Big Decision

Early October 2011-

Having finished with the house we had a big decision to make.  We had plans, before we retired, to tour this country in an RV.  Those plans were laid out in 2003, almost ten years ago.  Needless to say we were ten years younger then.  We laid the foundation for those plans after we had acquired Berry Oaks near Savannah, Georgia.  We continued those plans with the procurement of our pickup truck and fifth wheel trailer.  We were set.  All we had to do was retire and sell our house in Maryland.

In 1786, the great Robert Burns wrote the poem, To a Mouse:

               But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren't alone]
               In proving foresight may be vain:
               The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
               Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]
               An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
               For promised joy.

This simple observation should always be considered when making any plans of any sort.  I am sure Murphy's Law was inspired by this poem.  Murphy's number one rule is "if anything can go wrong it will."

We retired in early May of 2007 and placed our house on the market shortly after.  A lot of people say "timing is everything."  In our case it surely applied.  The housing market had just started to decline and, very quickly, crashed.  We continued with our plans however and moved most of our household goods into storage in Savannah. We were confident we still could sell the house, but maybe not as quickly as before. This, also, proved to be incorrect.

Our plans had all hinged on the sale of the house in Maryland.  This was not happening.  The posts in this blog from May 2007 to now recap everything we have experienced.

All of that is history. The big decision we had to make now was whether or not we were able to continue with our original plans and did we want to. This was not easy since we both are feeling the ten years that have accrued upon us since our original plans were formulated. It took several days of researching, discussions and a lot of deep thinking to realize we did want to go ahead with them. Once this decision was made it was easy to lay out our future.

With the rest of our household goods placed into storage in Savannah, we hit the road south. Our first stop was to visit our cousin Ben in Raleigh, North Carolina. We spent several days with Ben and Jean with good visitation, good genealogy research and a visit to our ancestor's family burial site on what was the Fiddleton Plantation in Orange County, North Carolina.

Moving slowly south we arrived in Savannah in late October. We decided to stay at the Hunter Army Airfield's RV park since it is in close proximity to our doctors and other places we had to deal with. We both had complete physicals resulting in a complete healthy status and a green light by both our doctors to continue with our plans. Next we had the RV worked on and upgraded so we would feel comfortable starting our journeys without worry of problems. With all of this accomplished we moved on down the road to Holbrook Pond Recreation Area RV Park at Ft. Stewart to spend Thanksgiving with our RV family.

Thanksgiving dinner was taken with the troops in a mess hall of the 3rd Infantry Division. This is a tradition we having been doing for the past three years. It is so awe inspiring to sit with these young soldiers and their families. It makes us proud to be part of this extended family.

Our next stop was Ft. Benning near Columbus, Georgia. This and the next stop, Ft. Rucker near Dothan, Alabama, were planned so we could explore the areas and determine if we would consider settling in one or the other instead of the Savannah area. We stayed a week at each and did make the decision we would not reconsider leaving Berry Oaks near Savannah.

This brings us up-to-date as of today. We are staying at the Ozark Travel Park just outside of Ft. Rucker and are going to be hitting the road again on Wednesday (14th) for Pensacola Naval Air Station's RV Park for the Christmas Holidays. We have spent Christmas there before (2007) and loved it. It is, at this point, our favorite RV park.

So what are our plans after Pensacola? Head west. Tentative plans are for us to be on the road for a minimum of a year with our first leg exploring the southwest to the Pacific. From there it is up in the air. You'll have to stay tuned to see the rest.

From an old southern spiritual:

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"