Mar'00-Sep'00

We decided to wait a couple of weeks before we decided whether or not to fulltime. This would give us time to sit back and think it over instead of getting caught up in the ‘emotion of the moment’. During this time Kay would drive back to Effingham to help her Mom & Dad. She would stay 3---5 days and then return home. Finally we sat down, weighed all the pros & cons, and decided----LET’S DO IT! Now comes the hard part, getting rid of "stuff". I have always been a "stuff" person. All the tools I have accumulated over the years for example. AND my 1959 Corvette that I’ve had for 32 years. When friends found out I had sold it they knew we were serious about fulltiming. The guy that bought it lives 5 minutes from my sister in the DC area. I have full visitation rights. (I’ve already been there twice). I feel he will take good care of it like I did. He doesn’t want to butcher, customize or race it. Just enjoy it.

We also bought a laptop which is so much easier for our uses and space considerations. Unfortunately we lost all our data, pictures, etc. in transferring from desktop to laptop.

We got with our friend and auctioneer, Bill Parks, and set a date, sat, July 8. He went thru the house and showed us the things that don’t sell well in the area. Such as my Franklin Mint cars. (cars of the 50’s, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, etc.). I sold them over EBAY. If you have time to deal with it EBAY it is a good way to sell things. Then we went thru and picked out things that needed to stay in the family. And the few things (very few) we wanted to store at Kay’s sisters house. Everything else goes. Meanwhile Kay was still doing the Effingham drive weekly. And I was getting the house and contents ready to sell. The days she made it back we both jumped in and worked on it. Our neighbors, Richard & Kathy, (best neighbors we ever had---hated to leave them) pitched in also when they could. The week before the auction we had moved into the MH and were living there, using the house for showers and such. We had electric already and I ran our cable tv plus both phone lines to the MH. Day before the auction my brother and a few friends came down to help. Kay’s parents both were able to make it down which was a pleasant surprise. And no, I didn’t put them to work. I know some of you were wondering.

The auction went real well. My compliments to Bill and his crew. We did better than expected. People were bitching about prices when they came up to pay instead of gloating about the good deals they got. Needless to say, that made us happy. We spent the next week taking care of odd and ends and then we took off. First stop was St. Louis area about 2 hrs away to visit our good friend Nancy Rath for the weekend. I am an adoptee and in 1995 Nancy searched for my birth family and found my birthmother. It was a terrific reunion. I always knew I came from good stock and they proved me right. So now I have 2 great families. (3 counting in-laws). We had grown close to Nancy and really enjoyed our visit with her. Next we headed for Effingham to help out Kay’s folks again. We stayed for 1½ months. We had a phone line ran to our MH for emergency calls and got an internet connection for the time we were there. We visited with family and friends in the area and visited the local Elks lodge and American Legion post.

One morning we woke up during a rainstorm and it was raining over our kitchen slide area as hard as it was outside. We quickly moved the slide in and tried to find the problem. One of the seals on the slide had developed a bubble and allowed water to seep in. I made a temporary fix with the metallic duct tape. We left around the beginning of sept. to Indiana to a Holiday Rambler dealer for repairs. After that we returned to Illinois for my class reunion and a visit with my brother, Tony, before he went on vacation. Enjoyed the visit with my brother and the class reunion a lot. It seems to me that as you get older, long time friends become more important even if you haven’t been around them in years. Any of you debating going to a class reunion I recommend it. Being from a military family I didn’t grow up with the same people my whole school experience. Nevertheless, my high school friends are special people to me.

Been fulltiming for over 2 months and haven’t been more than 4 hours away from starting point. Now it’s time to hit the road.

Pictures