Ending where we started–Fresno

It’s 52 degrees and overcast, a typical Fresno winter day – not too hot and not too cold, but yucky.  That’s why we are looking forward to hitting the road again soon.  We started our full timing last year and what a year it has been.  We almost ended the year in the Emergency Room, but more about that later.

The first 3 months we really spent most of our time with RV’er friends and at the rallies we attend: FMCA Golden Spike, Escapee Boomers, Escapee Geocachers, Escapees at Winter Blast in Lake Havasu, and of course the Nick Russell Gypsy Gathering at Yuma.  On the ‘FUN’ scale of 1-10 we topped the scale at all of them.  Thank you, everyone, for making it so easy to join the world of

full-timers. We also thank all our blogger friends who are so much more faithful than we are in making us feel a part of the RV community. Love your blogs!

 

Our biggest celebration this year happened in Oregon when all of my sister Janet’s family and all of my family got together for Mom’s 90th birthday party.

 

With the family scattered from Oregon to California to Wisconsin it is probably one of the last times everyone will be together.  Now we rely on Facebook to keep in touch. Whether Joce and Paige’s families are vacationing in Palm Springs, Jany and Patrick are in Oregon, Mom’s in Fresno, or our kids and grandkids are in Fresno, we are as close as our computer to seeing what is happening in their lives until the next time we hug them in person. Isn’t technology is great?!!!

 

We sure have enjoyed our adventures this year. We went all the way to Maine and ate lobster every day. Even hunkering down in Bangor, Maine, through Hurricane Irene was fun; over and done in a day. Unfortunately, others were not so lucky. There was lots of damage along Irene’s path and we were blessed to be in about the only area that did not sustain much damage.

We came back to California in a hurry, stopping only for diesel, almost $2000’s worth in a month!  Thankfully we do not do that very often. We did take a quick detour to see our friends, Richard and Francis (the Dr.’s Dahl and Langley) at their new digs in Logan, NM.  Boy, if they would join the RV lifestyle, we would sure have a lot of fun together. Of course that goes for so many of our other retired friends, but if every retired person was an RV’er we would not find anyplace to park.

 

We added another Golden Spike rally to our memories and helped our daughter, Jennifer, with the Floriculture department of the Big Fresno Fair. We took a couple of short trips, to the Coast and to Sacramento to end our year.  Again, granddaughter, Julie, traveled with us to Sacramento and as always we had fun shopping. 

 

Oh, that Emergency Room thing I mentioned.  While in Sacramento a couple of days ago, I had an “vertigo episode” at 2:30 am Thursday morning, my first and hopefully last. After talking to the 24 hour nurse line in the middle of the night, calling my doctor on our way home, I finally followed the strict orders to go to Urgent Care or the Emergency Hospital immediately.  I HATE Emergency Rooms!!! I went to Urgent Care. The doctor said I couldn’t avoid going to the St. Agnes Emergency as they have the right equipment I needed. After 6 looooong hours of sitting, CAT scan, MRI, EKG, and blood tests I was released with the good news.  No TIA’s and the most normal brain they have seen in a long time (Tom says there is no excuse for forgetting things now). If you ever want to see the breadth of human conditions, visit an Emergency Room close to midnight! Those health care workers from Doctors and nurses to security and janitorial workers deserve to be sainted. They do their job with caring, efficiency, and good humor; it does not matter who they are treating – bag ladies to socialites (great reality check).

So, as in the year 2011, all’s well that ends well, in our life and we hope yours as well.  Happy New Year 2012.  See you as we will be On the Road Again, Caching Places That We’ve Never Been.