One year ago, today, I started my project of blogging daily
on our life as full time RV Volunteers. I managed to do the daily posts till
around July, when things started to seem stale.
Since then I have posted frequently, sometimes daily in shorter spurts
if something was going on. The experience has been a little like taking a long
trip. When you set out on the first day, the final day seems far off. As the
time progresses the end date approaches quickly, and before you know it you are
at the end of the trip.
Fortunately, we are not anywhere close to being done with this chapter of our life as full time RV'rs, barring a catastrophe. I am writing this evening marveling at how quickly a year went by and all that has happened in that year. The speed of the passing of this year, makes my head swirl a bit.
I remember writing my post on March 1st sitting in the motorhome dining table at our host site in Goliad State Park Texas. I was imagining what a year may bring and thinking along the track of we never know what lies around the corner. As it happened a trip to the emergency room and emergency surgery to remove Champ’s appendix was the subject of my post 6 days into this little project.
Looking back now, sitting on my new couch in the RV resort
in Ocala, Florida the theme of last year seems to have been extreme weather,
especially flooding. Texas experienced record rainfall and we dealt with
flooding and closed areas of the state park where we volunteered. Our trip home
to Iowa from Texas, stalled twice while we waited out late season snow storms.
The weather delay bought us two very enjoyable days with a cousin and his wife
as they showed us around their part of the world.
We arrived home in Iowa to excited grandkids and families
happy to see us back from our winter excursions in Texas. Three days after setting
up at Saylorville we woke up to 7” of snow. A very late season snowstorm. After
a long cold spring in Iowa the weather did an about face and we had temps above
100 degrees for Memorial Day just around the time the AC in the motorhome quit
and the part backordered. That was after a close lightning strike took out the
refrigerator. Are you seeing theme?
We got to know our volunteer village companions even better
last summer and turned some casual acquaintances into forged friendships. We
met new volunteers who we will return with this year and had more people to
stay in contact with during the winter months this season.
The rains came back to Iowa in June and by July 4th we were being evacuated from Volunteer Village for the first of what would be two times that season. It was the first time in 12 years that the lake level encroached our area. Part of our volunteer duties became sitting at the closed Dam Road barricades and explaining to people why they couldn’t drive across the dam or go near the spillway.
I worked for my friends, Champ worked for the Natural Resources team at Saylorville and I wrote their newsletters and worked a little in the butterfly gardens. We spent lots of good time with friends, kids and grandkids. The summer flew by and in October we travelled with 9 or our friends and family to the Dominican Republic for a memorable vacation before heading the Georgia.
After tearful goodbyes we traveled 3 days to our winter volunteer commitment in Plains Georgia. It turned out to be a very short engagement. We experienced some great things, not the least of which was meeting President Carter and his wife Roselyn. In the end, though it was a difficult living situation and we tactfully made our exit from the National Parks job and found our way here to Ocala Sun RV resort. I never thought I would work in the credit union industry again, yet I will have spent about 13 weeks this winter doing just that. The job has kept me from going crazy sitting around the RV park and the extra income has made it possible to do the rest of the work we have been wanting to do to the motor home since buying it 18 months ago. In between we have spent time with new friends who are are neighbors in the park and old friends who have wintered nearby. We have kayaked and I have swum in the river with wild Manatees in their world and on their terms.
At the end of this very fast year I can’t believe how much has happened. We just received a job offer for a future winter at a wildlife refuge in the Florida Keys that we will look forward to. In a year we have completely redecorated the interior of the coach. I overhauled my diet and am feeling 10 years younger and carrying about 15 less pounds than this time last year. Our hair is grayer, our hearts are fuller with new people to call friends. We both have a few more wrinkles than last year, but that’s okay. We are getting excited to be back home at Saylorville with our old group of volunteers that will this year include two new couples, one of whom is a cousin of mine who we will have an opportunity to get to know better. At the same time, we are trying to cram as much time with new friends here before we all depart to different places soon. What a year it has been. Lots of challenges, yet so fulfilling. It makes my head spin to think that we will be coming up on the 4th Anniversary of our decision to “Sell all our crap and take off” as my daughter put it when I called her and told her we needed to talk to them about something important. Our sons thought we were going to tell them one of us was sick. Kelsy nailed it before I even finished saying we needed to talk to her and JP.
We have never had an expiration date in mind for this life. We just go from year to year, savoring it along the way for however long it lasts. I’ll continue to post about our life on wheels and our volunteer work. This has been a weird winter for sure, but so many good things have come of it. Landing in Florida has been a real joy and opened doors for some really cool future things. We are looking forward to winter in Texas next year, then back here to Florida the following two years we hope. Wow! How did we pack all of this into 365 days? Such is the life. Enjoy the year in pictures below.
Host Site At Goliad 
Eight Spotted Forester Moth 
Champ setting up for Reenactment of the Battle for Texas Independance 
Mexian troops surrounding Fannin's troops 
Wilderness Lakes friends Gary & Joyce, Connie and Joel and us. 
Desiree and I 
Lonn, Champ and I at Reenactment 
A visit with my cousins Jeff and Kathi on our way home April 
Buster knee deep April 10th 
The Orioles at Saylorville 
Lightning strike, blew limbs off and sent bark 50' away. It also took out our refrigerator 
Getting to know the new volunteers during a tornado warning May 4th 
Facing the camera, Hunter fielding the ball 
Going on the Zoo fieldtrip with Hunter 
Old Mom's and young mom's for breakfast 
2018 Kickoff Happy Hour 
Working on my ball field tan 
Isacc 'driving' grandpa to the store 
Planting Day at Joyces 
Commander Satinger, Judy, Will and Emma. Receiving a Natonal Volunteer Award 
Birthday suprise from my son Chris 
Miss Sydney Rose 
Poor houseboat. Downpour + broken bilge pump = heartache. 
Brothers 
Arrow shows where Champ was walking yesterday in first picture. Line is approx. where the guardrail on the road is. 
Curve in road noon. Champ Steve and Nora wading to where the water line was that. morning 
Flood water surrounding our pad. July 6th 
Reconnecting with an old school mate 
Wedding # 1 
Colorful Paleo Dinner 
Jester Park Nature Center view from back, Grand Opening Day 
Champ and the National Fair Queens 
The Happy Couple Cole and Bree Wedding #2 
Making luminaries at my station 
Our summer volunteer family 
Champ and his brother Steve. Both old retired guys now 
Lego time 
Kids always love to paint 
Isaac putting his moves on the soccar ball 
Nora doing yoga warm ups with me 
Great Grandkids Sydney 9 and Conner 2 
Hunter's 1st motorcycle ride. He's hooked 
Don and I pullng Dam Guard duty during the flood. July 7th 
Judy and I celebrating our birthdays together 
Catching up with Beth and Tammy 
Getting the AC fixed in June 
9am bundled up ready for the trip across the dam in an ATV 
The Gang Arriving in Punta Cana 
Zip Lines Conquered 
What can I say? 
Batman and GI Joe 
Champ and I with Mr. and Mrs Carter after church services 
Up close and personal 
Store fronts in old town 
Brown Pelican Fishing 
Florida Red Belly Turtles Sunning 
Julie and I 
22,000 CFS at the discharge
Until next time…
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