Well it has been a while since I added anything to this site. The lack of a good Internet connection and sheer laziness has kept me from adding to it. I have been hard at work recharging my batteries and learning or relearning how to relax, not jump when the phone rings and to sleep until I am done. Tough work, but I want you all to know I have been working very hard at it. Especially the sleeping till I am done and when I want to parts. I have come to the conclusion that babies are smarter than adults are. They take naps. Naps are a WONDERFUL things. Dan called me 'snoreman' on our cruise with the Behans in 2004, and I am forced to admit he might be right about that :-)
I have come a long way from that first night of hotdogs cooked over an open fire besides a babbling brook. Not too fancy of a meal for a first meal of retirement, but it was one of the best meals I ever had! After all, views like this and the music of water over stones would improve ANY meal into being a banquet! I am enjoying cooking for myself again and eating a lot healthier. Sorry for those of you who had stock in the fast food companies and their disappointing earnings for the last reporting period. I knew I was eating a LOT of junk food, I guess it was more than I realized! <smile> And yes Elsie, I still can find my way around the kitchen for something other than microwave popcorn.
The last month has taken me from NY thru PA to VA and NC. The flooding damage in PA was much worse than I expected and worse than the pictures on the TV showed it to be. Most of the RV parks I was looking at were either without power, water or were on boil water conditions when I came to them, so I just kept heading south until I out ran the storm damage. I can always go back to PA later. I did spend a weekend with Habitat for Humanity helping out as best I could. Most of my energy went to picking up trash and shoveling mud, but I DO have a lot of experience at shoveling brown stuff :-)
I am just finishing running the Blue Ridge parkway from its beginnings in VA to the area where I begin to have issues with the bridges and tunnels and vehicle height near the NC - SC border. It sure is humid down here in NC once you get away from the mountains and their cooling effects. During this trip, a friend of mine managed to show me something I never knew about my RV. After my complaining about how hard it was to clean the sink when the rig was not fully level and how I wish there was a sprayer on the rig, Robin showed me how the faucet came apart and became a sprayer. Apparently the look on my face was something! Learn something new every day Ohio Grandma used to say, then you can go to sleep. That night I slept very well!
It has been a month of adjustments and adventures. Nothing shows the change in how I looked at things before and after, than this picture I took from the top of Pilot Mountain on the VA -NC border looking DOWN at Red Tail Hawks and Turkey Vultures as they circled below the peak. There was a huge paradigm shift in the experience of looking down on those majestic birds as the soared along on the thermals, and being HIGHER than they were. As apposed to looking UP at them as they soared overhead. I wish it was not so hazy as the views from that mountain top were spectacular even in the haze. I can only image what they would be like in cooler weather!
The other thing that has been a big change in my attitude about time. The clock that Dan gave me has been a big hit with every one that sees it. It is wonderful sleeping until I am done and how much I am enjoying that!
I continue to pack and repack things in the RV, and each time I do I find something I was looking for last stop and lose something I had two stops ago. I have yet to find all the refrigerator magnets, (once I did find them they were of no use to me, the face of the refrigerator was STAINLESS STEEL, a non-magnetic surface) but I finally found the covers to all my Tupperware mixing bowls. I finally got the chance to wash the rig, and after about 2 hours of washing the RV and barely being 1/3 done, I kept wondering why I bought something that was so big! Another time when I swore about buying something that was so long, was from trying to fit into a National Parks Service pad that was made for 35 foot units. Or in this really nice RV Park I found outside of Ashville. As you can see by this picture, the unit does tend to stick out, in more ways than one! I am so glad I went with the full body paint job, after looking at several units that did not and how they had begun to fade and yellow, it was the correct decision. For all I complained about Crowley RV, I do want to again point out it was the SERVICE department my beef was with. Sales was OK.
Met a couple here just starting out full time RV'ing too, and it was interesting to swap stories with them about how we each got to where we were today. Also funny to note that the one feature on MY RV that I wonder if I made a mistake on (the automatic awning) with the inability to hang things from it and put up screens and lights and such since it will close all by itself if the winds get too high, was the one feature that my new friends wish they had on their RV. They had the manual awning, with its lower support arms that are always in the way and its need to be tied down to keep it from ripping in the wind. We laughed at neither of us being happy with what we had. I guess the design is not perfect either way.
The Blue Ridge run is something I recommend to everyone to do at least once in their lives, preferably in the Fall when the colors are at their peak in mid to late October or in early May when the green leaves and growth is fully out, but the humidity and haze of the summer months are not distorting the views in the distance. I can see why the song about the bear going over the mountain was first sung down here!
I think I will be staying in the NC area for a while. Jet Blue Airline now flies from RDU so the flight prices have dropped way way down, and I am still planning on returning to CT in August to finish up some left over business issues, sell the Hybrid (anybody want a 4 wheel drive SUV that gets 30 to 35 mpg? I can not tow it behind the RV without a trailer and that is just too much of a pain to deal with dragging around behind me is the only reason I am selling it) and do some visiting. See you all then!
On the road, some where in the Smoky Mountains