At Sunset Shores RV Park, Willis, Texas...
I really like the new Blogger add-on here on the home page that allows us blog owners to include a featured post header. It's there on the right side of the page, in case I would like to reprise a piece that might interest the readers (or might interest me, since that's what really matters). In this case, I'm resurrecting a short post from last summer that included some nice photos of the Tetons and mentioned a meetup with fellow bloggers Merikay and Craig near West Yellowstone. A double treat, for sure.
This leads me to mention some things we would like to have done differently as new retirees on a long RV trip through the western U. S. First of all, we should have allowed way more traveling time. We had a firm sailing date for an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle, and I figured three weeks would be enough time to see all we wanted to see between Fort Worth and Seattle. It wasn't, and not by a long shot. As a result, we gave only passing attention to places like Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone. What a pity.
We learned something else, though. We will never, never, ever go to Yellowstone again in the middle of summer. The kids are out of school then, and the tourists swarm the place like locusts. It was so crowded that I'm almost glad we didn't spend much time there. We will go back when we can really enjoy it.
In our defense, we weren't fulltiming then, so not only did we have the sailing date pressuring us on one end of the trip, but we also had to get back to Texas in a reasonable time to see to the needs of the stick-and-brick house. In fact, it was exactly the killjoy crush of those responsibilities that proved to be the death blow to our keeping that house. We never forgot what a downer it was to have to miss so many things we wanted to see.
Now that we're fulltiming, we have vowed to revisit those places we missed, and we will now have nothing tethering us to anywhere, except to see the kids when we can.
Speaking of the kids (as we collectively call our daughter and son-in-law and their children), we came over here near their home in Conroe and promptly got sick. Sandy and I spent most of the week with a vicious stomach bug that had all of the nasty effects you might imagine. We'll get to see our kin for a couple of days, though; that's better than nothing.
This weekend, we'll be heading back to the DFW area and medical/dental/optical appointments and let's not forget--income taxes. Ugh! We'll also be catching up with friends, too, so that will make up for the unpleasantness.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Phannie
Photo taken near Monument Valley, Utah
Friday, February 19, 2016
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Redneck Engineering Comes in Handy
At Sunset Point RV Resort, Marble Falls, Texas...
My late father, an electrician by trade, was also an avid tinkerer. A small ramshackle shop he built beside our house was his inner sanctum, a place where he created all sorts of things, mostly from wood, but from other scrap materials as well. He would have been proud to know that his great grandsons, Mason and Pryce, are enjoying today the children's toys and furniture he made in that shop.
When I was a kid, my father helped me build many things like kites and slingshots and even an electric motor as a science project. My favorite of the homebuilt things was a go-cart, upon which I roared up and down the street when I got older. The running gear was made of parts from an old washing machine.
My father almost never had to buy any materials from which to fashion these things. Having grown up during the great depression, he was quite accustomed to making do with whatever he had. He hoarded used lumber and other surplus materials he scrounged in his electrical work. He had many cigar boxes full of all kinds of nuts and bolts, washers and springs, pipes and fittings and thousands of pieces of all kinds of paraphernalia that he had collected over the years. He saved everything that he thought might have a possible use, although he couldn't imagine at the time what that use might be. Nonetheless, it always came in handy whenever he wanted to build or repair something. He was able to use this stuff--most would refer to it as junk--to fashion amazing things that were interesting and functional, although perhaps a bit unorthodox in their appearance. We referred to this as "redneck engineering" and other terms that have become politically incorrect nowadays.
I tell you this bit of background because these memories of my dad came rushing back to me the other day when I needed to do a little redneck engineering of my own with Phannie. It seems that the temperature control knob on the air conditioning panel had become inoperative. Son-in-law Tyler and I pulled it out of the instrument panel, and we discovered that the bracket underneath holding the actuator cable had broken. After taking inventory of the miscellaneous hardware that I carry in one of Phannie's belly compartments, I discovered a few metal picture hangers. After doing a good bit of bending and cutting of one of the hangers, I was able to fashion a tension bracket that handily replaced the broken one. Works great!
So why do I share this little piece of my ancient history? Well, if you are fortunate enough to have any aptitude for redneck engineering, it may come in handy when you operate something as mechanically complex as a motorhome. It could save you thousands.
I'm pretty sure this bit of shadetree mechanic work saved me quite a few dollars in parts and repair bills, and I don't claim to have much aptitude at all with this sort of thing--certainly not as much as my dad, who I thought could fix anything. It also provides a rationale to RV owners for keeping a small collection of some little parts and doohickeys--junk, if you will--for which you don't see an immediate need but which you might fashion into something very useful in a pinch. Certainly an assortment of fasteners such as screws, bolts, nuts and washers would be a minimum to have on hand. And don't forget duct tape, glue and WD-40. With these things and a few tools, you can fix almost anything.
I was so fortunate to have a father who spent time with me and gave me some life skills that I still use today. And although this personal story is hardly something that would be meaningful to a reader, it was a warm cookie for me--a real pleasure to write while remembering what a good role model I had.
Who would have thought that a picture hanger could be used to fix an air conditioner? My dad would have been proud.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
My late father, an electrician by trade, was also an avid tinkerer. A small ramshackle shop he built beside our house was his inner sanctum, a place where he created all sorts of things, mostly from wood, but from other scrap materials as well. He would have been proud to know that his great grandsons, Mason and Pryce, are enjoying today the children's toys and furniture he made in that shop.
When I was a kid, my father helped me build many things like kites and slingshots and even an electric motor as a science project. My favorite of the homebuilt things was a go-cart, upon which I roared up and down the street when I got older. The running gear was made of parts from an old washing machine.
My father almost never had to buy any materials from which to fashion these things. Having grown up during the great depression, he was quite accustomed to making do with whatever he had. He hoarded used lumber and other surplus materials he scrounged in his electrical work. He had many cigar boxes full of all kinds of nuts and bolts, washers and springs, pipes and fittings and thousands of pieces of all kinds of paraphernalia that he had collected over the years. He saved everything that he thought might have a possible use, although he couldn't imagine at the time what that use might be. Nonetheless, it always came in handy whenever he wanted to build or repair something. He was able to use this stuff--most would refer to it as junk--to fashion amazing things that were interesting and functional, although perhaps a bit unorthodox in their appearance. We referred to this as "redneck engineering" and other terms that have become politically incorrect nowadays.
I tell you this bit of background because these memories of my dad came rushing back to me the other day when I needed to do a little redneck engineering of my own with Phannie. It seems that the temperature control knob on the air conditioning panel had become inoperative. Son-in-law Tyler and I pulled it out of the instrument panel, and we discovered that the bracket underneath holding the actuator cable had broken. After taking inventory of the miscellaneous hardware that I carry in one of Phannie's belly compartments, I discovered a few metal picture hangers. After doing a good bit of bending and cutting of one of the hangers, I was able to fashion a tension bracket that handily replaced the broken one. Works great!
So why do I share this little piece of my ancient history? Well, if you are fortunate enough to have any aptitude for redneck engineering, it may come in handy when you operate something as mechanically complex as a motorhome. It could save you thousands.
I'm pretty sure this bit of shadetree mechanic work saved me quite a few dollars in parts and repair bills, and I don't claim to have much aptitude at all with this sort of thing--certainly not as much as my dad, who I thought could fix anything. It also provides a rationale to RV owners for keeping a small collection of some little parts and doohickeys--junk, if you will--for which you don't see an immediate need but which you might fashion into something very useful in a pinch. Certainly an assortment of fasteners such as screws, bolts, nuts and washers would be a minimum to have on hand. And don't forget duct tape, glue and WD-40. With these things and a few tools, you can fix almost anything.
I was so fortunate to have a father who spent time with me and gave me some life skills that I still use today. And although this personal story is hardly something that would be meaningful to a reader, it was a warm cookie for me--a real pleasure to write while remembering what a good role model I had.
Who would have thought that a picture hanger could be used to fix an air conditioner? My dad would have been proud.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Kicking Back in Marble Falls
At Sunset Point RV Resort, Marble Falls, Texas...
After an uneventful 336-mile trip from Mercedes, we settled into our spot at Sunset Point, one of the nicest RV parks anywhere, for the monthly Tiffin Bluebonnet Allegro Club rally. We usually limit our daily legs to 300 miles or less, but the weather was nice, and traffic was fairly light, so it really wasn't an issue. Russ, our crack electronics guy in the DFW area, had finally fixed the antenna problem with my new Sirius/XM radio, so we had tunes available whenever we wanted. Here are some photos of Sunset Point on Lake LBJ that will show what a prime location it is:
These rallies afford us a chance to relax in a nice setting and visit with friends connected by a similar interest--our Tiffin motorhomes. The rally agendas are hardly rigorous, but there is usually plenty of food (potlucks are popular), side activities and games. Then there is a business meeting and a tech talk session, both of which are popular and entertaining. For the potlucks, Sandy usually makes a dessert and, for the last couple of times, I have done sausage-stuffed jalapenos, 40 at a time, that are gobbled up almost immediately. I must admit, they are really good. The recipe follows the photo:
Sausage Stuffed Jalapenos
Ingredients:
1 lb ground sausage, hot or mild, depending on your bravery
20 fairly large jalapeños (large ones are usually less firey)
1- 8 oz block cream cheese, softened
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 or 2 green onions, finely chopped (I use two)
Directions: Preheat oven to 400. (Note: If you're not using a convection oven, you may need to set the oven temp to 425.) Meanwhile, cook crumbled sausage in a pan until browned. Drain on a paper towel and set aside. Mix cream cheese with parmesan cheese. Add cooked sausage and chopped onions and mix well. Cut the stem end off each jalapeno, then slice each lengthwise, removing the seeds and membranes from each half. (I use a small measuring spoon to do this in a single swipe down each half.) Stuff the jalapeños generously with the sausage mixture. (The jalapenos should be completely dry inside when you do this.) Bake uncovered in a pan for 20 minutes or until the tops of the cheese mixture are golden brown.
Since you'll notice the paper plate in the photo, I'll talk about that for a minute. The throwaway quality of the paper plate is God's gift to RVers. We use them almost exclusively, because dishwashing is really not something retired people should be doing very often; it's just way too strenuous. We do keep a few sets of regular plates around in case we are eating something that needs to served on a warm plate or cut with a knife. We don't use plastic utensils, however, unless we're eating outside. We just like the metal ones better. Besides, it doesn't strike me as too much trouble for Sandy to wash a couple of forks, spoons and knives. Why don't I wash these myself, you may ask? Well, since I do much of the cooking (other than baking, which she does solely), I've convinced her that such a magnanimous gesture on my part warrants my being absolved of dishwashing responsibilities. (I hope she doesn't read this; her memory of this agreement may differ from mine.)
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
After an uneventful 336-mile trip from Mercedes, we settled into our spot at Sunset Point, one of the nicest RV parks anywhere, for the monthly Tiffin Bluebonnet Allegro Club rally. We usually limit our daily legs to 300 miles or less, but the weather was nice, and traffic was fairly light, so it really wasn't an issue. Russ, our crack electronics guy in the DFW area, had finally fixed the antenna problem with my new Sirius/XM radio, so we had tunes available whenever we wanted. Here are some photos of Sunset Point on Lake LBJ that will show what a prime location it is:
These rallies afford us a chance to relax in a nice setting and visit with friends connected by a similar interest--our Tiffin motorhomes. The rally agendas are hardly rigorous, but there is usually plenty of food (potlucks are popular), side activities and games. Then there is a business meeting and a tech talk session, both of which are popular and entertaining. For the potlucks, Sandy usually makes a dessert and, for the last couple of times, I have done sausage-stuffed jalapenos, 40 at a time, that are gobbled up almost immediately. I must admit, they are really good. The recipe follows the photo:
Sausage Stuffed Jalapenos
Ingredients:
1 lb ground sausage, hot or mild, depending on your bravery
20 fairly large jalapeños (large ones are usually less firey)
1- 8 oz block cream cheese, softened
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 or 2 green onions, finely chopped (I use two)
Directions: Preheat oven to 400. (Note: If you're not using a convection oven, you may need to set the oven temp to 425.) Meanwhile, cook crumbled sausage in a pan until browned. Drain on a paper towel and set aside. Mix cream cheese with parmesan cheese. Add cooked sausage and chopped onions and mix well. Cut the stem end off each jalapeno, then slice each lengthwise, removing the seeds and membranes from each half. (I use a small measuring spoon to do this in a single swipe down each half.) Stuff the jalapeños generously with the sausage mixture. (The jalapenos should be completely dry inside when you do this.) Bake uncovered in a pan for 20 minutes or until the tops of the cheese mixture are golden brown.
Since you'll notice the paper plate in the photo, I'll talk about that for a minute. The throwaway quality of the paper plate is God's gift to RVers. We use them almost exclusively, because dishwashing is really not something retired people should be doing very often; it's just way too strenuous. We do keep a few sets of regular plates around in case we are eating something that needs to served on a warm plate or cut with a knife. We don't use plastic utensils, however, unless we're eating outside. We just like the metal ones better. Besides, it doesn't strike me as too much trouble for Sandy to wash a couple of forks, spoons and knives. Why don't I wash these myself, you may ask? Well, since I do much of the cooking (other than baking, which she does solely), I've convinced her that such a magnanimous gesture on my part warrants my being absolved of dishwashing responsibilities. (I hope she doesn't read this; her memory of this agreement may differ from mine.)
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
A River Tour and an Epic Gathering
At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
Our time is growing short here in the Rio Grande Valley. The weather has been beautiful, and we've had the company of good friends much of the time. I'm a bit nervous about leaving this land of warm weather, blue skies and palm trees. If we had not already made plans to attend a rally in Marble Falls, we might just hang around for a while longer.
We opted for a boat tour of the Rio Grande River near the Bentsen Palms RV park out side Mission, Texas. Our friends Bob and Janet were co-captains on the boat as part of their workamping gig, and we really enjoyed the tour. The Rio Grande was not at all what we expected. It was quite wide above the dam, with lots of border patrol boats plying the calm water. We even saw a mama alligator with her brood of 13.
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| Steve, Jackie, Sandy and I had a fine time. |
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| Bob drives the boat while Janet tells him how to drive the boat. |
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| The Anzalduas Dam Across the Rio Grande |
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| We saw several boats patrolling the river for illegals. (The boats belonging to the Texas HP were much larger than the U. S. Border Patrol boats, as they should be. This is Texas after all.) |
From left: Cathy, Marilyn, Janet (barely visible), Marian, Ginger, Janet, Bob (behind Janet), Mike and Ed.
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| From right: Sandy, Jackie, Bobbie Jo, Steve, John, Eddie (looking down), Steve, Jesse, Ed |
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Old Hands at Fulltiming: Two Weeks In
At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
As I type this, I notice the page counter on this blog has clicked over 200,000 views--which is relatively meaningless, I guess, as I'm not sure when Blogger began calculating this statistic. I think it was back when Google Plus began its mind meld with Blogger a few years ago. That's when, without my having a say in it, they also began counting the number of visits to my Google Plus profile page to come up with a number that is now approaching three million! Well, I don't buy that, and I'm pretty sure the pageview number is in error, too, but on the low side, since they obviously didn't begin counting this for the first six or seven years of this blog's life. So, I don't know what the real number is.
What I am reminded of, however, is to thank you readers for looking in on the workings of this feverish mind as I blather on about the RV lifestyle. I'm still amazed but delighted that you keep coming back.
Nowadays, folks ask of us how it's going "with the fulltiming thing." Sometimes I get the feeling they are expecting some kind of meltdown when we finally realize we have lost our minds. Well, that hasn't happened and, mercifully, it doesn't seem at all likely. For me, the happiest change so far has been the total absence of any thought toward the upkeep of our stick and brick house. I deleted from my cell phone the apps controlling the house's security system and video feeds, ecstatic that I will never have to check them again or to wait for the sensors to detect movement around the property and send me a warning signal.
Furthermore, I don't keep track of the weather back in Fort Worth as I once did. If there is a forecast for adverse weather, I really don't care, so long as our friends and family members are safe. If a tree falls on our former house, it's not our problem.
Particularly gratifying is the much smaller number of payments required to support the house. When I pay bills on the computer, I sometimes think I've forgotten some. I can't tell you how good it feels simply to keep that money in the bank.
There have been a couple of occasions when we caught ourselves referring to the residence we just sold as "home." For example, we might say something like, "We need to visit with (someone) when we get home." Then we catch ourselves and realize that we are already "home" wherever we happen to be.
We never find that we have nothing to do. At any given time, we probably have a half dozen events or trips in the planning stage, and I spend a fair amount of time working out the logistics, tickets and associated reservations that must be made. The computer, Internet and cell phones are essential for this, of course, so we find ourselves online a good deal of the time. I can't imagine how we would do this without today's technology.
So, to summarize our feeling about fulltiming at just over two weeks, I would have to say, not surprisingly, that it's all positive.
We welcomed old friends Bobbie Jo and John back to Llano Grande today. We had been planning this reunion for some time, and it was good to see them again. We quickly introduced them to friends Jackie and Steve, our traveling partners for this trip to the Valley. Pretty soon, it seemed we had all been friends for a long time, and we enjoyed a hamburger cookout with Steve doing the honors as chef. Yes, life is good here in the Rio Grande Valley.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
As I type this, I notice the page counter on this blog has clicked over 200,000 views--which is relatively meaningless, I guess, as I'm not sure when Blogger began calculating this statistic. I think it was back when Google Plus began its mind meld with Blogger a few years ago. That's when, without my having a say in it, they also began counting the number of visits to my Google Plus profile page to come up with a number that is now approaching three million! Well, I don't buy that, and I'm pretty sure the pageview number is in error, too, but on the low side, since they obviously didn't begin counting this for the first six or seven years of this blog's life. So, I don't know what the real number is.
What I am reminded of, however, is to thank you readers for looking in on the workings of this feverish mind as I blather on about the RV lifestyle. I'm still amazed but delighted that you keep coming back.
Nowadays, folks ask of us how it's going "with the fulltiming thing." Sometimes I get the feeling they are expecting some kind of meltdown when we finally realize we have lost our minds. Well, that hasn't happened and, mercifully, it doesn't seem at all likely. For me, the happiest change so far has been the total absence of any thought toward the upkeep of our stick and brick house. I deleted from my cell phone the apps controlling the house's security system and video feeds, ecstatic that I will never have to check them again or to wait for the sensors to detect movement around the property and send me a warning signal.
Furthermore, I don't keep track of the weather back in Fort Worth as I once did. If there is a forecast for adverse weather, I really don't care, so long as our friends and family members are safe. If a tree falls on our former house, it's not our problem.
Particularly gratifying is the much smaller number of payments required to support the house. When I pay bills on the computer, I sometimes think I've forgotten some. I can't tell you how good it feels simply to keep that money in the bank.
There have been a couple of occasions when we caught ourselves referring to the residence we just sold as "home." For example, we might say something like, "We need to visit with (someone) when we get home." Then we catch ourselves and realize that we are already "home" wherever we happen to be.
We never find that we have nothing to do. At any given time, we probably have a half dozen events or trips in the planning stage, and I spend a fair amount of time working out the logistics, tickets and associated reservations that must be made. The computer, Internet and cell phones are essential for this, of course, so we find ourselves online a good deal of the time. I can't imagine how we would do this without today's technology.
So, to summarize our feeling about fulltiming at just over two weeks, I would have to say, not surprisingly, that it's all positive.
We welcomed old friends Bobbie Jo and John back to Llano Grande today. We had been planning this reunion for some time, and it was good to see them again. We quickly introduced them to friends Jackie and Steve, our traveling partners for this trip to the Valley. Pretty soon, it seemed we had all been friends for a long time, and we enjoyed a hamburger cookout with Steve doing the honors as chef. Yes, life is good here in the Rio Grande Valley.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Sunday, February 7, 2016
OSR
At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
Years ago I was acquainted with a local small-town radio personality who was truly a publicity hound. Trading on his popularity with his radio audience, he sought out public appearances for himself in all kinds of local events as master of ceremonies or a speechmaker or the like. He was a member of several civic groups, and his photo often appeared in the newspaper. One day, I asked him how he would know when he had "arrived" as a celebrity.
"OSR," he answered.
"OSR?" I asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"On-the-Street Recognition," he said. When a stranger comes up to you on a sidewalk, calling your name and engaging you in conversation, then you have OSR. Then I would consider myself a celebrity."
Well, I suppose we have attained a tiny degree of celebrity ourselves, and that obtained in the oddest of places. Sandy and I were walking down a crowded sidewalk in Progreso, Mexico the other day, and a stranger (who was obviously another U. S. snowbird visiting Mexico for the day) strode up to us and said, excitedly, "Phannie and Mae!" After a short delay due to our surprise, Sandy and I said, simultaneously, "Yes!"
"I'm Frank," he said. "I read your blog; you just sold your house, and you're now fulltiming, aren't you?"
"Well, yes!" Sandy said. But before she could get anything else out, Frank pointed down the sidewalk and said with some apprehension, "I would like to talk to you, but I've got to catch up with my wife." Then he bolted away, not to be seen again.
Sandy and I looked at each other, astonished. I guess by virtue of having posted in this blog for ten years, we have had a number of pleasant encounters with strangers who recognize our rig. Let's face it: There aren't that many gray Phaetons out there pulling a red HHR. But this was the first time we had been recognized outside the environs of the blog's namesake vehicles. And we certainly didn't expect such a thing on the sidewalk of a tiny Mexican border town.
So Frank, I know you're out there, and I suppose you're responsible for giving us a slight taste of OSR, even though it's not something we seek. It made our day, though, and I hope you'll comment here and tell us a little about yourself and your wife (I hope you found her.)
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Years ago I was acquainted with a local small-town radio personality who was truly a publicity hound. Trading on his popularity with his radio audience, he sought out public appearances for himself in all kinds of local events as master of ceremonies or a speechmaker or the like. He was a member of several civic groups, and his photo often appeared in the newspaper. One day, I asked him how he would know when he had "arrived" as a celebrity.
"OSR," he answered.
"OSR?" I asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"On-the-Street Recognition," he said. When a stranger comes up to you on a sidewalk, calling your name and engaging you in conversation, then you have OSR. Then I would consider myself a celebrity."
Well, I suppose we have attained a tiny degree of celebrity ourselves, and that obtained in the oddest of places. Sandy and I were walking down a crowded sidewalk in Progreso, Mexico the other day, and a stranger (who was obviously another U. S. snowbird visiting Mexico for the day) strode up to us and said, excitedly, "Phannie and Mae!" After a short delay due to our surprise, Sandy and I said, simultaneously, "Yes!"
"I'm Frank," he said. "I read your blog; you just sold your house, and you're now fulltiming, aren't you?"
"Well, yes!" Sandy said. But before she could get anything else out, Frank pointed down the sidewalk and said with some apprehension, "I would like to talk to you, but I've got to catch up with my wife." Then he bolted away, not to be seen again.
Sandy and I looked at each other, astonished. I guess by virtue of having posted in this blog for ten years, we have had a number of pleasant encounters with strangers who recognize our rig. Let's face it: There aren't that many gray Phaetons out there pulling a red HHR. But this was the first time we had been recognized outside the environs of the blog's namesake vehicles. And we certainly didn't expect such a thing on the sidewalk of a tiny Mexican border town.
So Frank, I know you're out there, and I suppose you're responsible for giving us a slight taste of OSR, even though it's not something we seek. It made our day, though, and I hope you'll comment here and tell us a little about yourself and your wife (I hope you found her.)
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Gonzales Hamburgers
At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
If you stay in the Rio Grande Valley for any length of time, it won't be long until you hear about Gonzales Hamburgers. This tiny restaurant near downtown Donna, Texas, has been around a very long time, serving monster hamburgers. Patronizing the place--at least once--is a rite of passage for all snowbirds, and they do, indeed, patronize the place in droves.
On this visit, we arrived at precisely 11:00 a.m., their opening time. Unfortunately, to get there when it opens is to be late. The restaurant's chairs were already full with a line out the door:
The restaurant is hardly set up for the crush of customers it gets. There is one small griddle, one small fry station and one small prep station, manned by three employees (two are MIA in this photo).
The hand-formed meat patties are enormous--perhaps a pound each--and only about a dozen can fit on the griddle. Sandy and I ordered one burger to split between us and a single order of fries. This photo doesn't adequately show the size of the burger, but trust me, it's huge!
Notice how the meat patty is so much larger than the bun; you don't see that very often. Because of the very limited kitchen and staff, things move very slowly in cooking the burgers--so slowly, in fact, that we waited almost two hours for our order to be filled!
The burger, when it finally came, was a bit anticlimactic. While it was an okay burger, the only thing it really had going for it was size. A much older couple sitting beside us who were apparently unfamiliar with the size of the burgers, had the misfortune of ordering a burger and fries apiece and, when they came, the woman merely shook her head and looked forlornly around the giant burger in front of her. There was no way she could have eaten but a fraction of it.
So, I include this review as a service and warning to readers: If you want to go to Gonzales Hamburgers because you want to have the experience, fine. But be prepared to spend a very long time there and realize that you could have gotten a better burger at Salazar's on Pike Boulevard in Weslaco for less money and much less of an investment of your time.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
If you stay in the Rio Grande Valley for any length of time, it won't be long until you hear about Gonzales Hamburgers. This tiny restaurant near downtown Donna, Texas, has been around a very long time, serving monster hamburgers. Patronizing the place--at least once--is a rite of passage for all snowbirds, and they do, indeed, patronize the place in droves.
On this visit, we arrived at precisely 11:00 a.m., their opening time. Unfortunately, to get there when it opens is to be late. The restaurant's chairs were already full with a line out the door:
The restaurant is hardly set up for the crush of customers it gets. There is one small griddle, one small fry station and one small prep station, manned by three employees (two are MIA in this photo).
The hand-formed meat patties are enormous--perhaps a pound each--and only about a dozen can fit on the griddle. Sandy and I ordered one burger to split between us and a single order of fries. This photo doesn't adequately show the size of the burger, but trust me, it's huge!
Notice how the meat patty is so much larger than the bun; you don't see that very often. Because of the very limited kitchen and staff, things move very slowly in cooking the burgers--so slowly, in fact, that we waited almost two hours for our order to be filled!
The burger, when it finally came, was a bit anticlimactic. While it was an okay burger, the only thing it really had going for it was size. A much older couple sitting beside us who were apparently unfamiliar with the size of the burgers, had the misfortune of ordering a burger and fries apiece and, when they came, the woman merely shook her head and looked forlornly around the giant burger in front of her. There was no way she could have eaten but a fraction of it.
So, I include this review as a service and warning to readers: If you want to go to Gonzales Hamburgers because you want to have the experience, fine. But be prepared to spend a very long time there and realize that you could have gotten a better burger at Salazar's on Pike Boulevard in Weslaco for less money and much less of an investment of your time.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
A Reflection on Ten Years of RVing and A Visit to Mexico
At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
You may have noticed a new feature that Blogger has made available to users. Here on the home page of this blog is something named "Featured Post." I like this, because it enables me to bring forward a link occasionally to some posts that I particularly like. The first one was "Oh, The Places We've Seen," a collection of some of our best photos of favorite places we have visited while RVing. Today, I'm listing "For Those Who Don't Quite Get It," a post that garnered the most views in the ten-year history of this blog. I'm not sure what made it so popular, but I thought I would revisit it in celebration of those ten years. It could be that it sets forth the best explanation I could offer to those for whom RVers are, at best, a curiosity or, at worst, a bunch of bedraggled denizens of a trailer park. Well, since ignorance is bliss, I say let the unschooled revel in their fog while we who know better take the wheel and savor every vista of God's creation that unfolds before us as we go down the road. Spending one's precious life confined in four walls? Not if I can help it! There is so much to see and so little time.
I am so grateful that I had the inspiration to begin this blog at the very start of our RVing adventure. I cannot tell you the number of times we have revisited the photos of favorite places and relived our impressions that were captured in the written narrative. As our memories fade, it's much like hitting the replay button and seeing it all over again. If you are just starting your RV adventure or even if you've been at it a while, I hope you will consider making a good record of it. It's importance to you will only increase over time, and it will eventually become a treasure, I'm sure. I know it has been the best ten years of our lives.
Along with old friends Ed and Marilyn and new friends Steve and Cathy, we took Jackie and Steve over to Progreso, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Mercedes. We had a great time wandering from shop to shop along the crowded sidewalks and had a fine lunch at Arturo's, a busy upscale restaurant on the main street. Progreso is, of course, a typical Mexican border town, heavily dependent on the trade of snowbirds and full of peddlers trying to hawk everything imaginable as you walk by. But the people are very friendly, and we have never felt unsafe in the main commercial area where the gringos tend to remain.
There is a lively interest of U. S. citizens in medical, dental and optical work, as well as pharmaceutical purchases across the border in Progreso. The services are quite professional, for the most part, and prices are dirt cheap compared to those in the U. S. Many drugs that would require prescriptions in the states are available there over the counter.
Restaurants and drinks are also cheap and, after a while, one tends to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the busy shopping area and buoyed by the omnipresent music.
Then sometimes we revert to our childhood:
The girls did some shopping and claimed some bargains. The boys largely sat around and scratched themselves. After the busy but fun day, we opted for a light supper and TV watching back in Phannie.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
You may have noticed a new feature that Blogger has made available to users. Here on the home page of this blog is something named "Featured Post." I like this, because it enables me to bring forward a link occasionally to some posts that I particularly like. The first one was "Oh, The Places We've Seen," a collection of some of our best photos of favorite places we have visited while RVing. Today, I'm listing "For Those Who Don't Quite Get It," a post that garnered the most views in the ten-year history of this blog. I'm not sure what made it so popular, but I thought I would revisit it in celebration of those ten years. It could be that it sets forth the best explanation I could offer to those for whom RVers are, at best, a curiosity or, at worst, a bunch of bedraggled denizens of a trailer park. Well, since ignorance is bliss, I say let the unschooled revel in their fog while we who know better take the wheel and savor every vista of God's creation that unfolds before us as we go down the road. Spending one's precious life confined in four walls? Not if I can help it! There is so much to see and so little time.
I am so grateful that I had the inspiration to begin this blog at the very start of our RVing adventure. I cannot tell you the number of times we have revisited the photos of favorite places and relived our impressions that were captured in the written narrative. As our memories fade, it's much like hitting the replay button and seeing it all over again. If you are just starting your RV adventure or even if you've been at it a while, I hope you will consider making a good record of it. It's importance to you will only increase over time, and it will eventually become a treasure, I'm sure. I know it has been the best ten years of our lives.
Along with old friends Ed and Marilyn and new friends Steve and Cathy, we took Jackie and Steve over to Progreso, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Mercedes. We had a great time wandering from shop to shop along the crowded sidewalks and had a fine lunch at Arturo's, a busy upscale restaurant on the main street. Progreso is, of course, a typical Mexican border town, heavily dependent on the trade of snowbirds and full of peddlers trying to hawk everything imaginable as you walk by. But the people are very friendly, and we have never felt unsafe in the main commercial area where the gringos tend to remain.
There is a lively interest of U. S. citizens in medical, dental and optical work, as well as pharmaceutical purchases across the border in Progreso. The services are quite professional, for the most part, and prices are dirt cheap compared to those in the U. S. Many drugs that would require prescriptions in the states are available there over the counter.
Restaurants and drinks are also cheap and, after a while, one tends to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the busy shopping area and buoyed by the omnipresent music.
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| Marilyn, Mike and Steve share a funny story at Arturo's in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico. |
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| It's our secret, Steve! |
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Visiting With Friends
At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
The Rio Grande Valley is a common winter destination for several couples we have met over the years and with whom we have become friends; we spoke of some of them in the previous post.
On this day, we introduced new friends Jackie and Steve to Ed and Marilyn, with whom we became acquainted years ago in reading Ed's blog.
Ed and Marilyn have been wintering in the Valley for eight years now and, because they like it here so much, they've decided to purchase a lot with a coach house in Retama Village, near Mission, Texas. They were kind enough to invite us over to their new digs and served snacks and drinks while we visited in the warm breeze of their patio.
There are a number of "coach houses" built on RV lots in this upscale community. Their dimensions are about 12x25, and they are designed to serve as additional space for the owners, who continue to live in their RVs. Many of them have a kitchen, bathroom, laundry room and a sitting area. Some have pull-down beds or sofa beds. The adjoining patio area, like the one above, is very desirable for social gatherings that are a mainstay of these RV communities.
After a nice visit, we motored back to McAllen and had a nice seafood dinner at Dirty Al's, an offshoot of the more plebeian Dirty Al's in South Padre. The food was very good and, after picking up some hot Krispy Kreme donuts, we called it a night. What? You don't know about Krispy Kreme donuts? Google it and then get a bib to catch your drool. If you don't have a hot Krispy Kreme donut before you die, your life may not have had all the meaning you hoped it would.
By the way, some folks have had questions about the car we're currently towing behind Phannie. They are accustomed to seeing the little red HHR to which we refer as "Mae." Well, on this trip, we're pulling our other car, Beulah. No, Mae is not being put out to pasture; she's merely taking a rest after five years of looking at Phannie's rear end. My guess is that just might be getting a little old. We will continue to tow Mae when we're on extended point-to-point trips where we aren't likely to have an entourage. But in locations like this, where we're among friends, it is handier to have the larger car as a toad. So, if you see Phannie on the road without Mae in tow, it's still us. It's just that Beulah is giving her a break:
So, you might ask, where do you keep the other car when you're not towing it? Good question; it stays in the care of our kids at their home near Houston. We appreciate them a lot for all they do for us. But then, they should do a lot. After all, we fed them, burped them and changed their diapers when they were kids. It's about time they did the same for us. Uh, not that we need that done quite yet...
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
The Rio Grande Valley is a common winter destination for several couples we have met over the years and with whom we have become friends; we spoke of some of them in the previous post.
On this day, we introduced new friends Jackie and Steve to Ed and Marilyn, with whom we became acquainted years ago in reading Ed's blog.
Ed and Marilyn have been wintering in the Valley for eight years now and, because they like it here so much, they've decided to purchase a lot with a coach house in Retama Village, near Mission, Texas. They were kind enough to invite us over to their new digs and served snacks and drinks while we visited in the warm breeze of their patio.
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| Sandy, Ed, Marilyn, Jackie and Steve at the new coach house. |
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| Marilyn and Ed inside their new coach house. |
By the way, some folks have had questions about the car we're currently towing behind Phannie. They are accustomed to seeing the little red HHR to which we refer as "Mae." Well, on this trip, we're pulling our other car, Beulah. No, Mae is not being put out to pasture; she's merely taking a rest after five years of looking at Phannie's rear end. My guess is that just might be getting a little old. We will continue to tow Mae when we're on extended point-to-point trips where we aren't likely to have an entourage. But in locations like this, where we're among friends, it is handier to have the larger car as a toad. So, if you see Phannie on the road without Mae in tow, it's still us. It's just that Beulah is giving her a break:
So, you might ask, where do you keep the other car when you're not towing it? Good question; it stays in the care of our kids at their home near Houston. We appreciate them a lot for all they do for us. But then, they should do a lot. After all, we fed them, burped them and changed their diapers when they were kids. It's about time they did the same for us. Uh, not that we need that done quite yet...
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
So What Do You Do All Day?
At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
We're often asked that question. The answer, of course, is "anything we want." That may seem a bit flippant, but it is still true. The marvelous gift retirement gives us is time--time to spend doing those things we enjoy and ignoring those things we don't particularly like to do. Take housekeeping chores, for example: I don't think most people realize just how much time they devote to maintaining their residence and grounds (unless, of course, you have staff to do it for you, which I would guess most of us don't). I'm not going to replay all the whining I did about this while leading up to the house sale, but the older I have gotten, the more I have resented its thievery of my time--precious time that inexorably grows shorter each day.
Now that the house is gone, an enormous amount of time and money have been freed up to use for things we enjoy. That could be something as simple as watching a sunset or sunrise (we don't see many of the latter). Or reading a book. Or watching a movie. Or taking a walk. We certainly don't devote much time to housekeeping. Daily chores in Phannie take maybe 15 minutes; the rest of the day is ours.
When we arrive at a new destination, we may go out for a meal or eat something in Phannie. Then we relax until the following day, when we may venture out in the car to see things that interest us or to find a good restaurant. We've spent the last couple of afternoons showing Steve and Jackie around the Rio Grande Valley area. We stopped in at Retama Village and Bentsen Palms (upscale RV communities) for short visits with Mike and Marian, Ginger and Jesse and Bob and Janet. We've also tried out several local restaurants, among them Salazar's Hamburgers and Nana's Tacos, both of which are always good. We also stopped by the Don-Wes flea market to look around and picked up some fresh pineapple and, oh yes, the obligatory freshly popped kettle corn and mini-donuts, both of which disappeared in fairly short order. I'm not sure what happened to them.
Sandy found a plastic snake which I shamed her into touching. Since she is deathly afraid of snakes, it wasn't very gentlemanly of me, I admit. She doesn't look very happy, does she?
One of the cardinal rules for fulltimers seems to be that nothing should be rushed. For the purpose of this discussion, something is rushed when 1) more than one activity of any kind is planned or 2) the event planned contains no provision for a nap. If this rule is not followed for some reason, then it is essential that a day of rest is observed immediately after the transgression.
Don't roll your eyes at me; I don't make the rules!
Okay, maybe a day like this seems a little tame. But you should know that there is no shortage of laughter and no shortage of appreciation for our good fortune to help occupy our time.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
We're often asked that question. The answer, of course, is "anything we want." That may seem a bit flippant, but it is still true. The marvelous gift retirement gives us is time--time to spend doing those things we enjoy and ignoring those things we don't particularly like to do. Take housekeeping chores, for example: I don't think most people realize just how much time they devote to maintaining their residence and grounds (unless, of course, you have staff to do it for you, which I would guess most of us don't). I'm not going to replay all the whining I did about this while leading up to the house sale, but the older I have gotten, the more I have resented its thievery of my time--precious time that inexorably grows shorter each day.
Now that the house is gone, an enormous amount of time and money have been freed up to use for things we enjoy. That could be something as simple as watching a sunset or sunrise (we don't see many of the latter). Or reading a book. Or watching a movie. Or taking a walk. We certainly don't devote much time to housekeeping. Daily chores in Phannie take maybe 15 minutes; the rest of the day is ours.
When we arrive at a new destination, we may go out for a meal or eat something in Phannie. Then we relax until the following day, when we may venture out in the car to see things that interest us or to find a good restaurant. We've spent the last couple of afternoons showing Steve and Jackie around the Rio Grande Valley area. We stopped in at Retama Village and Bentsen Palms (upscale RV communities) for short visits with Mike and Marian, Ginger and Jesse and Bob and Janet. We've also tried out several local restaurants, among them Salazar's Hamburgers and Nana's Tacos, both of which are always good. We also stopped by the Don-Wes flea market to look around and picked up some fresh pineapple and, oh yes, the obligatory freshly popped kettle corn and mini-donuts, both of which disappeared in fairly short order. I'm not sure what happened to them.
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| Javier scoops up a bag of kettle corn, freshly popped in the big cast iron cauldron to the left. Smells so good! |
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| Jackie tried on a pair of sunglasses but didn't buy them. "A little too understated," she said. |
One of the cardinal rules for fulltimers seems to be that nothing should be rushed. For the purpose of this discussion, something is rushed when 1) more than one activity of any kind is planned or 2) the event planned contains no provision for a nap. If this rule is not followed for some reason, then it is essential that a day of rest is observed immediately after the transgression.
Don't roll your eyes at me; I don't make the rules!
Okay, maybe a day like this seems a little tame. But you should know that there is no shortage of laughter and no shortage of appreciation for our good fortune to help occupy our time.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Friday, January 29, 2016
One Final Offload and We're On Our Way!
At Llano Grande Lake Park Resort, Mercedes, Texas...
We sheepishly disgorged Phannie and Mae onto our hapless kids in Houston, and yes, they're still speaking to us, but I think only because they are finding some pretty cool things among the stuff we unloaded on them. (Note to others who have this idea: If you're dumping stuff on your kids, include some nice things they can use.)
We also had a nice dinner at at Kobe Japanese Steak House with Mindy and Tyler and the grandsons, and we also had the extra pleasure of the presence of Sandy's sister, Brenda. The boys really enjoyed watching the antics of the chef cooking on the Teppanyaki grill.
The next day, we bade them goodbye, Phannie's interior looking much more inviting now with the absence of the piles of debris. We headed for Corpus Christi, a favorite area of ours, where we would spend the night while en route to the Rio Grande Valley.
The weather was uncharacteristically cold and rainy during the trip to Corpus, our having followed a cold front southbound from the DFW area. As a result, Phannie and Mae took on a most unattractive layer of road spray. There was nothing we could do about the grime except wait until we arrived in the RGV, where we can always get a good wash job for a bargain price. (No, unless I'm desperate, I don't wash it myself; it's too big and I'm too lazy.)
While we were in Corpus, we felt compelled to have a fine seafood dinner at Snoopy's, one of our favorites, just across the bridge on the bay.
With our seafood fix out of the way and a good night's sleep, we headed Phannie south again. In Kingsville, we met up with Steve and Jackie, another fulltiming couple we recently met during a trip through Austin. We found we had a lot in common--so much so that they ditched their fiver for a Phaeton like Phannie (except newer) a few weeks ago after seeing our coach and hearing us brag on it. We caravanned with them for the rest of the trip to the RGV, where we are excited to show them around and have them meet still more friends of ours.
As soon as we arrived at Llano Grande Resort, I phoned up Jesse, our wash guy, who agreed to come out the very next morning and clean up both coaches.
Steve and Jackie's parking spot was close by, and we couldn't wait to walk over and take a look at their (new to them) Phaeton. To say we were impressed would be an understatement. It is a beautiful motorhome, appointed just as they wanted. We felt very happy for them and proud to have had a small part in their choosing this new home on the road. We know they won't be sorry.
Jackie and Steve love Llano Grande, one of the nicest parks anywhere. And yes, for those of you in snowy climes, those are palm trees--no snow down here; just warmth and sunshine. Sorry!
Now that we've reached our first fulltiming destination, and the madness of the purging and sale of the house is quickly fading, we are finally beginning to get a sense of what this new lifestyle is going to be like. It is, in our view, the ultimate indulgence of a fantasy of freedom and travel. Imagine having the means of traveling in the comfort of a motorhome whenever and wherever you wish and staying as long as you want. Imagine going to where it's warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Imagine staying in a beautiful place until you're ready to move to another that is equally beautiful. Imagine meeting many new friends whose paths you often cross in your wanderings. Imagine not being tied down to the responsibilities and expense of a house somewhere. Imagine no work and all play. Well, that's us.
Not for you, you say? Well, that's fine; we don't have to understand.
Thank you, Lord for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
We sheepishly disgorged Phannie and Mae onto our hapless kids in Houston, and yes, they're still speaking to us, but I think only because they are finding some pretty cool things among the stuff we unloaded on them. (Note to others who have this idea: If you're dumping stuff on your kids, include some nice things they can use.)
We also had a nice dinner at at Kobe Japanese Steak House with Mindy and Tyler and the grandsons, and we also had the extra pleasure of the presence of Sandy's sister, Brenda. The boys really enjoyed watching the antics of the chef cooking on the Teppanyaki grill.
The next day, we bade them goodbye, Phannie's interior looking much more inviting now with the absence of the piles of debris. We headed for Corpus Christi, a favorite area of ours, where we would spend the night while en route to the Rio Grande Valley.
The weather was uncharacteristically cold and rainy during the trip to Corpus, our having followed a cold front southbound from the DFW area. As a result, Phannie and Mae took on a most unattractive layer of road spray. There was nothing we could do about the grime except wait until we arrived in the RGV, where we can always get a good wash job for a bargain price. (No, unless I'm desperate, I don't wash it myself; it's too big and I'm too lazy.)
While we were in Corpus, we felt compelled to have a fine seafood dinner at Snoopy's, one of our favorites, just across the bridge on the bay.
With our seafood fix out of the way and a good night's sleep, we headed Phannie south again. In Kingsville, we met up with Steve and Jackie, another fulltiming couple we recently met during a trip through Austin. We found we had a lot in common--so much so that they ditched their fiver for a Phaeton like Phannie (except newer) a few weeks ago after seeing our coach and hearing us brag on it. We caravanned with them for the rest of the trip to the RGV, where we are excited to show them around and have them meet still more friends of ours.
As soon as we arrived at Llano Grande Resort, I phoned up Jesse, our wash guy, who agreed to come out the very next morning and clean up both coaches.
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| Jesse scrubs the grime off a very dirty Phannie |
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| Owners of the coach, held by Jackie and Steve |
Now that we've reached our first fulltiming destination, and the madness of the purging and sale of the house is quickly fading, we are finally beginning to get a sense of what this new lifestyle is going to be like. It is, in our view, the ultimate indulgence of a fantasy of freedom and travel. Imagine having the means of traveling in the comfort of a motorhome whenever and wherever you wish and staying as long as you want. Imagine going to where it's warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Imagine staying in a beautiful place until you're ready to move to another that is equally beautiful. Imagine meeting many new friends whose paths you often cross in your wanderings. Imagine not being tied down to the responsibilities and expense of a house somewhere. Imagine no work and all play. Well, that's us.
Not for you, you say? Well, that's fine; we don't have to understand.
Thank you, Lord for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Fulltiming: Finding a New Normal
At Northlake RV Resort, Houston, Texas...
Our escape from the DFW area didn't go as planned--on the same day as closing the house sale--there were just too many loose ends. For one thing, we agreed to stay another day to spend time with the new owners, teaching them the essentials of all the electronics in the house. This was a formidable job, as they were definitely not what you would call techie-type folks. At the end, I had gotten them to a point where they could get most everything to turn on and off. That was about all they could absorb for the day, I'm afraid. We did leave for them the instruction manuals for all these gadgets and for the appliances. Digesting all of them will require quite a lot of reading that is, well, boring at best.
Although we had planned to take a direct route to the Rio Grande Valley after closing, we decided to make a dogleg down to Houston, so we could take some more things we were giving to Mindy and her family--things that we hadn't identified and purged when they departed last week in the rental truck. Every little bit helps, as we will begin to reevaluate the storage unit the next time we return to the area. We can already think of things we kept that should have been discarded in the 21-day purging mayhem that we created for ourselves.
Finally on the road, we looked like the Clampetts of Beverly Hillbillies fame. Phannie and Mae were both loaded to the gills with some of our belongings that were being force-inherited by the kids. I didn't take a photo, because it would have been too embarrassing; we hope they'll still be speaking to us after this. It wasn't until all this stuff was unloaded in Houston that we began to take a deep breath, as we realized that Phannie's interior would return to normal, which it did in pretty short order once Sandy put her mind to it. In fact, it was quite astonishing to me how many extra things we loaded aboard the coach for fulltiming, yet these are not really obvious when looking around. Fortunately, Tiffin builds lots of storage space into their products, and Phannie certainly is no exception.
I had my own challenges in the belly compartments. I knew I wanted to carry an air compressor (more convenient than the air system on Phannie), but the one I had at the house was too big to carry in the coach. The solution was a new Craftsman Air Boss compressor that just happened to fit perfectly into the electronics bay near the front of the coach:
So, you might ask if we have had any 'aha' moments after this massive paradigm shift? Well, the answer would be yes, but not as profound as one might think. For one thing, we have just been too busy to give it much thought. I will tell you, however, that I had a happy moment when I erased from my iPhone the apps that I used to review and control all of the security cameras and alarm systems that we installed at the house after the break-in a few years ago. That single act--deleting the apps--gave me a good deal of instant relief, as now I know that no matter what happens to the house, it's someone else's problem. It's hard to quantify the sense of relief I got from this one thing but, I can assure you, it was huge.
It seems odd that we will not return to this house that we lovingly had custom built, but it finally became obvious that it didn't serve any function except to store our furniture and the other stuff that we have largely discarded now. It was in many ways an impediment to the travel goals for our senior years, and these goals do NOT involve sitting around a house.
So, we're moving toward a new normal that will become more obvious, I'm sure, when we've recovered from the trauma of this move. We're definitely looking forward to that.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough every day.
Our escape from the DFW area didn't go as planned--on the same day as closing the house sale--there were just too many loose ends. For one thing, we agreed to stay another day to spend time with the new owners, teaching them the essentials of all the electronics in the house. This was a formidable job, as they were definitely not what you would call techie-type folks. At the end, I had gotten them to a point where they could get most everything to turn on and off. That was about all they could absorb for the day, I'm afraid. We did leave for them the instruction manuals for all these gadgets and for the appliances. Digesting all of them will require quite a lot of reading that is, well, boring at best.
Although we had planned to take a direct route to the Rio Grande Valley after closing, we decided to make a dogleg down to Houston, so we could take some more things we were giving to Mindy and her family--things that we hadn't identified and purged when they departed last week in the rental truck. Every little bit helps, as we will begin to reevaluate the storage unit the next time we return to the area. We can already think of things we kept that should have been discarded in the 21-day purging mayhem that we created for ourselves.
Finally on the road, we looked like the Clampetts of Beverly Hillbillies fame. Phannie and Mae were both loaded to the gills with some of our belongings that were being force-inherited by the kids. I didn't take a photo, because it would have been too embarrassing; we hope they'll still be speaking to us after this. It wasn't until all this stuff was unloaded in Houston that we began to take a deep breath, as we realized that Phannie's interior would return to normal, which it did in pretty short order once Sandy put her mind to it. In fact, it was quite astonishing to me how many extra things we loaded aboard the coach for fulltiming, yet these are not really obvious when looking around. Fortunately, Tiffin builds lots of storage space into their products, and Phannie certainly is no exception.
I had my own challenges in the belly compartments. I knew I wanted to carry an air compressor (more convenient than the air system on Phannie), but the one I had at the house was too big to carry in the coach. The solution was a new Craftsman Air Boss compressor that just happened to fit perfectly into the electronics bay near the front of the coach:
So, you might ask if we have had any 'aha' moments after this massive paradigm shift? Well, the answer would be yes, but not as profound as one might think. For one thing, we have just been too busy to give it much thought. I will tell you, however, that I had a happy moment when I erased from my iPhone the apps that I used to review and control all of the security cameras and alarm systems that we installed at the house after the break-in a few years ago. That single act--deleting the apps--gave me a good deal of instant relief, as now I know that no matter what happens to the house, it's someone else's problem. It's hard to quantify the sense of relief I got from this one thing but, I can assure you, it was huge.
It seems odd that we will not return to this house that we lovingly had custom built, but it finally became obvious that it didn't serve any function except to store our furniture and the other stuff that we have largely discarded now. It was in many ways an impediment to the travel goals for our senior years, and these goals do NOT involve sitting around a house.
So, we're moving toward a new normal that will become more obvious, I'm sure, when we've recovered from the trauma of this move. We're definitely looking forward to that.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough every day.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Exhausted But Free!
At Treetop RV Resort, Arlington, Texas...
It would be difficult to describe adequately the exhausting chaos of the last few days leading up to the real estate closing and the possession of the house by the new owners. If you have fulltiming on your mind and think you can rationally and reasonably purge all of your excess belongings in 21 days, then please--for the love of God--don't try it!
The first couple of weeks seemed to go pretty well, with what we thought was a system in place to deal with the various dispositions of the goods. It was about at the end of this time that it became evident that our system was not purging fast enough to reach the goal of cleaning out the house in time for the closing. So, we studied our options and decided we would do what any trained professional would do--panic!
The most time consuming and frustrating part of purging is the fact that you actually have to look at every single thing you own, no matter how small, and make a decision as to what to do with it. And after nearly 40 years of marriage, we had a lot of things--thousands of them, in fact--to look at.
As closing date drew nearer, our evaluation of each item and the decision about its disposition was afforded less and less time. And within a couple of days of the closing, our looking and thinking turned into mere glances and no thinking. By the last day before closing, the stuff was being tossed into large boxes labeled "Last Minute Junk." Any semblance of the orderly process had flown out the window.
Almost all of the "last minute junk" went straight to the storage facility to be sorted out the next time we're in town. Unless, of course, a mysterious fire consumes the storage facility at a time when we have a good alibi. Where is Guido when we need him?
But, somehow we did it; the house was empty within a few hours after closing, but not without its exacting a toll on our rapidly aging bodies. I don't know when we've been so tired.
Our exhaustion was so great that we really didn't get to appreciate fully the huge change that just happened in our lives. We think it really won't hit us until we actually leave the Metroplex and get on the open road in a couple of days. But that's another post.
Here are a few observations that we can share with you now that that we're houseless:
In order to keep your sanity and your health, take a least a year to do your downsizing; more time is better. Doing it in 21 days is utterly ridiculous! (In our defense, weak as it may be, we thought the house would take much longer to sell.)
Be brutal about the things you discard; we are a ridiculously affluent society, and we actually need very few of the possessions we have accumulated. (We weren't nearly brutal enough, but it did make us feel better that we gave all of our excess things to family or charity and sold nothing.)
Keeping a bunch of stuff in a storage facility is a loser. The rent charges will soon eclipse the value of the things you kept. (Yes, we're guilty, but we can correct this mistake; we're going to purge again when we get our senses back.)
Digitize the old paper photos and slides--especially ones of important family members, friends and events. You can start doing this years in advance, and you won't have thousands of photos hanging around in boxes, deteriorating. By the way, it's up to you to save this legacy for your descendants; your knowledge of the subjects in the photos is irreplaceable. (We have many photos digitized, but not nearly enough.)
I wish I could report that we have entered a realm of euphoria that is only achievable through this newly found freedom, but it is just too soon. Right now, we're still recovering from our self-induced exhaustion, but we do know that living in Phannie seems like being home, and it makes us happy; that can't be bad. We will keep you posted.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
It would be difficult to describe adequately the exhausting chaos of the last few days leading up to the real estate closing and the possession of the house by the new owners. If you have fulltiming on your mind and think you can rationally and reasonably purge all of your excess belongings in 21 days, then please--for the love of God--don't try it!
The first couple of weeks seemed to go pretty well, with what we thought was a system in place to deal with the various dispositions of the goods. It was about at the end of this time that it became evident that our system was not purging fast enough to reach the goal of cleaning out the house in time for the closing. So, we studied our options and decided we would do what any trained professional would do--panic!
The most time consuming and frustrating part of purging is the fact that you actually have to look at every single thing you own, no matter how small, and make a decision as to what to do with it. And after nearly 40 years of marriage, we had a lot of things--thousands of them, in fact--to look at.
As closing date drew nearer, our evaluation of each item and the decision about its disposition was afforded less and less time. And within a couple of days of the closing, our looking and thinking turned into mere glances and no thinking. By the last day before closing, the stuff was being tossed into large boxes labeled "Last Minute Junk." Any semblance of the orderly process had flown out the window.
Almost all of the "last minute junk" went straight to the storage facility to be sorted out the next time we're in town. Unless, of course, a mysterious fire consumes the storage facility at a time when we have a good alibi. Where is Guido when we need him?
But, somehow we did it; the house was empty within a few hours after closing, but not without its exacting a toll on our rapidly aging bodies. I don't know when we've been so tired.
Our exhaustion was so great that we really didn't get to appreciate fully the huge change that just happened in our lives. We think it really won't hit us until we actually leave the Metroplex and get on the open road in a couple of days. But that's another post.
Here are a few observations that we can share with you now that that we're houseless:
In order to keep your sanity and your health, take a least a year to do your downsizing; more time is better. Doing it in 21 days is utterly ridiculous! (In our defense, weak as it may be, we thought the house would take much longer to sell.)
Be brutal about the things you discard; we are a ridiculously affluent society, and we actually need very few of the possessions we have accumulated. (We weren't nearly brutal enough, but it did make us feel better that we gave all of our excess things to family or charity and sold nothing.)
Keeping a bunch of stuff in a storage facility is a loser. The rent charges will soon eclipse the value of the things you kept. (Yes, we're guilty, but we can correct this mistake; we're going to purge again when we get our senses back.)
Digitize the old paper photos and slides--especially ones of important family members, friends and events. You can start doing this years in advance, and you won't have thousands of photos hanging around in boxes, deteriorating. By the way, it's up to you to save this legacy for your descendants; your knowledge of the subjects in the photos is irreplaceable. (We have many photos digitized, but not nearly enough.)
I wish I could report that we have entered a realm of euphoria that is only achievable through this newly found freedom, but it is just too soon. Right now, we're still recovering from our self-induced exhaustion, but we do know that living in Phannie seems like being home, and it makes us happy; that can't be bad. We will keep you posted.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
One Week To Go!
At home near Fort Worth, Texas...(but not for long!)
I wonder if we'll make it? By the time the house sale closes next week, we will have been purging for 21 solid days, which may be some kind of record for the fewest days spent on such a project!
If we had had our right minds, it would have been 21 months! I've lost count of the number of trips we've made to donate stuff at the church thrift shop. Also uncountable have been the trips to the storage unit, where we drop off things that will also likely be jettisoned when we're able to think clearly again. And no one except the trash collectors know how many bags of trash they have picked up from the curb. It seems inconceivable that we have downsized twice before in years past. If we hadn't, I think I would just climb in a garbage bag and leave myself for pickup.
The kids will drive up from Conroe and join us this weekend for a visit. Once they're here, they will be presented with a rental truck onto which Tyler and Carlos--our handyman--will load an early inheritance. These items will consist of things Mindy has claimed and others that we think they might use. (We've cunningly boxed up the latter, so they can't tell what they are.) Then Tyler will drive the truck back to their place in Conroe where they will perform a triage of their own; and who knows what they will keep? I know we don't care; we're just glad it's going away.
Adding to the chaos are the innumerable address changes to show our new mail drop as the Escapees facility in Livingston, the transfer of our utilities to the new owners, the servicing of Phannie and Mae, as well as doctor and dentist visits for both of us. We have also arranged a couple of sessions with the new owners to familiarize them with all the electronic gadgetry associated with the security, video surveillance and entertainment systems. I'm afraid this might be a bit of a challenge, as it would for anyone not accustomed to today's technology. I think I have most of the owner's manuals for these things, so maybe leaving these behind will help. We've also assured the new owners that we are only a phone call away. They are a very nice couple, about our age, who have a 36-foot Winnebago Tour. The house will be perfect for them, and they are excited.
With all that's going on, we have had little time to think about the radical change in our life that will take place in only a week. I'm sure it won't really hit us until we pull away from our neighborhood for the last time and head Phannie toward the warmth of south Texas. However bewildered we may be then, I'm pretty sure it won't last long.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
I wonder if we'll make it? By the time the house sale closes next week, we will have been purging for 21 solid days, which may be some kind of record for the fewest days spent on such a project!
If we had had our right minds, it would have been 21 months! I've lost count of the number of trips we've made to donate stuff at the church thrift shop. Also uncountable have been the trips to the storage unit, where we drop off things that will also likely be jettisoned when we're able to think clearly again. And no one except the trash collectors know how many bags of trash they have picked up from the curb. It seems inconceivable that we have downsized twice before in years past. If we hadn't, I think I would just climb in a garbage bag and leave myself for pickup.
The kids will drive up from Conroe and join us this weekend for a visit. Once they're here, they will be presented with a rental truck onto which Tyler and Carlos--our handyman--will load an early inheritance. These items will consist of things Mindy has claimed and others that we think they might use. (We've cunningly boxed up the latter, so they can't tell what they are.) Then Tyler will drive the truck back to their place in Conroe where they will perform a triage of their own; and who knows what they will keep? I know we don't care; we're just glad it's going away.
Adding to the chaos are the innumerable address changes to show our new mail drop as the Escapees facility in Livingston, the transfer of our utilities to the new owners, the servicing of Phannie and Mae, as well as doctor and dentist visits for both of us. We have also arranged a couple of sessions with the new owners to familiarize them with all the electronic gadgetry associated with the security, video surveillance and entertainment systems. I'm afraid this might be a bit of a challenge, as it would for anyone not accustomed to today's technology. I think I have most of the owner's manuals for these things, so maybe leaving these behind will help. We've also assured the new owners that we are only a phone call away. They are a very nice couple, about our age, who have a 36-foot Winnebago Tour. The house will be perfect for them, and they are excited.
With all that's going on, we have had little time to think about the radical change in our life that will take place in only a week. I'm sure it won't really hit us until we pull away from our neighborhood for the last time and head Phannie toward the warmth of south Texas. However bewildered we may be then, I'm pretty sure it won't last long.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Friday, January 8, 2016
Days Twelve and Thirteen
At home near Fort Worth, Texas...
Okay, the holidays are over, and we're back at the chore of purging, purging. We have had another bit of good luck, however. The new owners are purchasing most of our furnishings! That is a huge help, in that we can mostly just walk away, not having to arrange for a big furniture moving effort! That doesn't mean we won't be busy up until the last minute, however. We are still making daily trips hauling non-furniture stuff to the storage unit and to the church thrift store, to say nothing of the junk we're taking to the curb as trash.
It's getting more difficult and tiresome to make the dozens of decisions each day as to what to do with every single thing we pick up. And these things are getting smaller in size and almost seem to be growing in number! We question our judgment at times, unsure that we have correctly categorized an item, asking each other's opinion often as to whether it would likely have any use or value to anyone.
Bear in mind that we have gone through several downsizings, and we really haven't been doing any hoarding. In fact, some of the storage cabinets have remained empty after we built the house. It's just that we finally have to deal with the small stuff that just accumulates unintentionally; I call it the detritus of life. A junk drawer, for example, is a source of a lot of frustration, because there's good stuff in there along with the junk. And it's not easy to try to guess which is which.
The hardest thing is trying to keep the sentimentality out of it to the degree possible. We realize that we can't keep every single thing our children and grandchildren have touched, but Sandy certainly would like to, if she could.
We also realize that, once the decision is made about each item, it will almost certainly be okay. After all of our previous downsizings, including our parents' estate sales, we can't think of a single thing that we wish we had kept.
Something that has been particularly annoying for me is trying to decide which articles of clothing to keep. I think I'm like most guys in that I really don't have "favorites" like Sandy does. If it fits comfortably and is functional for the weather of the day, then it's good to go. I try to observe some kind of color matching, but this has largely deteriorated into two categories: Things that are red-orange-brown and things that are blue-green-yellow. There are certain colors that simply defy categorization; these include black, white, gray, beige and pink. Who knows what to do with those? (Fortunately, I don't think I have anything pink, except maybe a tie--which I certainly shouldn't have kept.)
Here's the kind of dilemma I face: I probably have three or four dozen mostly casual shirts remaining after having given most of the dress shirts away. These are all in good condition and fit well, and I don't dislike any of them; yet I can't keep dozens of shirts in Phannie. So which ones do I discard?
To keep from getting a headache, I have decided to put the excess into storage and deal with this later. I'm sure that, before long, I will open up the storage unit and say to myself, "What was I thinking?"
And so it goes, all through each day. And in the back of my mind is the nagging realization of something quite ominous: (I'm whispering now)...we haven't even started on the attic!
God help us.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Okay, the holidays are over, and we're back at the chore of purging, purging. We have had another bit of good luck, however. The new owners are purchasing most of our furnishings! That is a huge help, in that we can mostly just walk away, not having to arrange for a big furniture moving effort! That doesn't mean we won't be busy up until the last minute, however. We are still making daily trips hauling non-furniture stuff to the storage unit and to the church thrift store, to say nothing of the junk we're taking to the curb as trash.
It's getting more difficult and tiresome to make the dozens of decisions each day as to what to do with every single thing we pick up. And these things are getting smaller in size and almost seem to be growing in number! We question our judgment at times, unsure that we have correctly categorized an item, asking each other's opinion often as to whether it would likely have any use or value to anyone.
Bear in mind that we have gone through several downsizings, and we really haven't been doing any hoarding. In fact, some of the storage cabinets have remained empty after we built the house. It's just that we finally have to deal with the small stuff that just accumulates unintentionally; I call it the detritus of life. A junk drawer, for example, is a source of a lot of frustration, because there's good stuff in there along with the junk. And it's not easy to try to guess which is which.
The hardest thing is trying to keep the sentimentality out of it to the degree possible. We realize that we can't keep every single thing our children and grandchildren have touched, but Sandy certainly would like to, if she could.
We also realize that, once the decision is made about each item, it will almost certainly be okay. After all of our previous downsizings, including our parents' estate sales, we can't think of a single thing that we wish we had kept.
Something that has been particularly annoying for me is trying to decide which articles of clothing to keep. I think I'm like most guys in that I really don't have "favorites" like Sandy does. If it fits comfortably and is functional for the weather of the day, then it's good to go. I try to observe some kind of color matching, but this has largely deteriorated into two categories: Things that are red-orange-brown and things that are blue-green-yellow. There are certain colors that simply defy categorization; these include black, white, gray, beige and pink. Who knows what to do with those? (Fortunately, I don't think I have anything pink, except maybe a tie--which I certainly shouldn't have kept.)
Here's the kind of dilemma I face: I probably have three or four dozen mostly casual shirts remaining after having given most of the dress shirts away. These are all in good condition and fit well, and I don't dislike any of them; yet I can't keep dozens of shirts in Phannie. So which ones do I discard?
To keep from getting a headache, I have decided to put the excess into storage and deal with this later. I'm sure that, before long, I will open up the storage unit and say to myself, "What was I thinking?"
And so it goes, all through each day. And in the back of my mind is the nagging realization of something quite ominous: (I'm whispering now)...we haven't even started on the attic!
God help us.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Our New Home is...a Folder?
At Northlake RV Resort, Houston, Texas...
Talk about downsizing!
First, it was the big home in the country on ten acres that we built before we realized it would consume all of our spare time to keep it up.
Then, it was the big house in the city, but with a small yard. Fine for me, but Sandy spent all of her time keeping up five bedrooms and four bathrooms--for two people!
Then, it was the much smaller RV-port house with an even smaller and xeriscaped yard. Fine, but we were retired and traveling and found that we didn't want ANY of the the kind of bondage caused by home ownership.
So, we thought we would show you our new home:
Yes, it's a file folder. We are now one of about 14,000 other folks who also live in file folders in the Escapees mail facility in Livingston, Texas:
Okay, okay, for you literalists, we don't actually live in a file folder; we will be living in Phannie, of course. But for those who don't know that, our address of record will be Rainbow Drive in Livingston, Texas.
We drove up to Livingston to set up our Escapees mail handling account at their headquarters building, located about six miles southeast of town in a pretty wooded area:
We were met by Ashley, an irrepressibly cheerful young lady, who showed us around and helped with the process, and we were quite impressed with the facility. We didn't really anticipate how large the operation would be. The fact is that Escapees actually receives more mail for its customers than the entire population of Livingston!
When we were driving away, I looked at Sandy and asked how she felt about living in a file folder. Characteristic of her good nature, she said, "Well, it sure won't take long to clean house!"
Yes, even though it's stressful to have go through so many changes so quickly--especially a woman, for whom the nesting instinct is strong--Sandy has always been more than willing to give new things a try, even if they seem pretty harebrained. God bless her; it's easy to love someone like that.
After this, we drove to the local tax office to change our auto registration and to the DPS to change our drivers' licenses. Now begins the process of making address changes to everything else. We will inevitably forget something in this process, so we'll hang onto our UPS mailbox until we're sure everything is switched over.
We've had a wonderful holiday break with the kids, but we'll be heading back to Fort Worth in a couple of days, where we will obviously be incredibly busy getting transitioned from stick and brick to bus. So stick around, and we'll see if we make it.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Talk about downsizing!
First, it was the big home in the country on ten acres that we built before we realized it would consume all of our spare time to keep it up.
Then, it was the big house in the city, but with a small yard. Fine for me, but Sandy spent all of her time keeping up five bedrooms and four bathrooms--for two people!
Then, it was the much smaller RV-port house with an even smaller and xeriscaped yard. Fine, but we were retired and traveling and found that we didn't want ANY of the the kind of bondage caused by home ownership.
So, we thought we would show you our new home:
Okay, okay, for you literalists, we don't actually live in a file folder; we will be living in Phannie, of course. But for those who don't know that, our address of record will be Rainbow Drive in Livingston, Texas.
We drove up to Livingston to set up our Escapees mail handling account at their headquarters building, located about six miles southeast of town in a pretty wooded area:
We were met by Ashley, an irrepressibly cheerful young lady, who showed us around and helped with the process, and we were quite impressed with the facility. We didn't really anticipate how large the operation would be. The fact is that Escapees actually receives more mail for its customers than the entire population of Livingston!
When we were driving away, I looked at Sandy and asked how she felt about living in a file folder. Characteristic of her good nature, she said, "Well, it sure won't take long to clean house!"
Yes, even though it's stressful to have go through so many changes so quickly--especially a woman, for whom the nesting instinct is strong--Sandy has always been more than willing to give new things a try, even if they seem pretty harebrained. God bless her; it's easy to love someone like that.
After this, we drove to the local tax office to change our auto registration and to the DPS to change our drivers' licenses. Now begins the process of making address changes to everything else. We will inevitably forget something in this process, so we'll hang onto our UPS mailbox until we're sure everything is switched over.
We've had a wonderful holiday break with the kids, but we'll be heading back to Fort Worth in a couple of days, where we will obviously be incredibly busy getting transitioned from stick and brick to bus. So stick around, and we'll see if we make it.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Well, That Didn't Take Long!
At Northlake RV Resort, Houston, Texas...
We had a great Christmas with the kids in Houston and, oh yes--it looks like we're just about houseless! There is a bidding war for the house! The first offer came in less than 24 hours after the house was listed. The second arrived two days later, and so on. And guess what? The latest offer is for more than the asking price!
No, we weren't expecting this. We didn't know what kind of interest buyers would have in such a unique house. We thought it would appeal to, say, one person in a hundred who might own an RV.
I guess we partly attribute the quick sale to realistic pricing. We have had some local armchair experts tell us we priced it too low, but these are the same folks who have had their house on the market for a year with no interest. The brutal fact is that a house--or anything else, for that matter--is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it. We were very careful to research the comps on our own and, surprisingly, the listing agent came up with the exact same number we did.
Frankly, we were anticipating having weeks or months to finish the purging and packing, but now that's out the window. We've got to get our track shoes on! Holy smoke!
Stay tuned as we do this belly-flop into fulltiming; this should be interesting, to say the least. Pray for our good health and at least some sanity!
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
We had a great Christmas with the kids in Houston and, oh yes--it looks like we're just about houseless! There is a bidding war for the house! The first offer came in less than 24 hours after the house was listed. The second arrived two days later, and so on. And guess what? The latest offer is for more than the asking price!
No, we weren't expecting this. We didn't know what kind of interest buyers would have in such a unique house. We thought it would appeal to, say, one person in a hundred who might own an RV.
I guess we partly attribute the quick sale to realistic pricing. We have had some local armchair experts tell us we priced it too low, but these are the same folks who have had their house on the market for a year with no interest. The brutal fact is that a house--or anything else, for that matter--is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it. We were very careful to research the comps on our own and, surprisingly, the listing agent came up with the exact same number we did.
Frankly, we were anticipating having weeks or months to finish the purging and packing, but now that's out the window. We've got to get our track shoes on! Holy smoke!
Stay tuned as we do this belly-flop into fulltiming; this should be interesting, to say the least. Pray for our good health and at least some sanity!
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Days Ten and Eleven
At home near Fort Worth, Texas...
This is really getting old. Yes, I know we have just begun, but the triage of our stuff is perhaps the worst part. We must literally have to look at every single thing we own, even if it's just a piece of paper, and decide what to do with it, knowing that, in many cases, we're probably making the wrong decision. Now that I think of it, only one disposal path of the three (keep-toss-give to the kids) is likely to be the wrong one: It's the things we keep. I know we are doing too much of this one, but we just don't have the stamina to do a deeper purge until the dust settles a bit.
We keep finding stuff from the past that should have made the last purge when we moved from the big house. Look at this old pressure cooker from 1976, smartly showing a popular color of that era:
We've never used it and didn't even know we had it, yet somehow it survived the last holocaust of our stuff. Who thought it was a good idea to have kept it this long?
Here's something else we've had that's been made obsolete by the Internet:
Does anyone not use online dictionaries now?
I was almost glad to take a break to do a little repair on Phannie's shore power cable. Phannie's electrical compartment is on the driver's side of the coach, which is the side nearest the edge of the RV port. The power cable runs along the outside perimeter of the slab, where it plugs into the Phannie's power cord.
Because of all the rain we've had, the receptacle had gotten wet and, since water and electricity don't like each other, the receptacle on the end of the shore power cord shorted out, looking like this when I took it apart:
The grabbers on the end of the hot leads were thoroughly welded to their wires, so I had to cut all of the burned wire lengths off and fit them into a new receptacle. This took a while, since the large-gauge wires were a little difficult to re-dress and snake them into position. I didn't mind, though, as it meant I wasn't having to make a thousand judgments about what to do with our stuff! The new receptacle worked fine after the repair was complete, and I probably saved a hundred bucks by salvaging the cable. From now on, the receptacle will have the protection of a plastic box to keep it dry.
For those of you who haven't yet had the kind of fun we're having in preparation for fulltiming, although you intend to, we offer these observations:
1. If we had waited much longer to do this, we probably wouldn't have undertaken it. It seems the older we get, the more daunting such a thing becomes. And in the daunting department, our meter is pegged out right now. If you're going to do it, make it sooner, rather than later, if you can.
2. As we have gotten older, material possessions mean much less than they did when we were younger; family and friends become more important, and that makes it easier to let go of your things, including the house. A disinterest in possessions seems to be a common theme with most of our contemporaries so, since you know it's coming, why not start giving some of your excess to those who could use it? The sooner you do that, the more time you will have to make wise choices as to its disposition.
3. No matter how well a house is designed, it demands a lot of expense and a lot of attention--attention that takes away from the things we enjoy doing. We have reached a point where we come home merely because the upkeep of the house demands it, and that doesn't make much sense to us.
We are going to take a couple of weeks' break from the purge and enjoy Christmas with the kids. The house will be on the market next week, and we'll continue purging and reporting on it after the holidays.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
This is really getting old. Yes, I know we have just begun, but the triage of our stuff is perhaps the worst part. We must literally have to look at every single thing we own, even if it's just a piece of paper, and decide what to do with it, knowing that, in many cases, we're probably making the wrong decision. Now that I think of it, only one disposal path of the three (keep-toss-give to the kids) is likely to be the wrong one: It's the things we keep. I know we are doing too much of this one, but we just don't have the stamina to do a deeper purge until the dust settles a bit.
We keep finding stuff from the past that should have made the last purge when we moved from the big house. Look at this old pressure cooker from 1976, smartly showing a popular color of that era:
We've never used it and didn't even know we had it, yet somehow it survived the last holocaust of our stuff. Who thought it was a good idea to have kept it this long?
Here's something else we've had that's been made obsolete by the Internet:
Does anyone not use online dictionaries now?
I was almost glad to take a break to do a little repair on Phannie's shore power cable. Phannie's electrical compartment is on the driver's side of the coach, which is the side nearest the edge of the RV port. The power cable runs along the outside perimeter of the slab, where it plugs into the Phannie's power cord.
Because of all the rain we've had, the receptacle had gotten wet and, since water and electricity don't like each other, the receptacle on the end of the shore power cord shorted out, looking like this when I took it apart:
The grabbers on the end of the hot leads were thoroughly welded to their wires, so I had to cut all of the burned wire lengths off and fit them into a new receptacle. This took a while, since the large-gauge wires were a little difficult to re-dress and snake them into position. I didn't mind, though, as it meant I wasn't having to make a thousand judgments about what to do with our stuff! The new receptacle worked fine after the repair was complete, and I probably saved a hundred bucks by salvaging the cable. From now on, the receptacle will have the protection of a plastic box to keep it dry.
For those of you who haven't yet had the kind of fun we're having in preparation for fulltiming, although you intend to, we offer these observations:
1. If we had waited much longer to do this, we probably wouldn't have undertaken it. It seems the older we get, the more daunting such a thing becomes. And in the daunting department, our meter is pegged out right now. If you're going to do it, make it sooner, rather than later, if you can.
2. As we have gotten older, material possessions mean much less than they did when we were younger; family and friends become more important, and that makes it easier to let go of your things, including the house. A disinterest in possessions seems to be a common theme with most of our contemporaries so, since you know it's coming, why not start giving some of your excess to those who could use it? The sooner you do that, the more time you will have to make wise choices as to its disposition.
3. No matter how well a house is designed, it demands a lot of expense and a lot of attention--attention that takes away from the things we enjoy doing. We have reached a point where we come home merely because the upkeep of the house demands it, and that doesn't make much sense to us.
We are going to take a couple of weeks' break from the purge and enjoy Christmas with the kids. The house will be on the market next week, and we'll continue purging and reporting on it after the holidays.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.
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