The goal of two months of intense labor was to fix-up and put the house on the market, sell it, buy a motorhome and travel as full timers.



Wait! Stop! Had either of us ever owned a motorhome? No! Had we even had time - with all the repairing, refinishing, repainting, replanting - to begin to look at RV's? No! And, what were we going to do with all the "stuff" we had accumulated in years of living?!

More lists. More considerations. More looking and comparing - a blitz of RV dealers and shows and on-line research. Compare, contrast - amenities, facilities.

"Oh Honey, I really like that! What do you think?"

"Oh dear, that is a very unfortunate pattern and color scheme."

"Wow! Look at this - I didn't know you could put that in an RV!"

Choices, considerations - pre-owned, brand new, length, gas, diesel...? Is it time to take a nap, yet?

But, no - wait - there's still the matter of the "stuff" - boxes of Christmas decorations, collections of books, paintings, furniture, linens, pot and pans, china, silverware, photographs - cloths!

More lists - packing, sorting, repacking. Decisions. Choices - some more easy than others - many more intimate, personal - recalling a day in a life that was exquisitely beautiful, particularly poignant. "But, we can't keep it all" we said to the other. Slowly, we made our choices. Keeping this, discarding that, placing these aside. Once again, we were accomplishing - this list was becoming shorter, more handleable and then - The Yard Sales - two of them, subsequent weekends, massive. Watching parts of our lives being bought - "bargain prices" - 2 for a ?1 - "Everything Must Go." Most of it did. That which was not sold was given to various charities. That which we chose to keep but knew we could not bring was given to family and friends to enjoy, as we had.

The house sold quickly - a two-edged blessing; first, it was sold; second, the closing was in 6 weeks!

We did not, yet, have a motorhome; nor, had we come to a somewhat definitive decision about which kind we wanted. In addition, it seemed that the car we owned was not a towable. Egad! More looking, talking with Tony, a valued, long time car dealer, who immediately began the search for a four-wheels-down, pre-owned (sunroof, if possible) car that would be trailed behind our, as yet, unknown and unbought motorhome.

Dear reader, do not forget about a few other details as well - such as mail forwarding, change of addresses, to keep or not keep subscriptions to various magazines as the accumulated weight with mail forwarding would add more than a few dollars to an annual cost, cell phones, laptop computer, air card (eventually), updating driver's licenses, passports, making specific dates with family and friends to begin to say "goodbye."

The closing day arrived. The one-way rental truck with all of our winnowed worldly belongs was fully packed and ready to go the night before. The house was clean and fresh, bright and empty. I drove our "new," pre-owned, towable (with sunroof), as you pulled out of the driveway ahead of me. A small "caravan" of two headed toward the lawyer's office for the closing. No hitches, no issues, everything was fine.

"Sign each page. Initial here. We're done. Congratulations!"

Briefly, we were without a tangible home - with the exception of the one-way rental truck, its holdings and our "new" car.

Stopping by our financial institution to clarify some final details, to make certain everything was in order to begin living "on the road," our small caravan headed toward the interstate, going South, taking Exit 2, turning left at the bottom of the exit and right at the 1st light and there it was - brand new, sparkling in the early afternoon October 31st light. More documents, more signing and initialing, even a split of champagne from Tom, our sales agent.

"Congratulations, welcome to your new home!" - a 2004, class A, Winnebago, Adventurer.

We journeyed over 12, 000 miles, before health issues brought us back to where we began. Along the way we customized our new home - adding a small shelf just to the left of the lounger, on which my early morning mug of coffee sat. Where there used to be something else, there's now four heavy-duty, roll out, skid resistant storage shelves that you made with only the very few remaining tools from your former, well outfitted tool shop. A small, real, potted evergreen sat in the front "bay" window - decorated with diminutive, red bows and a very select gathering of ornaments, blue lights strung from left to right inside that appear, at night from the outside, just like stars. Candles lit every evening around our home, our "rig," that recalled Christmases with family and friends.

There is, of course, more to this story - like the time that someone put the first dent in the rig when it was their turn to drive - and, how long it took to get the new paint job just right. Or, the time the other person forgot to put the tow vehicle in "Park" before they unhitched and the subsequent making of new "friends" when our car's rear window met their 5th wheel's hitch, abruptly, after rolling across the ever-so-slightly sloping road. Or, how about the time that...?!