On the Road Again, Fall 2013

    This past summer we spent many, many hours and over $8000 out of our retirement fund to fix up our home so we could sell it.  The renters we had in it, had pretty much destroyed it.  We arrived in April and thought we could be finished by July so we could get to our jobs with the Cradle of Forestry in Virginia.  That never materialized.  July crept into August, then into September.  Finally in September, with our repairs nearing completion,  we had several couples who were very interested in buying the house and it raised our spirits.  One of the most interested people was a you man we had known since he was 16 years old and worked for us as a carryout boy in a grocery store we had moved to the area to manage.  He was an extremely nice young man then and is still so today.  He convinced us to sell the house, on land contract, to him. He gave us a down payment and then we will finance it for five years for him until he can get the loan to complete the transaction.  The little bit of money we got for the down payment was supposed to be used to start paying back our retirement account once we reached our winter work camper jobs in Florida.  He took possession on Oct 1st and we hooked up and went to the campground in Lima to camp until we could get ready to take off.
     Our journey south finally started.  We traveled to Lancaster, OH to Speciality RV so they could do a minor repair to our water heater, awning and toilet.  That didn't take long and we were off to spend a night at Fork Run State Park in Ohio, right down on the Ohio River.  Our second stop was a place in West Virginia and then on to Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina where we made a stop at Cascade Lake Campground to meet the people there for a possible job next summer.  When we left there we headed to Myrtle Beach State Park, South Carolina to begin our leisurely pace to our winter destination of Koreshen State Historic Site, in Estero, Florida.
   Needless to say"'the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray". We began noticing that the car was having difficulty going into 3rd gear on some of our climbs as we were headed south.  The problem progressively got worse.  We stopped for gas just 101 miles short of our destination and called our mechanic at home for some "on the road" advice.  He suggested we stop for awhile and let the transmission cool down, that possibly it had overheated and so we did. When we started back up things seemed to be working better until we got near to Conway, SC which was just 15.3 miles short of our goal.  A loud clunk when we were trying to climb a hill pretty much told us we were dead in the water but low and behold, we pulled off the road right in front of an Aamco transmission shop. Remember our "let go and let God" motto when we started this lifestyle?  Was this an example of that?  So on Thursday afternoon about 4:30 they helped us back the trailer and truck into their shop area. They disconnected the truck and took it in to look at it.  There was no conclusion drawn other than there were a lot of codes showing and it was closing time.  We were welcome to stay in their lot that evening but since we had a reservation at Myrtle Beach State Park I started the lengthy process of trying to contact Good Sam Roadside Assistance to see if we could be towed to the state park.  That was eventually accomplished and we arrived at the state park with the assistance of a large tow truck driven by Scott who expertly got us in our campsite in the dark.  He was a real sweetheart and had tons of patience.  So we were set up for the night.
     On Friday we waited almost all day to hear from Aamco and nothing.  Finally Jim called them and they said it was the transmission but because of the weekend they wouldn't be able to finish it. Okay.  Well we had reservations for Thursday, Friday and Saturday but then we were supposed to go to Hunting Island which couldn't be done without a truck.  Jim went down to pay for one more day on our site but that was all that was available.  He told the lady in the store/office about our plight and she immediately started to remedy the situation.  She somehow got rid of our reservation at Hunting Island and we got our money back.  Then she got ahold of Ranger Bob who came and talked to us.  He  had a site we could use for a week and even found a camphost Wayne Roach who would use his truck to move us to another site.   Thank God for both of them.  Once more "let go and let God" seemed to be working.  We moved to the new site on Monday.  We waited all day Monday to hear from Aamco Transmission and once again nothing so Jim finally called them.  They said they would have it done Tuesday.  Well okay we had paid for Monday and Tuesday on the new site so we were okay.  Tuesday dawned gray and cloudy and once again we waited to hear from Aamco Transmission.  Finally around 2 PM they called.  Our truck would be done on Wednesday before noon.  Oh and the original estimate of  $1600 had more than doubled.  Great where do we get they money for that??  Well it just so happens they have a credit card available for repairs so we can apply for that. One year same as cash so there is no interest unless you don't get it paid off.  Of course since our credit score is less than a mole we both have to get one for $1200 and then write a check for the remainder.  Such a deal!!  But we have to take it.
     So tomorrow we will drive up to Conway in our rental car, sign the paper work, I will take the rental car back and sit at the rental car dealer's until Jim can get the truck and come back and get me.  This may be a real circus.
     My sister says we wouldn't have any luck if we didn't have bad luck. It is bad luck I guess because we sure didn't have that amount of money laying around, but there was a lot of good luck in this deal that we need to be thankful for.  Getting to the campground, having the staff take wonderful care of us, getting the last rental car in Myrtle Beach this past weekend, being able to go to Mass and well the liquor store, as well as breaking down in front of a transmission place just as we blew our transmission. We need to be thankful that we had the trailer and stocked with food to stay in and we have to be thankful we have each other and our dog,"Rory", to keep us company.
    Because we have decided no more site seeing we will go straight down to our son's house in Okeechobee, Florida, where we can camp for free and spend time with our grandchildren.  We will even get to see their soccer matches.
     So while it may be true that we do have bad luck I think in the long run we have to realize we have a lot of good luck to offset the bad.

   

A Small Price to Pay   (Summer 2012) 

If someone had told me I would be cleaning restrooms in retirement I would have told them they were crazy.   But here I am, cleaning restrooms to live for “free”.  It turns out that so far it has not been gross but I imagine that could change at any minute.  As with other things I tend to go overboard.  I like to keep my cleaning supplies in order and Jim washes out our floor mops daily.  We hadn’t been using the public restrooms at our other spots because it was fairly easy to empty our tanks.  Well it was very easy for me since I didn’t do it, Jim did.  Here, we have to pull the tanks or should I say, Jim has to pull the tanks a long distance and it is very inconvenient, so we are reduced to taking showers in the public bathrooms.  As long as I am cleaning them, I am okay with that because I know how much bleach and disinfectant I use. 

     Each park has their own rules about cleaning and their own techniques.  We had the best teachers at Koreshan State Historic site that there could be in bathroom cleaning techniques, plus they came everyday and helped us.  At St. Joe no one comes to help and we have two bathrooms to do everyday.  The guy that was here doing it until we came never cleaned the mops and didn’t use the mop bucket to mop the floors.  How do you mop floors with no bucket? Needless to say those restrooms are looking a lot better now that we are in charge.  I also don’t have to worry about taking my shower down there either because I always double disinfect my shower stall.

   Once when I told one of the campers that I never thought I would be cleaning restrooms she said that she had been a flight attendant and that was part of their duties.  So I guess even some job I   thought was glamorous has it’s drawbacks. So for the moment I am reduced to cleaning restrooms but I envision the day when that will not be part of my duties.  In the meantime if that’s what I have to do to live for “free” and see all of the beautiful sights I guess it is a small price to pay.  

It’s A Small World After All        (Saved from Summer 2012)

            Our last trip to Key West was to get some items we needed at a couple of stores, Franklins and Aldi’s.  The 46 miles there was a lot closer than over a 100 some miles to Miami to find some sort of modern civilization that offered the items we wanted.  We also went to the Museum to see Robert the Doll, but I digress.

We were leaving Aldi’s and Jim started yawning.  Everyone in the Keys is friendly and laid back.   A guy just going in the store saw Jim yawning and made a comment about the weather being so hot and that made people sleepy.  I mentioned that we were from Ohio and we were having trouble adjusting to the “hot’.   He asked where we were from and we told him a little town named Ada, Ohio between Lima and Findlay.  He asked Jim if he had ever heard of Bucyrus.  Well that started it, old home week.  Jim told him he was born there and they started trading information.  His name was Ron Rupe.  We learned that Jim had worked with his dad at the local lumber company during his summer employment and that Ron had graduating with Jim’s brothers.  He invited us to come back and give him a call and we could all go out to eat.  Of course we didn’t but meeting him was one reminder of what a small world it really is and it all started with a yawn and an offhand comment.

In that same vein, Jim went to get a few groceries the other day and was gone forever.  When he got home the usual question popped out of my mouth, “Where have you been?”

He told me had been in an accident and of course I freaked out.  Then he started telling his story. He had parked in the lot at Publix and an older gentleman walked around the truck and was looking at our license plate.  “Hancock County?”, he asked Jim.  Jim told him he was right. They started talking and in the midst of the conversation he told Jim that he was from Findlay and that he had graduated from Mt. Blanchard High School, which of course brought up another whole line of conversation when Jim told him of my family’s connection to Mt. Blanchard. He definitely knew Dean Cunningham and told Jim that after he left the bank, the bank just couldn’t be run right and it was bought out.  Sounds good but I am not sure that is the true story.  So once again, over a thousand miles from home, a chance encounter let us know just how small the world is.  We may never meet Ed Snyder again but for one brief moment he brought home close again.