A Last Hurrah (05-11-15)

Over the last 6 years, we have had numerous reasons to travel to Michigan on a regular basis- pretty much every year- and sometimes more than once a year.  When we started on the road, our doctors were here.  Gradually we have moved on to doctors in other states.  For several years our daughter lived in either Michigan or nearby Indiana.  She has since moved to California.


And then of course,  our “stuff” has been stored here- both the boat and our household goods- but of course- not for long.

Over the last week or so, we have been spending time with our friends, getting caught up on all the news.  It was bittersweet.  It was pretty evident to everyone that we won’t be coming back to Michigan on a regular basis anymore.  Not that we won’t ever come- we love the Traverse City area and the Upper Peninsula- but we will have no reason to come here on a yearly basis.  So, we have invited all our friends out to visit us in Havasu! 

In between the visits, we have continued organizing the storage unit. On Monday, several moving companies came to look at our stuff and give us quote.  They were impressed with our packing job. We had thought we would spend all day Tuesday re-combining our stuff back into the one unit, but we actually finished doing that on Monday!


So, Tuesday morning we packed up and blew out of town.
Before we could load up the boat and camper, we had to put the hitch on.  Look at the size of that thing!  It has to be that long to accommodate the length of the camper.










The next step is to load up the camper, which is always a fun job.   I will say though, we are starting to get the hang of it. You can see the hitch sticking out the back.












The final step was to hook up the boat.  He had taken just the boat for a short trip to make sure the brakes and lights work.











And so now, we are back on the road for the long trek home. My daughter asked me if it felt weird saying we were going “home” and it really does, but not in a bad way, just weird.

Digging In (05-07-15)

Once the boat was settled it was time to dig in to the storage unit.   


Our first stop was the office at the storage center, where we discovered that the unit across the hall from ours is available, so $90 later, we had a place to throw a bunch of our stuff so we could dig deeper into the unit.








It was pretty convenient, and quite a time saver, to have a place so close by to put our stuff.

As we made our way towards the back we had to think about our stuff, and whether we would have a spot for it at the new house.  It was a sometimes painful process because anything we didn't care about was discarded 6 years ago, when we went on the road.  So, anything that is left is something somewhat important to us.

Not everything made the cut, and we have made several trips to Goodwill and Salvation Army.  The barber chair stays, though. We’ll find someplace to put it!








 
Some items that seemed important to keep 6 years ago, now seem very old school and outdated and were donated.

There are things we come across that are bringing back a lot of memories, and are kept for that reason, even though we don’t need them. In the pre-automatic feeder days, Dozer, the Emmy award winning actor, would routinely score at least two, and sometimes three, dinners in a day.

I finally made this door hanger that we put on the closet door where his food was kept.  Whoever fed him dinner flipped the sign, and when he was fed breakfast it was flipped to the blank side.

When we packed the camper for this trip we tried to pack light, figuring there would be some items that either because of their fragility or their importance, or both, we would want to bring back with us. 

The original tailgate for the truck has been in storage since we bought the truck, and rather than try to pack it for shipping, we are bringing it with us.  Unfortunately we can’t keep it on the truck with the camper on, so it will ride in the back seat….

What else is coming with us?  Our jewelry, my keyboard, and the stain glass windows that Paul’s mom made for him years ago.  They are crated pretty well, but we are going to see if we can incorporate them into the house while it’s being built.

One of the things that has made life easier is that we were very organized when we stored everything 6 years ago.  Every box was labeled with a number, and a master list was created with a list of all the contents.  We knew we would probably be having things shipped, so most things were crated or packaged with that in mind.  That sure has helped keep our stress levels down!










We’ve contacted several major moving companies and on Monday they will be coming to look at our stuff and give us an estimate on the move.

Bittersweet (10-04-12)

As I've mentioned before, I hate leaving when we are visiting one of the kids . This time it's a little easier since we will all be together for Christmas, which is approaching faster than the speed of light!
Sad to say I didn't even take my camera out while we were in Michigan. I told Jess I need to get a more recent picture of her, since the ones I have are a year old and were before she dyed her hair (again). She is one of those rare natural blondes who dye their hair darker. Anyway, the only picture we got was the one she took with my phone and set as my wallpaper so I can look at her beautiful face every time I use my phone.
Sunday Jess went to the Lions game, and Paul and I were planning on watching the Pats play. We had everything done that we needed to do, kicked back with our feet up, turned on the TV and realized we wouldn't be watching the Pats play after all. It didn't dawn on me that the Lions and Patriots were playing at the exact same time, so of course the local station was showing only the Lions game. I quickly downloaded a radio app onto my ipad, and listened to the game on the radio. Of course, I left the Lions game on the TV, so every time there was a good play, I instinctively looked up at the TV. At one point the Pats were down by two TDs and my son called to chat, since the game wasn't all that interesting at that point. 15 minutes into the conversation I commented that the score was now tied. We said goodbye pretty quickly once we realized that! The Pats did win, but the Lions lost. I had fun. Paul gave up and worked on one of his projects.
We are on the road to Boonville Missouri right now, stopping there before we head to Livingston TX.
Here's why we are headed to Boonville:
Recently Paul decided he wasn't 100% satisfied with the comfort of the ride we have while towing the trailer. Sometimes we have "chucking", which is a jerky motion caused by the difference in acceleration/deceleration between the truck and the trailer. Our existing hitch takes care of some of the problem but not all of it. Paul called someone we know who used to own the company that makes the part of the hitch that is on the trailer. Paul has called him before to ask about the suspension and the axles and he is a wealth of information. This time Paul wanted to know what our options are for making the ride smoother, and Dale said "c'mon down" to Boonville, where the two of them will put their heads together and figure something out.
While planning our route we discovered that we can drive through the Hannibal, MO area and check out the Mark Twain Museum.

This post is a test. I am posting it from my ipad.

Self induced Stress (09-20-12)

   Even before we arrived in the Novi area of Michigan, Paul and I had a list of things to get done, and several appointments already set- from doctors to haircuts. We set all of those appointments for our first week here, just in case there were any issues that needed to be addressed before we leave again. There were other things that were “time critical” to get done in the first week, such as bringing my sapphire ring to a jewelers to get it fixed and finally framing the cross stitch that I was supposed to have finished.  Oops.  Well, since I didn’t quite get it done, I guess we don’t have to worry about getting it framed quite yet, although I am determined to get it done soon!



"the kids" start right in with their bickering



   Our daughter has a new  full time job, and hasn’t left her old job yet, so between work and school, she hasn’t had much time available to visit with us, but we are spending as much time as possible with her.  She does have next weekend off finally, so we might get a whole day together!

We have done our “fall” clean out of our trailer, taking out things that we have decided we don’t want to keep anymore and either putting them in storage, or giving them to Good Will. 

       There are many ways of “fulltime” RVing.  Some people sell absolutely everything, and only keep what they can fit in their rig, some sell most things and give mementos to a family member to keep, some keep a home or a cottage as a base, and travel most of the year, and some, like us, keep a storage unit filled with things they might want some day.   Many people have questioned us as to whether it is worth keeping all the “stuff” we have in storage- after all, we are paying a fee every month, and it does add up over time.  But, yes, to us, it’s worth the price, at least at this point.  We both agree that we will want to settle down again someday, even though that day seems to drift further and further into the future, and we’ll want at least some of our stuff.  Paul builds furniture, so many of our best pieces were built by him, and we’ll want them when we stop moving.  He also has all the tools to build more furniture, so we don’t want to get rid of those either.  That being said, there definitely are some things we can weed out and we’ve spent some time over the last few days doing that.  On the Upside, I got to go “shopping” in our storage unit.  I grabbed some “new” clothes, figuring that they’ve already sat there for 3 years- so what I don’t want now I am giving away (mostly).

In addition to all of the above, Paul is spending some time working on Jess’s car, as well as the truck.  He has been very unhappy with the chips in the fenders of the truck, caused by flying rocks, and took the truck to the dealer to get it looked at.  He came away much happier, as he discovered that there is a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) on it, so we’ll be getting a new paint job on the fenders, in addition to new, larger, mud flaps, courtesy of Ford Motor Company.  He also ordered new shocks and airbags for the truck, and has already installed the new shocks.  The F450 does an amazing job of towing our trailer, but the front of the trailer, the part that “sits” over the truck is very heavy (pin weight).  It causes the rear of our truck to sag a bit, and the ride to be rougher than we would like.  The new shocks and airbags will help smooth out the ride, and keep the rear end from sagging.



Gary and Leeann

      We are also trying to squeeze in some visits with friends, but honestly, we’ve been so busy getting things done, we haven’t had much free time.  We did finally meet Gary and Leeann, who are also fulltimers who used to live in Michigan.  We've read their blog and chatted with them on forums, and it was nice to meet them in person!

"Christmas morning"

Thats what it felt like the other day when Paul and I were rummaging through our stuff that we have in storage. We brought to storage a few things that we don't think we need  anymore in the trailer- like the tennis rackets that I swore we would use now that we don't work anymore. More importantly (and fun) were the very few things that we had access to once we got there.  In the big metal cabinet near the entrance, we found the carpet shampooer!  We were able to reach both bikes, and one of my favorite small flower pots.  We didn't actually need or get that much stuff, but it was fun to sort through and see what we might want.  And being able to get the bikes was a nice bonus.  I hope we use them more than we did the tennis rackets, though.   The timing is good since we have to come back here in a month or so anyway, we should have a good idea by then as to whether they are worth keeping with us.
      I took a leap and booked my foot surgery today.  They are already booking in October and I will need to be here for a minimum of 6 weeks, maybe even 8,  which brings our stay here very close to the potentially nasty winter weather in November.  Our only other option is to put it off until spring, and we really don't want to do that because it will interfere more with our activities than if we do it now.  We may winterize the trailer for the last two weeks and stay in an extended stay hotel, but we'll decide that later.
   We had more visitors yesterday (friends from my work) and had a great, relaxing afternoon with them!  Paul really enjoyed meeting all my friends, since he has been hearing their names for years.   Last night was our last social outing- we went out to dinner with a friend of Paul's.  When we lived here, we would meet Al and his wife occassionally for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant.  Al's wife couldn't be here last night, so it was just the 3 of us.  She is in Texas, staying with their 31 year old son who was just diagnosed with oral cancer and is beginning Chemo and radiation therapy.  Thats not something that any parent should have to handle, and they have dropped everything to be there for whatever he needs.  In addition to that, they are in the midst of planning their daughter's wedding, so their lives have been in quite an upheaval lately!
   Our visit here has been whirlwind and short, but it's nice to know that we will be back this way sooner rather than later.  Tomorrow we hope to head north.

Canton, MI

Now that I am in Canton, I definately have very mixed emotions.  I love the traveling that we are doing, but I really miss the people here- my neighbors, and my friends at work.  I feel happy to be here, and ready to visit with as many people as I can.  I spent this morning with Pennie, a friend of mine who just had her first baby- born on February 26, same as my daughter Jess!  We caught up on the basics of whats going on in our lives, but its  not quite the same as being involved on a regular basis.  It was really good to see her though, and Mason, her son, is, of course, absolutely adorable.
               What I don't miss, and really had forgotten about, is the rain.  Being out in California, New Mexico, Texas etc.  its essentially desert. It hardly ever rains, and when it does, it stops pretty quickly.  Today it rained all day.  I mean ALL day.  And it was COLD, and RAW.  I had forgotten that chilled feeling you get when its that cold and rainy. I hope I am not getting spoiled. 
               This afternoon I got my haircut for the first time in 5 months- boy was I desperate- but determined to wait so I could have Peter cut it. I also  made several calls to other friends, to finalize plans for lunches etc. Killed the battery on my cell phone- I guess I talk too much. Since Jess and I can stay until Friday, I plan on heading up to visit my work friends on Friday morning, or possibly on Thursday if I can.  Its a little strange I guess that when I talk about my job at Valassis with people I meet, many times I talk in the present tense, as if I still work there.  Paul notices it and comments sometimes. I guess I still feel like an honorary employee or something.
            They say that our strongest memories come from our sense of smell.  That was brought home to me in a weird way this afternoon.  One of the things on my to-do list while I am here is to check on the things we have in various storage spots.  I went to check on our 10' x 30' storage unit that contains the remains of our household goods.  As soon as I walked into the building, it hit me.  Just the smell of the air inside the "climate controlled" building brought it all back to me.  It wasn't a bad odor, or a good one, just ...detectable.  Walking down the corridor I was re-living the process of downsizing that we went through last year. I could still feel the sense of excitement, the exhaustion, the heat, and the craziness that I felt last summer. Every trip we made to that building was tiring and yet put us one step closer to being done with the work part of leaving on our adventure.  Paul was always very careful to pack our stuff in as tightly as possible, since we had a lot of stuff and only one storage unit, so it was always time consuming to pack it.  It also had to pretty much be done at night, since I was still working.  On top of that, I had to act energetic during the day at work, since I hadn't even told anyone our house was on the market, never mind that we had sold it and had moved out!
I always felt bad about that, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do....in this economy, lots of sales fall through, right up until the day of closing. It could have taken a year or more to actually sell.  Anyway, all that was going through my mind as I took pictures of our stuff since we couldn't remember if we had any room for anything more ( we could fit about 4 more bins).
               Tonight I am relaxing alone in my hotel room.  Its been such a whirlwind week, I wanted a night to decompress.  Jess has gone off with her friends for the night, with a big smile on her face.  I should head to the Fitness room,  so I can work off the cookie I ate, but naaaahh.
The hotel we're staying at is a Fairfield Inn, in Canton.  When I was looking for a hotel, I did some research, and decided to use Priceline. I've used it before- sometimes its great, sometimes the hotel is a dump.  But this time, I know the area so I felt pretty confident that I wouldn't hate whatever hotel I won.  Originally I put in a bid of $22 a night, and it was rejected.  I know that seems ridiculously low (going rate here is $89), but there's a forum that posts "wins" for Priceline, so I knew someone got this hotel for $23 a night.  I upped my bid to $24 and it was accepted.  What a deal!  Especially since they not only have an incredible breakfast buffet, but Mon-Wed. evening they provide a complimentary dinner.  Tonight I ate Lasagna and meatballs with salad.  Tomorrow night its Tacos.  All for $24.  Can't beat it!