Oct 22 - Catching Our Breath at Home

Time to catch you up on the past few days which have brought us home at last...

The last night we were in Tucson we discovered the floor in the bedroom was wet from a leaking hot water tank. It was right before our friend Jess was due to pick us up for a fun dinner meeting friends in Mason, AZ. When Jess got there we were in the middle of pulling the hot water tank out of the side of the motor home. Lots of fun with propane to disconnect, water to disconnect, lots of screws to come out and caulking around it all. Once we got it out we discovered the tank itself was not faulty but instead one of the hose fittings had worked itself loose. Finally we abandoned our repair and proceeded with Jess for a fun night "on the town".

Next morning, Gary and I were literally up at 6 am and out working on reinstalling the hot water tank. "Murphy" was helping us but we got it done and hit the road by 8 am.

Our destination was Casa Grande, AZ for a visit with sister, Karen and her husband, Dalton. The drive was less than two hours and we parked right in front of their manufactured house. They have sold it and are having a new larger home built nearby so we took a drive to "check it out" and see the area in which they will be living. Had a great time visiting and catching up on families and hobbies. Karen is really into quilting and also had a brand new jewelry kiln "baking" up some new "stones" for necklaces...all very interesting. We could have talked on for days (literally) but the old "home magnet" was pulling us north and also Gary's back was screaming from the water heater repair. The weather forecast was for lots of wind and a storm coming in so we decided to "boogie". The next morning we lit off the diesel (early) and headed north.

I laid out our course from one Wal Mart to the next with daily travel distances of about 500 miles. Gary held up well as his back did not hurt as long as he was just sitting there driving. Our last night was spent in a nice, paved "dry camping" lot at the Seven Feathers Casino in Southern Oregon. Played the nickel machines for about a half hour and then tucked ourselves into bed for some much needed rest.

We had left Casa Grande Sunday morning and arrived home about noon on Wednesday. Then the work began...we took the motorcycle out of it's enclosed trailer and gave the trailer a good cleaning. We have decided that the trailer is too much for us to haul and gives us "fits" in the wind and truck traffic. Next long trip we hope to have a little (light weight) used Tracker or Suzuki samurai to tow as our "Toad" (as they call it). Consequently we took the enclosed trailer back to the local trailer dealer and he will sell it for us. Still keeping the motorcycle and sidecar for local fun but just will not "lug" it along when we go exploring with the motor home.

Yesterday we did a thorough cleaning on the outside of the motor home. Many, many trips up the ladder to reach all the high spots but we got it done. Then it was a number of trips in and out of the coach to unload the bulk of the extra items we carried for our long trip. My legs were literally "screaming" this morning (where is that Tylenol when you need it ?)

Today is our grandson's third birthday, granddaughter Jenna has a birthday in a couple days also. Gary had visions of us taking the motorhome to their house to help them celebrate this weekend...but once we got home I could have cried at the thought of going anywhere else this soon. Not good to let the grandkids see you cry when they don't understand why so we opted to stay home for now.

Our mail was literally piled up when we returned but I have already gone through enough of it to know nothing is on the verge of being repossessed or turned off. Our neighbor, Barbara, did a great job of keeping the mail prioritized and anything appearing important was forwarded to us a couple times during out trip. She was very organized with the shopping bags full of catalogues, magazines, junk mail, bank statements, etc. Not sure it was on purpose or not but several of them were hit behind my sewing cabinet and it kept me from going into total shock when I walked into our office here at the house.

Well enough of housekeeping chatter...we had an awesome, wonderful trip...But we are very glad to be home and very thankful for internet, automatic payments and a supportive network at home which all allowed us to be gone for 5 months on our adventure. We feel fortunate for all the experiences and good people we were able to visit...our blessings to you all.

I will continue with this blog but posts may be a bit further apart.

Working with TOP Vietnam Veterans on the dog tag project...found my second one last night...maybe in a follow up post I will explain what I am doing on them and why.

Hugs...
Linda