It's been a year

October 25, 2013, we packed everything we owned into this truck & trailer and hit the road.

Frequently asked questions:

Any regrets about selling your home?

     NO! We had lived in our 5th wheel for several months at a time over a period of a couple of years. We had everything we needed with us and whenever we came back home we were overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we had acquired that we were living happily without.

Did you get rid of everything?

     Almost. We have a small storage unit which I intend to empty by Christmas.

Was it easy?

     NO, but it was do-able. I didn't want my kids to have to do it for me. Nobody has that kind of time or energy.

How did you do it?

     One item at a time. I went on-line where you can find anything, typed in "how to downsize into an rv" and got all kinds of help. I have found (voice of experience here) that I do not need to recreate the wheel; I'm not Captain Kirk - somebody has gone there, done that before me and I get to profit from their experience. There are four basic areas to consider: (1) Clothes and Shoes, (2) Kitchen and Household Items. (3) Files, Papers and Office Items and (4) Tools and Garage Items.

What was your first step?

     We bought a bigger trailer - 35' Jayco with lots of storage space. (The way Dick told it, I got a bad case of "trailer envy" when I saw the 5th wheel Joe and Ruby Orick were living in. It had three slides which made the interior like a reasonably sized apartment.) 

     We moved everything out of the old trailer and into the house and then only put into the new trailer what we wanted to keep forever. I thought I was ruthless until I ran into the couple who downsized to a camper! That's harsh.

What challenges have you faced?

• The hardest part of downsizing was family memorabilia and tools.
• Insurance companies don't like to insure people who randomly move about the country.
• The US Post Office doesn't care for that either so getting the mail was tricky.
• We did feel an increasing desire to have a "home base" with a street address so were intending to look around in Clackamas County for that when we returned "home" in July.
• Traveling without mod-cons (modern conveniences) can be a challenge: cell phone connections can be spotty, wi-fi weird, no dishwasher, laundromats

What about family and friends?
     Let me just say that my covenant relationship was with my husband. (Wither thou goest, etc.) We didn't have all the answers. We didn't even know all the questions. Any decision has challenges.

The bottom line: Any regrets?

     NO. It was a great year. I'm moving ahead in a way I never thought possible but I do not intend to be bogged down in the Slough of Despond. I'm living life in time until I'm reunited with my sweetheart in eternity.

October 10th

Today my dad would have celebrated his 96th birthday. He was a cool guy. His sense of humor and his quick wit is legendary in our family. He grew up in Illinois, graduated from Peoria High School, joined the CCCs, served in the U.S.Army in the Pacific in World War II. He was a member of Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship International which we always called FiGaMiFy, and really a member of the Greatest Generation. My only regret is that he died too soon and my kids didn't get to know him.
     
He always could come up with names for things that were close enough that my brothers and I and a lot of time my mom too, thought he was right. I still identify them as black-bodied red birds instead of red-winged black birds. We just knew that he was pulling our legs though when he identified a pileated woodpecker. We didn't believe him for a long time on that one.
                                                

We went camping a lot when I was a kid. He taught me how to make a box trap so I could catch a chipmunk but was conspicuously absent when I finally caught one. He loved to go to the Metolius River, Allen Springs I think it was, so he could fish. Hunting was a big deal too. It was always deer hunting and I can remember studying my French in the car waiting for him while he was hunting up the Molalla River. Later on it was big camps in the Ochocos. Here's a picture from one of those camps.

He was a great dad.