The Dream is Becoming Reality

It's been about a month since our last post and there's been a lot of stuff going on. After months of scanning Craigslist, checking out roadside 'For Sale' signs and enlisting several friends to keep an eye out for good deals, we finally bought a trailer for the motorcycles.

Persistence pays off.  We found a 7'x12' trailer originally set up to handle dirt bikes. The previous owners had already added shelves and left a little dirt and grease behind. We've invested a few dollars and some sweat equity to fit it to our needs. We've added wheel chocks and rearranged the e-track to better fit our longer wheelbase motorcycles. Still got a little work to do before we road test it later this month. We'll be taking the RV to Melbourne for a softball tournament and thought that would be a great trial run.



Steve, Bradley, Ryan, Joan, Emily. 2006



Christmas was fun. We spent it with family and friends. Christmas Eve eve (Friday) we spent with my son, DIL and grandchildren and opened presents early. I will miss seeing the kids as I know they will grow and change so much while we're away. We really hope that there will be opportunities for them to join us for short vacations as we travel over the next few years.



Steve, Bradley, Ryan, Joan, Emily 2011









Christmas Eve we spent with about 150 volunteers filling boxes of food for the needy. This was the 19th year the project has been sponsored here in central Florida. Two large tractor trailer loads of 'damaged' foodstuffs were sorted, organized and then packaged into large boxes. This year the group succeeded in preparing 1500 boxes to be delivered throughout the area on Christmas day. We worked from 5:00 until after 8:00pm. After three hours of hustle, hustle, hustle we were whupped. But no rest for the wicked. After a quick shower I was off to the hospital. My brother had been recovering from back surgery and had come down with a bad infection. After a couple of different attempts to handle it at home, he was put into the hospital on Christmas Eve. The doctors finally got a handle on it and he was able to come home after several days.



Christmas morning we made a quick trip to visit the grandkids again so we could see what Santa brought. After that we spent the rest of the day with Steve's Mom and Dad, son Chris and sister and BIL, Vickie and David who were in from Atlanta.

Chris, Steve and Vickie

New Years came and went as we celebrated with family, friends and more. Two parties; the first an annual get together that has been going on for the last 10 years hosted by some folks we met last year. Then on to Ernie and Donna's for a bonfire and smores. Yum! Then back to the lake to ring in the New Year (literally as Steve's mom has a large bell mounted in her front yard that she rings every New Year at midnight as the ball drops).

We returned to work this week where we officially gave notice that our last day working will be Friday March 9th.   We plan to move the motorhome to the lake house the Friday before we leave for Oregon; then invite our friends and family to a "Good Bye" party/open house..er open motorhome on Saturday.  After that we'll hit the road headed to Oregon where we'll be from April 15th until October.

Looking at the calendar we realize there are only 10 weekends left to get it all together. Right now I feel calm and collected. Breathe in....breathe out.....breathe in.....breathe out. I'm hoping that will last as we get closer to our departure date. Wait! 10 weeks! Are you insane? That's not enought time. I have a lot of grandkid time I still need to work in.