We Are Now Preppers

No. We are not hoarding food or worrying about zombies appearing on our doorstep. But we are in the final stages of preparation for our Great Adventure. So far, I've planned the entire trip. It goes through 27 states and the District of Columbia. The plans are not cast in concrete, and change almost daily, but at least they are evolving.

I'm using this great tool called roadtrippers.com to plan. If you are doing any road trips, you need this tool. It's also available for your android or iphone, and works on my Nook HD as well. It lets you select destinations, tells you how many miles between destinations, how long it should take you to drive it, and how much your gas will cost.

The first leg looks like this:

PDX-Palm Desert via 101 | My new trip on Roadtrippers.com!

However, a friend who knows such things says that the northern stretch of 101 in California is covered in land and mud slides. So I may have to reroute us down I-5. We have reservations in Palm Desert for TWO WEEKS starting April 15. I know. It's getting hot down there by then, but I don't care. I need hot. My body is rapidly becoming frozen tundra, a difficult thing considering how much of it is fat.

OH! WAIT! BIG NEWS!

Jenny retired. Last Friday. It has now been three days and we have yet to kill each other. In fact, we've been having fun. I never really believed she'd do it, being all Type A and all. (Her, not me. I'm Type B- or C most of the time) But she did. And now we're both getting excited for the trip to begin and also panicking about how much we still have to do.

BACK TO REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING

Our trip will wend its way east from Palm Desert, following the border and the Gulf of Mexico, until we get to Jacksonville, FL where our nephew is currently moving to. From there, we head north with stops in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, D.C., Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine (and probably some other places) to visit friends and family and see things we've never seen before.

We then plan to come back via the northern route, again seeing people on the way back.

BUT, there is a monkey wrench. Twenty years ago, we scandalized Jenny's 30th high school reunion by being there. This year is the 50th reunion, in Idaho, in September. As far as we know, there was no 40th reunion (or we weren't invited). So we intend to do a reprise of the scandal by showing up. Which means we may have to reroute a bunch of things, or drive fast.

IN OTHER NEWS

The RV place PROMISES that they will have everything they need for final repairs by this Friday. So that part of planning will be done and we can possibly move back into the RV next week.

More on the planning later. And I'll take pictures of the moving mess. And maybe the mud.

Sunday Smiles: Things that Made Me Smile this Week

Since I feel like death on a stick, in part due to fibro and in part due to a lingering flu, not much made me smile this week. But it's hard to keep a comic from laughing and I am no exception.

Things that made me smile:

• Banter with Meg, our lovely youngest daughter.
• Hearing my friend Mary Jean laughing in our living room while I was sleeping.
• Watching our old dog, Good Dog Gwyneth, go from a lazy semi-dead state to a bouncy puppy state after hearing the words "dinner" and "dog" used in the same sentence.
• Finding Jenny working at home when I thought she was at the office.
• Hearing that our RV may be ready sooner than we thought.
• Best of Craigslist. Never fails to make me laugh, even when I feel like crap.
• Discovering the Progressive Christian Alliance and Christian Universalism. Maybe there is a place for me.

Sorry it's short, but I'm sick. Hopefully tomorrow may be better.

And So It Begins....

Two weeks ago, Jenny and I were still going round and round on the whole motor home vs. fifth wheel thing, a debate we've had for close to two years. Suddenly, we now own a 2005 Dodge Ram 2500 TurboDiesel (a truck that guys think is pretty cool) AND a 2013 Denali 330RLS. It looks like this:

 Pretty cool, huh? And, yes, that is a dent in the rear panel. See that tree, the one just to the right of the driver? Jenny had a disagreement with that tree the first time she tried to put the truck in the driveway. (We used to drive a Prius that would fit in the bed of this hurking big truck.)


Our first trip was last week, to Cannon Beach. One of our all-time favorite beaches. If you go there, stay at the Cannon Beach RV Resort. Not too expensive, all the amenities, big spaces, and virtually empty during the week in the winter. Did start to fill up on Saturday, but we were on our way home, and as you will discover, we were glad it was full.

Back to those trees. Inconveniently located for anything bigger than a Prius. In fact, we couldn't turn left, the direction we needed to go, so we had to turn right. Which established dilemma one.  From the right hand path, we could only go so far until we run into a) another creek with a weaker culvert, and b) a sharp right hand turn. By sharp I mean imagine a bobby pin.

So, at some point we had to  turn this mother around. Jenny was intent on backing it up slowly, carefully, staying on the gravel road as much as possible. She should not have listened to me. New rule: If you are driving and I'm not, ignore me.

Because I told her to just turn around in the large grassy swath. In Oregon. In March. Following a rain. Which is how this came to be:

Those little sticks were my feeble attempt to create something to give us traction. Mind you, this is right in front of our house. See how far we got? We called various people like Brooks Motors who we adore (no tow truck) then AAA (account had lapsed) and finally Baker and Baker Towing. $150 dollars later, we had been towed about 10 feet, just far enough to get back on the road. However, in the process, we caught one side of the trailer on yet another tree. We live in the country, on a creek, near lots of trees. We aren't very good with trees. Well, I am, but I avoid driving as much as possible and have yet to pull the trailer. I did, however, slide the truck into the driveway without harm on my very first try.

Finally, we were off. But we had to go to Camping World because we needed a couple things that didn't come with the trailer.  Like an inline water filter and something else related to the water system. I forget what. I'm old. Live with it.

We got those, a non-spill water dish for Good Dog Gwyneth, a bed and leash for same, a step stool because we are both short and neither one of us can reach all the various parts of the hitch that have to be reached in the back of the truck bed, some chemicals to put in the black water tank, and a Good Sam membership. If you are keeping track, we have now spent too much money. Plus, I needed yet another Diet Coke.

Good Dog Gwyneth in her natural element:

We got to Cannon Beach while it was still light. But we couldn't get the truck off the hitch. Looked so easy when they had us do it at the dealership. Was super easy when we did it earlier that same day. Now it was impossible.  A neighbor in the campground tried to help. We ended up lifting the back end of the truck off the ground. Finally, we called our sons-in-law to come help.  Four men, plus Jenny, plus about an hour of time, managed to get it separated. My only job was to say, "Don't you think you should raise the rear stabilizers first?" over and over.  I am, by my own account, chopped liver on the grocery store shelves of life.  So naturally no one listened. They should have.

Finally, we were unhitched, and our new home (once we go full time after Jenny retires later in the year) was set up.  This is what it looks like inside:

Pretty, huh?

Total tally first day out:

Dollars spent: Too many
Tow trucks utilized: One
Dings to truck: One
Dings to trailer: Two
Hours spent unhitching: Two or more
Exhaustion level: VERY HIGH

Oh, and our new friend Ray (neighbor in campground) hooked up the water which was then crossthreaded and missing a washer so the basement of the rig started to flood. See, I knew there was a reason I brought too many towels this trip.

The Great Adventure

Some people, like our youngest daughter, have great adventures when they're young. Some of us opt for jobs, children, responsibilities and wait until we're old. We are in that crowd. The old crowd.

But it's never too late to have an adventure, and we're on our way. Sort of. Here's what we're going to do.

We are currently lining up all our ducks to get out of Oregon for at least six months a year. I have a neuromuscular condition that makes me hurt—bad—when it's cold and damp. Which, contrary to the rest of the country, is most of the year. In case you missed it, we live in Oregon, specifically Beavercreek which is more or less close to Portland. Where it rains.

My doctor actually told me to take the geographic cure, and I want to please her. Since pleasing her means not appearing in her office to repeatedly debate narcotics vs. pain (I'm for neither), we have decided to go on an adventure.

You can read all about us, and the rest of the cast, in that tab called Cast of Characters. But Jenny (aka The Old, Short One) is going to retire. YAY! And, I, for health reasons, am essentially retired in place (although without the money since I'm The Young, Tall One and still 18 months away from Social Security). That's plan one.

Plan two: Buy a motor home. We are looking for something in the 2003 range since the bank won't finance anything older. We are also looking to move from a 2400 sq. ft. house into 400 sq. ft. of motor home.  This is probably the biggest adventure because I am an inveterate collector of stuff.

Yes, I am going to sell the books. Most of them. Now that I'm almost old, I can't read most of them anyway, no matter how many prescriptions my eye guy writes, so I got an e-reader and have now accumulated thousands of books in one small space instead of needing a whole house to hold them all. I will only keep the hard to find ones, just in case I someday write that book on atonement theology I've been threatening to write for years. (Hint: I'm against it.)

So, here's the agenda:

• Get money. We're working on this one. Big sale coming up. Also an Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign.
• Buy RV. Also working on this. Need opinions on the motor home vs. fifth wheel issue.
• Trade two cars with payments in for one with no payment (or at least a very low payment). This is done. We now have no van, no tent trailer, and just the Prius and our bikes. Once we have the RV, we may get rid of the Prius and just use our bikes and rent cars if we need them.
• Give stuff to kids and friends.
• Sell what the kids and friends don't want.
• Store the stuff we may want if we ever become housebound again.
• Figure out what to do with the house (we hope to rent it to friends so we can park here in the summer....we have a whole 1/2 acre so we won't be annoying.) (Okay, I just heard some of you say, yeah, right. Yes, I will probably be annoying, but people will remind me to stop and I will.) However, the bank may have other plans. More on that later.
• Be ready to go by spring at the latest.

We wanted to leave by October because we wanted to be in Texas before the end of football season. Yes, you heard that right. I wanted to go to some Texas football games. Not because I love Texas. Not because I have a clue about football. (Read this for more about me and football) But our only grandson (at least until 12/12/12) plays football in Texas and we wanted to watch. I would, as usual, annoy Jenny with my irreverent comments about the sport while she yelled at umpires or referees (or whatever they are) about bad calls and talked about conversions and other such esoterica. I would watch the game when Tyler is on the field. The rest of the time I would wish there were cheerleaders in club football so I could watch them instead. Maybe there are cheerleaders in Texas middle schools. I hear cheerleading is almost as serious as football down there.

We had hoped to spend the first winter of the Great Adventure in Central Texas near Ft. Hood because, come spring, our oldest daughter and her family will head off for three+ years in Korea. We wanted to use the Killeen area as home base and explore from there, spending plenty of time annoying her family. Our oldest grandchild will come back from Korea a college freshman, so we still hope to get some mani/pedis with her before she leaves. When she comes home, she will have A Life and little time for us.

This same daughter is also having a baby in December and we want to spend time with this new human. She also has Tyler and Amelia (whom I call Millie, but who calls herself Mia.). Tyler is 12. Millie is 1. Our daughter and her husband like kids. A lot.

Anyway, that's what we wanted to do. But life has a way of changing things and now we may be stuck in rain and cold for another winter. One that I will spend most of in bed. My condition is that bad. Still, I'll find time to write and time to post and maybe time to finish my second novel so it can get published. (I see my publisher glaring at me right now if she's reading this. Actually, she's my business partner in a publishing house that we own together. More on that later as well.)

So, enough for that. A brief introduction to us. Stay tuned as we fight discuss all the stuff we have to do. But I had Highland Still House chicken pot pie for dinner, so I'm starting to nod off.