Apples, anyone?

We spent a couple of weeks in eastern Washington, the Apple Capitol of the world (self-proclaimed, of course). Boy, all of their fruit was yummy! Lots of pick your own places, but we couldn't figure out what we would do with a bushel of apples, so we just went to the farmer's market in Wenatchee and had a beautiful fruit salad one night.

We didn't end up in the park we thought we were going to - our mistake. We stayed at the Wenatchee River County Park. Between a major highway and a busy train track. Might have been an error to stay there. Oh, well. Let's hear it for earplugs!

Wenatchee is a pretty nice town and Marv loved their bike paths. He's been exercising our recumbent tricycle pretty often. Naturally, I'm not into it as much, but it is fun, even for me!

One thing we saw in Wenatchee that I've never seen before. This official street sign was such a surprise that I had to turn around to get a photo. It was right near their Arboretum, so presumably there are peacocks, although we didn't see any, worse luck.

We celebrated our anniversary recently - 43 wonderful years. I can't believe how old we are getting! We ate at a very nice Italian restaurant. When our desserts arrived, each one had a lit candle in it. Nice!

This week we're making our way to Salt Lake City. We will be working at The Depot, a staging place for all those health kits Methodist churches keep making. The Depot crew gets to check every kit to make sure everything on the list is in it. (Otherwise the government on the other end can seize the whole shipment.) If you make health kits at your church, be sure to include everything. I had no idea it was so important. 

We are looking forward to being with people for a week and getting to know some new folks. We haven't done much except with one another for a while. There will be some quilters in the group, so you can imagine what I may be talking to them about.

We have had the enjoyable experience of staying not 1, not 2, but three places in a row with noisy trains all night! I don't know how we pick them. Just lucky, I guess. Maybe the KOA near Salt Lake City will be quieter.

We should be in Colorado Springs in by the 20th and hope to catch up with Mom and some friends (and doctors). Then on to the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. Can't wait!

Catching Up

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. Sorry!

We have had an eventful month. We spent time with our son at his rocket launch - a 12-foot rocket which was worked on for a year. Chuck is a go-fer but looking forward to being part of the tech crew. It was pretty exciting to see it go up! Here's Chuck - and yes, he has an orange tail in his hair.

Next we visited Newport, OR. We stayed at a park ON the coast. We must have been less than 100' from the ocean! This was the view out our front window for those few days.

One night there was an incredible sunset - again, right in front of us. What a gorgeous world!

We went to Portland, OR for a few days to spend more time with Chuck and his wife Erica. Here we are at a special ice cream place where you can get a "flight" of ice creams, any flavors you choose. Needless to say, that was fun!

We took the kids on a river boat cruise. Great fun until the boat caught on fire. Memo to self: not as much fun when the boat catches fire!

Then we spent a couple of weeks in the northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula, near Port Townsend. We really like the area and plan to come back, perhaps next summer. One highlight was a whale-watching tour. Four hours of driving around looking for whales - and one of them we spent between the US and Canada, in close proximity to a pod of transient orcas. They are my favorite type of wildlife: so lively and beautiful!

On to Seattle to visit our daughter, Genevieve, and her wife, Molly. It was wonderful to see them again! We had dinner at their house one night, and one night went out. Both were fun evenings for us all.

We also took in a chocolate tour of Seattle while we were there. The tour goes to six different chocolate places, where you get a sample of two or three of their items, from a cupcake to sipping chocolate to a cacao bean (bitter!) to fancy caramels. This was the last place we visited. It looked a lot like a jewelry store, and the prices matched, too.

This portrait was made from pictures of their various chocolates in their little wrapper cups. I could eat there all day, but it's too expensive! Actually, by the time we tried 16 different treats, even I was sick of chocolate. So worth it, though!

We are in Yakima this week, in eastern Washington. All people can talk about is the horrible fires in the area. We are close enough to smell the smoke quite easily. There are air quality warnings until Wednesday (at this point - they keep extending the warning) and you are not supposed to exercise outdoors. Schools may be canceling outside recess once the kids are back, this week or next.

Genevieve and Molly went to Chelan to attend a wedding a couple of weekends ago, just when the fire started in that area. The entire wedding had to be moved on the day of the wedding to another town because Chelan (pronounced shu-LAN, like land) was evacuated suddenly. Still, the couple did get married and everyone made it to the wedding.

We'll begin heading south in a few weeks, so we're trying to enjoy some cool temperatures while we can. It seems everywhere we have been has been hotter than usual. I'm almost wishing for snow. But not quite!

Quilt Week in Central Oregon

If you're not interested in quilts, just skip this one. But if you like pretty pictures, stay tuned!

Sisters, Oregon has had an outdoor quilt show for 40 years now. The first year 12 quilts were displayed on and around buildings. This year there were about 1200 quilts! The show is always the second Saturday in July, so we arranged our trip to include this fabulous event.

In addition, quilt stores in the area have many classes and special events the week before the show. Wow! No wonder I haven't written in a while. I've been busy! I took two classes and attended one lecture. I spent more money than I care to admit on items for the classes. I had TONS of fun!

Marv was a truly good sport and went with me to Sisters for the show. After about an hour, he retired to have coffee and read his book while I kept wandering around town. Here are some of my favorites from the show.

Quilts have really changed in the last 20 years or so. They are now more art than craft. I make more traditional quilts but with bright colors and intricate fabrics, like this one:

But I truly admire the ones who created the last two pictures above. The eagle is so accurate that you could swear it must be 3-D. The last picture is a "modern" quilt, perhaps created on the fly, perhaps planned carefully in advance.

The top picture (with me in it) and the fourth one are both made with many, many small pieces and carefully planned color schemes. The pieces for the fourth one are about 1" on a side and there must be thousands of them! They probably include hundreds of different fabrics. (For me, life is too short to put this kind of time into a project! I'd rather do more quilts and spend less time on each one. But they are wonderful to see.)

Another change is in the quilting. I wish you could see how beautifully quilts are machine-quilted these days. They are detailed and gorgeous! You can see some of the intricate quilting in the tan band below the peacock. If you get the chance to go to a quilt show sometime, you will be blown away. Many quilts have also been "embellished" - extra stitching in different colors to "paint" the fabric, added beads and hot-fix crystals, etc. If you enlarge the top picture above you can see little dots in the black fabric. Those are beads sewn on by hand - again, hundreds of them!

 Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

P.S. Thanks to my son Chuck and his friend Mark who helped me figure out how to add photos to this blog. You guys are geniuses!

Still Rolling

I'm sure you have all decided we've fallen off the face of the earth. In fact, it's just me who's disappeared - or rather, quit writing. But I'm back and planning more great adventures!

We had a delightful time in Colorado, checking in with friends and family in several cities. We went to our storage unit and decided that much of what we had planned to pick up was really unnecessary or had been replaced already. I did get my sewing machine and box of projects! Fun, fun.

We spent a couple of days in Loveland so Marv could go to Annual Conference and check in with some friends and colleagues. It was a good day for both of us - I sewed all day.

Then four days driving and a couple of days in the middle to relax, and we got to Bend, Oregon. We're here for a month. It's a lovely town with lots of trees. Free concerts in the park, farmer's markets, beautiful mountains (like Faith, Hope and Charity, the Three Sisters).

The first couple of weeks were unusually hot. Everyone in town was commenting on how strange the weather was. By noon it was time to stay out of the sun. But we managed to attend the Bite of Bend. Many food booths with samples for $1 or $2. Lots of yummy stuff! Of course it rained part of the time, but that just cools things off. And I have discovered that I don't even melt in the rain. Who knew?

We walked around the park downtown one day and discovered many ducks in the river nearby, some of them "mooning" us as they looked for food underwater. Cute!

Next - Quilt Week in Bend and Sisters! 

Westward Ho!

We feel like we're finally on track. We had repairs to the car in Nashville, repairs to the rig in Alabama, and then a dead car battery in Missouri. Now we're in Topeka, headed back to Colorado for about 2 weeks, then westward towards the northwest.

We enjoyed Nashville very much. Scenic tours, river boat cruise/lunch, walks in Nashville's downtown Centennial Park, etc. Lots of bbq, sweet tea and pie! I have to admit I've had fun eating southern food. Even Fanta Grape, a soft drink full of questionable chemicals, judging from the taste, but a flavor I haven't had since I was a kid. Boy, that was definitely a trip on the way-back machine! I guess now that we're out of the south, no more Fanta Grape.

Nashville got pretty hot and humid so, while we waited (2 weeks) for the car to be repaired, we went to the mountains near Gatlinburg. Very nice RV park - spacious, pretty, lots of trees. Very refreshing! We went to a show in Pigeon Forge, TN called American Hit Parade - pop songs from the 50s through the 80s. For some reason they didn't include the Beatles or the Stones. :) Quite fun! They even sang "Sweet Caroline"!

I visited several quilt stores in the area. That was delightful, too! More fat quarters, of course.

Then back to Red Bay, Alabama. They called on Saturday before Memorial Day and said they had an opening on Tuesday if we could get there. We made it! Getting up for their 7 a.m. start time was a shock! But they finished some warranty work (our ceiling was sagging) in a day, and we were off again. 

We've missed weeks planned for Oklahoma City, Amarillo, and Albuquerque. Now that weather is so bad in some of those areas, we decided to go straight through to Colorado. We had decided early on not to drive more than about 300 miles in a day, so we stopped in southern Missouri for the night and then on to Topeka. We're taking a day off today to get caught up on paperwork and maintenance. This is a fairly large campground with spacious sites. It is surrounded by lush trees but the camping area is completely cleared. And it's right next to a busy highway. So only two pie slices. On the other hand, although it is pretty full, we don't hear people noise. Most parks ask for quiet time from 10 to 7 and people do respect that. Thank goodness!

I'm having trouble figuring out what time it is. Some of our devices automatically change time zones and some don't. Our iPads only change if they get connected to the internet, and we don't always need to connect. Right now most of my clocks say 12:30 and one says 1:30, so I'm guessing it's 12:30. Very confusing! One more time zone change when we get to Colorado, and one for the west coast. Then maybe we can get everything sorted out for a while.

Still having problems with pictures. I take lots of them, but can't seem to get them from my phone to my computer. Any suggestions?

I enjoy all your comments! Please keep it up!

Motherhood

I've been thinking a lot about mothers lately, for some reason. A friend reminded me recently that every child has a different mother than his or her siblings. For example, the first child drops a pacifier and you sterilize it carefully before giving it back. When your second child comes along, you pick up the dropped pacifier, blow off the visible carpet fibers and give it to the child. The first child's baby book is full of pictures and notes (I kept a diary for the first and only time during my daughter's first year). Your second child is lucky to have his/her name in the book, let alone notes on what gifts you received when he/she arrived!

But there are bigger changes that take place for a mother. You have more (or fewer) responsibilities. Your relationship with your partner is different. You are more (or less) tired or depressed or content than you used to be. All of this impacts your children, of course. (I know you moms out there are resonating with these words. Dads - maybe not so much.)

My sisters are 7 and 8 years younger than me. My childhood and that of my older brother had a father at home. My sisters didn't. That made the level of stress on my mother and my sisters quite different while they were young. Just ask them!

But as Marv said recently, the goal is not to be a perfect mother. It's to do the best you can with the situation you are in and the background you came from. I sure hope my kids think that way, too!

My mother is quite a woman. She grew up in a time that women didn't work very often, but her mother did. I'm sure that affected her expectations for herself. And when she grew into adulthood, she had a different view of life from many of her peers, including my dad. She is a very intelligent, well-educated woman who wanted to contribute to the world through a career, and she did so for 50 years or so. I'm sure that impacted my expectations when I grew up!

Mom summarizes her life with three songs. Bridge Over Troubled Waters (Simon & Garfunkel) refers to her life of counseling as a missionary, college professor and dean, and private counselor. The Impossible Dream is how she describes her desire to be an ordained minister, which she achieved at age 60. I asked her one time when she felt called to the ministry, and she told me she was 19 at the time. No wonder it felt like an impossible dream! The third song she talks about (and any of you who know her know how appropriate this is) is I Did It My Way. She has always marched to her own drummer. She never goes to breakfast at the facility where she lives, and they have accepted that she's not a morning person. Just don't ask her to be happy about a 5 a.m. fire drill!

I think given her background and history she probably did the best she could. That makes her a successful mother. We still have some issues, but I can let a lot slide now that I understand her better - and also understand me better. She gets five pie slices.

We attended "Motherhood - the Musical" this week. It is a locally written play, but should be everywhere. It is hysterical! (For some reason, most of the audience was women. Marv was a little out-numbered, but he's a good sport.) The play concerns one woman who is about to give birth to her first child, and three neighbors who are "experienced" mothers, telling her some of what to expect. It ranges from the excitement of finding a bargain at Costco to the constant demands of children to the joys of being special because you're "Danny's Mom." Four pie slices for sure.

The Athens of the South

The motto for the company that built our motor coach is "roughing it smoothly." I guess when you have a washer/dryer, convection/microwave and TV, it's not exactly camping. But it's as close as I want to get.

We have figured out that we are doing what people on vacation do - seeing the sights, trying to find shows, going to museums - but at a much slower pace. That works for us, especially since we have to stay in Nashville at least two weeks to get the car taken care of.

Yesterday we visited The Hermitage, Pres. Andrew Jackson's home. It has been restored after years of neglect, and most of the furnishings (including some wallpaper) is original (with some reproductions). That they managed to pull together so much of the Jacksons' original furniture and decorations is amazing! The grounds are very large and beautiful. The original garden area has also been restored with many historical roses along with iris, peonies, even columbines! And one stretch of herbs for cooking and medicine: basil, thyme, feverfew, yarrow, etc.

The displays in the museum covered Andrew Jackson's life and accomplishments. He was apparently a very good general, a forward-thinking president, and absolutely brutal to local Native Americans. He's the reason for the Trail of Tears. I feel so sad when I think that certain groups have always been persecuted and denied their rights, and that it continues today. I keep hoping we are making progress. We've a long way to go.

Today we took a "hop on, hop off" tour. We love these because you get to see all kinds of places, and can get on and off all day if you want to spend more time at any of them. We rode most of the way through the tour and got off at Nashville's Centennial Park, created for (guess what?) the State Centennial in 1896. At that time there was a huge exhibition and a replica of the Green Parthenon in Athens. Well, not a replica but an attempt to recreate the way the Parthenon looked at its finest. Huge columns, big honking statue of Athena (gilded yet!), and the pediments with the statues now known as the Elgin Marbles (in England, I believe). Hence Nashville's nickname, the Athens of the South. Lots of people there, like a group playing some simple rhythm instruments while a couple danced / fought. I couldn't decide if they were practicing mixed martial arts or doing athletic dancing. It looked like the musicians had several extra instruments which they handed to passers-by. Why didn't I offer to play my tambourine!?

Are we having fun yet?

Happy May Day! Did your special someone bring you flowers? Mine brought M&M's which won't last even as long as flowers. Oh, well, it's the taste that counts, right?

I stand chastized. I complained about the little town in Alabama, only to have my face rubbed in the fact that the people are what make a town worth more pie slices. We were driving the rig, towing the car, towards somewhere in this small town, and got lost. It's not possible to back up when you're towing a car, so after making a few fruitless turns and finding smaller and smaller roads and no town, we finally reached a place where we just had to turn around, and there was not enough room to pull forward and around. We had to unhook (15 minutes or so) and hook up again (another 15 minutes). A fellow in a truck stopped to see if we needed help. (A Samaritan? Several had "passed us by on the other side.") We said we were fine, and he drove on. 10 minutes later we pulled up behind him. He had stopped to wait for us, and asked if we were lost. We said yes, and he took the time to not just give us directions, but lead us where we wanted to go! Now that's a neighbor.

(Also we discovered Mr. J's, which has very good pizza and delicious pecan pie.)

So, my apologies to Red Bay, Alabama. You ARE worth stopping for!

Most of the damage to our RV is fixed but we have to go back to Alabama in about a month for the sagging roof, not from the hail. Meanwhile, we're now in Nashville. (If you have to kill time, why not have fun, too?) Looking forward to revisiting churches Marv served while in seminary, plus tourist highlights like the Parthenon and Ryman Auditorium as well as the schools we attended, Vanderbilt and Scarritt.

We'll also have the repairs done to our car while we're here. It will take a couple of weeks. I wish you could see the 50 hail dents in the roof of the car but the picture doesn't really show it. You'd need special lighting, I think. Most of the car panels will need to be replaced. I'm glad I'm not paying for it! Marv wants to get a new paint job so the car matches the RV. Whatever.

I mentioned slides the other day. I'm not talking about photo slides. If you've never been in a fairly recent motor home, you may not know what I'm talking about. You see an RV on the road and it is the shape of a bus, about 8' wide. But when you stop at your camping site, you slide out the side walls (above the bottom 4') of part of your RV about 2-3 feet, so your width is now 12 or 14'. We have 2 slides on each side, two in the front of the bathroom (from behind the driver's seat through the kitchen) and 2 in the bedroom. It sure makes things more livable! The bathroom is the only area on our rig that doesn't expand. Think of us as the shape of a squarish wasp and you'll have it.

Every time we open the slide that holds the refrigerator we cross our fingers. It's a lot of weight to hang out over nothing! But so far, so good.

This campsite is hopping! Lots of people here for the weekend and live music at the gazebo starting pretty soon. Let's party!

It's an adventure!

Last week we experienced our first real hitch. We were in Hot Springs, AR, south of Little Rock. The weather started storming and then hailing.

We've never seen hail like this in Colorado! It was pounding on the roof, and then things began to shatter. We lost all three fan covers on the RV (they are heavy plastic or something) - they just went to pieces. We have a broken windshield on the car, more dents than you can count, and other sundry damage. Thank goodness for insurance! But it's an adventure, for sure. We're trying to stay positive.

When Marv and the insurance adjuster were on top of the RV, they discovered that the roof was caved in and had been for some time. It turns out to be a design flaw which Tiffin will fix for free, so we are headed back to - you guessed it - the factory in Alabama. The system there is that you show up, your rig goes on the list, and you stay there in their campground for the days or weeks until they get to you. No advance reservations. Keep the RV available from 7 to 3 every day.

At least the satellite is now working, and we have a lot of DVD's we can watch. Since there's nothing else in that little town, which will remain nameless. I guess we are lucky that the hail damage meant the roof damage showed up. Otherwise who knows where we would have been when we found out!
It's a long way from the West Coast to Alabama, the only Tiffin factory.

I promised I'd add pictures from earlier and here is a Lego person made of - guess what? Legos!

This is also from Tampa. This beautiful park had a number of interesting benches with art on the top. Lots of texture and depth to them. Kinda wacky, which I really like!

We're spending this weekend in Tupelo, where we saw (surprise!) a statue of Elvis. (In case you are too young to remember, Tupelo is his birthplace.) This campground is really pretty - lots of trees and birds, cooler weather. A lot of rain, too. But it's very quiet, which we appreciate! 

Tomorrow we drive about an hour to Alabama and get in line. Ho-hum. Pray for us and patience!

Togetherness

Having grown up in Japan is really helping me deal with such close quarters. We have about 400 square feet from front to back of the RV (with the slides out it goes from 8' wide to almost 14'). But you can hear everything the other person is doing. More detail would be TMI, but you know what I mean. In traditional Japanese homes, the walls are mostly sliding framework panels with paper inserts. Again, you can hear everything. So you learn not to listen and pretend you don't know what you shouldn't.

When Marv wants quiet time, he sits in the driver's seat with his earphones on. When I want to be alone, I usually go in the bedroom and close the door (often napping as long as I'm there). We've managed not to get into each other's hair too often. When we do, it's pretty obvious! Someone gets grumpy. Or two someones.

We spent a few days in Tupelo, MS, where we walked along the Natchez Trace Parkway. The National Park is over 400 miles long and 800 feet wide on average. The little bit that was open for walking was just beautiful.

Oops, that one just slipped in there by accident.

We don't have forests like this in Colorado - such variety and so tall! We enjoyed the cooler air in the forest, too. Tupelo is pretty humid. 

So we went further north, to Little Rock, AR, where we spent a couple of weeks being entertained by my college roommate, Peggy and her husband, Tom. They took us to several nice restaurants (with pie, of course), to church, and sightseeing in Little Rock and Hot Springs.

Peggy and I hadn't seen each other in about 30 years. She even took me to quilt stores! We had a great time! Thanks, Peggy and Tom. 

April update

Whoa! It's been a busy month. We left Florida on April 1st and have visited Alabama (where the RV factory is), Mississippi and Arkansas.

We discovered that the town where the Tiffin factory is has nothing else in it. Nothing. At the time we had no satellite and no TV stations came in by antenna. No sports bars. Even McDonald's only had the news on. So I had to listen to the NCAA Championship Game on the radio! Can you say frustrated? (1/2 pie slice for the town and no pie slice at all for the campground.)

The tour of the factory was interesting. Tiffin makes 12 RV's per day, about 3000 per year. Very hands on!

Marv wearing safety glasses and headphones for the factory tour.

An ancient RV, one of the first Tiffins, from 1976. Note avocado shag carpet! Yuck!

Not our favorite stay, but we lived through it.

Yesterday we found Legoland, Florida! There's a castle built of what looks like Lego blocks, and the flags look exactly like the ones in castle kits. I tried to get a picture but the sun was in the wrong place. Am I photographically challenged or what?!

We had the lovely experience of spending last night right next to the highway. NOISY! Just take note: when you pick a spot for your RV to land, make sure you're not too close to an intersection. We heard traffic All Night. Oh, well. That's what we get for staying in the parking lot at Camping World. Thank goodness we will be back at the "resort" tonight.

Not much happening right now. Laundry, dishes, cooking, maintenance, like all of you, just no working! We're still getting the towbar for the car set up. Marv is having a great time figuring stuff out. You should see his checklists every day! Just like always. I'm still floating along without any plans except to have fun.

Next week we will take off for good. Tallahassee, Dothan (AL), Red Bay (AL), Little Rock (AR), then west somewhere. We'll keep you posted and put pictures up if we ever take any decent ones.

It's Sweet Sixteen time - Go Duke!

Choices

We arrived in Florida on Sunday evening and discovered it is HOT and HUMID in Florida! Of course we knew that, but it was still a shock. We managed to get the boxes we had shipped ahead and now have sheets on our bed and more clothes.

This morning we are dealing with TV's. I know, we should be out in the wilderness camping, not watching TV, but it's time for the NCAA tournament, and Duke is a No. 1 seed! I usually tell Marv about this time "See you in April."

Tech is really interesting in an RV. We keep running out of Gigs on our phone wifi, for some reason. Apparently we are using something that takes a lot of data. So we are turning everything off as much as possible. Maybe next month will be better.

Also we have two satellites, one on the RV roof and one portable. Unfortunately, they work on different technologies! Since the rig is from 2011, so is the roof satellite. So we can either only use the portable or buy old DirecTV boxes on eBay or pay an unknown amount to cancel DirecTV and get Dish. Choices!

We plan to go to Epcot Center while we're in Florida but have to wait for a cooler day. We'll need to do some research to see what we really want to do there because there won't be time to do everything.  Suggestions are welcome! What's your favorite thing at Epcot?

Last night I was up later than Marv (as usual) reading. When I wanted to go to bed, the door to the bedroom was stuck and would only open 3 inches! Marv loved it when I woke him up to get the door open so I could go to bed.

But we're still a team!

Pictures will begin soon. We had an egret sitting on our car yesterday and I couldn't find my camera. It is lovely here and today not so hot. Maybe we'll get some pie today at Paul's, a local restaurant with fine basic food. I rate them 3 pie slices!

5 days to go - but who's counting?

It's going to be a busy week! You know how it is when you move, it all seems to come down to the last few days. Pick-up of donations, movers, the last few pieces of furniture leaving, cleaning, closing, last minute errands...But by Thursday afternoon we should be on our way.

We're looking forward to a change in the weather, that's for sure. In the last couple of weeks we've had several heavy snowstorms, including some during which we had to drive. Not fun at all, in my opinion! So we are hoping Florida is having spring already. Shorts and flip-flops - yes!

Thanks to the Brays for dinner last night. You're terrific!

Concerning camping at home

Moving into an RV means selling lots of stuff. Because we're going full-time, without a house, all the furniture has to go. The trick is timing. You need enough time to get everything sold and still have somewhere to sit.

The bedroom suite went away a couple of weeks ago, the big TV and sofa with it, and the dining room furniture left a couple of days ago. Marv has listed the rest of the chairs so pretty soon we'll be sitting on the floor as well as sleeping on it!

Those of you who have known me a while know that camping is not really my thing, which is why we bought a pretty luxurious RV. So this transition time is difficult. I'm used to having all the normal "stuff" around. Even the kitchen and pantry are looking pretty bare! Every day we pack more and use less. I guess it's good to get used to it.

Several people have called me "brave" for being willing to go along on this adventure. I don't feel brave at all! But I've been following Marv around from church to church for 40 years, so why stop now? He always brings new experiences into my life, broadening my horizons. I kvetch, but it's actually a good balance between us. The RV allows him to be in new places (outside) and lets me be in familiar places (inside).

FYI, for those of you interested in quilting, I have gotten my "stash" down to 7 plastic bins! Plus three or four of finished quilts, of course.

Back to work...

There and Back Again - Eventually

We are less than two weeks away from beginning our next adventure, living full-time in an RV. Our house is sold, most of the furniture is gone, and we've used up all the confectioner's sugar. Time to move!

We have purchased an RV which is currently in Florida. We will leave Colorado Springs and drive to Bowling Green, FL (yes, there is a Bowling Green outside of Kentucky). We plan to spend a couple of weeks there figuring out how everything works and how not to hit important things (gas pumps, curbs, people) with the RV before we move out.

In the last few weeks we have driven to South Dakota, where we are now residents, and flown to Florida to look at the RV we have chosen. It's a 2011 40-foot Tiffin Phaeton. (If you want specs, talk to Marv.) Once I figure out how to add photos to this blog, you can bet I'll post a picture of our RV.

We ate so much home-made pie on those two trips that we have decided on a ratings system of 1 to 5 pie slices. For example, our hotel in SD was 2 slices but the food at Firehouse Brewing in Rapid City was 4 slices, even though they didn't serve home-made pie.

We expect to learn a lot in a short period of time. You'll get to hear about our ups and downs as well as where we go and what we do. I hope you'll find the blog interesting!