THOUGHTS

 

When your mind draws a BLANK…

I was thinking all day while driving through the rain that I would write on my blog this evening.  But what was it that I was going to share with you?  The number of dead coyotes seen on the side of the road?  The number of big rigs passing our rig – pickup and 24 foot travel trailer?  THANK A TRUCK DRIVER that the food and supplies get delivered to your local store!!  And in all kinds of weather – rain, wind at least up to a point, then they pull off into a truck parking area.

Truck parking areas – we use them as turn around spaces, or driver change spaces.  We have also used movie theatre parking lots during this COVID CRISIS since they are EMPTY.  We have driven the “pickup lanes” (pun intended!) at elementary schools as turn arounds.  Pulling a 24 foot travel trailer more or less eliminates Uturns, and no single lane dirt roads either!  While a LOT of WalMart parking lots no longer allow overnight parking, they usually have plenty of space for a quick shopping trip, bathroom break, and even a light lunch in the dinette we tow behind our pickup!!  The parking lots are great for people watching, almost as fascinating as Airports, Bus and Train stations. 

The birds that hang out in large parking lots are the same nationwide – sparrows and starlings.  The roads on the other hand are great for birding in the raptor category – hawks, vultures, and crows.  The LARGE reservoirs built by the Army Corp of Engineers will yield a variety of ducks, the ever-present and obnoxious Canada GEESE, and something we had never seen before a gaggle of snowy egrets!!  First on the Truman Reservoir in MO, and then in Kansas as well, there were hundreds of snowy egrets.  They were tightly grouped together with a couple of “outriggers” or sentries keeping guard.  I guess that perhaps we are hitting the annual migration for this species. 

Speaking of migration – we have discovered WHY the “snow birds” – the RVers from the northern states and even Canada - time their trips SOUTH to winter quarters in September / October.  By November you are taking your chances with weather and freezing temperatures.  Being in the LATE GROUP, since we were following the autumn leaf changes through ten states, we have been unhooking the water hose, and adding an additional heat source to our furnace, covering windows at night with foil SUN SCREENS or towels hung from the curtain rods!   Fortunately, this is not our “first rodeo” as we lived at 9600 feet in the Front Range in CO for 3 or 4 years when the boys were small and Kathleen was just a baby.  We know COLD and WIND.  But the weather does interrupt the best laid plans, so we just learn patience, as if we hadn’t had that lesson on several occasions in our 60 years of marriage.  Check the weather and proceed accordingly!!

Yesterday was BONUS DAY for hawks, and even a golden eagle, maybe!!  Of Course, Kansas does NOT have trees right up to the side of the highway like Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi!  Lots of big yellow wrapped bales of COTTON, but trees not so much!  The Flint Hills break up the monotony of fields and pastures and the soil in this part of Kansas is BLACK and must be really fertile considering the number of wrapped hay bales and in multiple colors of wrapping – white, yellow, clear, blue, and purple!!  It has been an interesting six months of travel, and I am sure we will continue to enjoy the changes in geology traveling the “roads less traveled” as much as possible and waiting to hear where we are supposed to PUT DOWN roots, and WHEN.

FALL COLORS

We have been in all the right states to enjoy AUTUMN - from Illinois to Alabama with stops in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.   We have been following the changing of the colors, praying for our Country, and our dualy elected leaders whatever the state we are in.  The funniest campaign was the Governor of North Carolina named Forrest who had used an old Burma-Shave system by adding RUN signs before and after his MAIN sign - RUN  Forrest RUN!!  I had to smile!

We are attempting to make a run west and a bit south to get ahead of the next hurricaine - ETA.  The last one ZETA blew through quickly as we were driving back from Kitty Hawk.  Our 3 day vacation from HOME here.  We were parked in a safe place in Virginia so left our HOME on WHEELS there and got a motel in Cheseapeake and drove the Outer Banks, stopping to climb the Kill Devit Hill where the Wright Brothers flew their airplane!!  Also drove to see a lighthouse before stopping at a waterside (might have been a part of the inter-coastal waterway) restaurant, where we got to watch the birds diving for their lunch while we ate ours!  

We don't like to drive with the trailer when the WIND is blowing hard and the day we drove back those flags were straight out!!  Glad we didn't have the trailer;  we would have STOPPED somewhere if we did!!  But timing is everything; and an ATTITUDE of GRATITUDE beats even that!!  We are so grateful for this opportunity to travel until GOD says, "STOP and plant yourself HERE."  We had a delightful visit with my first cousin and her husband in the Atlanta area, and lunch one Sunday with a nephew and his family!!    

The HUMIDITY is great for the skin and the sinuses,  but hard for Tom to handle, so heading west seems a good thing.  Stay safe,  stand tall, and PRAISE THE LORD!!

RETIREMENT

Nearly 5 months into this CHAPTER of our lives, the one word description would be BLESSED!

Our Dollar Tree placemats say “Blessed and Thankful” and that pretty much says it all!!  We had been warned that getting a space in an RV Park without reservations was iffy at best.  Maybe before COVID-19 but not now!!  We have been so fortunate,  finding a perfect space EVERY TIME!  Except for one, there always has to be an exception.  But even there we received a full refund when I said that we didn’t have the skills yet to back into a space with a new ONE MONTH old trailer  (fortunately Tom was NOT with me!  He would have disagreed!)

Our last trailer we built ourselves BEFORE CHILDREN!  Tom even guided the tent maker in Pasadena – she had never seen or built a zipper with curved corners, actually 2 zippers each with a curved corner, for tall folks!  The tents in those days had 3 zippers – one vertical and two horizontal at the bottom meeting in the middle, so a tall person had to manage to turn his head into a triangle!  Can’t find those tents any more unless they are in your great-grandparents garage’s attic!  We sold that custom designed trailer to a Girl Scout Leader when we moved to Strawberry in 1979.  It is probably still camping somewhere!

LIVING in a HOME on wheels requires organization and diligence, timing, and patience.  But it isn’t our “first rodeo” – that would be the furnished 1 bedroom apartment in So Pasadena in 1961.  I worked days and Tom worked nights, and the saw head for the radial arm saw lived in the space behind the curve on the sectional!  He was allowed to leave the base with the arm and the stand that he had built from 2x4s out in the Laundry Room provided he cleaned up after any use and removed the SAW.

Then there was the 12 x 24 mountain cabin in Burland Ranchettes on Hiway 287 above Bailey CO when the boys were pre-school.   The excitement every other day was going to the community pump to get 5 gallon containers of water, and to Bailey to get the mail,  that is if we had a working vehicle.  It seems we went through SIX in the first year we were there 35 miles from Tom’s work.  We borrowed every extra vehicle from both sets of parents while repairing the last one that broke.  Being mechanically gifted is often a CURSE.   Eventually all were back in running condition,  but we NEVER took transportation for granted again and were VERY thankful when that run of “bad luck” ran its course.

Then, there was the move to the 2 bedroom apartment in the Strawberry Inn where for a month our furniture from the house in San Jose was in the kitchen of the apartment AND a downstairs storage room.  Cramped but we did survive!!  And the three children increased the enrollment of the Pinecrest Elementary School by 10%!!  Read that story in “Diary of a Would-be Inkeeper” )  ask Martha to email you a copy.)

Life is full of adventure as long as you view it with GRATITUDE and a good ATTITUDE.   You can choose to be a victim or a VICTOR!  So after 41 years in the vacation / hospitality business we are now partakers of the hospitality of OTHERS;  if there is such a thing as KARMA – ours is all good.  If I choose to think of it as BLESSINGS,  I give GOD all the credit!!

SOUTH DAKOTA

We drove across South Dakota in the past two days – from Sioux Falls where we got new shocks for the ol’ pickup and what a difference it made on the Interstates!  Except for one 40 mile section just before our stop last night at Belvedere EAST  KOA campground and they were tearing it up and totally rebuilding it.  The washboards were beyond FIXING!!

We drove into Mitchell to see the famous Corn Palace, rebuilt/recovered each year with frescos made of the products that South Dakota produces.  It looks like some of the Casinos in Carson City NV – very ornate and ostentatious - except for the materials used for the decorations!! Onion domes made of metal, LOTS of sculptures.

Today, it was BADLANDS National Park loop road.   I would have hated to see it last year.  It was crowded THIS YEAR, even with the COVID-19 lockdowns still in effect in many places.  The private and KOA campgrounds are still only partially full, so we have been lucky in several instances.  Today it was a “back - in space” when we had asked for a pull-through.  I went back in the office and said,  “SORRY  we are not backing our one month old trailer into that space.”    We received a full refund!  Found a four night space at a KOA just over the hill and out of the flight pattern for the airport and a block from the nearest freeway!  

We took the Badlands loop which went over two or three “passes” as well as some amazingly ROUGH road.  We wondered if “the uplift” was still happening, creating even MORE amazing topography.  Such rugged beauty,  and desolate at the same time!

The trip through the BADLANDS had a delightful oxymoron – wattle to prevent erosion for MILES on a road repair job IN THE PARK made famous by the EROSION over millennia.  We laughed out loud!!

What an amazing and bountiful country we live in.  Those farmers and ranches feed us and a good portion of the WORLD.  And the truckers make sure the food gets to where it is wanted,  if not always where it is needed.   Thank a farmer / rancher and be sure and thank a trucker!!

BEST LAID PLANS

TRAVELING was to be our RETIREMENT vocation.  NOT a vacation as we ARE RETIRED, but a leisurely round of RV and STATE Park campsites, visiting places that we had wanted to see or to explore more fully.  We were always in such a rush to return to the RESORT in beautiful, downtown STRAWBERRY, to our responsibilities to maintain the ten cabins right on the south fork of the Stanislaus River.  We did NOT own them all but treated them as if we did!!  Neat and Tidy is my middle name!  Even Tom had the neatest workshop ever!

ENTER the Hunan VIRUS!!   We had planned to return for a week of Doctors Appointments and the receipt of Tom's by-mail medications.  The meds were delayed by a week and arrival coincided with the CA Governor's  "request" that all us OLDSTERS stay put to avoid spreading the BUG FROM CHINA!  We looked at our hostess for the past two weeks (and the two weeks between the close of escrow and Tom's last preaching assignment!!) and she said,  "MY house is your house as long as you need to stay!"  

WHAT A FRIEND; what a perfect place for us to hunker down while the rest of the world PANICS.  I manage to do the grocery shopping, saving both she and Tom from exposure to whatever germs are about.  We share the cooking and cleaning, we play the piano downstairs and sing, watch several worship services each week (easy to do on UTube!)  while Tom keeps us informed on the events worth reporting.  We play games, watch old movies, read books and magazines, knit and crochet, shovel snow and watch the fire burn in the wood stove.  GOD is GOOD, and we will surely miss our "voluntary house arrest!"  once we can get "ON THE ROAD AGAIN!"

Adios and GOD BLESS YOU!

I haven’t had time for a MountainMartha.blogspot.com for weeks!!  We had a 30 day escrow and just getting moved out and organized? Before the closing on the 31^st of January was a stretch.  Our new owners of Unit #1 at the Rivers Resort are a terrific couple who have DREAMED of a return to the Sierras for years!!  Scott and Tammie Webb took over on February 1^st and they will do just great keeping the Resort running and thriving.  Scott is currently the General Manager of a camp in Sunnyvale / Santa Cruz mountains and will continue with that for a few months.

Tom and I “hit the road” on Sunday the 9^th of February and are currently visiting family in Colorado until we figure out what the next step of our retirement looks like.   We are interviewing several lifestyle choices while catching our breath.  This is our third “downsizing” in the past 15 years so not quite as much STUFF, but still more than TWO storage spaces can hold!  I received a Quisinart food processor for Christmas and see it as a SIGN that I will again have a KITCHEN somewhere, sometime.  The rest of our belongings are in our Forester; it reminds me of the Beverly Hillbillies of TV fame.   All we lack is the rocking chair strapped to the roof rack!!

Tom took an afternoon not long ago to move all of our doctor appointments to the week of 

the 9^th of March so we will be back in the area on the 7^th or 8^th.  Our pastor has asked Tom to preach on the 8^th at Tuolumne UMC, our home church.  I guess that it is true that a minister, called of GOD, never really retires, just enlarges his pastorate.

It seems so strange NOT TO HAVE TO RUSH while visiting our families here in CO.  I guess that is what RETIREMENT is all about.

 DO continue to call the 1800.514.6777 number and welcome our new owners to your favorite vacation spot here in the Central Sierras.  Tammie will be happy to help you plan your vacation in your favorite cabin overlooking the beautiful South Fork of the Stanislaus River.  Better hurry though because the week long rentals get to reserve their favorite cabins a YEAR in ADVANCE; the same cabin, same week every year.  We also have several weddings this summer lined up for the stray weekends.  So do make that phone call soon.