Thanksgiving at Rainbow's End 11/26

 We came to Rainbow’s End in Livingston, Texas last Saturday because we thought this would be a good place to spend Thanksgiving. Turns out we were right.

A couple of months ago, we joined an RV club called Escapees mainly because they offered a catalog with good deals on campgrounds and a useful magazine. Turns out they offer much more than that. My first impression is of a community that intentionally develops a culture of mutual support and caring. This place offers a kind of home base for full time RVers. It is a regular community, mostly gray hairs. Many residents are former full time RVers but had to stop traveling for one reason or another. Some live in houses and some still live in their RV. It is kind of a retirement to the grave kind of place. There is a Care Center which provides a place and support for people who need some assistance to continue to live independently in their motor home. All the RVs in that area were accessible with a ramp. There are campgrounds similar to this in several other states. 

One of the first things we had to do was sign up to be at table # 12 for Thanksgiving. So I made Peas Epicurian and Oyster Dressing for my table of 12 people. There were 11 other tables like ours with each group providing all the side dishes for their table. For $2 apiece, the campground provided turkey and gravy. We enjoyed dinner with 5 other couples who also live in their motor home and enjoyed sharing stories about the places we’ve been. Someone even asked for the Peas Epicurean recipe. The tradition continues. Amazingly, there was a couple at our

table we met a month ago in Branson, MO. What are the odds?

Livingston isn’t much of a town and there is not a lot to do around here so we haven’t done too much touristing. This part of Texas is referred to the “Piney Woods”. It’s in a pine forest and the other day we went to a nearby state park with a lake and it could have been in Minnesota except that when the sun is laying over in the south like it is now, you know you’re not in Minnesota.

We stopped at the library on our way back and I donated some of the books that I’ve read and picked up a couple more to take with me. I used the bathroom and the sign on the bathroom wall had instructions on how to dispose of Depends. What else can I say?

Facebook 11/22

I love my brother Bob. Soon he will break into his 8^th decade when he turns 70 next Valentine’s Day. And like always, the rest of us will get in behind him and follow suit when our turn comes up, if we’re lucky. Bob is seldom speechless, but when we showed up with this  motor home all he could say was “egad”. He enjoys needling and last week on Facebook Messenger he wrote, “just so you know there are some folks I just love to pick on and you and don are at the top of the list”. That’s as close as any of my siblings have come to telling me directly that they love me. So when I replied to Bob, “That’s how I know you love me Bob. I love you, too.” Facebook just froze up and the message remains in our conversation log, unsent. How does Facebook know that open direct expressions of love are taboo in my family? That’s what I want to know.
He has the distinction of being the oldest in the family. We all come behind him like stairsteps… Bob, Jake, Jean, Judy, Ludwig, Dick, Jim, Doug, Kay, Mark, John, Elaine and Byron. His life hasn’t been easy but one thing he has always done is to lead us boldly into each new decade of life. I remember him at 10 when he broke through to the 2nd decade.

Newspapers 11/21

Every morning Don gets in the car and goes in search of a local paper or a paper from a major city nearby. This week we have been reading the Houston Chronicle. Last week it was The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, LA. The Advertiser has the USA Today logo on the front page which leads me to believe that it really doesn’t get much from local reporters anymore and most of it is canned material from another media source. The editorial cartoons were totally lacking in satire or insight into their subject and simply bashed President Obama and the Democrats. I certainly didn’t expect the paper to be liberal but the lack of thought or good satire was jarring. It didn’t help me in trying to be open minded and develop an understanding of the conservative position since I am going to be spending the next few months in a very red state. Remember when being Red meant you were a Communist? I digress. So I was very pleasantly surprised when Don started bringing home the Houston Chronicle. Especially this week when President Obama used his executive power to make some badly needed changes in immigration policy. No one would ever state that the Chronicle is a liberal paper but the reporting on the impact of the immigration policy changes was pretty balanced. This state has a huge Mexican population and a long border which they have been using the National Guard to try to control illegal immigration so it is probably impacted more than just about any other state. While this morning’s cartoon was critical of Obama it was incisive and witty satire that couldn’t fail to impress me. I began to believe that possibly some Republicans while being misguided are not stupid. Actually I have many friends who are intelligent thoughtful people and are Republicans. But then there is the story of the Texas State School Board who has been debating the social studies curriculum and whether to include Moses’ influence on the founding fathers’ development of democratic principles. The total lack of understanding of history just blows my mind. I wonder if they even thought about Jewish and Muslim inclusion of Moses in their holy books. And why do these people have anything to do with deciding curriculum. Shouldn’t the people making the decisions be educated first? Fortunately, there was a thoughtful editorial on that issue in this morning’s paper but I don’t know that it will have any influence on what Texas children will be learning about history. Sorry about this. Maybe I need to go back to reading the funnies and stick with Victorian mystery novels. 

Previous Point of Departure 11/23

“Where ya’all from?” It is the beginning of most conversations when you are on the road.  People see our South Dakota plates and wonder which part of the state we are from.  When you explain that you have no home, but South Dakota is the place you chose to buy licence plates….They have a tough time trying to figure out why anyone would be so foolish.  Full timers, those traveling for a living…..and it is a grueling living…..know that we are probably not a natives of South Dakota, we have our domicile there because it is the cheapest place not to live.  

Having said all that, the “where ya’all from” question has been extremely difficult to answer, especially in a short conversation.  I was born and raised in Montana.  I am proud of that fact.  Judy was born and raised in Minnesota…..equally proud.  We spent the last forty years in Illinois….Have you sent your new governor to jail yet?....not so proud.  We tried to put some roots down in Wisconsin this summer, but the roots did not take hold.  The truth is we live in a giant breadbox we call the camper.  It can be located in any of the land locked states or Canada……People do not want to hear that.  The computer navigation device describes home as “previous point of departure.” 

For the time being, we will live with that.     

Now What? 11/18

We made it to Texas, barely. We will be staying in Beaumont for the next couple of days and will move on to Livingston for Thanksgiving week. Then we will head south to our winter retreat in Los Fresnos, Texas (near Brownsville). It’s still chilly out though we have a sunny day. The high was only in the low 40s.

What to write about today. We are getting pretty good at packing up and setting up especially when we are staying at places like this, Hidden Lake RV Resort in Beaumont. Level concrete pads and FHU (Full hook ups) which means that we have 50 amp electric, city water and septic connection along with cable television and wifi. Today we are just taking it easy and will check out Beaumont tomorrow.

Now that I have time to write, it seems like I have nothing to write about. Up until we left Missouri, and became perpetual tourists, we were busy visiting friends or learning how to run this thing. Not much time to write. Oh, and I didn’t have a good keyboard until a couple of weeks ago. Hate the laptop keyboard.

I think maybe we are at the “Now what?” phase of this adventure. We have this thing pretty much set up the way we want and living in it is easy. The anxiety of getting into a new camp ground and getting set up has been alleviated for the most part. This whole year up till now has been about getting to this point. So now what? I think it remains to be seen. My friend, Kay said that living in retirement is about “being” not “doing”. We have done an awful lot this year and we don’t have much to do now except to get to know about the people and history of the place that we are now.

The Polar Vortex 11/13

The Polar Vortex has reached Southern Louisiana. The area where we are staying this week is also known as Arcadiana. So when I went to the Arcadiana Yoga and Wellness Center in Lafayette yesterday, I was wearing a light coat. I filled out my forms and signed the release from any liability in the event that I might injure myself and went to hang up my coat and put my mat on the floor. There was no place to hang my coat so I put it in a pile with my purse near were other class participants had put theirs. After class the conversation was about how bitterly cold it is now. The same conversation is being repeated across the country I am sure. The yoga instructor who knew I was from South Dakota because she read my form observed that it was much colder where I was from. I explained that it was indeed though I’ve never really lived in South Dakota even though that is my address. I said that I grew up in Minnesota and spent most of my life in Illinois. I said that I had looked for a place to hang my coat when I came in but there was no place. They all laughed and explained that they almost never need to wear a coat. I said I’ve never lived in place where they didn’t need a coat rack. That’s how far South we are. We had a hard freeze for several hours last night. We disconnected our hose overnight. The park has wrapped the hydrants in insulation.

People ask us, “Where are you from?” It stops me every time and I have to think for a minute. I reply based on the situation. If we are checking into an RV park, the answer is South Dakota. That’s on our license plates and our official address. I’ve always thought of myself as being “from Minnesota” though I spent most of my life in Illinois. So often now, I will say Illinois though occasionally I will explain the whole story.

Yesterday, we spent the day at home. I mixed up a batch of granola the way that I learned at Kelly’s and used up what remained of Lon’s maple syrup that Kelly generously gave us when we left her house in September. Lon is a dear man who lives across Twin Springs Road from Kelly in Wisconsin who makes maple syrup every year. The house (motor home, camper) smelled wonderfully like maple and coconut all day until I made gumbo last night. Don beat me in cribbage again. 

The Perpetual Tourist - Part 2 11/10

The day went downhill when I picked up Miss Kay’s book, “The Robertson Family Christmas” with Miss Kay’s buxom picture surrounded by her loving family. Earlier today we had made plans for where we will land on Thanksgiving with hopes that we won’t be the only people at the RV park in Livingston, Texas. After we leave there we will be heading for our winter landing near Brownsville on December 1. That’s a 6 ½ hour drive from Livingston.  There we will spend Christmas. Miss Kay’s book reminded me that my family will be spread all over the continent this Christmas. In case you don’t know who Miss Kay is, she is the matriarch of the Robertson family in Monroe, Louisiana. I was at the Duck Commander store in front of the warehouse which is pictured in every episode of Duck Dynasty. On the advice of a friend, we stopped in Monroe for a couple of days. It made sense being half way between Little Rock and Baton Rouge where we will go next. So that’s how we found ourselves at the Duck Commander headquarters and I was looking at Miss Kay’s book while Don perused the store. It is a remarkable family and they have helped make this town a tourist attraction. Almost every member of the family has written a book and they are all on sale at the store. But that wasn’t the only thing of interest in this town. We also went to the military museum which has the Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial wall here this week. We went through the museum in which several area soldiers from all the wars of the last 100 years artifacts and uniforms on display. Most notable was the display of Uncle Cy’s Viet Nam uniform and a note of his time in the service. In case you don’t know, Uncle Cy is Miss Kay’s brother-in-law and probably the most entertaining of all of the Robertson clan. We ended the day with a walk through Black Bayou Lake Wildlife Refuge. A beautiful place with a cypress swamp and a flock of snowy egrets, probably the best thing in Monroe. We are only here for today and will be moving down the road tomorrow. 

November 6--- The Perpetual Tourist

The other day when we were walking in search of Little Rock Visitor Center, I remembered the other name that I thought of for this blog, “The Perpetual Tourist”. At the time, we were both irritable and I was wondering whether I would ever like anything about this way of living, going from one historical marker to another. There wasn’t anything better to do, so I just carried on. On that day, we went to the Old State Capitol Museum. Neither of us was very impressed with it. It doesn’t hold a candle to the Old State Capitol in Springfield. Eventually we found ourselves walking down by the river’s edge where we found a sculpture garden.
By the end of the day this way of life didn’t seem so pointless. A beautiful fall day and the Arkansas River provided a frame for sculpture and landscaping that was thoroughly enjoyable. We even saw the little rock or “la petit roche”
that marked a ford on the river in the days of the French trappers after which this city was named. We’ve been here for several days now and spent some time at the State Capitol
where there is a picture of Bill Clinton as governor looking like not much more than a child. We went to the National Historic Site  museum across from Central High School which was the centerpiece of the move to integrate schools in 1957 and heard the story of the brave teenagers who found themselves in the middle of it all. The next day we joined with a group of 9^th graders and got to see the inside of the school. It is still a regular high school and school was in session.

We had dinner at “The Flying Fish” with some friends who moved here 30 years ago from Springfield. We caught up on stories of our children, work, and remembered our time together on a co-rec volleyball team that played at the Armory in 1984. Yesterday we toured Heifer Village by the Heifer International World Headquarters and learned about the good work they do. Today we spent a few hours at the Bill Clinton Presidential Museum reviewing his presidency and had lunch at a very elegant restaurant called “42”. The sun is back today after being blocked by rain for the last 2 days so we spent some more time just walking around the river walk.

This place we are staying is called Downtown Riverside RV Park.

It is located on the inside of the sea wall in North Little Rock across the river from the city and next to the I-30 bridge. From here we can see the the skyline. We have 2 pedestrian bridges and 3 automotive bridges within a mile of us. At night all of the bridges are lit up providing a sparkling panorama from our windshield. We have a couple of more days here before we move down to Louisiana.

November 1, 2014

Time is getting away from me. It’s worrisome. I’ve wondered if I could conceptualize time in 2 or 3 dimensions instead of the linear way that the calendar and clock have structured for me, how would that be different. If each second could be experienced in its width or depth what would that be like? Listening… I hear a car go by the campground, the coach is creaking in the ceiling and side where the sun is warming it up. The keyboard clicks as I write these words. If I look around, I see the interior of the motor coach. Cabinets around the upper perimeter. A little clutter, newspaper, coffee cup, water bottle and shelf liner among other things on the ledge that surrounds the camper. Outside it is a bright sunny day with cars and other campers visible outside the windows. Trees in various colors as the season changes. The flowers I bought yesterday are on the ledge behind the couch. The air in the camper smells slightly of last night’s potroast, is very warm from the floor being on and the sunshine on the coach. My mind wanders to the future expecting Don to return and the past looking on the butterfly on the visor that was a gift from the person who bought my house. If I stay in a linear time frame, I feel kind of panicky and want to hold on to it and keep it from getting away. I’m retired now and of retirement age. That means that there are definitely fewer years ahead of me than behind. It’s not good to spend time thinking that way. I will try to keep on widening and deepening my conception of time.

We are near Branson, MO now and people have asked if we are going to any shows. I hadn’t thought about that. We’re just here because we didn’t want to drive all the way to Little Rock. Once we came here, we decided to stay a couple of days because we didn’t feel like moving so soon. In some ways, being a full-timer is a lot like living in a stick house.

Someone gave us some trout at Bennet Springs

You just live in it…. Sleep, eat, sit around, drink coffee, clean, do laundry, get out and get some exercise, watch tv, read, write, play Words with Friends. My Words with Friends friends are mostly retired and like me don’t have a lot better to do than work on playing a word. Often it seems like I no sooner get a word played than someone plays one back. I never seem to get caught up like before everyone retired. I taught Don how to play cribbage so frequently in the evening we engage in a friendly game. He wins sometimes and as do I. 

October 31, 2014

So if I were to start writing today what should I write…. My thoughts have been to write “Dear Edie” and tell Edie the story of my side of the family so she would know it if she ever was interested. Another thought is to write about our travels and experiences. I am already keeping a kind of log of where we have been. Another column might be titled “Things we learned today”. I’ve thought of a couple of chapter headings…. Life in the Slow Lane and I already forgot the other one. It will come back to me eventually. I have a keyboard and mouse to run my computer – actually replaced the one that I purchased earlier as it had quit working. Best Buy replaced it without a fuss because I had only owned it for a month. And I had a receipt. One problem that I am noticing as I type now is that my tabletop is too high to comfortably write at for long periods of time. My arms and wrists will wear our pretty quick if I write a long from this position.

Today Brother Bob noted on Facebook that he is doing important work in getting Democrats elected, unlike me who is just driving around the country doing nothing of value. Which is true. I am not doing anything of value for anyone or for the country. I don’t know if my carbon footprint is larger or smaller than it was back when I was working. I used to live in a house that was heated with natural gas and cooled with electricity from coal powered generators. I drove about 25 miles a day back and forth to the office. Now we just drive around in this diesel hog of a motorhome though we tend not to drive very fast or far in a day. So far we have not used heat or air conditioning much  as we have moved south with the leaves turning color. I haven’t helped a soul since I left the office though I think that I was useful when I was in Minneapolis this summer with my family. I didn’t point out to Brother Bob that I worked for 25 years trying to be helpful to children and families. I know that I needed to take at least a year off from counseling and then see if that is anything that I would be interested in doing again. But, Bob is right. I am not doing anything to make the world a better place at this time other than picking up after myself. Mostly. But I also spend money on fuel, groceries and other things as we travel around the country contributing to the economy of whatever community in which we find ourselves.

The road to Grafton, IL along the river

That’s worth something. And I voted in the South Dakota general election for some Democats. And that also is worth something. 

Ninety Days in the St. Croix Valley....

Ninety Days

So we left Illinois as planned. One week at the end of June we packed what possessions we had left into a truck and hauled it to Kelly’s house on Twin Springs Road on the bluffs of the St. Croix River.

We went back to Illinois for a few days to tie up loose ends and say good-bye to our work. And then we landed back at Kelly’s to catch our breath and carry out the rest of our plan and then some.

Where do I start…. At the end on September 25, driving the Corolla out of Kelly’s driveway past the motorhome and watching in the rearview mirror as Don pulled in behind me, we left Twin Springs Road for the last time. The house empty and the carpet cleaners preparing for Kelly’s tenants to move in. Or the beginning on the 4^th of July sleeping in and celebrating the holiday with Greg’s family at a picnic at Minnehaha Park while Kelly walked the Appalachian Trail. Or mowing the lawn and walking Venus the dog down by the river. Maybe picking raspberries. Enjoying wonderful summer days. Babysitting long days with Edie while Greg and Peggy bought their house. Afternoons at Caribou Coffee drinking a latte, taking advantage of free wi-fi searching rvtrader.com for a place to live. A fine week in the middle of it all with all of us at a cabin up north by a lake. Finding the motor home and driving to Green Bay see it and then going back to pick it up. That anxious trip back across Wisconsin and getting it into Kelly’s driveway after dark on August 7. Warm evenings on the porch with Kelly over a glass of wine talking about her decision to move to Philadelphia and rent out her house. Wonderful dinners with family on Kelly’s deck. Helping Greg install a new floor in the kitchen of his house. More babysitting. Hours of wonderful time with Edie. Helping them move. Learning how this thing (camper, motorhome, coach, rig… call it what you want) works. A “shakedown” trip up north to the jug band boogie in Effie. Camp Deer with family. A week at brother Dick’s house in Brainerd as the leaves started to change. The warm September day gathering the neighbor’s apples with Edie while Greg and John Perko emptied Kelly’s house of all the furniture and boxes. Picking apples at the cemetery and out at the farm. Spaghetti dinner with Bob, Jean, Ludwig, Dick, Mark and us. Pressing apples with Kenny and Lori. And finally the heartbreaking task of dismantling Kelly’s house, moving all our stuff into storage and watching her drive away in her packed car with Venus happy to be going for a ride. Then dinner with Greg and Peggy and a tearful good-by. I miss them.

                Today, in the wee hours of the morning, I am sitting on the sofa in our motor home at the campground in Davenport, IA. We began our migration south a week ago and so far we spent 2 days at Red Wing (Hay Creek Campground) 2 days at LaCrosse (Goose Island Park), 2 days at Dubuque (Finley’s Landing) and now we are here at West Lake Park. We will finish this part of our journey with stops in Hannibal, Springfield and Kansas City to connect with old friends, finish business, and prepare for the next season and the unknown road ahead.

May 2014

                         Forty Years in the Land of Lincoln                                                                                                     

Forty years in the Land of Lincoln, with the Corn, in the Prairie State. He said, “We’ve come to the banana belt”. It was February and we could play outside without a coat. We weren’t in Minnesota anymore even though the children that came later looked like Minnesota kids and then they went back… no they didn’t go back because they are from here… the Prairie. They went to Minnesota. So even though we were in the land where Big Blue Stem sends roots 20 feet into the earth, our roots didn’t go that far. We are more like corn, a recent arrival whose roots are not so deep.

He had a plan… he always has a plan. We’d build a life together. So we started, in Jacksonville. We are nothing if not industrious… it has been said of us, “constant industry”.  Those first years of starting a nest egg looked more like a party to anyone on the outside. That small group of friends worked long hours in the store and then partied together.  Then the kids came, the store closed and our group scattered. We landed in the Capital City, known as Springpatch to some.

So we settled in a subdivision called Franklin Park out by the University that grew up out of the prairie. He sold spark plugs, a business that shrunk as the automotive industry was revolutionized by the advent of the electronic ignition. I worked for the legislature for a while. Our children grew, went to school and thrived in the subdivision surrounded by corn. There was soccer and gymnastics and softball and baseball and swimming, swimming, swimming. The Parent Teacher Club and Girl Scouts and Wednesday Thing at the Presbyterian Church, the one with Lincoln’s Pew.  The friends we made were the people with children involved in the same things as ours. Good people in our lives.

And when the Legislature dumped me I began to build a new life and a new career all the while driving children hither and yon. I turned my sights to the University… then known as Sangamon State University on the other side of the corn. New awareness, new knowledge and wonderful friends came my way as my world and new opportunities opened to me.

 

So I graduated and went to work in what would turn out to be my life’s calling, helping families and children who got caught up in the child welfare system just as the mandated reporting laws were enacted. That wasn’t what I planned at all… but then it was he that had the plans.

Thank goodness for his plans. He saw the need to find an activity that would create fun for our family and so we got a boat and Lake Springfield became our playground on summer afternoons with the little black dog, ears flopping in the wind on the prow.  Everybody but me learned to water ski including most of our children’s friends especially the girl with the red hair. They were good at it. And we took vacations to cabins in Minnesota, to the mountains in Montana, to the wilderness up north just to name a few.

And then when the children were ready to leave and I could not see my future, we found this place out by the gardens, out by the corn. And with constant industry….our other name, we took care of these 2 acres, planting, mowing, weeding and then doing it all again. We grew older and celebrated our age. With the help of our friends, we built an amazing shed and became woodworkers creating some beautiful furniture. Constant industry. We painted and remodeled and decorated this place until it was beautiful… it was always beautiful but we made it beutifuller.

In those days with businesses buying up businesses and constant reorganizations, the certain demise of his job finally occurred. We knew it would eventually but it lasted until it served its purpose. The kids were in college. A new opportunity arose selling all kinds of things providing us with a cornucopia of samples and a fresh new outlook on life.

And when not being industrious we rode bikes with the notorious NOBES (Numb on Both Ends) on Saturdays around the county. With our dear friends, we represented the NOBES at TRAM (The Ride Across Minnesota).  We laughed and joked and ate breakfast with a wonderful group of friends. It was an awesome season in our lives but like so many of our friendship groups they scattered.

 Every year, a weekend in April became the Sister’s Retreat when my 3 sisters gathered here to celebrate our lives. Now our daughters, daughters-in-law, nieces and nieces-in-law gather each year to laugh, eat and tell stories. We changed our name to DOM (Daughters of Marjorie) to celebrate our mother’s life. Now DOM is safely in the hands of the next generation. The dining room hosted feasts for  DOM, Thanksgiving, gourmet dinners and gatherings of friends bathed in the warm glow from the dark cranberry walls and candle light.

The boat gathered dust and took up the third stall in the garage and so we decided to sell and that money sat in the bank waiting for something new. One day when a bunch of motorcyclists were in town, I saw a man and woman getting off their big road bike, both in leather chaps and jackets. I thought to myself, “We could do that.” I kept that thought in my head for a week because I knew as soon as I said it out loud, he would start to shop for a bike. So for 9 years we rode our Ultra Classic to beautiful places around the country…. but mostly down highways lined by corn.

Our family is little bigger now. We have a wonderful daughter-in-law who gave us the light of our lives, a little girl named Edie who is 2 years old and is calling us home.

The Ultra Classic is sitting in the 3^rd stall of the garage…. Not collecting dust because it is covered. But it is for sale. The beautiful house has a contract on it and we are now shepherding it for the next owners.  Our jobs are winding down as we prepare to turn them over to new people. Our constant industry will become less constant but we still have a plan. When we are finished working and have no house, we will get a big motor home and live wherever it takes us, sometimes home to Edie.  We have friends scattered around the country. Now we will go where they are.  He says, “It sounds like a plan.”