It's Been a While

I know it’s been months since I’ve posted.  This year has been challenging for us.  Although, as I see all the losses people have suffered from the various hurricane, fire, and earthquake events as well as the Las Vegas shooting it makes our challenges look small.  But the fact is that we have had and are continuing to have challenges that are stressful and costly. 

As you know, John retired in the Fall of 2016 and we spent our first winter in Rockport, TX and fell in love with the place.  Now they are recovering from massive destruction following Hurricane Harvey, so we are going to spend yet another winter in Oklahoma.  Since our decision not to go south we’ve had other issues come up that would have kept us from heading that way anyway. 

We have had to deal with lots of RV problems.  The refrigerator had to have new doors after trying two sets of gaskets, and then the cooling unit died.  We were out of our RV for over a month getting that fixed.  Thank goodness for a wonderful friend who takes us in.  The battery to the RV engine died.  A hydraulic line for the stabilizer jacks broke.  The gasket around the giant windshield is coming off and we don’t know why so we still have that to get fixed and it could be structural issues.  Recently, one of the large slide-outs quit working this fall and it has finally been repaired.  It’s always something and we are thankful for our extended service warranty although most of the repair folks don’t like working with the company ours is from.  It has saved us hundreds of dollars.  The windshield repair, though, will likely cost us hundreds of dollars.

I know some folks wonder why we live this way, but we love it.  Our base is located in the woods in a large RV community where we have a great place to stay.  There is a 200 sq. ft. add-on room, with a canopy over the RV and car as well as a large covered patio and a storm shelter.  What more do we need?  We can either travel in the RV or in our jeep and we don’t have a house that needs maintaining.  It’s a great life.

This summer we had a 10-week trip planned to the northwest to see Glacier and Olympic National Parks as well as the coast of Oregon and my Aunt in Medford, OR.  As we headed out on this long-planned trip we received word that John and his former employer were being sued by a former patient.  Patients sue providers all the time but in John’s 35 years of practice this had never happened to him and now eight months into retirement this happens.  After spending three weeks in Glacier we had to return home to deal with issues related to the lawsuit and never made it to the west coast.  This was a bit of a blow, but we realize that we can head that way again sometime in the future.  Since we’ve been home, John has had his scans checking for any return of his cancer and after being cancer free for five years, the scans have picked up on something.  His case was presented to the tumor board at OU Physicians and a decision has been made to try some different tests in January and see what they show.  The type of tumors he gets grow very slowly and must get to at least 2 cm to even consider trying to remove them.  Because they grow so slowly they don’t respond to chemo or radiation treatments.  This spot is in his liver where they’ve already removed two tumors in 2012.  John is doing well, and we are just trusting in the Lord for a good outcome.

In the meantime, we plan to take a short trip down the Talimena Drive to see the fall colors on November 1^st.  I found a cute B&B in Mena, AR called the Sassafras Inn that allows dogs, so we have a reservation for a night there.  From there we will head to Jenks, OK to see a friend and attend a school play that one of her family members is staring in.  Should be a fun time.  She has a beautiful home and takes us and our dogs in whenever we want to visit.  We also plan to spend Thanksgiving at her home with her and her family and will then stay on to help her out for a few weeks as she is having her knee replaced.  She has two big dogs and a cat, so we will take care of them, her house and her until she is able to handle things on her own.

This Fall has been beautiful so far with sunny warm days and cool mornings and evenings.  We are surrounded by the Chickasaw National Recreation Area and they have a large herd of bison.  Yesterday we took the girls and went for a walk on one of their many trails.  Yesterday’s walk was around the very large area the bison are in and we didn’t get a peek at them at all while circling their area.  That tells you that their area is quite large and yes, our walk was long!  The dogs loved it and came home and slept.

John has made four of his suncatcher windchimes since we’ve been back home, and they are beautiful.  He makes every piece of them from scratch!  He made one with a cross and another with a hummingbird and they both have new owners now.  We still have a dolphin and a macaw which are gorgeous and for sale. 

We’ve never spent winter at our place in this park, but we have spent five winters in our RV.  All of them were at a park near Oklahoma City.  We think we have everything set so we shouldn’t run into any freezing problems.  Our sewer pipes are wrapped as is our water pipe.  The motorhome is fully enclosed and heated so we’ve never had problems with anything freezing in it. 

Well this update catches you up on us, so I guess I can wait until after Christmas before signing on again.  I wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas.