, so we left those in the truck, no sense pulling them out if they won't be used.

Several people said they'd be happy to stay and begin setting everything up if the rest of us wanted to wander off and have some fun.

Dad was one of the ones who decided to stay and help. He may not be able to handle heavy stuff, but an extra set of hands is always useful.

Mom had been on her cell phone while we were stuck in the rush hour traffic earlier, talking to someone. I had no idea what that was about until Mom called me back into the RV for a moment and stated that I would be seeing a doctor next Tuesday to make sure everything is fine.

Wow! I really wasn't expecting that, I hadn't been feeling any pain, even when exercising or performing, so I hadn't worried about it.

I wasn't ready for the next thing mom said, though. "Honey, the doctors back east said that you might start menstruating soon, remember?"

"Ahhh, mom, did you really have to mention that? Nooo, I haven't been having cramps or anything like that, I'm fine, mom!" I yelped.

Mom just grinned at me, saying, "The boy scout motto fits this quite well, sweetie. 'Be prepared' is the brief form of it."

"Do we have to do this now? Can't it wait until we have some other bit of free time?" I whined like a five year old who just lost their puppy.

Mom stood there, shaking her head and laughing, "Better to have what you need now than have to race around to get it when you start!"

I sighed, shoulders slumping a bit. She had a point, they had said I might menstruate soon, and that had been over five weeks ago.

I grumbled and agreed to go to the appointment, then mom added that I wouldn't be able to eat anything after 6 AM that day.

I started whining again about not being fed enough, and she just grinned at me. Sometimes moms are just plain evil!

We headed into San Bernardino proper and just wandered around, we didn't have anything that we needed to do. Ahhh, time to relax.

Mom decided that we should wander through a couple of malls, just to see what they had available.

Uh huh, that's girl speak for we're going to see if there's anything worth buying, then strip the stores bare of those items like locusts.

Yep, that is probably a good description of what happened. We didn't see anything in the first mall that appealed to us and was inexpensive, so we only ended up with a few items. It was the second mall, a big discount place we found, that we tried to strip of most of their goods.

Holy cheese! We actually filled two shopping carts with more clothes, most of the items were for me. Where am I going to put it all?

We made it back to the fairgrounds just after 8 PM, we'd stopped on the way back at an In-N-Out Burger to stuff ourselves.

Well, we did make sure to get food for dad and several others who had stayed and worked on setting everything up today.

They had made some progress, the tents were up and the smaller rides were mostly done, the big items would be finished tomorrow.

I was up and moving before 7 AM Friday morning. Two slices of whole wheat toast, orange juice and a bowl of Shreddies™ was my breakfast.

Once I had finished eating, I left our RV and wandered around, looking at the various rides that were being set up in our area.

The next two or three hours passed fairly quickly after I became involved in helping some of the guys put the ferris wheel together.

We finished that somewhere around 11 AM, I think, and moved on to helping other folks with setting up the 4,200+ foot long roller coaster.

We were about halfway through the remainder of the set-up of that item when I sniffed the air, smelling grilled meats somewhere nearby.

Of course a smell like that draws people like moths are drawn to a flame. Within minutes, the two big grills were surrounded by hungry people.

Remember that huge RV I mentioned that was near our rides and stuff while we were at the Hunt County fair a while back?

Yep, it was the same guys, they had come out here and arrived late last night before setting up their two small rides plus the grills.

Their rides? Oh, a small carousel and a rather intriguing double merry-go-round that both parts could go either the same direction or opposite.

You know, I don't recall ever seeing these guys before we were at the Hunt County fair? I guess, with all of the fairs and other events taking place all over the country, the odds are that you could run into people only a few times in a year unless you regularly travel together.

Yup, I stuffed myself again, two big sausages plus a half pound venison burger, a heap of fries and someone had an ice cream maker.

Oh, damn, I don't know where they got the strawberries, but when I knew they had them, I just had to have some fresh strawberry ice cream!

I'm pretty sure that I waddled back to our RV later on when I realized I was ready to sleep, after having a second strawberry ice cream cone.

The fair opened at noon on Saturday, and it didn't take very long before people reached our area, even with us being at the back of the place.

As we had done before, the big animals had their acts in one of the large tents, with the acrobatic folks sharing the second large tent.

We weren't doing quite as many performances as we had at the Anderson County fair, but the cats and the elephants were doing at least three shows a day each, sometimes with an extra show if there was enough interest. The acrobats in the second tent, that would be including myself and Allison, along with Eric, his family, Pat, Jenny, the clowns and Jackson on his bikes, each had two performances in our tent.

Well, it was quite fun to hear the people in the seats below us squeaking in awe as we tumbled, jumped, bounced and danced on the rope.

I actually heard a woman scream when I did the front flip over Allison in our second performance, then again as we "danced" on the rope.

I didn't find out until after we had finished that a medical team had been called in to help the distressed woman.

As had become the usual after our act, we received thunderous applause. I think the seats were pretty much filled, which is very good, as we usually only fill about half to two-thirds during a performance. Well, this is fairly close to a major urban area, maybe that's the reason.

While we were standing outside our big tent relaxing after our second time up on the rope, we learned that the woman would be okay. She had panicked when I did that flip, and had actually passed out after the second scream, which was what made the medical team necessary.

Allison and I were chatting quietly, looking in occasionally to glance at Jackson doing his stunts, when someone said "Hello" to us.

We turned to look in front of us and saw the woman who had panicked earlier. She then told us that she was sorry for the disturbance.

I smiled at her, stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug for a moment, saying, "You didn't disturb us at all, ma'am. One of the things we do is to train ourselves to ignore many sounds around us, which helps us to focus more on what we are doing up on the rope."

The woman nodded, returned the hug and whispered, "You two take care of yourselves, you are simply amazing up there!"

Sunday and Monday were much the same as Saturday, the lions and cats performed three times at a minimum, the rest of us at least twice.

We were becoming used to the roaring sound of the applause as we concluded our act each time. Damn! What a rush it can give you!

We had found out while we were coming here that the fair wouldn't be open Tuesday or Wednesday, which explained why mom had called and set up an appointment at the Loma Linda University Medical Center to have me examined again. I wasn't looking forward to it at all.

We arrived there a bit early and ended up filling out lots of paperwork again, including having Dr. Brandt fax them the info from my tests that had been taken and had led to my learning that I was intersex. Today, they wanted to do an ultrasound plus an MRI. Just what I don't need!

I met the doctor here that was doing the new tests, a Dr. Anita Sandridge. She was pretty young, maybe mid to late twenties?

The order of the day was that I would do the ultrasound first, then come back to her office for a bit while the techs prepped the MRI machine.

I suppose we had been waiting in her office for about twenty minutes when I was called to go for the ultrasound.

The ultrasound itself was okay. Huh, it looks a bit different than it did with the one I had back then. Everything in there is more developed?

Oh, boy. If it's developed that much in less than six weeks, it won't take a lot longer before it's all functional. I'm sooo not ready for this.

The MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was NOT fun. I don't like the machine, it's too narrow, too cramped, and way too noisy.

I guess it's a good thing that they let me put in some soft ear plugs. That helped enough that I could tune the rest of it out, thank goodness.

Huh, they actually had to wake me up when the MRI was finished. I had tuned everything out so well that I had actually fallen asleep in there!

We were told they would let us know the results in about ninety minutes or so. I told mom quite firmly, "I need to eat something, and SOON!"

We didn't even leave the medical centre, choosing to get a light meal from the cafeteria there, then returned to Dr. Sandridge's office.

You know what it's like in doctors offices, you get there on time and wait for them to come out and get you thirty minutes later?

Yep, she'd said ninety minutes, but it turned out to be almost two hours after she'd said that before we re-entered her office.

That was when she dropped a bombshell that I would dearly have loved to avoid.

"Lara here is developing much faster than Dr. Brandt anticipated. If things progress as they are, Lara could be fully functional as a female within the next three months, maybe sooner. I can't say for certain, but I would be very surprised if she wasn't menstruating within 60 days."

To this day, I can't even tell you why, but after she said that, I twisted to face mom for a very brief moment, then fainted.