THE JOURNEY BEGINS

We seem to be spending a lot of time moving stuff from storage and bringing it back home. What’s that all about? Pretty soon the storage garage will be empty and everything will be back in the house! It started because of Christmas preparations. Of course this led to a lot of decorations we weren’t going to use this year As you can probably tell, we haven’t sold our house yet. We had hopes of selling it before we left for Florida. This probably won’t happen until Spring. We’ve had eight parties come through the house. Our realtor told us that two really liked it, but apparently not enough to buy it.

Three of our four boys were here for Christmas. Actually we celebrated Christmas on the 18th. As for the 25th, we spent it at Mary Ellen’s sister’s home in Ohio. The most exciting thing about New Years Eve was watching Notre Dame manhandle Miami in the Sun Bowl. During the 1980’s, ND-Miami was labeled ‘Catholics versus Convicts’. The rivalry got heated to the point it was decided it would be best to put a halt to scheduling each other...until now! The former ‘convicts’ have cleaned up their act since the notorious Jimmy Johnson left Miami. Starting in 2012 Notre Dame will start a home and home series with Miami again. Should be fun.

Well, the time is drawing ‘nigh’ and we’ve been making plans for our journey south. Don’t you love that word ‘nigh’. It’s so much nicer than ‘near’. It has a much more literary sound to it. And I being a ‘literalist’ (I think I made up a word) chose to express my literary leanings by using the word ‘nigh’. Now that I’ve beat that to death, let’s move on. We’re planning to depart on the 22nd of January and go as far
as Indianapolis. Our annual problem on day one of our journey is finding a campground that’s open in Indiana. We would have to go into KY to find one and that violates my time on the road rule! Some of you probably remember Mary Ellen’s characterization of my traveling schedule. It goes something like, leave the campground at 10 a.m. Stop for an hour lunch at noon. Proceed for another hour and a half and stop at 2:30 for the night! Some days I actually do 4 hours! My attitude is ‘what’s the hurry’. I’ve allowed 8 days to get to our destination. I didn’t mention that we will stay with son Dan and family in Westfield, IN for our first night. This presented a whole other problem.

The neighborhood, compound, cult where Dan resides prohibits RV’s parked on the street or driveways. Even if the RV is washed! Something to do with ‘trailer trash’ I guess. Anyway, with the help of Dan and my other Indy son, Mark, we tried to find a parking spot where I could safely leave truck and travel trailer from approximately 5 p.m. Saturday until 9 a.m. Sunday. First we investigated the Wal-Mart in Westfield, NO. I than called the local Kroger store. The manager told me they didn’t own the parking lot. When I asked who did she told me she didn’t know. I called the Westfield police department. They were supposed to get back to me if they found a place. I never heard from them. Finally, after checking a couple of far-flung possibilities, I called Marsh. Marsh is a semi upscale supermarket a couple miles from Dan’s house. After my second offer NEVER to buy groceries anywhere else (I guess we’ll have to drive 3 hours for milk), he relented.

So, we’ve got day one handled. I’m always surprised how much mental and a little physical preparation goes into leaving for a few months. This is further complicated by the fact my son, Mark is no longer handling the house while we’re gone. This requires more preparation and planning. First of all is mail. This year we’ll have all our mail forwarded. We’ve never had to do this before. Of course realtors will be showing the house (hopefully) while we’re gone. This will require some notes making sure they turn the furnace back down and be certain to recheck the doors so we don’t have any uninvited “lookers” who have no intention of buying the house.
We’ll get one of the teenagers in our neighborhood to start Mary Ellen’s car at least once a week. Of course the paper must be stopped and the driveway shoveled. There are a lot more little things we need to think about for the first time. We’re now realizing just how much Mark handled in the past. I guess we’ll just have to ‘grow up’ and deal with it!

I sort of made a resolution to stay away from too much political commentary in my blogs this year. It’s not easy for me to do. There is sooooo much stupidity to point out, it’s getting very difficult to choose. I will end this blog by pointing out the folly of our socialist leader. It reminds me of a wonderful quote from Margaret Thatcher on the subject of socialism. She said, “the only problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”.

In a recent Jason Lewis show he summed it up this way. Government was first established for the sole purpose of protecting the citizens. A police force was put in place to stop people from stealing from others. So the government decided they would take over the role of thievery. They (the government) have decided they know better than any of us where OUR money should be spent. So they take it and give it (some of it that they don’t pocket) away to others. Can you say Robin Hood.

JIM