Altoona, IA - The Fat Lady Sings

Today is a 3-fer: three major things all happening on the same day. First, and by no means am I implying that this is the most important since it is probably the least important. Really, what’s one more birthday when I’ve had 66 so far? But, it’s the shortest story to tell - It was my birthday - story ended.

Now, for the second big thing: we closed on our house today and we are now officially FULL-TIMERS: meaning that we live in our RV full time. We’ve been doing this for a month while we’ve been emptying and cleaning out the house but, we’ve still had a house. Now, we do not have a house to ever go back to even if we wanted to. It’s all over and the fat lady is singing our song now.

It’s been our dream for a few years now but the path to full-timing seemed long and complicated. Concern about Gary’s father was always at the back our of mind also. However, unfortunately, that concern left us this year and our dream seemed closer and more attainable. We’re not getting any younger and each year that we just dreamed about this, would be a dream deferred. we’ve got to do it and not just think about it and wish we had done it.

Do I have any regrets. Well, yes, of course, I liked that house, it was bright, cheery, roomy and altogether a pleasant place to be. But houses need to be lived in, they need to feel wanted and, oh, yeah, they need to be maintained. And, I’d rather be on the road traveling where ever we want, without having to worry about a house back in Des Moines. Do I worry about not having any roots? But, do roots have to be tangible? Do you have to have a house to have roots? I’ve got roots: all the values that my parents taught me, my Iowa background, all I’ve learned about life, a great family. All intangible but certainly worth much more in grounding me than a house would be.

So, now we’re off. Oops, no, we’re not off yet, we’ve got until the end of August before we move on. We had planned to begin traveling with 3 National Parks: Glacier, Yellowstone and the Tetons in August. However, we decided that we wanted to sit for a while and enjoy just being. We’ve been rushing for about 5 months now with little time to think and relax and this is the place to do that. Several weeks ago, I cancelled the 3 National Parks - we’ll get to them sometime.

Now, the third big thing: Cathy and Tom have bought an RV. They’ve been talking about it for about a year, and, of course, we’ve been telling them how much fun we’ve been having. They can read about all the places we’ve been and all the things we’ve seen and the the places we’ve hiked and it sure sounds like fun. They weren’t sure what kind of camping they would do which is the main determinant for what kind of RV one gets. I think that over the course of the last 2 years, they have looked at every Winnebago RV that has appeared on Craig’s list within a 300 mile radius of Des Moines. They’ve been to Kansas City and up to the Minneapolis area. Finally, they decided that they might camp for a week or a month or two but not for as long as Gary and I do so, for them, a smaller RV would make the grade.

They settled on a Winnebago View which is 24’ long and very versatile. Unfortunately, this particular View was up in Willmar, MN, about 5.5 hours away. Gary and I could see them driving up in their car and Tom driving the View back and Cathy driving the car back. How sad. So, we volunteered to accompany them so that they could drive in their new View back to Iowa together and we could follow in the car. And, as I told them later: I’m glad that we could help them but it sure was a long drive. Above they are looking at their first gas bill. Whoo-eee.

We drove to Willmar and Cathy and Tom had their first Walmart RV experience when they met the previous owner in the Walmart parking lot. Here, he told them all about it, signed it over and they are now the proud new owners of a 2012 Winnebago View.

We then began our long drive back to Des Moines, Cathy and Tom in the View followed by Gary and me in the car. At 7:00 we stopped in Mankato, had dinner and fell in bed in a local motel.

Tomorrow we’ll get back to Des Moines but we all knew that driving up to Willmar, exchanging the RV and driving back to Des Moines would be too much for a single day.