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!!