This last month has been pretty busy. Lots of life events have occurred in the last few weeks. Retirement, having worked pretty much uninterrupted for the last 30 some years, the prospect of not having to do that any more has been an adjustment to get used to. So far I have been very busy but I do miss the daily personal interaction I had with a lot of folks at work.
My daughter Liz, and her wife Stephanie had a baby boy, Noah Lee, last week, so now I'm a grandfather! Noah and parents will be coming out to see us next week, so we are looking forward to meeting him. I don't think he will remember this trip.
My son, Don is getting married to Julie next week, and we are in charge of the rehearsal dinner for 30 or so folks. Pats has been going all out to plan the meal and set up the house for the party. She is more engaged in that rather than planning to leave the house and friends for a year. Once the party is over she will focus more on the trip. Don and Julie are going to be living in our house while we are gone, so we are trying to move most of our personal effects out of the house so they have room for their stuff.
And then there is the preparation for the trip itself. I had the trailer serviced earlier this year and found one of the axile mounts had separated from the frame. I had all six mounts re welded so I am hopefull that I won't be leaving any axiles on the freeway durring the course of our trip. I have been putting in extra shelving and a wall mount for a new flat screen TV. I have checked out all the utilities water, propane, electrical, sewage, and everything seems to work. Once underway I'm sure something will break that I didn't anticipate. The truck has been serviced and has a set of new tires (as does the trailer) and it got a brake job so I think it is ready to go.
We have been going through all our stuff deciding what to take and what to leave, and figuring out whether to pack it in the trailer or put in a plastic tub to be carried in the back of the truck. The stuff that is not going, has to be packed away while were gone. I was getting to be afraid that we were going to have too much stuff in the truck between golf clubs, scuba gear, patio furniture, winter clothes, and misc stuff we did not want to trip over in trailer, so I did a trial load yesterday and loaded everything in the pick up that I could think of, and luckily it all fit. I know that Pats is going to want to add something that I haven't though... I'll burn that bridge .... later.
