How long?

A friend who reads my blog on a daily basis sent me the following message on Facebook yesterday:  "I'm curious.  What happens when your two year travel time is up?  Go back home?  Keep traveling?"   I think there may have been a time when we were still planning to take this adventure that told those who asked "we'll travel for a couple of years, and then see how we feel", because we really didn't know.  Now that we have been living in our coach for over two and a half years, and are beginning our 20th month on the road it is not even a question we try to answer anymore.  We now tell people we cannot imagine ever living in a sticks and bricks home again.......of course that's an idealistic answer.  At some point in the future we may have no choice but to move back into a sticks and bricks home.  After all we will not remain locked in at 63 years old the rest of our lives....father time is marching on, and at some point our physical condition may not permit us the luxury of living full time in our coach.

Anyway, when I answered that friend that we planned to stay on the road "indefinitely" my youngest daughter, Sharon, saw that and added her 2 cents:  "Indefinitely??  I'm going to buy a house with a guest house in the back for you and Mom.  That way you will HAVE to come home more often."  And that is the rub......all five of our children live within 20 miles of each other in Southern California, and, of course, so do our grand children.  I totally understand my daughter's reaction to "indefinitely", because we have not been "HOME" in 19 months, and will not be "HOME" until the middle of November making it close to 22 months since we last saw her in person.  We did see our oldest daughter, Meredith, last summer in Spokane when she flew up for the 4th of July, but it has been 14 months since we've seen her.  We just saw our youngest son, Tim, who flew up to surprise us when we were attending my niece's wedding a few weeks ago, but the other three children (Chris, Kate and Sharon) we have not seen, and the same goes for our grand children.  Sure, we have Skyped with them, but you and I both know that is not the same in the long run.

Let's face it, our life on the road is evolving slowly but surely.  Our travel style has changed a lot since last October.  We spent a lot of time east of the Mississippi the first 19 months.....almost 12 months when all added up, but we plan to spend the better part of the next two years west of the Mississippi, which will make it more logistically possible to see our kids and grand kids at more regular intervals.  I hope they understand how much we miss them, too.....I think they do.

This is the scene I see every morning when I turn on my laptop....my 5 kids and my daughter-in-law smiling back at me.

Saturday was the first day of NCAA College Football, and there were some good games on tap, but before they came on the TV I spent an hour, or so cleaning the accumulation of bug and road residue off the front of the coach, and then wiped the heavy dew off the T-Bird.  Then I settled in to watch a few games.  

Around Noon we decided to head over to Cabela's in Post Falls to browse around.....they have sales going on this time of year, and normally, I probably would have bought a few on sale items, but it's funny when you have spent a lot of time in thrift stores paying .99 cents to $5 for clothing items......it is hard to pull the trigger and pay $50, or a $100 for anything.....no matter that the price has been cut 25, 30, or 50%.......50% off $229 is still a lot of money.  I'm not even sure I could pull the trigger if it was 80% off.  It is funny how your perspective change.

I did, however, find that they had a nice supply of the ammo for our firearm, so I bought another box to add to our supply.  I'm not expecting a war, but this ammo is hard to find, so I buy a box here and there when it is available.  I think we are set now in that department.

After that we stopped off at the Walmart in the same complex to buy a new sun shade for the car....the old one has become as limp as a wet noodle.......I wonder why....it's only 11 years old....:-)  We arrived back "home" around 3.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the cool of the coach watching football, napping, and reading.  At 6 I turned on the Dodger game and watched them win a close one (2-1) over the Padres......a very well pitched game on both sides.  The Dodgers ended the month of August 23 and 6.....the best one month record for the Dodgers, according to Vin Sculley, since they moved to Los Angeles back in 1958.  Apparently they had a couple of 25 win months way back when they were the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Considering how many great L.A. teams there have been since 1958, that is quite an accomplishment.  Obviously, it will not be remembered too much if we don't get to the World Series.  September will be fun!

That was our lazy Saturday.....thanks for stopping by!