A Week in the Life of a Former RVer

I hesitate to hear myself say, “...as a former RVer” because in my heart I still consider myself an RVer. 12-13 years of thinking seriously about it and living it will do that to you 🙂.  Even if you don’t have an RV.  It’s fun to look at pictures and try to figure out where we were when...

Henry’s Lake in Idaho - 2 hours west of Yellowstone

The fact is though, we left the road 16 months ago.  Hard to believe!  So much has happened.  But then, we are living in a time where the speed of life has quickened.  We were warned this would happen as we got older.

I don’t mean the speed with which we rush through life, it just seems that time is flying by.

Pam and I are well and content with our post-RV lives.  Our days are full and we get to be around good neighbors and our daughter and son-in-law and get to hone our grandma and grandpa skills.  Its one of life’s greatest joys.

So this is what our weeks kind of look like.  Each is a little different but in these Corona Virus days we have a tempo and steadiness centered around our home.  We do a lot of projects.  I enjoy mowing our front yard and large back yard twice a week.  Its good exercise and I like being out in the sun.  I have a science project going in the front yard called rooting out the weeds and getting more grass to grow.  Its coming along.

We’ve planted lots of flowers.  I mean lots. Besides two flower beds in the front, we have a couple of small ones at each corner of our front yard.

We also were given some flowers we from friends that survived the transplant and we made another flower bed along the side of the house.

The deck has hanging baskets and flower pots of petunias, marigolds, and geraniums. We have some more flowers along the fence from Tennessee that may or may not make it.  Finally, we two other flower beds with day lillies and roses.

Then there is Pam’s garden.

There are probably twenty different plants in the ground.  We have harvested plenty of onions and radishes and the broccoli is looking pretty good as is the squash.  Peppers, egg plant, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, jalapeños, and sweet peas fill out the rest of our patch.  It will be fun to see how much makes it to harvest.

We spent a lot of time weeding, hoeing and watering the garden, but we enjoy it.

Then I have a few projects in the woodshed that keep popping up.  My latest is a little cabinet the boys wanted to be turned into an outdoor oven for them.

We see the boys every other day at least and that is why we are here -- for them.  Its about the best reason we can think of to leave the road and we are not sorry we are now doing this.  As much as we liked full-timing, this is a great post-RVing gig!

We keep track of doctors appointments and are fine.  It was about four years ago that I almost lost my left eye with a retina detachment but it has healed well and I have 20/25 vision in that eye and 20/20 in my right (with my glasses.)

We take the vehicles in for maintenance, get materials for projects, check out new home renovation projects that Kelly and Jon are working on.  It’s great fun to seen them turn a place around that needs updating and make it look really nice for re-sale.

Last week went to church a couple times (one for Bible studying the fellowship hall and the other time for Sunday service). Our small church went to two services and we had about 25 people at the service we attended.  Nothing like it used to be, but it was great to see people in person again.

I read that long time RVing friends John and Carol have bought a house in Indiana and are looking forward to their next chapter after 10 years on the road.  They’ll continue tours with Fantasy RV Tours and keeping their RV.  I’m excited for them and know they will enjoy their spacious house!

We continue we some upgrades on our place and are having a gas fireplace and logs put in.  Pam has been doing some stitching/sewing craft ornaments for Christmas and I have been working my way through Chesapeake by James Michener, one of my favorite authors.  Now that we live in the area, it makes reading it more meaningful.

Pam usually goes on a daily walk at one of our nice parks in the area if she gets there early enough and its not too crowded.  We have ventured out for lunch and dinner a few times to support some local restuarants and enjoy that.

We took a trip to Tennessee a week ago and saw Pam’s sister Joan.  She was diagnosed with ALS a couple of months ago.  She’s now in a wheel chair but is doing pretty well and the disease noticeably is taking its toll.

While there we learned Joan and Mike had their 50th wedding anniversary so we had a little celebration in their back yard with their daughter and family, and Joan/Pam’s sister and husband who life in the Knoxville area.




Last Saturday we had the pleasure of attending our first ever graduation.  After a couple of long years, son Adam finished course work and was awarded a Master of Science degree in Computer Science.

That’s about it and some of the things we are involved with in our new life as the weeks go by.  We love hearing from you and a day doesn’t go by that we don’t think about our RV friends and the RV life.

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Pam Update - Going Well

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and some time off with friends and family.  We had a nice feast at Kelly and Jon’s with the boys a couple of days ago.

Now an update on Pam.  We’ve been to appointments since Pam’s surgery on November 18.  Everything is going well, we are grateful to report.  Key to her breast cancer diagnosis  is that the small tumor was found early during a mammogram.

That was a little over a month ago.  From mammogram to surgery was 30 days.  Lots of factors lead us to be cautiously optimistic.  They acted quickly, it was small, it was Stage 1. The surgeon is first rate and yesterday we met with the radiologist.  He too is very good.  Both are the kind of doctors you want:  at the top of their game, very highly rated technically, and have good people skills.  And they both communicate well so we can understand what is going on.  They are espouse confidence in our situation so we have confidence.

From the start, things have stayed pretty much on track. The original plan was for a lumpectomy followed by radiation.  Chemo is still TBD.  More on that in a minute. The doctors said Pam was a perfect candidate for partial breast radiation which we are going to do.

Basically, a catheter is inserted in the incision area where the tumor was removed.  It will remain there for the 5 days of treatment.  Two times a day doses of radiation are delivered to the tumor cavity and surrounding area.  We expect appointments to be something like an 8:30 AM and a 2:30 PM appointment. They are hoping to start Monday December 9 until Friday December 13.

Meanwhile the tumor is off to a California lab somewhere for oncotype testing.  This is how one website describes it:
The Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score test is a unique genomic test that helps women recently diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer. The test generates a score of 0-100 based on 21 specific genes in your breast tumor tissue that was removed during surgery. This unique set of genes predicts your response to chemotherapy as well as the chances of your cancer returning to provide personalized information that is not available from any other test or measure.

We are hopeful the tests determine that there is no need for chemo.  We will see.

Meanwhile, Pam is feeling almost normal.  Aside from her blood pressure being a little high at our appointment (I will be they see that a lot from patients), everything is moving along well.  She is sleeping like she usually does.  She rests a little in the afternoon but seldom naps.  She is eating normally and never had an issue with nausea.

That’s the latest and we appreciate checking in.  We are thankful for your prayers and interest.

Next post will be about a couple of small projects we are doing.  We are so glad to be here.  Especially with this on our plate and for this time of the season.

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Travels Continue...

Our travels will continue, but this time without the Roadrunner.
First, a little catch up:  We got back to Virginia Beach two weeks ago.  The last two weeks have different to say the least.  Life continues to be good and we are sorting things out.  We have a very nice place to stay at Kelly and Jon's house.  They have a large extra bedroom/office that we are occupying.  It is about the same living space as the Roadrunner was with a full fireplace at one end and a desk, sofa and chair along with our bed.

They are working on life with a 2 and 4 year old and in the final days of getting another house renovated to sell.  In their spare time.  We've been looking for a place to live and have looked at about  50 places and actually gone through 4 or 5.  We are waiting for something that is fairly close and within our price range.

Obviously, after living in 300 sq ft or less for the last 10 years, we don't need a big place.  After about  10 days, we found something that will work and made an offer.  They countered, we re-countered, they re-countered the counter and for $192K, we have a place in Norfolk, VA.  Yikes! We signed the docs and everything is in motion.

We are 6.5 miles and 15 minutes away from Kelly and Jon and two adorable grandsons.  The house is in a pretty good neighborhood with a  large back yard and a nice sized garage.

Here's what it looks like on Zillow:

It needs a new kitchen, two new bathrooms, windows all around and a few other things.  And so begins our time in the Tidewater area.  Since we have 3+ weeks until closing, we decided we'd try something different and take a road trip to Arizona and back.

We're going to see family in TN TX, NM and AZ.  Here is our approximate travel route from Google Maps:

Along the way we are planning to see a few friends and hopefully check into Red Bay for old times sake.  This trip will give us a chance to see what it is like to travel like we used to and see if we can acclimate to that travel mode for a few months.  We'll see.  A couple of places we'd like to see are Canyon de Chelly National Monument (in the Four Corners area) and Antelope Canyon in Arizona.

It should be fun and lot of driving but we're looking forward to it.  

That's all for now on the Roadrunner Chronicles, thanks for joining us!