People are wondering where we have been. Well, we were very happily settled on the most northwest corner of Oregon getting ready to enjoy some wicked winter storms and check out the area that so many people told us fits our dream retirement location. There was so much to see and do there that we were making lists and planning to hang out and play tourist for a while.

Then we got the first emergency call from family in Maryland. It wasn’t something we could handle from the far west coast so we packed it all up and hit the road. There was a good bit of urgency to it so we drove almost three thousand miles in under four days. Considering the fact we had previously decided that 3-4 hours of driving in a day was our retirement maximum, we feel we did really, really well. We were also really lucky that gas prices dropped just before we hit the road and the nasty winter weather held off long enough for us to use the northern route. Well, the mostly northern route. We dipped down a bit for the slightly longer, no toll road route. Several western states had speed limits of 80 mph or even higher. We were in the motor home towing the car so we did not drive that fast and our travel time was longer than the mapping programs said it would be.

Once we hit Maryland our son let us stay at his house and we found storage for the Phoenix Cruiser for less than $3.00 a day so we are saving money on housing/camping fees but the weather here is EVIL. When we pull up the weather sites, it remembers we were near Portland Oregon and tells us it is 57 degrees there… compared to the single digits here. It’s so nice that the computer keeps pointing that out. This is definitely not where we wanted to hang out in the winter. Always looking for the silver lining, we are thankful that we are not so far north that we have to shovel several feet of snow off the roof of the Phoenix like some of our more northern friends are doing. Our hearts and sympathy go out to them.

Well, we raced back and here we sit, dealing with social services and trusts and legal issues. It is brutally slow and difficult to get anything done. On the upside, we are getting some nice quality time with our son and granddaughter. Her excitement over our unexpected visit was far more than we ever expected. On the downside, we raced back so quickly that the half a dozen friend and family visits we had planned for our drive back across the country this spring have gone by the wayside. As they say “the best laid plans”…

We decided that our waiting time here is best used doing things we have been putting off. If it was a choice of blogging about our first year on the road or exploring the area we were camped in, the exploring ALWAYS won. Now we have time to work on those blog entries. We are also trying to sell just about everything we have in storage. We stored furniture and such for when we returned to our house, but we aren’t returning to it. We stored books and keepsakes and “stuff” that we just couldn’t part with or didn’t get around to finding homes for but we have discovered that we really like living with less and will never pay extra to have a house large enough to store all that “stuff” again. That means we are paying monthly storage fees for things that we don’t want. One of our tasks while we are here is to sell off as much of the stuff as we can. It is slow work that is being hindered by the brutally cold weather but we are whittling it down, piece by piece.

We don’t know how long we will need to be in Maryland so we don’t know where we will go from here. We have played with the idea of sliding down to Georgia to finish out the winter if we can get out of here before spring. If we are here at the end of the school year, we will probably scoop the granddaughter up for another excellent summer adventure with Grandma and Papa. We don’t know where that adventure will be yet, as we don’t know how the family issues will play out here and how far we will be able to wander, but where ever it may be, it will, of course, be excellent.

H