Altoona, IA - On the Road

It’s been a while since we’ve really been on the road in the RV, what with Gary’s father’s death, cleaning up the estate, selling the house and all that entailed. Then, with all that practice is cleaning out a house and selling it, we decided to do our own. Believe you me, 2 houses in 5 months is not what you want to do And, there I was feeling bushed when I spoke with a single woman who also did 2 homes, hers and her mother’s, but in 3 months, alone, with a mother who is exhibiting the first stages of Alzheimer's. I was then feeling lots less bushed.

But, today, we’re on the road, heading north to Forest City, IA for the Winnebago rally. With us are Tom and Cathy in their new View who will be on their first big RV adventure. They have spent 3 days in a local campground testing all the systems in their new RV and are now ready to rock and roll. We met them at a local interstate entrance. Here they are, waiting for us. And, yes, it’s raining. We're not complaining: Iowa desperately needs the rain.

Prior to any trip, especially those where we have not gone and not seen the lay of the land, I check the roads, the maps, the places to stop for lunch and the places where we can get gas. At 53’, we’re not going to take every road, go into every gas station and drive through every parking lot. I also check elevations and check the roads for curves. We flatlanders like to know about these things in advance. But, heck, this is Iowa, the elevations don’t change and our roads go straight on to morning. I think I don’t need to check the roads and curves.

On the other hand, we have extensive checklists for when we leave a campground and go out on the road. So, we’ve gone through our checklists, although no matter how many times we’ve moved, we still check those lists. We’ve seen too many TV antennas up on moving RV’s, we’ve seen slides out on moving RV’s and we’ve seen electrical cords still attached pulling the pedestal along with them after the RV bouncing down the road. Ouch. Yep, we still check our lists.

My bills are getting fewer and fewer. Every month, I go online to get the amounts of our monthly bills and write them down on a piece of paper so I an keep track of when they’re due and when I’ve paid them. Because we’re now full-timers, we’ve lost our real estate tax bill, our electric and gas bill, our water bill and our monthly town home association bill. Wow, it takes less and less time to compile them and even less time to pay them. Being able to get and pay the bills online certainly makes this life-style much easier than it must have been when you had to get the bills in the mail and then send the little stub and a check in the envelope provided. Gotta get a stamp, gotta find a mail box. Whew. We’ve sure got it easy. But, then people in 15 years from now will say that about us too.

Let’s see, we’re going about 120 miles and want to get there around 1:00. Yes!! No, 0 dark 30 for us today.