Walking Sticks and Waterfalls

Mary

As you have read, we have been packing and loading our rig to leave on our maiden trip. We are very excited. There are a few things that we have decided to bring -- just because. One of those things is my walking stick. It is not one of those fancy ones that can be picked up at a welcome center or on the interstate at one of the Flying J’s for about $10 bucks. It is one that was picked up off the ground on a back woods trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was given to me.

Tim and I were exploring waterfalls in the Blue Ridge last fall. Some of these falls are off the road quite a ways. There are no tourist stands in the area. Roads to many of the waterfalls are unmarked. The only way many of them can be found is to make a turn at the next road after mile marker such and such.

The trails to the falls are well marked. The National Forest Service has done a wonderful job of making these treasures accessible, but not TOO accessible.

We were walking down one of these trails when we passed another couple coming the other way. They were done for the day. They were relaxed and happy to have made the trip to Courthouse Falls. I asked them if it was worth the hike down to the falls and they both said Ohh yaa.. She said I was gonna need her walking stick, it was just one she picked up on the ground. I still have it. To me the value comes from the memory it has of a generous and happy woman sharing something she enjoyed and of a great weekend trip.

It was worth the hike to the falls. It is a treasure hidden in the woods. There are over 300 waterfalls in North Carolina. There are about 250 in Transylvania County alone. We were able to get to about 5 of them in a quick weekend.

We are looking forward to many more weekends to come.

Peter Elbow and streams of consciousness

Remember when you brought that new-to-you car and you couldn't wait for morning to drive it? You would look for reasons and think of places to go just so you could get behind the wheel. That is kind of the way we have felt since we put new tires on the Coachmen. We are so anxious to get on the road. To try on the full-time lifestyle, if even for a few months. Just to experience that feeling, being on the road and no particular place to go (other than the wedding, then we have no schedule).

We will also have no existing concerns while traveling this summer. No worries about income. No thoughts about where we will go to make a dollar. Other than the truck being operational, this will be a realtively care-free excursion.

But, if this were an actual deployment towards full-time, finances would indeed be a very real concern. As we wrote earlier, we will take to the road with just $10K if all goes as planned. So this trip is not only a shake-down tour, but a financial viability test rum as well. Our blog is doing well. We are averaging 100 page views a day! But at this rate it will barely pay for a bundle of firewood. Mary has busied herself reading about various ventures that generate income for other folks on the road and assessing what variations we might be able to utililize.

There seems to be a multitude of writing opportunies across the internet. This summer we are hoping to find out if we are able to committ to a schedule and write, write, write pages of commentary. Years ago, while I was living in Madison, Wisconsin, I had a backpack that went everywhere. Since it was a college town, it was quite common to see folks with backpacks in grocery stores, coffee shops, resturants, and laundry mats. I had several spiral notebooks I carried, along with a variety of pens. I had several fountain pens which I was quite fond of using to write. I didn't have expensive pens. Though I did treat myself to one I found irrestible. I had walked through the Madison Modern Art Museum on State Street, and there I saw a beautiful teak wood fountain pen. It was a tiger stripped dyed green. It was $65, but I had never splurged for a pen before, and I had to allow myself this one extravagance. I tend to buy those Shaffer Calligraphy kits, the ones with 3 or 4 pens and different color ink, that I find at the warehouse clubs for $12-$15. I would load each pen with a different color ink to reflect the mood I was in as I wrote.

I would wander down to the Canterbury Book Store
for coffee and write for 2-3 hours. That is what Mary and I will need to do if we are to have our words work for us. Once we develop that "stream of consciousness" I believe we will be able to produce more worthwhile stories and interesting commentary.

We will also be trying out the smart phone as a modem. My Toshiba laptop has a wireless card already. We will be bringing Mary's desk top (which will need a wireless card) as we update our website(another story altogether) and continue our blog. This will give us real time experience in creating from the road.

June 13, 2011 seems so far off, yet is the habit with time, too close to relax.

Idle hands are the devil's tools.

We spent the weekend moving the stuff designated for family from its staging area in the livingroom into the Coachmen. We managed to transfer 85% of the items, including a pre-lighted Christmas tree we bought at a CVS for $10. We set the pictures we will be hanging, in the dinnette area. We even stacked boxes and bins on the queen bed. There is room still for our North CArolina Seafood Festival posters, and our clothes.

While Mary was arranging the stuff, I checked the Coachmen's batteries. I pulled both AC Delco marine batteries out of the hold. Both felt a little bulged at the ends. Not a good sign. Both are maintenance free and even if they needed water, no way to add it. They still have their original warranty tags, so it is safe to say they are OEM 1998 issue. I tried to test the voltage and one read 2.36 volts and the other 1.38 volts. Another sign that isn't very good to see.

I then re-installed the single step from the livingroom up to the bathroom / bedroom area. We are going to replace the rectangular step with a semi-circular design once we get to Michigan. The idea is to have a flip-top where we will store some 12 volt fuses and other equipment to test, and repair the 12 volt system.

Mary found a flat screen TV bracket online yesterday. It is $62 and will place the TV against the wall, probably above the window next to the entrance door. We will be assessing the placement of he TV above the window and might want to have it swing down to a more suitable viewing level.

One other project we are anticipating finishing while we are in Michigan will be a Murphy style fold down computer / work desk. It will mount on the outside of the pantry (next to the refridgerator)and fold towards the entrance door. I would sit at the desk looking out the window. The desk would also have a entension that would pivot out forming an "L" shape desk and Mary would be seated on the kitchen side looking towards the entertainment center.

Since we will be reworking the pantry wall, we are seriously considering revamping the pantry pull out wire shelving. Several folks have suggested replacing the wire rack with individual units that pull out like drawers. Some have told us that wire baskets will reduce the weight and that the baskets are functional in that they prevent items from tumbling out while in motion and when accessing the pantry.

Looks like I just created 5 or 6 chores to keep me busy. Hmmmmm...I was thinking this vacation was a time to get away and relax. Truth be told, having projects to complete is one of the things I really miss about owning a house. Taking a vacation to get away from it all is the perfect time to tinker and update the new residence. Besides, if we are going to haul 150 pounds of tools, why sit around and be idle? We all know what they say about that....

You run and you run to catch up with the sun, but......

When thinking about going full-time, there are several thoughts that enter your mind. Some are obvious like, thinking you might just be crazy. Who in their right mind makes a conscious decision to walk away from normalcy and conformity and into potential instability? You begin to wonder if it just wouldn't be easier to be homeless in a large urban city.

Other thoughts are more rational. You wonder if you are preparing way too soon. When you make a committent to yourself to be on the road in 2013, there seems to be so much time, why bother doing much of anything until...say the summer 0f 2012? Then you fear you might get it all done too soon. Then what will you have to do but wait?

For us, we seriously wonder if we have enough time to get ready emotionally, financially, and socially.
Just like our college days, when we had to finish that 20 page thesis that was assigned 12 and a half weeks earlier, and the night before we are sitting at the computer banging the keyboard to have something to turn in at 8:00 A.M. the next morning. For the most part we have accepted the notion that we have to do something for ourselves. We have spent our lives in education doing for others and providing the foundation for many of our kids to be successful. We have also watched as education has been attacked by politicians, who feed fear to the public, declaring American education is the worse in the world. We are not sure what the true agenda is, but we suspect that there are some who would like nothing more than to see public education eliminated. But that is just our humble opinion. So we have been considering various means for doing for us--where we can control our destiny. After the markets crashed in 2008-2009, we realized it had to be something we could jump into on the run and take off with it. Fortunately, Mary was gravitating towards the travel trailer idea, it was easiy to expand on that and we were able to conceptualize that as our home. So emotionally we are already on the open road.

Financially, it is a bit more frightening. How much money do we really need? We are both under 62 by at least 10 years so social security is not a factor. In fact by the time we are 62, it may still not be a factor. The question becomes what do we need in savings to feel comfortable as we move about the country from job to job. Mary has said we need at least $10K when we roll out of North Carolina in 2013. Our first stop for employment will be Amazon (if all goes as planned) where we hope to work September through December. IF that happens we will have been able to earn enough money to get us to warmer climate and another job from January through April or May. By working 9 months and off 3 months, we will keep our routine we had as teachers. The summer we want to spend doing free-lance stuff like teaching science camps or story telling. So long as we can maintain the $10K in reserves, we believe we will be covered and this will also allow Mary to fly back to Michigan once or twice a year to see the grandkids at Christmas and Easter.

Social preparation will be another tough bone to chew. I do ok without having a group of folks around, but I can also find ways to be part of the crowd. Mary loves meeting people and having others stop by for an occasional cup of coffee or wine as we all share tales of the days events. I am a listener by nature. Mary is a talker. Our thoughts are to find ways that we can both adapt each others strengths, while developing a new network of friends on the road.

If you start too early, it can be frustrating. If you start too late it can be disappointing. Perhaps there is no good time, just the right attitude and a little prayer.

Following the Blue Roads

One list we are working on is our return route from Michigan. We are on a time schedule into Michigan for Mary's youngest daughter's wedding. But coming back we want to do the Blue Roads.
We know there is US 20 East from Perrysburg, Ohio to Akron. Then we can continue into Medina. Once we cross into Pennsylvania, the Blue Road route is a little tougher. The two interstates--I-80 east and I-76 into Pittsburgh--are about the only roads that will get you across Pennsylvania. There is US Hwy 15 South towards Lewisburg and Shamokin Dam. But, you have to travel I-80 to getthere. We took this same route north last year when we wanted to try I-95. It is a nice route, other than the section through Harrisburg. US 30 east will take us into Philadelphia.
Leaving Philly, we would be on US 301 south. This will parallel I-95 all the way to Dunn, North Carolina.
Hopefully this experience will provide us with the insight to avoid concrete super slabs altogether in the future. The next 2 years will be a learning curve as we fine tune our planning and expectations of what we want to see and places we hope will allow us to share our lives with the folks of the Blue Road and take a few great memories with us..

What check lists are on our check list?

So we have started our final check list for the madien voyage of the Catalina. This will be the longest trip it has ever been on. The 600 miles from Florida was the Catalina's first real road experience. Now we are taking her on a 2,000 plus mile trip to Michigan and then east through Pennsylvania to Gettysburg then Philadelphia. But first the checklist has to be completed:

1. Weigh the WHOLE unit--truck and 5er. The local landfill said they can weigh it if I bring it by. Hoping it comes in under 20K lbs. The truck is titles at 5,800 lbs and the Catalina is supposed to be right around 12K lbs before we load out stuff. With a 3400 lbs cargo capacity, 20K would be good.

2. Organize our stuff that is going and get it in the Catalina.

3. Organize the things we "need" for the trip. That means clothes, toiletries, kitchen utensils (that means CAN OPENER!!) and the infamous garlic press. Years ago when I particpated in a leadership class through BikeCentennial, I met a guy named Miles who rode his bike EVERYWHERE everyday. He rode from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Mansfield, Ohio where the classes were being held in early April. When he left Michigan it was snowing...Anyway he said that he would NEVER travel without a garlic press, so since that day I have always had a garlic press in my travel kit...

4. Organize and check out the camera equipment. Mary has taken possession of the Canon G2 and I am using the D30. Both use the same battery (BP-511) which is very convenient. There are some batteries that are DOA. Which is understandable given they are 14 years old!!

5. I am taking a replacement wire harness for the Dodge--just in case the electrical shorts prove to be unstoppable..

6. SNACKS for the drive. We love to have our munchies when we are on the road. HOWEVER, we are dumping the chocolate and going green. Almonds, chex, and sunflower seeds supplemented with cranberries / raisins.

7. Organize our doggie supplies..water dish, water, and collars. We had a very terrifying moment when we were moving here in 2009. We had stopped at a rest area just south of Charleston WV on I-77. It was late, we were tired and probably stayed 45-60 minutes longer on the road than we should have. The rest area was jammed. I put the collar on Lola The Plott Hound and fooliskly let her out the driverside. The 18 wheelers were all running and Lola panicked. She tried pulling away and the collar slipped off and she just missed the front wheels of a Frieghtliner by a matter of centimeters...since then we are obsessed with having the Martingale Collars for both our hounds. It tightens and they pull and there is no way they will slip out of this collar.

8. Change the oil in the Dodge. I have to find a dealer that sells the Fleet Guard filters in the area. I was picking the filters up in Kenly, but now we are 45-50 miles from there.

9. Head out on the highway on JUne 13, 2011. We will be leaving here around 3:00 pm for our fist stop in Wytheville, Virginia.

Goin Home

Mary

Last night Tim talked about not being able to go home again. I understand that life goes on at home and that the time apart does have an impact on those left behind and those of us that have left. For me the difficulty is in my leaving the kids and grandkids. I am homesick for them. I deal with my homesickness by flying home every few months and by spending a little more time there in the summer. I plan to do this even after Tim and I convert to full time traveling. It makes me happier and as a result it makes Tim happier.

His blog got me thinking about our move to North Carolina. We both are from Michigan. I have never lived anyplace but southeast Michigan in my entire life. We left our house, most of our possessions and our loved ones. We loaded everything we had in a trailer and left for a new life. I knew I was moving to an unknown place, what I didn’t know was that I was leaving an entire STATE behind. Its kind of strange, I go back to see my kids and I am “visiting” what should be home.

But, I love my new state (North Carolina). I have made friends here and it is a beautiful place to live. I have opened myself up to living a more adventurous life and to more possibilities. I am excited about seeing the country and living in new and different places. I think I may live in Michigan again….….. It least part time.