Friday December 28th, we left North Carolina heading south for Florida. We drove into Georgia down 95 past Savannah. We had hoped that we would have been able to spend some time there sightseeing and learning about the area but, got in to town much later the we had originally thought we would. We had taken the time earlier in the morning to pack up and do a few chores rather than push to get out early. Are uploads are getting much faster already.
We also had taken the time to repair a nagging house battery/solenoid issue that has been going on since we either caused or noticed it back in CT. With the very generous assistance of my brother over the phone and Internet, a couple of hundred times, we finally resolved the issue. At least it seems like it and tests out as if it is resolved.
We made it some 300 miles yesterday and landed in Brunswick, GA. The very big deal of the day was that Megan hopped into the drivers seat in Shallotte, NC as we were about to leave and drove us all the way to Brunswick. Driving this whole loaded, almost 50 foot rig, for the first time ever. She drove on small roads just big enough for us and the oncoming trucks and I95 south. It is in wicked condition in some places with tires ruts and grooves that push a vehicle like this all over the place and usually have the added game day features of no shoulder and Jersey (Georgia) Barriers added in on your right and left, just for excitement. Then she continued to drive it under the same conditions through the Savannah go home, weekend of a holiday traffic, which was as heavy as I have seen it on 95 so far, as night fell. She looked as though she had been doing it for years and was less stressed than me by far and for sure, when I drove for the first time. Plus, she didn't hit anything!
We spent the night in a Passport America affiliate campsite which is a camping club we joined for the express reason of saving money. It costs us only 10 to 15 dollars per night at the campsites. Some are just big sparsely wooded parking lots with all of the amenities that we require for a nights stay. (Electric, Water, Sewer and Cable hook ups all provided on site) You should see how quickly we are able to set up camp on site and be ready for the night now, it is amazing! Others are more elaborate and pretty, which is what we will be looking for when we stay in a place for an extended period. For the overnights we just want inexpensive, clean and easy in and out and for the most part that is what we have found.
Today we are pulling out for the final leg of this weeks journey down to Orlando, Florida. All of the kids are flying down today with their significant others to spend a week with us designed to close out the old year and celebrate in the new one together. We also intend for this to bring some closure and settling to our family that you may guess occurs when the parents leave home. It has brought things up that you may have guessed but that could not be looked at and dealt with until they actually came to the front. We hope to be "Real Americans" and spend New Year's eve in Epcot Center having fun and celebrating our many blessings and abundance, together.
We are enjoying the trip so far and are looking forward to settling in for a while in Florida. We will be visiting with Megan's family there as well as heading down to the Everglades and Keys for some wintertime water sports and experiential, educationally geared activities like air boat rides, swimming with the dolphins and snorkeling around the reefs. We are spending a good bit of time each day increasing Jasper's math, geography, social studies and science knowledge. Yesterday we talked about the cotton crop here in the south. A bunch of aspects about it came to light. ie: slavery, he didn't know it grew on a low bush, a reference to how it is processed and how it is grown. We also spent some time listing all of the states on the East Coast. Do you know how many there are, without listing and counting them? Then we found out how many there are on the West Coast and totaled them up and had Jazz do the math to determine how many states we had to travel through to see them all. We are very much enjoying designing and playing out our educational travel time. It has been great fun! Jasper also spent a good deal of time making up songs yesterday and singing them to us. But, the highlight of his day by far was the moment we pulled into the campsite. A 12 year old with a bike and a skateboard rode up and saw Jasper riding his Rip Stik. A friendship, that lasted for several hours and entailed them sharing all about their lives in a short period of time, ensued. It gave us a wonderful time alone together and Jasper some much desired kid time. He has been a bit homesick and missing his friends and his family time and all things known, back in CT.
There have been adjustments for all of us to date. We miss our friends and and we also miss knowing where everything is at home. We have spent a good deal of these first days trying to put stuff in some logical order where we can find it when we need it but also have it out of our way when we don't. We are making progress. I know where the banjo is but have not had a single moment to take it out as of yet. Settling in a place will allow for that, too.
If any one wants to come and meet us in tropical southern Florida in late January, just call us. Maybe we can swim or take a small boat to Cuba for the day and pick up some cigars!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
the zen of rv
I wanted to go back to last Tuesday and recapture some of the "Almost Comical Events" that took place on the day of our leaving Connecticut. These will tie in nicely with the "Somewhat Comical Events" that have occurred since we left home, regarding the RV itself. I am learning and practicing a new level of ZEN. Brought directly to me as the new owner of a Recreational Vehicle. For this, I am grateful. Perhaps this is actually a new strain of practice, appropriately named "rvzen", previously unknown to me.
We rose early Tuesday morning, in wild anticipation or was it sleep deprivation, of this being the actual launch day for our road journey. We still had quite a few items to do to be able to check them off the list but seemed confident that we would be able to pull out by noon. Almost everything that was going had been brought to the attic. We really had only our bed to take apart and move up there and then to finalize the clearing of the Master Bedroom, the back office and the kitchen. Of course as we did this we brought the stuff from those rooms into the dining room and living room and sorted them into appropriately sorted piles that would later be moved to there final destinations, attic, RV, curb or given away. And this would be done by noon along with getting the RV itself fit and ready for travel. We'll see! All our good byes had been said and we were bound and determined to hit the road Tuesday even if it meant we would spend the night in New Haven.
Now lets see, the tow dolly (which I have never used or even been able to actually hook up to the RV yet) is embedded in ice and snow way back in the back yard. To get to it we would have to shovel through a mound of ice that had been snow pushed into a pile by the driveway plow guy a couple of days before. We would have to get this leveled before I could drive the pickup in 4 wheel drive back there to hook onto the dolly to pull it out and over to wherever we would end up putting it and the car onto it attached to the back of the RV. Meanwhile, the RV itself is not only embedded in the surrounding ice covered snow on the ground, but the entire top of the unit is also crusted over, like the icing on the top layer of wedding cake after being left in the freezer for a year. It sits somewhat patiently waiting (in Steve and Monica's driveway) for us to get ourselves together, to get in, pay some attention and get going. You know, as I think about it, maybe it was waiting more like a spoiled 4 year old.
Since I brought it home from Michigan and parked it in the driveway of our very loving, caring, generous and compassionate friends, the RV could be seen as having been quietly throwing little temper tantrums. Not interpreted by me that way of course but possibly by some. Myself though, in the spirit of Zen, I have seen them only as passive opportunities to accept what is and be at peace.
First there was the wiring for the lights and electric brakes for the tow dolly. I bought the dolly from a guy in Berlin (No! not Germany, Connecticut. I don't always have to travel far to get what I want) As I was buying it I asked him if we could hook it up to his RV so I could see that the lights and brakes actually worked. He hemmed and hawed and muttered about the wiring being screwed up and that he had to put the wire connector on himself cause it fell off during his trip up from Florida and that he may not have done it just right. "Besides", he told me, "there are no states in the US that require lights on a tow dolly. I mean you should check for yourself in the states that you are going into but my research has concluded that the lights are not necessary anywhere". Although this may seem like an omen to some, to me it is just a bargaining chip and I used it skillfully chopping a hundred dollars of the price he was asking, immediately. So, all negotiations complete, I hooked it to the back of the pick up and drove it home. After all,this is just perfect, I have a wonderful and talented son who works in the field of auto electronics and he would be more that happy to help out his dad by rewiring the tow dolly.
As it turned out, as soon as the RV realized that we had bought the dolly and was paying more attention to it than the RV it quickly reorganized or phased shifted or something and changed its own wiring harness on the back so as not to fit the tow dolly. This was crafty! Suffice it to say that we rewired a new harness hook up onto the RV along with the electric brake controller along with the new harness onto the dolly as well as finding the elusive short in the tow dolly that was preventing the lights from working at all. All of this zen-fully occurred so as to allow number one son, Andrew, and I to spend quality time together. And for me to see, experience and appreciate the man who has become a qualified and skilled technician along with acquiring the skills of patience and tenacity while working with his Dad. He is very adept at the latter skill set. Something that I am just present to and reminding myself of as ultimately important during this particular trip here to my parents house.
I may not have mentioned this is previous blogs but there is one person who has been an outstandingly huge contribution regarding our actualizing the break from the the house on to this trip without whom I would still be in CT. As a result of his steady and constant assistance, he has also witnessed, first hand, all of the afore and soon to be mentioned affectations involved in our break out. That person is the infamous Don Coyle. In the very next entry I will explain the RV tribulations that he and I experienced together, albeit from different angles, on the last day in the winter wonderland.
We rose early Tuesday morning, in wild anticipation or was it sleep deprivation, of this being the actual launch day for our road journey. We still had quite a few items to do to be able to check them off the list but seemed confident that we would be able to pull out by noon. Almost everything that was going had been brought to the attic. We really had only our bed to take apart and move up there and then to finalize the clearing of the Master Bedroom, the back office and the kitchen. Of course as we did this we brought the stuff from those rooms into the dining room and living room and sorted them into appropriately sorted piles that would later be moved to there final destinations, attic, RV, curb or given away. And this would be done by noon along with getting the RV itself fit and ready for travel. We'll see! All our good byes had been said and we were bound and determined to hit the road Tuesday even if it meant we would spend the night in New Haven.
Now lets see, the tow dolly (which I have never used or even been able to actually hook up to the RV yet) is embedded in ice and snow way back in the back yard. To get to it we would have to shovel through a mound of ice that had been snow pushed into a pile by the driveway plow guy a couple of days before. We would have to get this leveled before I could drive the pickup in 4 wheel drive back there to hook onto the dolly to pull it out and over to wherever we would end up putting it and the car onto it attached to the back of the RV. Meanwhile, the RV itself is not only embedded in the surrounding ice covered snow on the ground, but the entire top of the unit is also crusted over, like the icing on the top layer of wedding cake after being left in the freezer for a year. It sits somewhat patiently waiting (in Steve and Monica's driveway) for us to get ourselves together, to get in, pay some attention and get going. You know, as I think about it, maybe it was waiting more like a spoiled 4 year old.
Since I brought it home from Michigan and parked it in the driveway of our very loving, caring, generous and compassionate friends, the RV could be seen as having been quietly throwing little temper tantrums. Not interpreted by me that way of course but possibly by some. Myself though, in the spirit of Zen, I have seen them only as passive opportunities to accept what is and be at peace.
First there was the wiring for the lights and electric brakes for the tow dolly. I bought the dolly from a guy in Berlin (No! not Germany, Connecticut. I don't always have to travel far to get what I want) As I was buying it I asked him if we could hook it up to his RV so I could see that the lights and brakes actually worked. He hemmed and hawed and muttered about the wiring being screwed up and that he had to put the wire connector on himself cause it fell off during his trip up from Florida and that he may not have done it just right. "Besides", he told me, "there are no states in the US that require lights on a tow dolly. I mean you should check for yourself in the states that you are going into but my research has concluded that the lights are not necessary anywhere". Although this may seem like an omen to some, to me it is just a bargaining chip and I used it skillfully chopping a hundred dollars of the price he was asking, immediately. So, all negotiations complete, I hooked it to the back of the pick up and drove it home. After all,this is just perfect, I have a wonderful and talented son who works in the field of auto electronics and he would be more that happy to help out his dad by rewiring the tow dolly.
As it turned out, as soon as the RV realized that we had bought the dolly and was paying more attention to it than the RV it quickly reorganized or phased shifted or something and changed its own wiring harness on the back so as not to fit the tow dolly. This was crafty! Suffice it to say that we rewired a new harness hook up onto the RV along with the electric brake controller along with the new harness onto the dolly as well as finding the elusive short in the tow dolly that was preventing the lights from working at all. All of this zen-fully occurred so as to allow number one son, Andrew, and I to spend quality time together. And for me to see, experience and appreciate the man who has become a qualified and skilled technician along with acquiring the skills of patience and tenacity while working with his Dad. He is very adept at the latter skill set. Something that I am just present to and reminding myself of as ultimately important during this particular trip here to my parents house.
I may not have mentioned this is previous blogs but there is one person who has been an outstandingly huge contribution regarding our actualizing the break from the the house on to this trip without whom I would still be in CT. As a result of his steady and constant assistance, he has also witnessed, first hand, all of the afore and soon to be mentioned affectations involved in our break out. That person is the infamous Don Coyle. In the very next entry I will explain the RV tribulations that he and I experienced together, albeit from different angles, on the last day in the winter wonderland.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
A Wal-Mart Holiday Travelers Meditation
It is about 50 degrees here in Shallotte, NC - expected to get near 70 today and I like it!
We left Annapolis on Thursday night at just about 9 PM. This may sound like a crazy time to start driving to some folks, but our intention was to avoid the DC and Richmond, VA regular traffic in the morning on Friday. Thinking ahead, as we so often do, we also thought that traffic might be even heavier based on the fact that Christmas is on next Tuesday and people may be taking the whole weekend off prior to it and may have even been thinking of heading out on Friday to beat the weekend traffic.
Well, there you have it. The entire thought process on why to leave on Thursday night.
It worked out just fine. We drove until 2:30 AM, early Friday morning and made it all the way to Rocky Mount, NC. This was about 3+ hours from my parent’s house in Shallotte. This would be an easy ride for us in the morning to reach their house, where we will dock and spend Christmas and a few days beyond. Jasper had already fallen asleep on his bed (the fold out couch) along with Megan at some point earlier during the drive. Megan awoke around 12:30-1 AM and came to sit up front with me as I drove. Although she was asleep again within 15 minutes and it was nice to have her as visual company. We were excitedly heading towards our first time ever stay in a new camping site.
We found our (first ever) high class 24 Wal-Mart parking lot for our place of rest for this day. I went in and asked the Customer Service Manager for her permission to park there over night. With that handled, we sequestered a corner of the lot that was the darkest, got ourselves ready and went peacefully to sleep, our so we thought, for the remainder of the night.
As you might imagine, there are a few things that are different sleeping in a parking lot than sleeping in your bedroom in your home. Not immensely different but different all the same. To start with, we were the only ones there with an RV. This makes us stand out just a bit and makes people stare and I assume, wonder where we are from and where we are going and why in the world we would be sleeping in the Wal-Mart parking lot. On this particular night’s stay, just four days before Christmas in NC, at a 24 hour Wal-Mart, people were still shopping at 2:30 AM when we pulled in and by 6 AM when I awoke, abruptly and gazed outside in squinting eyed wonder, the parking lot was beginning to fill up.
Now, as I was saying, abruptly I was awoken, due to the diligent efforts of the landscaping and parking lot crew attending to keeping the lot area clean and ready for all of those cars and associated people that would soon arrive in hoards to continue with the most joyous activity of the season. I am not sure why the lot was so dirty and cluttered under and around our RV but, that must have been the case cause’ the guy with the gas powered back pack, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, leaf blower spent so much additional time around us that Megan and I both sat up in a bolt, wondering if we were being invaded by a gang of industrious dirt bikers or if a small Robinson helicopter had mistaken the top of our unit for a landing pad. Perhaps he was just as curious as everyone else, wondering what the hell we were doing there and determined that he had a sort of legal reason or employer based charge that allowed him, in his mind, to get as close as he wanted to the RV. Or maybe he had been employer directed to spend some additional time there to hopefully wake us so that we would leave the lot and clear the 7 spaces we had occupied as I pulled in perpendicular to the painted lines. Or maybe he was just a simple, single minded person with no F’in respect for the weary traveling Wal-Mart Camper.
Ultimately, it made no difference to me. He soon left and I was again, fast asleep. Horridly dreaming that our car had been stolen from the back of our RV, as we slept. I will tell you that not too many times before this night have I had that dream, as I lay sleeping in my comfy, warm bed in my home without wheels. But, I must sadly admit, not even that dream was powerful enough to have me rise again as I slept alongside my affable traveling partner until 9 AM. When, I was however, awoken again by the sound of very real car doors shutting, very close to our sleeping, traveling, eating, house pod. Checking quickly through the previous files of my nights scattered dreams and random thoughts, I wonder for a moment, before sitting up, if someone was in fact in our car. I decided to get up and look.
What I saw when I looked out was very surprising to me in two ways. We keep forgetting that it is the Christmas shopping season. As we make our Merry way down the highways of this great country, Christmas shopping has been the furthest thing from our lives and minds. So it has taken us by surprise, several times, as we went into the stores for provisions, that there were so many people shopping. Then in a short bit, we remember what is going on (who’s simple and single minded now). Having made this realization several times now, DUH, the very, very full parking lot this Friday morning was only the small shock. The larger one emanated from the sound of the vehicle doors I heard shutting while I was in the final moments of my rest.
(When I chose our parking location for the night, I had intentionally left two spaces between me and the curb at the end of this row. This was so I would later be able to easily maneuver out of the space into a parking lot travel lane and exit the place with ease.)
By the time I looked out, someone had already taken the one space, furthest from the front of the unit, along side the curb, respectfully leaving the one immediately in front of us open. Now I watched, in amazement and some rising spark of disbelief, the final exiting of a family from Dads White Chevy Extended Cab Pickup Truck. (and I swear that they had smug looks on their faces for having found their own special parking spot on the lot) They or he had decided that parking their vehicle in the spot directly in front of the RV (within a foot of the front) was a real good idea and possibly even thought that the remaining open space must be a special gift from the Yuletide Parking Goddess. In fact it probably seemed like quite a find as no one else had taken it yet. And look, they may have said, no big issue, someone has already parked in the spot directly behind them, too. I know now I should have gotten a picture of this but it just didn’t occur to me in the moment. I hate when I get distracted like that and miss capturing that special moment in digital image.
So I went back in to the unit after surveying the predicament we were in. I pondered the options and possible solutions. We were certainly not in a hurry. We have no schedule to keep. No one even knows where in the hell we are in the world. And, I hadn’t even made my first Café Latte yet. Besides of the two groups that parked close enough on either end of us to sandwich us in, one of them would come out soon.
They wouldn’t be in there all day. Right!
Breathe In, Breathe Out!
We left Annapolis on Thursday night at just about 9 PM. This may sound like a crazy time to start driving to some folks, but our intention was to avoid the DC and Richmond, VA regular traffic in the morning on Friday. Thinking ahead, as we so often do, we also thought that traffic might be even heavier based on the fact that Christmas is on next Tuesday and people may be taking the whole weekend off prior to it and may have even been thinking of heading out on Friday to beat the weekend traffic.
Well, there you have it. The entire thought process on why to leave on Thursday night.
It worked out just fine. We drove until 2:30 AM, early Friday morning and made it all the way to Rocky Mount, NC. This was about 3+ hours from my parent’s house in Shallotte. This would be an easy ride for us in the morning to reach their house, where we will dock and spend Christmas and a few days beyond. Jasper had already fallen asleep on his bed (the fold out couch) along with Megan at some point earlier during the drive. Megan awoke around 12:30-1 AM and came to sit up front with me as I drove. Although she was asleep again within 15 minutes and it was nice to have her as visual company. We were excitedly heading towards our first time ever stay in a new camping site.
We found our (first ever) high class 24 Wal-Mart parking lot for our place of rest for this day. I went in and asked the Customer Service Manager for her permission to park there over night. With that handled, we sequestered a corner of the lot that was the darkest, got ourselves ready and went peacefully to sleep, our so we thought, for the remainder of the night.
As you might imagine, there are a few things that are different sleeping in a parking lot than sleeping in your bedroom in your home. Not immensely different but different all the same. To start with, we were the only ones there with an RV. This makes us stand out just a bit and makes people stare and I assume, wonder where we are from and where we are going and why in the world we would be sleeping in the Wal-Mart parking lot. On this particular night’s stay, just four days before Christmas in NC, at a 24 hour Wal-Mart, people were still shopping at 2:30 AM when we pulled in and by 6 AM when I awoke, abruptly and gazed outside in squinting eyed wonder, the parking lot was beginning to fill up.
Now, as I was saying, abruptly I was awoken, due to the diligent efforts of the landscaping and parking lot crew attending to keeping the lot area clean and ready for all of those cars and associated people that would soon arrive in hoards to continue with the most joyous activity of the season. I am not sure why the lot was so dirty and cluttered under and around our RV but, that must have been the case cause’ the guy with the gas powered back pack, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, leaf blower spent so much additional time around us that Megan and I both sat up in a bolt, wondering if we were being invaded by a gang of industrious dirt bikers or if a small Robinson helicopter had mistaken the top of our unit for a landing pad. Perhaps he was just as curious as everyone else, wondering what the hell we were doing there and determined that he had a sort of legal reason or employer based charge that allowed him, in his mind, to get as close as he wanted to the RV. Or maybe he had been employer directed to spend some additional time there to hopefully wake us so that we would leave the lot and clear the 7 spaces we had occupied as I pulled in perpendicular to the painted lines. Or maybe he was just a simple, single minded person with no F’in respect for the weary traveling Wal-Mart Camper.
Ultimately, it made no difference to me. He soon left and I was again, fast asleep. Horridly dreaming that our car had been stolen from the back of our RV, as we slept. I will tell you that not too many times before this night have I had that dream, as I lay sleeping in my comfy, warm bed in my home without wheels. But, I must sadly admit, not even that dream was powerful enough to have me rise again as I slept alongside my affable traveling partner until 9 AM. When, I was however, awoken again by the sound of very real car doors shutting, very close to our sleeping, traveling, eating, house pod. Checking quickly through the previous files of my nights scattered dreams and random thoughts, I wonder for a moment, before sitting up, if someone was in fact in our car. I decided to get up and look.
What I saw when I looked out was very surprising to me in two ways. We keep forgetting that it is the Christmas shopping season. As we make our Merry way down the highways of this great country, Christmas shopping has been the furthest thing from our lives and minds. So it has taken us by surprise, several times, as we went into the stores for provisions, that there were so many people shopping. Then in a short bit, we remember what is going on (who’s simple and single minded now). Having made this realization several times now, DUH, the very, very full parking lot this Friday morning was only the small shock. The larger one emanated from the sound of the vehicle doors I heard shutting while I was in the final moments of my rest.
(When I chose our parking location for the night, I had intentionally left two spaces between me and the curb at the end of this row. This was so I would later be able to easily maneuver out of the space into a parking lot travel lane and exit the place with ease.)
By the time I looked out, someone had already taken the one space, furthest from the front of the unit, along side the curb, respectfully leaving the one immediately in front of us open. Now I watched, in amazement and some rising spark of disbelief, the final exiting of a family from Dads White Chevy Extended Cab Pickup Truck. (and I swear that they had smug looks on their faces for having found their own special parking spot on the lot) They or he had decided that parking their vehicle in the spot directly in front of the RV (within a foot of the front) was a real good idea and possibly even thought that the remaining open space must be a special gift from the Yuletide Parking Goddess. In fact it probably seemed like quite a find as no one else had taken it yet. And look, they may have said, no big issue, someone has already parked in the spot directly behind them, too. I know now I should have gotten a picture of this but it just didn’t occur to me in the moment. I hate when I get distracted like that and miss capturing that special moment in digital image.
So I went back in to the unit after surveying the predicament we were in. I pondered the options and possible solutions. We were certainly not in a hurry. We have no schedule to keep. No one even knows where in the hell we are in the world. And, I hadn’t even made my first Café Latte yet. Besides of the two groups that parked close enough on either end of us to sandwich us in, one of them would come out soon.
They wouldn’t be in there all day. Right!
Breathe In, Breathe Out!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
We have Left! OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH Yeah!!!!
At 9:10 PM Tuesday night, December 18th we loaded the last of the prized possessions into their appropriate places and drove West on Route 66 heading for the open highway (relatively speaking from here in the east)
Our day, though, was not without an almost unbelievable and somehow comical string of happenings. This is the way your final day at home should be. (and it is still continuing at 2:26 AM as I write, behind the wheel, while I am traveling about 1 mile per hour sitting on the Cross Bronx Express Way (NY) because I wanted to avoid a traffic issue in the morning.
Hah! Here I sit.
I drove until 4:30 AM just because I felt great and enthused. Megan had woken up at around 3:30 and came up front to keep me company and search the internet for places and directions. Yes, thats right, the interent while we are driving. I just got the Verizon Air Card just before we left and I must admit it works better and easier than I ever imagined. It is so cool to have internet access while you are moving down the road. Very glad we did this added dollar expense item to our budget.
We spent our first morning of this leg of our journey in the coach catching a nap in Southern NJ in a rest area. I woke at 8:30 and had some of my awesome granola/yogurt/pecans/bannana/brown sugar staple morning food blend and then shoved off , onwardly south, towards Annapolis.
We jumped off the Jersey Turnpike and 295 right after crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge on to Route 1 towards the Delaware shore and picked up the very scenic 301 towards the Bay Bridge.
The shock of gas cost is just about over and maybe a little nicer as the prices get lower as we get further south. But the toll for this coach towing the car was a ..... WOW!
A bit more of the comical antics of our yesterday, later.
Our day, though, was not without an almost unbelievable and somehow comical string of happenings. This is the way your final day at home should be. (and it is still continuing at 2:26 AM as I write, behind the wheel, while I am traveling about 1 mile per hour sitting on the Cross Bronx Express Way (NY) because I wanted to avoid a traffic issue in the morning.
Hah! Here I sit.
I drove until 4:30 AM just because I felt great and enthused. Megan had woken up at around 3:30 and came up front to keep me company and search the internet for places and directions. Yes, thats right, the interent while we are driving. I just got the Verizon Air Card just before we left and I must admit it works better and easier than I ever imagined. It is so cool to have internet access while you are moving down the road. Very glad we did this added dollar expense item to our budget.
We spent our first morning of this leg of our journey in the coach catching a nap in Southern NJ in a rest area. I woke at 8:30 and had some of my awesome granola/yogurt/pecans/bannana/brown sugar staple morning food blend and then shoved off , onwardly south, towards Annapolis.
We jumped off the Jersey Turnpike and 295 right after crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge on to Route 1 towards the Delaware shore and picked up the very scenic 301 towards the Bay Bridge.
The shock of gas cost is just about over and maybe a little nicer as the prices get lower as we get further south. But the toll for this coach towing the car was a ..... WOW!
A bit more of the comical antics of our yesterday, later.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
**We're Almost There, no really!**
The last snow storm, on Thursday, could have easily been the blame for the delay in our departure but in reality it was the lack of completion on the seemingly unending list of todo's that we created in large format. The key words being "we created." It seems that from some place in my past and now lodged in my belief system "you come to a point when you just say enough is enough and you are then ready to leave. We have not gotten there and evidently we are not going to. We have just stuck it out and managed the list(s) into submission or depletion. In this case though we have dealt with the mental aggravation (Bill's) of multiple postponements and just kept forging forward to complete on all of those things we deemed important.
Last week we did go through the list and highlight what we felt was crucially important to us by highlighting them in Red and decided if we got these done then we would be perfectly fine with leaving and letting go of the other otherwise trivial things on the list. Funny thing that happened is that when you put them in the list they also get somehow retained in your brain as just as important as the rest. Substantiating my new found theory that the brain does not recognize either the color red or my feeble attempt at prioritizing.
Thus we have completed approximately 80 - 90% of everything that was on the list in spite of our reduction effort and my squabbling about its inherent length and number of items contained therein.
We will be leaving Tuesday morning about 9 AM. Like no kidding!
NASA has declared that the weather will be in perfect condition for our launch and will continue to our first touch down spot of Annapolis, MD later that evening. We will remain there a couple of days then head out to North Carolina to Bill's parents for the Christmas Holiday.
A little trip aside:
On our anniversary date, Megan and I meandered up to The Vanilla Bean in Pomfret, enjoyed a great supper (snuck in a couple of deserts) and listened to the wonderfully calming, beautifully presented, stress releasing musical stirrings of the Atwater-Donnelly Trio. http://www.atwater-donnelly.com/atwater-donnellytrio.htm
They played a bunch of seasonal tunes and mainly served up their blend of Traditional American folk tunes from various regions of our country including some old time Kentucky Hills Blue Grass and Blues. Of the many instruments they articulately expressed themselves with that night, it was the banjo, once again that caught my interest. After we left that evening, I told Megan that I was going to find one to learn on during our trip. I hadn't really mentioned it to anyone else until this past Thursday when I asked my my good friend and Buddhist conversational partner, Scott, ( Thanks so much for your assistance in diminishing the list items, too) if he knew where I could get one that I could learn on and not spend too much on. He told me that he has one that he hasn't had the time to play much lately and that I could take it with me on the year sojourn. Banjo, here I come!
We have packed a good deal of the stuff into the Coach already but the final issue will be assembled and installed Sunday and Monday. It has all been sorted and awaits entry to its meticulously assigned space, somewhere in the top side or in the basement. The very final selection of stuff to take is my tool collection. We intend to do some assistance work with our families, friends and others (in the way of house repair) when necessary or when I need to feel of value for my talents. Of the many to choose from, I will take the tools that seem valuable and of multi leveled importance (like the battery screw gun/drill and the saws all). Come to think of it that should just about do it.
We will pull out Tuesday around 9 AM. Did I mention that already???
OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH YYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
Last week we did go through the list and highlight what we felt was crucially important to us by highlighting them in Red and decided if we got these done then we would be perfectly fine with leaving and letting go of the other otherwise trivial things on the list. Funny thing that happened is that when you put them in the list they also get somehow retained in your brain as just as important as the rest. Substantiating my new found theory that the brain does not recognize either the color red or my feeble attempt at prioritizing.
Thus we have completed approximately 80 - 90% of everything that was on the list in spite of our reduction effort and my squabbling about its inherent length and number of items contained therein.
We will be leaving Tuesday morning about 9 AM. Like no kidding!
NASA has declared that the weather will be in perfect condition for our launch and will continue to our first touch down spot of Annapolis, MD later that evening. We will remain there a couple of days then head out to North Carolina to Bill's parents for the Christmas Holiday.
A little trip aside:
On our anniversary date, Megan and I meandered up to The Vanilla Bean in Pomfret, enjoyed a great supper (snuck in a couple of deserts) and listened to the wonderfully calming, beautifully presented, stress releasing musical stirrings of the Atwater-Donnelly Trio. http://www.atwater-donnelly.com/atwater-donnellytrio.htm
They played a bunch of seasonal tunes and mainly served up their blend of Traditional American folk tunes from various regions of our country including some old time Kentucky Hills Blue Grass and Blues. Of the many instruments they articulately expressed themselves with that night, it was the banjo, once again that caught my interest. After we left that evening, I told Megan that I was going to find one to learn on during our trip. I hadn't really mentioned it to anyone else until this past Thursday when I asked my my good friend and Buddhist conversational partner, Scott, ( Thanks so much for your assistance in diminishing the list items, too) if he knew where I could get one that I could learn on and not spend too much on. He told me that he has one that he hasn't had the time to play much lately and that I could take it with me on the year sojourn. Banjo, here I come!
We have packed a good deal of the stuff into the Coach already but the final issue will be assembled and installed Sunday and Monday. It has all been sorted and awaits entry to its meticulously assigned space, somewhere in the top side or in the basement. The very final selection of stuff to take is my tool collection. We intend to do some assistance work with our families, friends and others (in the way of house repair) when necessary or when I need to feel of value for my talents. Of the many to choose from, I will take the tools that seem valuable and of multi leveled importance (like the battery screw gun/drill and the saws all). Come to think of it that should just about do it.
We will pull out Tuesday around 9 AM. Did I mention that already???
OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH YYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
Friday, December 14, 2007
Saturday in New Haven
To those of you checking the blog for our advancement and journal entries regarding the progress of the trip, thanks for looking in on us and please know that we are progressing but that we have not progressed out of CT yet. We have been spending more time doing what we still think is required for us to set it up and leave responsibly and properly to avoid kickback from leaving our affairs out of order (a theme previously discussed in an earlier entry). We have every intention to be complete and to shove off on Saturday the 15th but the impending snow storm, scheduled for this weekend, (a nor'easter - as one friend described as a hurricane with snow included), may hold us ashore until Monday or Tuesday. We are close and in a good place and the excitement is mounting. Jasper is very glad for yesterdays snow storm and as a matter of fact we are, as I complete this note, heading up the street to do some sledding on Foss Hill for hopefully the last time this year. We'll see!
I have to write yet one more, albeit a different angle, story about our leaving or better said not leaving. It is clear to me at this juncture that we were not supposed to leave when we said we were going to. There seems to be another plan for our time over and above what we thought was appropriate. This is in addition to the awareness I expressed in the last blog entry; The Final Final List.
On Friday night, actually Saturday morning, December 1 at 1:10m AM after having crawled into bed at midnight, my cell phone rang. Megan heard it first (or and least was willing to move first) and got back out of bed to look at the caller ID. She let me know that it was our friend Charles calling from his newly remodeled condo in New Haven. Moving up from NYC, he began living there, with his partner Socheata, after we completed the renovations this past August and simultaneously began attending Yale Divinity School amongst the many other major endeavors he is involved in with his significant other. Check out their award winning documentary “New Year Baby” (newyearbaby.net) While I was slowly reentering from dream land and simultaneously trying to process why he would be calling me at this hour, we missed the call and it went into voicemail. After a minute of clearing my head I got the phone from Meg and listened to the message.
“Bill, this is Charles. We have an issue here. We are alright but we have had a break in and robbery down stairs while we were upstairs in bed. It occurred at around 12:30 AM. The rear door is broken from being kicked in and I am wondering if you can get someone here tomorrow to fix or replace the door? Hope to talk to you soon, good bye.”
I immediately called him back and asked for more details regarding the situation. (If they were safe at the moment and he had called the police). The entry occurred at the rear door of the unit. The door was a wooden door with a glass section at the top half, an entry lock and handle in the normal location and a small sliding bolt at the very top of the door. It took the intruder one full body weight push to rip the door jamb apart at the sliding bolt location and push right through the entry lock and he was in. Remarkably, the glass did not break when he blasted through the door. The bastard then went from the rear of the house, where he broke in, to the front of the house and turned on the lights so he could see better around the room and to figure out what he was going to take. He ended up with a lap top and Charles’ wallet.
Next, I asked him what he had done to secure the door and how secure he thought it was. I was trying to determine if they could possibly make it through the night security wise of course knowing that they would not feel entirely safe for quite some time to come. He told me that they had closed the door locked the entry lock again and put a chair up against it. He had also called the property manager for the complex and asked him what he could do about this door issue. The property manager, who seemed to be a little disturbed that he was being called at that hour, offered no assistance and or direction in solving the immediate issue. While the police were there, they told them that it is possible that the intruder may come back now that the door has been busted and he had seen what was in the unit. This straight forward assessment of the truth about these situations must have been very comforting to them. He told me that he thought they would be alright for the rest of the night and we hung up. I could hear in his voice that he did not feel secure and that the situation was not at all comfortable for them.
I lay in the bed for less than 1 minute after the call then said to Meg, “I need to go down there to secure that door and console them if I can.” His parents live in California and hers live in Texas so they have only had the limited amount of community that has been developed through the school, us and one other mutual friend that they could call on for support. Obviously, due to my business and trade and our friendship, I got the call first. I got dressed and starting making a mental list of what I knew I would need to make the door secure for the night. I would work on replacing or having the door replaced in the morning but for now I had to make it secure.
I asked Megan, who knows them as well as I do, from our Landmark Education Wisdom Course, if she wanted to come for support or stay here, as Jasper had not really even fallen asleep yet. He was privy to the phone call and our limited conversations about it and was in the background asking, “Can I come?” So, we loaded him into the back of the new Prius (otherwise known as our new vehicle) along with a 3’ x 5’ piece of plywood two screw guns and some 2 ½” screws and headed down to New Haven.
We called on the way to give them an approximate arrival time and arrived pretty much on schedule. When we got there and knocked on the door Charles asked through the door, “Bill, Is that you?” I went in talked for a few to see how they were, which was naturally really shaken and wired from the incident. Then I quickly made an assessment of the door situation and went to work to secure it for the rest of the late night. I attached the ½ of plywood I had brought with the 2 ½” screws and fastened them through the frame of the door and into the studs beyond the framing to make it as difficult as possible for someone to get through it again. Just in case!
After finishing and explaining to them what I had done, we chatted in the living room for a bit longer and as I was getting ready to leave I told them that we would get a new door taken care of in the morning and we headed back to our luxurious king size bed arriving at about 3:30 AM.
At 4 AM, I received another phone call from Charles. There was a different sense in his voice this time. He was calling to let me know that the arrogant bastard had come back and attempted to break back into the place again by trying to force his way through the plywood that I had just finished installing. In different ways, I’m sure; we were both very satisfied to know that the intruder was unable to gain entry this time as he stood down there repeatedly banging against the old door and its new plywood sheathing.
I went to sleep. I am sure they did not!
The door was replaced the next day with a new solid core solid skin unit and a commercial quality lock system.
I have to write yet one more, albeit a different angle, story about our leaving or better said not leaving. It is clear to me at this juncture that we were not supposed to leave when we said we were going to. There seems to be another plan for our time over and above what we thought was appropriate. This is in addition to the awareness I expressed in the last blog entry; The Final Final List.
On Friday night, actually Saturday morning, December 1 at 1:10m AM after having crawled into bed at midnight, my cell phone rang. Megan heard it first (or and least was willing to move first) and got back out of bed to look at the caller ID. She let me know that it was our friend Charles calling from his newly remodeled condo in New Haven. Moving up from NYC, he began living there, with his partner Socheata, after we completed the renovations this past August and simultaneously began attending Yale Divinity School amongst the many other major endeavors he is involved in with his significant other. Check out their award winning documentary “New Year Baby” (newyearbaby.net) While I was slowly reentering from dream land and simultaneously trying to process why he would be calling me at this hour, we missed the call and it went into voicemail. After a minute of clearing my head I got the phone from Meg and listened to the message.
“Bill, this is Charles. We have an issue here. We are alright but we have had a break in and robbery down stairs while we were upstairs in bed. It occurred at around 12:30 AM. The rear door is broken from being kicked in and I am wondering if you can get someone here tomorrow to fix or replace the door? Hope to talk to you soon, good bye.”
I immediately called him back and asked for more details regarding the situation. (If they were safe at the moment and he had called the police). The entry occurred at the rear door of the unit. The door was a wooden door with a glass section at the top half, an entry lock and handle in the normal location and a small sliding bolt at the very top of the door. It took the intruder one full body weight push to rip the door jamb apart at the sliding bolt location and push right through the entry lock and he was in. Remarkably, the glass did not break when he blasted through the door. The bastard then went from the rear of the house, where he broke in, to the front of the house and turned on the lights so he could see better around the room and to figure out what he was going to take. He ended up with a lap top and Charles’ wallet.
Next, I asked him what he had done to secure the door and how secure he thought it was. I was trying to determine if they could possibly make it through the night security wise of course knowing that they would not feel entirely safe for quite some time to come. He told me that they had closed the door locked the entry lock again and put a chair up against it. He had also called the property manager for the complex and asked him what he could do about this door issue. The property manager, who seemed to be a little disturbed that he was being called at that hour, offered no assistance and or direction in solving the immediate issue. While the police were there, they told them that it is possible that the intruder may come back now that the door has been busted and he had seen what was in the unit. This straight forward assessment of the truth about these situations must have been very comforting to them. He told me that he thought they would be alright for the rest of the night and we hung up. I could hear in his voice that he did not feel secure and that the situation was not at all comfortable for them.
I lay in the bed for less than 1 minute after the call then said to Meg, “I need to go down there to secure that door and console them if I can.” His parents live in California and hers live in Texas so they have only had the limited amount of community that has been developed through the school, us and one other mutual friend that they could call on for support. Obviously, due to my business and trade and our friendship, I got the call first. I got dressed and starting making a mental list of what I knew I would need to make the door secure for the night. I would work on replacing or having the door replaced in the morning but for now I had to make it secure.
I asked Megan, who knows them as well as I do, from our Landmark Education Wisdom Course, if she wanted to come for support or stay here, as Jasper had not really even fallen asleep yet. He was privy to the phone call and our limited conversations about it and was in the background asking, “Can I come?” So, we loaded him into the back of the new Prius (otherwise known as our new vehicle) along with a 3’ x 5’ piece of plywood two screw guns and some 2 ½” screws and headed down to New Haven.
We called on the way to give them an approximate arrival time and arrived pretty much on schedule. When we got there and knocked on the door Charles asked through the door, “Bill, Is that you?” I went in talked for a few to see how they were, which was naturally really shaken and wired from the incident. Then I quickly made an assessment of the door situation and went to work to secure it for the rest of the late night. I attached the ½ of plywood I had brought with the 2 ½” screws and fastened them through the frame of the door and into the studs beyond the framing to make it as difficult as possible for someone to get through it again. Just in case!
After finishing and explaining to them what I had done, we chatted in the living room for a bit longer and as I was getting ready to leave I told them that we would get a new door taken care of in the morning and we headed back to our luxurious king size bed arriving at about 3:30 AM.
At 4 AM, I received another phone call from Charles. There was a different sense in his voice this time. He was calling to let me know that the arrogant bastard had come back and attempted to break back into the place again by trying to force his way through the plywood that I had just finished installing. In different ways, I’m sure; we were both very satisfied to know that the intruder was unable to gain entry this time as he stood down there repeatedly banging against the old door and its new plywood sheathing.
I went to sleep. I am sure they did not!
The door was replaced the next day with a new solid core solid skin unit and a commercial quality lock system.
Monday, December 3, 2007
The Final, Final List
An advance warning! I know I have a lot to say in this blog and this will be a long one. So, if you think you’re interested in reading it, please get a refill on your coffee or tea, read on and accept my thanks and gratitude for being in our lives.
We are on the final, final list before we lift off! We actually were able to take down our many individual sheets of 22” x 34” paper that have been hanging around the house for the past two months that listed every conceivable item we could think of in all of the various and multiple categories. We have, just last night, before we went to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, consolidated all of the current remaining items on to one sheet, yes friends, one page of an excel spreadsheet. This may be a welcome sight for those of you who visit us often and thought we had turned into complete organizational freaks. The previous, large scale lists seemed at the outset and proved to be important to our organization and planning giving us a central place we could go to and write down what came into our heads as crucial to complete whenever we thought of or remembered another item. They were also a pain in the ass, ugly to see and constant reminders of what we said we would do or had to do before we could leave. At times (often for me) the lists added to the sense that we may never get complete or get out of here and on this trip. I guess I wasn’t able or willing to see it as part and parcel of the trip!
The list’s, which were not pretty, not part of our decorating scheme for the wonderful old 1850 Greek Revival/Italianate house we live in and certainly not what Megan wanted hanging all over our cabinets, doors, walls, etc., were, however, vital to keeping it all together and essential to moving us to the place we are right now, almost there! They were, and maybe more importantly for our future, as has been this entire process, very revealing. A reminder to live life intentionally and not by default where and when ever we notice that we are.
Let’s face it. When you decide to leave your current lifestyle and activity for a year, there could be quite a few things that you need to get in order before you go, a fallout of sorts. I suppose you could and that some have, JUST WALKED AWAY. This was not the chosen option for us. It would have felt like we were running away. And how could two first born, ultra responsible people ever do something as cavalier as that. The romantic vision that I had of this trip, the one we had created and dream up many years ago was quickly usurped by the pressing need to get it together here before you go there. There are also, at least for us there were, many more things/pieces that reared up as only partially complete on each and every list that we believed needed to be complete- complete before we left. It’s a sickness that Meg and I have succumbed to.
Keep in mind; we follow the philosophy that, completion is only a declaration. Promises made are something completely different and that we can choose to keep our word about them or modify them as soon as we know we can’t keep them. There will always be consequences as a result but, in order to live with others peaceably and enjoy the possibility of having love and keeping friends and family around, straight communication and cleaning up messes seems essential.
We made a choice to not leave people hanging and to get life items in order so that they worked while we were gone so as to not have to micro manage our Connecticut life each and every day from the road. We had to line things up and deal with the details that often, evidently, we were just dealing with on an as required basis during our regular at home life. The life we created, at times, looked like the both of us standing in the batters cage with a pitching machine whipping 90 mph fastballs and the intermittent curveball at us ongoingly and we were just swinging away. Sometimes we would fall backwards, sometimes we would hit homeruns but most of the time we just kept swinging and taking what was coming our way. It is a life and not a bad one but it is certainly a busy, often frenetic, one to manage.
As we started making the BIG lists and in the process of cleaning things up and getting complete it became very obvious to me that I was not a complete completer. I would go to a certain level, like an acceptable level to me, of complete and then leave various pieces undone, hanging, waiting and otherwise incomplete. Well, they were stacked up and waiting. They weren’t forgotten or dismissed by me or by the people I worked for or the companies or individuals that I was supposed to do something for, they were JUST WAITING. Just like little hunks of rock orbiting around my head on a constant basis. Often, we were so busy that I was able to move around seeming unencumbered but they were taking their toll and occupying my mental space.
Sometimes, I would get a little nudge from someone. A call, a reminder, another reminder, a threat or a plea to please complete on the little thing left undone. Once completed we all seemed to be happy. But what continually occurred to me was that I did not have time to get all the things done that needed to be done. It also showed up as, it is not as much fun to finish those things as it is to start a new project and that sometimes that thing that needed to be done required a little more effort by me to either get it done or find someone to do it than I was willing to put in at the moment. They all got somehow magically weighted in my head in order of priority. A priority that until this moment I haven’t really tried to articulate but, this is probably a fair swipe at it.
In business, I needed to keeps jobs flowing and thus keep the cash flowing. So the more jobs that I started the more income possibility there was and the greater the cash flow. Also there is something great about having referenced based customers want me and choose me. It’s great to be needed and desired. I am certain that I would get a lot of jobs, not all but a lot, completed to the 90% place and then move to start the next and then not end up with the time to get to the final 10% wrapped immediately. I, of course, intended to finish and would keep a running list of the jobs and things needing to be finished as a nagging reminder that I hadn’t finished and of course would get phone calls and emails reminding me or requesting me to manage or otherwise handle hung out there items. I would stay in communication with people letting them know the supposed status of when I would be back to complete. But this management takes time, too. I did this like a juggler with multiple items in the air occasionally adding one and then dropping one just to keep it interesting or to keep them watching . Most everyone was great and all were very patient. Especially Megan, who I am sure told me in the past about her dissatisfaction with doing life this way, but just allowed me to keep doing it my way. Very recently I actually heard her express, very out loud, that this is not how she likes to do things. That she would prefer to stay and complete (in all arenas) then move on to the next. I am glad I heard that and clear that I was in a place to hear it only because of the process of completion we embarked on. We are now dancing differently together, and gentler, happier dance, so to speak.
Sometimes I would even get complemented on my ability to handle it all. Another little reward for the way I did things, keeping the pattern in place. But imagine (and have been told) that after a while it becomes quite a nuisance for them as well and they are left with a sense of incomplete, too. (I really get it) Emergencies, as so labeled by me and my customers, would take precedence and push things out of place even more than the need to start more to keep cash flow moving. Emergencies can be very attractive. They did add more and immediate cash flow, I was needed more than ever and they were usually short in duration so pushing something aside to take care of the emergency for a day was acceptable to me and to my other customers. But they keep coming (it’s no real wonder) and so do the desires and requests to be complete with projects so that I could handle the other upcoming projects and emergencies. All things considered, it is clear that what happened was that a system, a default system not an intentional system, developed.
The system was this; it got to a place where it leveled out at the place where it was and just kept running like it was with only a few major sporadic emergencies or urgent situations thrown in to the constantly orbiting rocks but they, the orbiting rocks, became the constant as did my management system. They were always there and when I got a chance I would take care of one of them or a piece of one of them and it seemed to be OK. Sometimes it was more than OK based on the reward part of the system. After a certain time, folks would be very happy that I was coming back. I found that I could look like the hero even after being a jerk if it was managed properly. The real problem is that all of this management was consuming. My time, freedom and life were being spent in the management of those unintentional details. Ultimately it is not very rewarding and it leaves almost no time for doing the things I really want to do.
Thank you, from the bottom of my soul, to all of our truly awesome and constantly supportive friends and family, for your tolerance and assistance and all you have physically done and continue to do in making my life work and be worthwhile. I love you. As Joe Cocker once said, “You are so beautiful to me.” I am also truly grateful for all of the patience shown and offered, by others, in the course of this life of mine as I have tried to figure out the way to be inside of doing it the way I was doing it. This is Life!
I am amazed that we have it all on one sheet. I am glad to be complete with all but two of the outstanding jobs items and three last newly added work items before we leave. My new rewards, as a result of the clearing, are coming in the way of creativity returning to my life and a sense of peace that I had forgotten existed or was attainable. I am writing more and interested in picking up my guitar again and learning how to play the banjo while Jasper plays the harmonica and Megan dances and sings with us. I am in the contextual phase of two new books to pen and a third one has started writing itself in my sleep. I can’t wait to type it out.
I am very grateful for all that I (we) have done in this clearing or process of getting ready for this trip. I am aware that this was my trip and the traveling about to commence is the gift, the prize for taking the journey.
We are on the final, final list before we lift off! We actually were able to take down our many individual sheets of 22” x 34” paper that have been hanging around the house for the past two months that listed every conceivable item we could think of in all of the various and multiple categories. We have, just last night, before we went to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, consolidated all of the current remaining items on to one sheet, yes friends, one page of an excel spreadsheet. This may be a welcome sight for those of you who visit us often and thought we had turned into complete organizational freaks. The previous, large scale lists seemed at the outset and proved to be important to our organization and planning giving us a central place we could go to and write down what came into our heads as crucial to complete whenever we thought of or remembered another item. They were also a pain in the ass, ugly to see and constant reminders of what we said we would do or had to do before we could leave. At times (often for me) the lists added to the sense that we may never get complete or get out of here and on this trip. I guess I wasn’t able or willing to see it as part and parcel of the trip!
The list’s, which were not pretty, not part of our decorating scheme for the wonderful old 1850 Greek Revival/Italianate house we live in and certainly not what Megan wanted hanging all over our cabinets, doors, walls, etc., were, however, vital to keeping it all together and essential to moving us to the place we are right now, almost there! They were, and maybe more importantly for our future, as has been this entire process, very revealing. A reminder to live life intentionally and not by default where and when ever we notice that we are.
Let’s face it. When you decide to leave your current lifestyle and activity for a year, there could be quite a few things that you need to get in order before you go, a fallout of sorts. I suppose you could and that some have, JUST WALKED AWAY. This was not the chosen option for us. It would have felt like we were running away. And how could two first born, ultra responsible people ever do something as cavalier as that. The romantic vision that I had of this trip, the one we had created and dream up many years ago was quickly usurped by the pressing need to get it together here before you go there. There are also, at least for us there were, many more things/pieces that reared up as only partially complete on each and every list that we believed needed to be complete- complete before we left. It’s a sickness that Meg and I have succumbed to.
Keep in mind; we follow the philosophy that, completion is only a declaration. Promises made are something completely different and that we can choose to keep our word about them or modify them as soon as we know we can’t keep them. There will always be consequences as a result but, in order to live with others peaceably and enjoy the possibility of having love and keeping friends and family around, straight communication and cleaning up messes seems essential.
We made a choice to not leave people hanging and to get life items in order so that they worked while we were gone so as to not have to micro manage our Connecticut life each and every day from the road. We had to line things up and deal with the details that often, evidently, we were just dealing with on an as required basis during our regular at home life. The life we created, at times, looked like the both of us standing in the batters cage with a pitching machine whipping 90 mph fastballs and the intermittent curveball at us ongoingly and we were just swinging away. Sometimes we would fall backwards, sometimes we would hit homeruns but most of the time we just kept swinging and taking what was coming our way. It is a life and not a bad one but it is certainly a busy, often frenetic, one to manage.
As we started making the BIG lists and in the process of cleaning things up and getting complete it became very obvious to me that I was not a complete completer. I would go to a certain level, like an acceptable level to me, of complete and then leave various pieces undone, hanging, waiting and otherwise incomplete. Well, they were stacked up and waiting. They weren’t forgotten or dismissed by me or by the people I worked for or the companies or individuals that I was supposed to do something for, they were JUST WAITING. Just like little hunks of rock orbiting around my head on a constant basis. Often, we were so busy that I was able to move around seeming unencumbered but they were taking their toll and occupying my mental space.
Sometimes, I would get a little nudge from someone. A call, a reminder, another reminder, a threat or a plea to please complete on the little thing left undone. Once completed we all seemed to be happy. But what continually occurred to me was that I did not have time to get all the things done that needed to be done. It also showed up as, it is not as much fun to finish those things as it is to start a new project and that sometimes that thing that needed to be done required a little more effort by me to either get it done or find someone to do it than I was willing to put in at the moment. They all got somehow magically weighted in my head in order of priority. A priority that until this moment I haven’t really tried to articulate but, this is probably a fair swipe at it.
In business, I needed to keeps jobs flowing and thus keep the cash flowing. So the more jobs that I started the more income possibility there was and the greater the cash flow. Also there is something great about having referenced based customers want me and choose me. It’s great to be needed and desired. I am certain that I would get a lot of jobs, not all but a lot, completed to the 90% place and then move to start the next and then not end up with the time to get to the final 10% wrapped immediately. I, of course, intended to finish and would keep a running list of the jobs and things needing to be finished as a nagging reminder that I hadn’t finished and of course would get phone calls and emails reminding me or requesting me to manage or otherwise handle hung out there items. I would stay in communication with people letting them know the supposed status of when I would be back to complete. But this management takes time, too. I did this like a juggler with multiple items in the air occasionally adding one and then dropping one just to keep it interesting or to keep them watching . Most everyone was great and all were very patient. Especially Megan, who I am sure told me in the past about her dissatisfaction with doing life this way, but just allowed me to keep doing it my way. Very recently I actually heard her express, very out loud, that this is not how she likes to do things. That she would prefer to stay and complete (in all arenas) then move on to the next. I am glad I heard that and clear that I was in a place to hear it only because of the process of completion we embarked on. We are now dancing differently together, and gentler, happier dance, so to speak.
Sometimes I would even get complemented on my ability to handle it all. Another little reward for the way I did things, keeping the pattern in place. But imagine (and have been told) that after a while it becomes quite a nuisance for them as well and they are left with a sense of incomplete, too. (I really get it) Emergencies, as so labeled by me and my customers, would take precedence and push things out of place even more than the need to start more to keep cash flow moving. Emergencies can be very attractive. They did add more and immediate cash flow, I was needed more than ever and they were usually short in duration so pushing something aside to take care of the emergency for a day was acceptable to me and to my other customers. But they keep coming (it’s no real wonder) and so do the desires and requests to be complete with projects so that I could handle the other upcoming projects and emergencies. All things considered, it is clear that what happened was that a system, a default system not an intentional system, developed.
The system was this; it got to a place where it leveled out at the place where it was and just kept running like it was with only a few major sporadic emergencies or urgent situations thrown in to the constantly orbiting rocks but they, the orbiting rocks, became the constant as did my management system. They were always there and when I got a chance I would take care of one of them or a piece of one of them and it seemed to be OK. Sometimes it was more than OK based on the reward part of the system. After a certain time, folks would be very happy that I was coming back. I found that I could look like the hero even after being a jerk if it was managed properly. The real problem is that all of this management was consuming. My time, freedom and life were being spent in the management of those unintentional details. Ultimately it is not very rewarding and it leaves almost no time for doing the things I really want to do.
Thank you, from the bottom of my soul, to all of our truly awesome and constantly supportive friends and family, for your tolerance and assistance and all you have physically done and continue to do in making my life work and be worthwhile. I love you. As Joe Cocker once said, “You are so beautiful to me.” I am also truly grateful for all of the patience shown and offered, by others, in the course of this life of mine as I have tried to figure out the way to be inside of doing it the way I was doing it. This is Life!
I am amazed that we have it all on one sheet. I am glad to be complete with all but two of the outstanding jobs items and three last newly added work items before we leave. My new rewards, as a result of the clearing, are coming in the way of creativity returning to my life and a sense of peace that I had forgotten existed or was attainable. I am writing more and interested in picking up my guitar again and learning how to play the banjo while Jasper plays the harmonica and Megan dances and sings with us. I am in the contextual phase of two new books to pen and a third one has started writing itself in my sleep. I can’t wait to type it out.
I am very grateful for all that I (we) have done in this clearing or process of getting ready for this trip. I am aware that this was my trip and the traveling about to commence is the gift, the prize for taking the journey.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The Law of Attraction in Action!
Jasper has been talking about having a quad ATV for quite some time. Just recently though for some reason he became infatuated with having a dirt bike. It is almost, literally, the only thing he has talked about for the last four weeks. He made up his mind that he was going to get one for the trip and that was that. He has been online looking at pictures of them. He signs on to ebay motors and craigslist and searches for them so he can sit there and fantasize about having one and riding it across America. He walks up to us and calls other family members and says things like, "Hey, Drew, want to come over and talk about dirt bikes?"
He was hanging out with his sister last night and by the end of the night she had to tell him as nicely as possible, "dirt bikes are not an interest of mine, could we stop talking about them?"
He has watched "The Secret' with us several times and believes as we do that it is possible to manifest what you want through the power of "The Law of Attraction". So he has learned very early on how to exercise that power for himself.
He saw a quad the other day outside of Mickey Finn's on the Berlin Turnpike and as we drove by he asked if we could stop there on the way back. So, on the way back we stopped and we happened to be talking on the cell phone at that time to one of his sisters, so he got out and went into the showroom by himself. He came out pretty quickly though, as he really wanted us to be in there with him. He waited somewhat (Jasper like, 9 year old) patiently while we finished the call. Then we all went in and looked around. We got a sales person over to answer some of our questions and we put Jasper on top of a bike that was his size and speed. He was like a 9 year old boy in a dirt bike shop. His face was glowing with the possibility that this could be his. He was also very excited to learn that it was within his budget regarding the money he has saved and he started doing the math (and continued all the way home) of how he could get it and how awesome it would be to have it for the trip just like he imagined.
I was still not having any idea where or how we would carry it, even if I tought it was an OK idea and could convince his MOM into thinking it would be OK for him to have it. But none of this had any effect on Jazz or his visualization of realizing his dream of riding that dirt bike where ever we were on our trip.
I started talking about maybe getting a used one instead as his first one and not spending so much money up front incase he didn't like it or broke it or got tired of it. This seemed OK to him and he started looking again on EBAY and talking to everyone about getting the used dirt bike.
One of those people was his brother Drew. Drew told us and him that his girlfriend's brother had two dirt bikes and one of them was not being used and hadn't been for quite a while. He told Jazz that he would talk to him about it and see if he could get it for him for a good price and take him over there so he could see if he actually fit on it and to make sure he could hold it up.
Well on Sunday, completely enthusiastic and with the patience of a puppy around a kid, Jasper went with his big brother to see the bike and get on it to see if it would work for him. His girlfriend's Dad was there and told Jazz the best news that he could probably have heard. He said that he thought it was not worth much beacause it was seven years old and hadn't been used for 6 of those years and would probably need work to get it back to running right again and that if we said it was OK, "He could just have it for free."
Jazz came home with his dream realized and he got it for no expense. Not only that, but they gave him all of the riding gear that the son had used that no longer fit him. Jasper walked through the door, back at home, with all of his gear on looking like a space invader. It turned out that it was a good thing he had the helmet on as he was floating so far off the ground that he bumped his head on our ceilings a couple of times.
If you ever wonder if the law of attraction works or not, just ask Jasper.
He made up a new diddy about how he's all about working it all out and doing it for free!
He was hanging out with his sister last night and by the end of the night she had to tell him as nicely as possible, "dirt bikes are not an interest of mine, could we stop talking about them?"
He has watched "The Secret' with us several times and believes as we do that it is possible to manifest what you want through the power of "The Law of Attraction". So he has learned very early on how to exercise that power for himself.
He saw a quad the other day outside of Mickey Finn's on the Berlin Turnpike and as we drove by he asked if we could stop there on the way back. So, on the way back we stopped and we happened to be talking on the cell phone at that time to one of his sisters, so he got out and went into the showroom by himself. He came out pretty quickly though, as he really wanted us to be in there with him. He waited somewhat (Jasper like, 9 year old) patiently while we finished the call. Then we all went in and looked around. We got a sales person over to answer some of our questions and we put Jasper on top of a bike that was his size and speed. He was like a 9 year old boy in a dirt bike shop. His face was glowing with the possibility that this could be his. He was also very excited to learn that it was within his budget regarding the money he has saved and he started doing the math (and continued all the way home) of how he could get it and how awesome it would be to have it for the trip just like he imagined.
I was still not having any idea where or how we would carry it, even if I tought it was an OK idea and could convince his MOM into thinking it would be OK for him to have it. But none of this had any effect on Jazz or his visualization of realizing his dream of riding that dirt bike where ever we were on our trip.
I started talking about maybe getting a used one instead as his first one and not spending so much money up front incase he didn't like it or broke it or got tired of it. This seemed OK to him and he started looking again on EBAY and talking to everyone about getting the used dirt bike.
One of those people was his brother Drew. Drew told us and him that his girlfriend's brother had two dirt bikes and one of them was not being used and hadn't been for quite a while. He told Jazz that he would talk to him about it and see if he could get it for him for a good price and take him over there so he could see if he actually fit on it and to make sure he could hold it up.
Well on Sunday, completely enthusiastic and with the patience of a puppy around a kid, Jasper went with his big brother to see the bike and get on it to see if it would work for him. His girlfriend's Dad was there and told Jazz the best news that he could probably have heard. He said that he thought it was not worth much beacause it was seven years old and hadn't been used for 6 of those years and would probably need work to get it back to running right again and that if we said it was OK, "He could just have it for free."
Jazz came home with his dream realized and he got it for no expense. Not only that, but they gave him all of the riding gear that the son had used that no longer fit him. Jasper walked through the door, back at home, with all of his gear on looking like a space invader. It turned out that it was a good thing he had the helmet on as he was floating so far off the ground that he bumped his head on our ceilings a couple of times.
If you ever wonder if the law of attraction works or not, just ask Jasper.
He made up a new diddy about how he's all about working it all out and doing it for free!
Monday, November 26, 2007
Realization Frenzy
We were supposed to leave for our trip TODAY - Monday!
The crazy making (also self imposed) and the lack of enjoyment and the complete absence of personal freedom in the preceding months was enough to drive us over the edge and have us throw in the towel. We even talked about taking a break from each other. Like maybe we need to see if we are the problem and not all the details that we had decided were so ultimately important. We subscribe to this philosophy, that if you are doing what is in alignment for you/us, then that is when our life will work the best. So, if that is true how could it be that we were doing the right thing (the trip) and having such a miserable time in the process. There is that saying that the journey is really the trip not the somewhere you are trying to get. If we took that verbatim, to heart, then this journey was not working for us. Our interpretation of this made up truth was very discouraging and disheartening since we had put so much effort into making this boat float.
We spent a couple of hours sitting on and standing around the stairs to the second floor Friday night, beating this thing up and desperately and simultaneously giving up and trying to find out what we were doing wrong because we did not really want to give up (I guess). I talked about my chagrin and concern about not knowing the RV very well at all. And how I was not having much great luck driving it as I have now lightly grazed two different objects on two separate occasions and felt like an idiot both times. Then there was the fact that, at that moment, there was the outstanding issue of there being no power in the coach from the batteries that supply power when we are not plugged into electricity. No lights, no water pump, nothing. The little issue that arose after showing the unit to family and friends after eating the feast Thanksgiving day, that I could not seem to figure out. We talked even more about how we had spent so much of our physical and mental energy making ready that we had just exhausted ourselves in the spin and thus left nothing in the way of time, energy or desire to be with each other for even one more moment in the process. Somewhere in the conversation Megan adamantly stated that she didn't have any attachment to leaving on any particular date, she just wanted to stay until it was all done (all that we said and felt right to have done) before we left. I heard that and felt a twinge shock in my soul. I was not sure if I was mad at her for that or thinking that would be a relief. More likely, I was probably thinking that she was being weak and that we must stick the announced deadline or we would look and feel stupid. Why did I feel it was so important to pick a date a stick it? What was I afraid of or concerned about if we didn't hit the date anyway? At just about the moment when we were at the place of resigning to throw in the towel having been succumbed by the details and absorbed in heaviness, complaint and weariness, Sara and Jasper walked in from having been at the movies.
Although she has been doing great in college academically, Sara has been having her own share of trials and issues living in NYC this past semester. She had left the dorms at the beginning of the year to strike out on her own getting her own autonomy via a room in a shared apartment in Brooklyn in August. After two months that wasn't working for a couple of important reasons. So, she found another apartment where she would have an entire floor to herself and we moved her for the third time this year. Within a month this place wasn't working either due to landlord difficulties and the fact that getting to the city was a very long commute. She was also feeling lonely and disconnected there so she needed our assistance in figuring out how to handle all that she was trying to manage. This was appearing as just one more damn thing for us to attempt to deal with in the midst of an already compacted and screwed up schedule. We all sat down, with the best of attitudes (as you could imagine), very late Friday night in the living room and began listening and debating the best way to handle this. We were there till almost 1 AM.
Right near the end of this conversation and I know this will be hard to believe, I became very frustrated with all of the things that just weren't working. Including the hour of this conversation and the fact that we have tenants moving in on Saturday and now we have to move her on Friday. How can more just keep coming? On top of my/our own, Sara's issues were the icing on the cake. Friday,the 30th, being our rescheduled leave CT date was also coincided with Sara's end of month, have to be out of her apartment date and subsequent have to move again date. I started blowing steam and yelling, "If it's not working then you should just stop. You can't keep trying to force it to work by doing the same thing and complaining over and over again. Change something! Pull out of school for the semester, retract yourself from the city, commute from CT, just do something different to give yourself a fresh perspective and time to deal clearly with what you really want and set it up so that you can be successful." Megan was looking at me like a little bobble head doll that some people put on the dashboard of their car, with her head rotating from side to side. I would find out later that she was listening and wondering if I was talking to myself, us or Sara. The prescription I was spouting to Sara seemed, to Megan, to be what I/we needed to hear and put into practice. Exhausted, we all headed to bed, but not before Sara had a moment of clarity and insight and told us that maybe she should take the semester off as she was not really feeling challenged at her school and look into applying to FIT for the Fall of 08' . We would work on these details in the morning.
When we awoke, we were all pretty beat and morose. Except Sara, who seemed to be on her way to altering her attitude and making changes that fit better. Megan and I had to hustle to get Jasper taken care of so that we could be on a job site by 8 AM. We made it by 9! On the way down though we had our own epiphany. This is when Megan told me that she wondered if I was talking to us or Sara when I said, "Stop what your doing and change something if its not working." Right then, we transported ourselves to the transformational moment of this part of the journey. We were determining that we were beating our heads against the rock that we kept dragging into the room for the express purpose of beating our heads on. I declared, in the next minute, that I would give up trying to force us out of here on any particular date and that I felt in agreement with Megan's previously stated desire of staying until we got it all finished and then we go. We would still have to hold the outside date of being in Florida on the December 29th to pick our kids up at the airport as they arrive to celebrate the holidays with us there. But, we knew that this was very doable since we had kicked our own asses so hard up to this point that we were literally only a week or so away from declaring completion and moving on in the adventure.
The air cleared and we looked at each other as if we were seeing each other anew from the past 6 months and it became very easy to breath again. All of a sudden and just like that, we went from panic about getting things done to seeing that each thing we did got us one step closer. The pressure had evaporated and we were light with each other again and started taking and laughing as we spoke.
The growth moment?
Maybe.
It looked like and felt like surrender to me right up to the very moment of my declaration of the release of the have to date.
Now it just felt like relief and the right move.
DUH!
We haven't even decided what clothes we're bringing on the trip or put any personal items in the RV yet to make it sort of ready to go.
We pushed the launch deadline to Friday the 30th to give us more time, but we didn't sense any relieve from the pressure, it seemed to just make us more busy. We had to ramp up yet again, trying to stay motivated to keep going and get all the chosen necessary and required tasks complete before we left.
Our final session of coaching was Friday the 23rd. We scheduled it to happen here at our house so that we would not lose time traveling to and from her office in Hartford and could continue to work on the house prep items to make it ready for us to leave. Chris had also graciously offered to stay on after our session that afternoon and help paint the upstairs as we got ready to rent out the house while we were gone (thanks Chris). Our coaching sessions culminated Friday with an extended 4 hour session (sorry Chris) where we realized that we still were not any where near finished with the tasks that we had planned to complete and kept finding more of, prior to our departure. 24 full weeks of intense personal coaching, constant reorganization and futzing with the details to try to make them fit into our self imposed, fabricated launch date, countless hours of frustration because they weren't fitting and we couldn't get them too no matter what we did, increasingly regular sessions of bickering about that and then there's the wondering about which one of us was the cause of both the bickering and the delay, led us all the way up to Friday's late night declaration that, we would just sell the f''in RV and be done with this whole crazy idea of taking a year off.The crazy making (also self imposed) and the lack of enjoyment and the complete absence of personal freedom in the preceding months was enough to drive us over the edge and have us throw in the towel. We even talked about taking a break from each other. Like maybe we need to see if we are the problem and not all the details that we had decided were so ultimately important. We subscribe to this philosophy, that if you are doing what is in alignment for you/us, then that is when our life will work the best. So, if that is true how could it be that we were doing the right thing (the trip) and having such a miserable time in the process. There is that saying that the journey is really the trip not the somewhere you are trying to get. If we took that verbatim, to heart, then this journey was not working for us. Our interpretation of this made up truth was very discouraging and disheartening since we had put so much effort into making this boat float.
We spent a couple of hours sitting on and standing around the stairs to the second floor Friday night, beating this thing up and desperately and simultaneously giving up and trying to find out what we were doing wrong because we did not really want to give up (I guess). I talked about my chagrin and concern about not knowing the RV very well at all. And how I was not having much great luck driving it as I have now lightly grazed two different objects on two separate occasions and felt like an idiot both times. Then there was the fact that, at that moment, there was the outstanding issue of there being no power in the coach from the batteries that supply power when we are not plugged into electricity. No lights, no water pump, nothing. The little issue that arose after showing the unit to family and friends after eating the feast Thanksgiving day, that I could not seem to figure out. We talked even more about how we had spent so much of our physical and mental energy making ready that we had just exhausted ourselves in the spin and thus left nothing in the way of time, energy or desire to be with each other for even one more moment in the process. Somewhere in the conversation Megan adamantly stated that she didn't have any attachment to leaving on any particular date, she just wanted to stay until it was all done (all that we said and felt right to have done) before we left. I heard that and felt a twinge shock in my soul. I was not sure if I was mad at her for that or thinking that would be a relief. More likely, I was probably thinking that she was being weak and that we must stick the announced deadline or we would look and feel stupid. Why did I feel it was so important to pick a date a stick it? What was I afraid of or concerned about if we didn't hit the date anyway? At just about the moment when we were at the place of resigning to throw in the towel having been succumbed by the details and absorbed in heaviness, complaint and weariness, Sara and Jasper walked in from having been at the movies.
Although she has been doing great in college academically, Sara has been having her own share of trials and issues living in NYC this past semester. She had left the dorms at the beginning of the year to strike out on her own getting her own autonomy via a room in a shared apartment in Brooklyn in August. After two months that wasn't working for a couple of important reasons. So, she found another apartment where she would have an entire floor to herself and we moved her for the third time this year. Within a month this place wasn't working either due to landlord difficulties and the fact that getting to the city was a very long commute. She was also feeling lonely and disconnected there so she needed our assistance in figuring out how to handle all that she was trying to manage. This was appearing as just one more damn thing for us to attempt to deal with in the midst of an already compacted and screwed up schedule. We all sat down, with the best of attitudes (as you could imagine), very late Friday night in the living room and began listening and debating the best way to handle this. We were there till almost 1 AM.
Right near the end of this conversation and I know this will be hard to believe, I became very frustrated with all of the things that just weren't working. Including the hour of this conversation and the fact that we have tenants moving in on Saturday and now we have to move her on Friday. How can more just keep coming? On top of my/our own, Sara's issues were the icing on the cake. Friday,the 30th, being our rescheduled leave CT date was also coincided with Sara's end of month, have to be out of her apartment date and subsequent have to move again date. I started blowing steam and yelling, "If it's not working then you should just stop. You can't keep trying to force it to work by doing the same thing and complaining over and over again. Change something! Pull out of school for the semester, retract yourself from the city, commute from CT, just do something different to give yourself a fresh perspective and time to deal clearly with what you really want and set it up so that you can be successful." Megan was looking at me like a little bobble head doll that some people put on the dashboard of their car, with her head rotating from side to side. I would find out later that she was listening and wondering if I was talking to myself, us or Sara. The prescription I was spouting to Sara seemed, to Megan, to be what I/we needed to hear and put into practice. Exhausted, we all headed to bed, but not before Sara had a moment of clarity and insight and told us that maybe she should take the semester off as she was not really feeling challenged at her school and look into applying to FIT for the Fall of 08' . We would work on these details in the morning.
When we awoke, we were all pretty beat and morose. Except Sara, who seemed to be on her way to altering her attitude and making changes that fit better. Megan and I had to hustle to get Jasper taken care of so that we could be on a job site by 8 AM. We made it by 9! On the way down though we had our own epiphany. This is when Megan told me that she wondered if I was talking to us or Sara when I said, "Stop what your doing and change something if its not working." Right then, we transported ourselves to the transformational moment of this part of the journey. We were determining that we were beating our heads against the rock that we kept dragging into the room for the express purpose of beating our heads on. I declared, in the next minute, that I would give up trying to force us out of here on any particular date and that I felt in agreement with Megan's previously stated desire of staying until we got it all finished and then we go. We would still have to hold the outside date of being in Florida on the December 29th to pick our kids up at the airport as they arrive to celebrate the holidays with us there. But, we knew that this was very doable since we had kicked our own asses so hard up to this point that we were literally only a week or so away from declaring completion and moving on in the adventure.
The air cleared and we looked at each other as if we were seeing each other anew from the past 6 months and it became very easy to breath again. All of a sudden and just like that, we went from panic about getting things done to seeing that each thing we did got us one step closer. The pressure had evaporated and we were light with each other again and started taking and laughing as we spoke.
The growth moment?
Maybe.
It looked like and felt like surrender to me right up to the very moment of my declaration of the release of the have to date.
Now it just felt like relief and the right move.
DUH!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thanksgiving Day 07'
I really enjoy this day!
I like that people spend so much physical and mental energy to get back to family, to reconvene and spend time together. Maybe one reason we had so many children (by current standards) is so that we could have large family gatherings through out the year and not just on recognized celebration days.
I also enjoy celebrating the abundance and well being aspects of our world. Focusing on and sharing this vantage of abundance and well being and assisting in creating it for others wherever and whenever is a way of fulfilling one of my life long desires.
I hope that today serves as a fulfilling reminder of family and the abundance of all that it provides for you in your life.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Quixotic!
That's the word for the day that describes, for me, our adventure that we will fully engage in on Friday, November 30, 2007.
For the first time ever we will celebrate our anniversary in an RV traveling in the US somewhere "On The Road". However we will be writing our own personal story and traveling to our own "beat". - Jack Kerouac - (read the original scroll if you can and if you haven't.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac
We will stop in Annapolis on the way down to be with our very most favorite Maryland family, then we're to be in Clemson, SC on the 5th. Then over to the North Carolina shore for a couple of weeks and probably Christmas before we head to Florida to be there on the 29th when all of our kids and their significant others will meet us for a week in Orlando and celebrate the beginning of 2008.
On Jan. 5th we will be heading to the Dominican Republic for one week and visiting with our friends in Puerto Rico while in transit to the DR. We will return to the Florida on the 12th and spend some time with family there before we head out to shores of Alabama. We will visit breifly with a new freind there, from Madision, Wisconsin, who I met online researching RV stuff. Then we are off to our 2nd home or is it 3rd at this point, Louisiana. Making longer stops in Lafayette and Lake Charles, we will join up with our two friends and executive directors of the local Rebuilding Together http://www.rebuildingtogether.org/ affiliates in both of those cities and lend our assistance in particular rebuilding projects there. (they are still in the rebuilding process of hurricane's Rita and Katrina) It is a blast to be with them and to be able to have immediate impact and make a difference there. If you have any interest let me know and I will be more than happy to assist in getting you connected to the right people.
Then we are going to Laredo and Brownsville, Texas for a while to help out there in some Mexican family communities. We are not sure exactly what we will be doing there but we will lend a hand and get to know some of the families and then head out for the rest of the winter season to New Mexico and Arizona.
Ahh! Warm!! I can hardly wait!!!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Enjoying The Countdown To The Beginning? Maybe
Road SchoolWe have pushed back our leaving date to Nov. 30. Mainly because we have not finished some of the essential things we have declared essential and then there are the things we never thought about. Like making a cake in the shape of an RV (aptly named "Road School") for Jasper to bring into school tomorrow for his final 1/2 day with his classmates in the 4th grade.
He is very excited. We are caught in the middle some where as this has been a great year for him and he is progressing nicely with his studies. I am sad, a bit, as this is a very social year for kids this age and Jazz actually has his first girl friend. She is really cute. It feels kinda odd to be taking him away from all that experience and growth in spite of the experience and growth he will have on the trip over the next year. I am certain it will all be more than fine as soon as I stop being emotional about it!
His teacher Mr. G has been just great for him and for us and we are very appreciative for the exceptional support that Jasper and we have received as part of this school. We have loved being involved and enjoyed all of our interactions and all of the teachers, staff and administrators that we have been involved with.
Our other details, like renting our house out for the trip and completing on business projects, choosing what we are taking with us, finishing the house, setting up people to help and support the house and the people living here while we are gone, how they will park, how we will get our mail, how we will collect the rent and pay bills and many hundreds of other Blah, Blah, Blahs, have been consuming.
Although we have had some fun in this process... it has been more work than play. Most likely due to the way I envision how it should go and look for evidence of how its not going that way. Also, as Meg pointed out today, for me it has not lived up to some mental image of what I held it should be like when you are getting ready for something like this trip and from my perspective I actually look a lot to her to see how she is doing to gage if we are having fun yet. If she having a good go of it then we must be having fun. I find myself not bringing fun to the process and worrying about it simultaneously. Thus I have had some disappointing thoughts and some despair regarding our lack of ongoing joy and lightness. Lowering my expectations can often occur as giving in to me so it has been a challenge. Maybe It will get clearer as we get on the road and I can view it in the rear view mirror of my life. Perhaps you will get to read about it in a future short written dropping. I hope so, I could really use a fresh perspective on this issue, which seems to be part of my conditioned way of being, my hard wiring. It is so challenging to be an observer of your own ways. But this is one of those things that interests me the most.
One of the funnest bits!!
The set up and taking of these photo's today of Jasper,s class and him with this teacher was definitely one of the fun moments and touching too.
My Big Tow!
Monday night, Drew and I spent from 5:30 to 10:40 installing an electric brake controller and the 7 pin wiring harness and plug in on the RV. This will allow us to attach the tow dolly onto the back of the RV and pull our Prius on it with the added safety of electric brakes on the tow dolly.
It was cold but really warm to be able to spend time with him watching him do what he is an expert at. It was such a cool experience to see him take any of the worry and guess work out of this wiring situation. Which means that I knew nothing about installing the thing or auto DC wiring and he knows a lot. I spent hours in research trying to learn and figure out the process.
He told me last week that he thought I was just making it more difficult than it actually is. Of course he was right but that what we do when we don't know what the heck we are doing with something. This brings me to having the people who know what they are doing do the job or just have fun doing what ever you are up to.
I did both and I had fun being with Drew.
Thanks for your help and for taking the time to do the project with me and for getting us to the next step that will allow us to fulfill on our dream trip. Your the very best!
By the way, as I am sitting here writing the first snow fall (flurry) of the 2007-2008 season has begun falling from the sky. Wow, isn't it pretty!!
It was cold but really warm to be able to spend time with him watching him do what he is an expert at. It was such a cool experience to see him take any of the worry and guess work out of this wiring situation. Which means that I knew nothing about installing the thing or auto DC wiring and he knows a lot. I spent hours in research trying to learn and figure out the process.
He told me last week that he thought I was just making it more difficult than it actually is. Of course he was right but that what we do when we don't know what the heck we are doing with something. This brings me to having the people who know what they are doing do the job or just have fun doing what ever you are up to.
I did both and I had fun being with Drew.
Thanks for your help and for taking the time to do the project with me and for getting us to the next step that will allow us to fulfill on our dream trip. Your the very best!
By the way, as I am sitting here writing the first snow fall (flurry) of the 2007-2008 season has begun falling from the sky. Wow, isn't it pretty!!
We really need to get out of the North East,
FAST!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Those College Neighbors!!
You can double click on the picture below to enlarge them and see the fillings in his teeth!
Yesterday, after laying in bed,
fooling around with my Blog, reading Caterwauled.blogspot.com and watching You Tube
(This Lap Top can paralyze me if I am not careful. Megan actually made breakfast and asked me if I wanted it in bed) (I knew right then and there that I was spending too much time on the computer) I got up and ate. I went in to take a shower and decided that we should go and help Steve and Monica put their IKEA kitchen together and get some installed. It only felt right after we had received so much assistance on Saturday from so many.
So, we sauntered over to the College House bearing sandwiches and drinks for lunch, ate for a while, assessed the situation and got to work. We did amazing things in the next 4-5 hours. All the cabinets got built, seven got installed (curse those pantry cabinets), the fridge was moved into place, problems got resolved and we enlisted the help of a local Doctor and his family for the really tricky stuff that us mere mortals were having trouble with.
Upon his review and assistance throughout the afternoon we were able to wrap it up knowing that we having given the day our best. (Thanks to Jen and Sonya)
We retired to the Court House for sustenance and then called it a Very Good Day!!!!
(We even got the kids to bed on time)
Yesterday, after laying in bed,fooling around with my Blog, reading Caterwauled.blogspot.com and watching You Tube
(This Lap Top can paralyze me if I am not careful. Megan actually made breakfast and asked me if I wanted it in bed) (I knew right then and there that I was spending too much time on the computer) I got up and ate. I went in to take a shower and decided that we should go and help Steve and Monica put their IKEA kitchen together and get some installed. It only felt right after we had received so much assistance on Saturday from so many.
So, we sauntered over to the College House bearing sandwiches and drinks for lunch, ate for a while, assessed the situation and got to work. We did amazing things in the next 4-5 hours. All the cabinets got built, seven got installed (curse those pantry cabinets), the fridge was moved into place, problems got resolved and we enlisted the help of a local Doctor and his family for the really tricky stuff that us mere mortals were having trouble with.
Upon his review and assistance throughout the afternoon we were able to wrap it up knowing that we having given the day our best. (Thanks to Jen and Sonya)We retired to the Court House for sustenance and then called it a Very Good Day!!!!
(We even got the kids to bed on time)
Saying GoodBye to School!
Last Friday afternoon we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Jazz'z classroom and share the story of our trip with his classmates and to give them an opportunity to go inside of and see the RV that Jasper will be living and learning in for the next year.
Jasper was great with his friends as he very excitedly showed off his new home on wheels. All of them were very excited to see it and it seemed like it was a first time experience for many of them. A lot of the kids said they wanted to come too and sat down in the seats and said they were not getting off because they wanted to come with us.
One little girl sat on the edge of the couch and was looking around checking it all out but you could tell she was thinking or formulating. Then she looked up at me and asked, "so, are you rich"? I was somewhat embarrassed by the question but I certainly got where she come up with that question. This a little unusual of a thing for them to see and experience. I mean as far as I know there are not any other families undertaking such an adventure as this. I guess I should have been more composed and told her that I am not Rich, I told you already my name is Bill, weren't you listening?
The day was done to give the kids an idea of what Jasper was going to be up to for the next year and so that Jazz could have some sense of formal closure to his school year, which has been the best to date. (We really do lament taking him out this year as it has been so good for him in both academic and social areas) But he will have an opportunity of a lifetime being on this trip with us. He will broaden his scope and perspective of the planet, particularly North America and possibly even Central America if we are fortunate.
Jasper was great with his friends as he very excitedly showed off his new home on wheels. All of them were very excited to see it and it seemed like it was a first time experience for many of them. A lot of the kids said they wanted to come too and sat down in the seats and said they were not getting off because they wanted to come with us.
One little girl sat on the edge of the couch and was looking around checking it all out but you could tell she was thinking or formulating. Then she looked up at me and asked, "so, are you rich"? I was somewhat embarrassed by the question but I certainly got where she come up with that question. This a little unusual of a thing for them to see and experience. I mean as far as I know there are not any other families undertaking such an adventure as this. I guess I should have been more composed and told her that I am not Rich, I told you already my name is Bill, weren't you listening?
The day was done to give the kids an idea of what Jasper was going to be up to for the next year and so that Jazz could have some sense of formal closure to his school year, which has been the best to date. (We really do lament taking him out this year as it has been so good for him in both academic and social areas) But he will have an opportunity of a lifetime being on this trip with us. He will broaden his scope and perspective of the planet, particularly North America and possibly even Central America if we are fortunate.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
"We Are Over The Edge"
The work party for Saturday is complete and we really kicked ASS and drew Blood!(the second floor's ass and Ed's blood)
I should have known how it was going to be right from the get go, just by the militant way Megan started straightening up the first floor early on in the morning. She set the tone for the day.
(Notice the hardware in her shooting hand)
I love the way she forces those pillows into submission. So commanding!
All the good folks who came made such a huge impact
We would not have been able to complete the painting without the assistance of my protege' Sonya. I swear that her dad has her watching me and asking all those questions so that he won't have to pay me for working on his house anymore.
Just look at that gleam in her eye. She knows she knows!
And Jenifer encourages this sort of activity. I am shocked about this but I guess sometimes I just can't read people. Sonya even started wearing Lowes clothes while she was here. I knew it! She really did a fine job painting too. I may never have work again!
Then there's this Peter K, guy. He comes to the sight, dressed in his finest clothes and says he's ready to work. I don't think so, Buddy. Now we have all heard of these guys who can do anything without getting dirty, regardless of the job, but now we have met the real deal in person.
I had Steve throw some paint on Peter's shirt late in the day, without him knowing it, just to show him how it really feels to get into this work. Hah! - I guess you should have had shirt insurance for that shirt, pal. And I know you can afford it with all that money you make from the premiums on our huge term policies.
It must have pissed him off too. Just look at how mad he is as he continues to finish the job started.
He must have been more mad than I thought because he put something really foul smelling and ugly in this bathroom paint to get back at me for the paint on the shirt thing. It smelled like rancid toasted oatmeal in there. Now, that's dedication or was it retribution?
Ed McK came over after attending the funeral of his friend/colleague George Michael Evica. He walked in and announced his arrival with, " Hi, I'm here, I don't know how to do anything and I'm unmotivated, how can I help? I could go get lunch for people!
So, after I stopped laughing, then panicking because I realized he was serious, we both went to the store and got a few more items for the lunch menu. We had great conversation about his colleague, the state of radio today, writing and various other topics of mutual interest. We came back to the house, no one ate what we bought except me and then we found a project that Ed was suddenly excited and motivated to do. Replace sash cords on the windows in the Purple room.
Things were going great, he was having huge success, then it happened
He was struggling to get the last cord cut with the utility knife blade that had become to dull to go thru it easily but evidently...
Not to dull to slice his finger open. Off to the emergency room he went. No stitches or permanent damage, thankfully and by the time he got out we were all at his house. Soon after he got home, we sent him out to pick up Indian from Haveli. Poor guy, all cut up and we send him out for food. He and Lucy generously provided the space and the food itself for our delicious evening community meal.
I also want to mention with deep appreciation, that Lucy watched all of the kids of all of the folks with kids, all day, so that everyone could work over here. Now, that is support extraordinaire!
We have these new friends that we help find the wonderful, spacious and romantic farm house they living in as I write. I think they love living there. They look very happy and content and I know this because they came to this house party and completely transformed an entire room of our house and they looked amazingly happy working together doing it. Paul and So, you guys made the Gold room shine. I never knew that So had so much painting talent. Thanks for being here despite the illness of your little girl. Your gift of friendship, time and assistance was very generous. We love you guys.
Of course no party of ours is ever complete without two of the women who make it all happen in Middletown. These are the movers and (paint) shakers and even cleaner-upers that hold it all together for those of us who just want to work and not be involved with all of the important details.
You guys are the best and we will miss you all and our times and laughs together for the next year but... were still going and bringing you with us in spirit. See you soon!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Work Party on Court!
Today, as we have done in the past, we have called in the reinforcements. We have sent out the call for much need assistance to push us over the top of the wall. We have spent the last 5 months planning and doing all that we thought was required for us to get out the door and begin the Oddessy. We have done tons but we are not yet ready to go. The house is not in order to be rented which is an essential element to having this year work for us financially. We are close and we will have all spaces rented by the end of the year.
Today in response to our conversations and posted email, a group of people will arrive and give us the company and energy boost that we need to get the 2nd floor ready for the new folks moving in to that space. Even the new folks, Melissa, Jenn and Mike are coming to help out and be a part of the resurrection and refreshment of their space.
I have enlisted the skilled assistance of Hilton to get the carpentry things completed. Peter Krause is coming to lend a hand and WISDOM to the tasks at hand. As always Steve and Monica will be here; for they are our forever support team and thankfully are always there or here at the drop of and most times prior to the drop of a request.
Tuesday, Megan and I started replacing glass in the windows of the house. We started in the RED room as one of the windows had no glass in the bottom sash at all. We replaced the two front ones and as I went to glaze the side one I broke it and had to run and get a replacement for it as well. Since we had them all out we cleaned all of the storms and remaining window glass. That was transformation in itself. Let the Sun Shine!
Megan and I started stripping the stair treads and risers of 150 years of paint on Thursday. Actually, Megan started and I joined in, and we got nearly 80% completed before the end of the day. Brother, Peter Paglia, came on Thursday afternoon. Just as he got there Meg and I had to leave to go to Jasper's school to do his final report card evaluation of the year before our exit. So, we ran over there and he got started prepping the front left bedroom (formerly known as Drew's room or the RED room) for painting. While we were at school Peter attempted to begin the priming of the room only to find that the primer had magically turned to sour cottage cheese in the pail. While making his first swipe with the roller on the wall, he quickly and astutely realized, with the keen observational powers that only an accomplished weekend painter could, that this was not supposed to be TEXTURED wall paint, he stopped painting until we arrived home. Back to Home Depot - Tinted Kilz 2 - We then completed the priming together. That tinted primer looked so good we almost decided not to put finish paint on.
Today in response to our conversations and posted email, a group of people will arrive and give us the company and energy boost that we need to get the 2nd floor ready for the new folks moving in to that space. Even the new folks, Melissa, Jenn and Mike are coming to help out and be a part of the resurrection and refreshment of their space.
I have enlisted the skilled assistance of Hilton to get the carpentry things completed. Peter Krause is coming to lend a hand and WISDOM to the tasks at hand. As always Steve and Monica will be here; for they are our forever support team and thankfully are always there or here at the drop of and most times prior to the drop of a request.
Tuesday, Megan and I started replacing glass in the windows of the house. We started in the RED room as one of the windows had no glass in the bottom sash at all. We replaced the two front ones and as I went to glaze the side one I broke it and had to run and get a replacement for it as well. Since we had them all out we cleaned all of the storms and remaining window glass. That was transformation in itself. Let the Sun Shine!
Megan and I started stripping the stair treads and risers of 150 years of paint on Thursday. Actually, Megan started and I joined in, and we got nearly 80% completed before the end of the day. Brother, Peter Paglia, came on Thursday afternoon. Just as he got there Meg and I had to leave to go to Jasper's school to do his final report card evaluation of the year before our exit. So, we ran over there and he got started prepping the front left bedroom (formerly known as Drew's room or the RED room) for painting. While we were at school Peter attempted to begin the priming of the room only to find that the primer had magically turned to sour cottage cheese in the pail. While making his first swipe with the roller on the wall, he quickly and astutely realized, with the keen observational powers that only an accomplished weekend painter could, that this was not supposed to be TEXTURED wall paint, he stopped painting until we arrived home. Back to Home Depot - Tinted Kilz 2 - We then completed the priming together. That tinted primer looked so good we almost decided not to put finish paint on.
But, that would be too easy!!!
On Friday, Megan completed the final stair stripping and started getting her list together for the full out work party on Saturday. Later, in the evening, Steve and Monica came over and we prepared one of our infamous community meals together consisting of this really great chicken thigh recipe Mon found, I made some fresh cabbage slaw (Red and Green, YUM) and Meg peeled and prepared many fresh delectible beets. Simply wonderful!
In the middle of the prep, friend Mike Harris showed up to lend his personal support to our effort for the evening. He sat and broke bread with us and spurred on and informed our table conversations regarding solar and other alternative energy ideas. This was a good table, a really good meal and these are exquisite friends. These impromptu events will truly be missed as we travel but will remind us and call us forward to create these kinds of relationships wherever we are.
This love and connection is what actually feeds us and keeps us warm
Mike and I helped clean the table then hustled upstairs to the Gold Room to replace the ropes on all of the windows and reattach them to the weights and windows. (It's interesting how we do things to make the space ready for others when we were willing to tolerate the broken glass and propping up the windows with sticks for a few years) We shared some stories and talked about our love of writing and blogging and we talked about what we are specifically up to in our writing. Mike has completed a children's book and excitedly, it is ready for publishing. He is now looking for that publisher. He is also in the process of writing his second novel. I shared with him the premise for a story I believe I will turn into a novel as we begin our journey and a clearer space to write presents itself. It will look into the how people uncover their life passions in the midst of doing their lives and how the passion is always there regardless of the circumstances, waiting for the opportunity to be unfolded. We shall see what comes.
Friday came to a smooth and delicious end. We slid under the covers for an early winters rest in attempt to restore ourselves for that energetic push, over the Court Street Speedbump, from our friends on Saturday.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
All is well in Michigan!
Yesterday, November 2nd, "we left" Middletown, via the very generous effort of Monica who drove us to Bradley Airport at 7 AM. Doing this on the day when she and her family would also be flying out of Bradley only eight hours later and only after I had called her the evening before on very short notice to ask her if she could make it happen for us.
She had to arrange for Steve to get driven to school at the same time she was taking us (thanks to Scott) so she could pick him up at 1 PM and only have one car to deal with later in the day. She had to also relocate a sleeping Nora, wrapped in a blanket, into the 30 something degree morning air, over to Scott and Rani's house and place her under cover into a sleeping Rani's bed.
All that and she was cheerful and excited to do it!
Mon, you are a great friend and did I mention you looked particularly beautiful in your cap and fleece in the dawning light?
Thanks very much, to all of you, for setting up the launch into this milestone of our journey for the next year!!!!
We, being, Megan, Jasper, granddaughter Michaela and myself. Left, meaning, flying to Michigan. First to Detroit Metro then onto the final airport destination for the day, Flint, arriving there at about 12:50 PM.
In Flint we were generously and graciously received by Richard and Linda Bedford of Grand Blanc. They are the sellers of our (new to us-yet to be named) motor coach and the reason why we left Connecticut yesterday.
On the way back to their house, where the motor coach has been patiently waiting our arrival for the last two months, we stopped for a quick lunch. Once at the house, we unloaded our luggage and a bin we had brought with us that included some down comforters and pillows from home to keep us warm and comfortable over the next few days.
We will be scooting through Michigan and across cool Canada (the reason for the comforters), over to Niagara, Ontario to see again for ourselves and to share with the kids, for the first time the natural wonder of Niagara Falls from the Canadian side.
Speaking of the falls, We had a very unique opportunity yesterday to have flown right along side of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and actually got to see Niagara Falls and the Niagara River, as pointed out by our pilot, from seven miles high. It was very cool to see it from that perspective as we got to see how the lakes come together via the river to form the spot where the falls occur, but you certainly lose the on site, dramatic presentation from that height.
We will camp, on our own, for the first time in Niagara, ON, Canada on Saturday night then on Sunday we will head down back into the US and into and through upstate New York. We will stop in Ithaca to visit with Gracie, Gustavo and Tiaggo and hopefully the "EcoVillage of Ithaca" as well. We will then arrive back at our home (without wheels) sometime late Monday or Tuesday.
As we stood together for the first time, in a Chevy Chase "Vacation" like moment, outside our new rolling home, we held a small yet significant ritual and photo op. moment (no not the draining of the gaseous sewage into the storm drain moment) but a moment for the ceremonious , celebratory, installation of the new Montana License Plate!!**
We parentally (foolishly) thought the kids were also going to participate in the big goings on, but it seems they were just as happy to be off the plane, on the ground, participating in running around and riding a bicycle that the Bedford's had saved to see if Jasper could use. And he did and Michaela happily ran along side of her treasured uncle.
Richard very generously spent the rest of the afternoon, 4+ hours, showing me around the motor home and offering expert tutorials on all of the systems and operation procedures, as per my earlier request of him. I could not have found a better, more patient instructor for the job. I hope he, at least, got some pleasure out of our possible male bonding (mutually agonizing/complaining) moment that centered around showing and allowing me to change the sadistically placed potable water filter for the RV. I certainly enjoyed it. Once completed and significantly whined about by me, we moved to filling the tank, 1/2 way, with fresh water, wrapping up the hoses and locking up the coach to make ready for heading out to supper.
While we were going over the RV, Meg had taken the kids on a walk through the hood. She met a neighbor up the street. She told me later on our night time stroll that as she was walking up the street, the woman came directly out of her house, walking fast and straight towards her while looking directly at her, with the seeming intention of walking right up to Megan.
What Meg didn't know, as the woman fast approached, was that her main intention was to get to the school bus located behind Megan, where her 5 year old child was about to get off. But as she got closer to Megan she smiled, said Hi and asked if Megan was new here or just visiting. Megan had the opportunity to talk with her at length and tell our journey story and hear one of the woman's as well.
She shared with Meg how exciting she thought the idea of our trip was and then told her that her husband works for General Motors here in Grand Blanc (a suburb of the Motor City) and told her one of the exciting things that just recently happened in their lives. It seems that if you work for GM you get the opportunity to TAG a car that has been being used "out there", in the in house system by one of the plant managers or some such ranking person. Tagging seems to mean that you say that it is a car you would like to own and then you get to purchase that car at a relatively near future time at a significant discount and pick it up and drive it home. Well it just so happened that the car they tagged was being driven by a person in San Francisco. So she and her husband got the opportunity to go out to CA and pick up the car and make a trip of it. They seemed to have had a blast and truly enjoyed the excitement of their travels and receiving their new auto.
I love how our minds can link into particular threads of someones experience and bring relevance and more specifically joy or happiness to theirs and our own lives ongoningly (re-lived or calling it forth) by relating to an aspect of someones story. A good reminder to look for the Gold in a shared experience and find the gold in my own life.
The woman also introduced Jasper to her 11 year old son, Brandon, a very nice and well mannered boy, that got on great with Jazz. They then spent the next 2 hours riding bikes, playing, showing Brandon the motor home, setting up there next visit scheduled for after supper and having a great time being boys with each other. We couldn't have planned it better than it worked out.
Soon after, we were all packed back into their car and heading down the road to a local restaurant, Damons, where we had ribs, barbecued chicken and pulled pork sandwiches (and a couple of pretty good "Golden Margaritas". We also enjoyed some really nice conversation with our new friends and learned more about their lives and shared (Shy as I am!!!) some our own stories as well.
Then it was back to our homestead upon their homestead. We said our good nights and then Megan, the kids and I, took a short stroll down through the neighborhood block and then it was back to the RV and getting a DVD set up for the kids to watch for a short while while I crawled into my new bed for the first time quickly starting to drift off, reveling in the day and checking in with myself to see if I held it like we had done the right thing.
All is Well in Michigan.
She had to arrange for Steve to get driven to school at the same time she was taking us (thanks to Scott) so she could pick him up at 1 PM and only have one car to deal with later in the day. She had to also relocate a sleeping Nora, wrapped in a blanket, into the 30 something degree morning air, over to Scott and Rani's house and place her under cover into a sleeping Rani's bed.
All that and she was cheerful and excited to do it!
Mon, you are a great friend and did I mention you looked particularly beautiful in your cap and fleece in the dawning light?
Thanks very much, to all of you, for setting up the launch into this milestone of our journey for the next year!!!!
We, being, Megan, Jasper, granddaughter Michaela and myself. Left, meaning, flying to Michigan. First to Detroit Metro then onto the final airport destination for the day, Flint, arriving there at about 12:50 PM.
In Flint we were generously and graciously received by Richard and Linda Bedford of Grand Blanc. They are the sellers of our (new to us-yet to be named) motor coach and the reason why we left Connecticut yesterday.
On the way back to their house, where the motor coach has been patiently waiting our arrival for the last two months, we stopped for a quick lunch. Once at the house, we unloaded our luggage and a bin we had brought with us that included some down comforters and pillows from home to keep us warm and comfortable over the next few days.
We will be scooting through Michigan and across cool Canada (the reason for the comforters), over to Niagara, Ontario to see again for ourselves and to share with the kids, for the first time the natural wonder of Niagara Falls from the Canadian side.
Speaking of the falls, We had a very unique opportunity yesterday to have flown right along side of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and actually got to see Niagara Falls and the Niagara River, as pointed out by our pilot, from seven miles high. It was very cool to see it from that perspective as we got to see how the lakes come together via the river to form the spot where the falls occur, but you certainly lose the on site, dramatic presentation from that height.
We will camp, on our own, for the first time in Niagara, ON, Canada on Saturday night then on Sunday we will head down back into the US and into and through upstate New York. We will stop in Ithaca to visit with Gracie, Gustavo and Tiaggo and hopefully the "EcoVillage of Ithaca" as well. We will then arrive back at our home (without wheels) sometime late Monday or Tuesday.
As we stood together for the first time, in a Chevy Chase "Vacation" like moment, outside our new rolling home, we held a small yet significant ritual and photo op. moment (no not the draining of the gaseous sewage into the storm drain moment) but a moment for the ceremonious , celebratory, installation of the new Montana License Plate!!**
We parentally (foolishly) thought the kids were also going to participate in the big goings on, but it seems they were just as happy to be off the plane, on the ground, participating in running around and riding a bicycle that the Bedford's had saved to see if Jasper could use. And he did and Michaela happily ran along side of her treasured uncle.
Richard very generously spent the rest of the afternoon, 4+ hours, showing me around the motor home and offering expert tutorials on all of the systems and operation procedures, as per my earlier request of him. I could not have found a better, more patient instructor for the job. I hope he, at least, got some pleasure out of our possible male bonding (mutually agonizing/complaining) moment that centered around showing and allowing me to change the sadistically placed potable water filter for the RV. I certainly enjoyed it. Once completed and significantly whined about by me, we moved to filling the tank, 1/2 way, with fresh water, wrapping up the hoses and locking up the coach to make ready for heading out to supper.
While we were going over the RV, Meg had taken the kids on a walk through the hood. She met a neighbor up the street. She told me later on our night time stroll that as she was walking up the street, the woman came directly out of her house, walking fast and straight towards her while looking directly at her, with the seeming intention of walking right up to Megan.
What Meg didn't know, as the woman fast approached, was that her main intention was to get to the school bus located behind Megan, where her 5 year old child was about to get off. But as she got closer to Megan she smiled, said Hi and asked if Megan was new here or just visiting. Megan had the opportunity to talk with her at length and tell our journey story and hear one of the woman's as well.
She shared with Meg how exciting she thought the idea of our trip was and then told her that her husband works for General Motors here in Grand Blanc (a suburb of the Motor City) and told her one of the exciting things that just recently happened in their lives. It seems that if you work for GM you get the opportunity to TAG a car that has been being used "out there", in the in house system by one of the plant managers or some such ranking person. Tagging seems to mean that you say that it is a car you would like to own and then you get to purchase that car at a relatively near future time at a significant discount and pick it up and drive it home. Well it just so happened that the car they tagged was being driven by a person in San Francisco. So she and her husband got the opportunity to go out to CA and pick up the car and make a trip of it. They seemed to have had a blast and truly enjoyed the excitement of their travels and receiving their new auto.
I love how our minds can link into particular threads of someones experience and bring relevance and more specifically joy or happiness to theirs and our own lives ongoningly (re-lived or calling it forth) by relating to an aspect of someones story. A good reminder to look for the Gold in a shared experience and find the gold in my own life.
The woman also introduced Jasper to her 11 year old son, Brandon, a very nice and well mannered boy, that got on great with Jazz. They then spent the next 2 hours riding bikes, playing, showing Brandon the motor home, setting up there next visit scheduled for after supper and having a great time being boys with each other. We couldn't have planned it better than it worked out.
Soon after, we were all packed back into their car and heading down the road to a local restaurant, Damons, where we had ribs, barbecued chicken and pulled pork sandwiches (and a couple of pretty good "Golden Margaritas". We also enjoyed some really nice conversation with our new friends and learned more about their lives and shared (Shy as I am!!!) some our own stories as well.
Then it was back to our homestead upon their homestead. We said our good nights and then Megan, the kids and I, took a short stroll down through the neighborhood block and then it was back to the RV and getting a DVD set up for the kids to watch for a short while while I crawled into my new bed for the first time quickly starting to drift off, reveling in the day and checking in with myself to see if I held it like we had done the right thing.
All is Well in Michigan.
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