Time to catch everyone up on our latest adventures. After working in Ohio for a couple of weeks Nan and I headed down to Florida for my Mom’s big 90th birthday party. Between family members and friends there were about 80 people attending. My brother Don and his wife Sue arrived a few days before the party so we all went to a wildlife preserve near Brooksville, FL. The guy running the park used to run the local zoo, but he decided to spread his wings and open this park.
On Sunday, June 24, 2012 we all got together for the big party. Unfortunately Tropical Storm Debbie decided to show up. We planned an indoor party so as long as we stayed indoors nobody got wet. We all had a good time and plenty of food. The storm hung around for a few days and Nan and I were wading in ankle-deep water to the door of the RV. We were luckier than some since they got flooded out.
After spending a week in Brooksville Nan and I started heading for Ohio. After about 300 miles our AC gave out on the truck. I’ve never seen our cat pant before. We spent one night in Mt Airy, NC and listened to our weather radio saying “If you live in a mobile home seek shelter in a low-lying ditch” - so that was exciting. Except for some strong winds that storm missed us.
The next day we continued on to Ohio in about 90 degree weather. Just south of Canton I decided to top off the tanks and put some fuel stabilizer in since I knew I would not be using much fuel in the next couple of months. Nan said she need to use the bathroom so I told her to go in and pay first. I thought she would use the bathroom in the station so I filled up and started to pull away from the pump. I looked in the side-view mirror and notice the step was down to enter the RV. Nan was inside the RV sitting on the toilet. She said she heard me start the engine and grabbed on to the sink so she wouldn’t fall off. As I pulled away the pee was sloshing back and forth in the bowl. Luckily I only moved about 10 feet before I saw the step was down and quickly stopped. It turns out after driving several hours in 90 degree heat we have a failure to communicate.
While all this traveling was going on this summer Nan and I were negotiating to buy a house. We found one in Roaming Shores, Ohio in Ashtabula County at the NE corner of the State. It’s a village with a population of about 1,500 on a 550 acre private lake that’s about 3 miles long an 1/2 mile wide. Title is to transfer on August 1. Since it’s a lakefront home that means I’m going to keep working part-time for a few years. I wanted to keep our RV and truck and use that to travel to jobs, but because of HOA restrictions we can’t keep the rig in our driveway. Since there’s no inside storage facilities that are high enough to fit us, I decided to put the rig up for sale and buy a smaller motorhome. When I called my insurance agent to tell her that after 3 years of a full-time RV lifestyle Nan finally won, she said “Well, you put up a good fight. Your comrades would be proud”.
When I read my entries in this blog we had a lot of adventures. It will be roughly 3 years to the day that we started traveling. Although we will still have an RV it won’t be full-time living, and we will now be traveling in a normal RV. So I will never hear the question again “Don’t you think that truck is a little overkill?”
