Yes, I have not posted recently. What has happened is that I found a condo, put in an offer, and closed on it three weeks ago. I had decided last summer that a couple of things made it clear that it was time to settle down after over 13 years on the road:
- The first and most immediate was that my left shoulder has been bothering me for the past three years. My pain level on most days has been manageable, but on bad days it was so bad I could not even sit in my recliner to rest my arm without serious pain. I have been adapting to this pain by pretty much becoming one-armed, and doing things like closing my driver's side door by reaching far over with my right arm and hand. Turning sharp corners and backing my 32' rig into a camping spot has been a lot harder because I am mostly having to do it with one arm, by holding the steering wheel with my left hand at about 7 pm and using my right arm to do all the turning while letting go with the left hand and putting it back on the wheel when my right arm had turned the wheel as much as it could. There have been other adaptations such as going through a difficult process to get into and out of bed, and such things as having difficulty taking off and putting on clothing. Anyone who has had shoulder pain will know what I mean and the pain involved. I visited a new orthopedic surgeon last summer and was shown x-rays showing that my shoulder was bone-on-bone and needed to be replaced.
- I started motorhome full-time at the age of 69, and I am now 82, so things having been getting a little harder each year. For example, I had to give up my electric bike a couple of years ago because my balance was causing me to feel unsafe. Other than my shoulder, I am in excellent heath for my age, but at my age, you cannot tell what is to come, so I decided I would keep my rig, but spend most of my time in something a little more stable and was not so hard on my aging body.
Anyway, after looking last August and September, and having difficulty finding what I wanted near my younger son's home, and with no basement or second floor, I headed to Florida figuring I'd keep my eye out on Zillow and use the services of an Ohio realtor who knew what I wanted.
I had to go back to Ohio in late December and early January for some dental and medical appointments, and I was surprised to find what I wanted. Normally, I am a person who visits something multiple times and takes along friends and family for second opinions, but I had lost two other condos in September, so I ended up having my realtor putting an offer in after seeing it only once for 30 minutes!! I did not want to lose this one because it had almost everything I wanted and did not want to lose it. I had flown into Ohio and left my motorhome in the airport parking lot in Florida, so flew back to pick it up and drive it back to Ohio.
Unfortunately, Ohio ended up with one of the coldest Januaries in their records, so I have been hanging around northern Florida waiting for it to warm up. Ha!! With lows below 0 degrees and highs in the teens, I knew it would be a difficult drive through mountains in Tennessee and Kentucky, and so cold in Ohio that my pipes and tanks would freeze. And then even Florida got really cold, to the point where tonight it is expected to be 27 degrees. I have a heated and covered utility and tank area, but even though I have been at a beach for the last week, I had no desire to go for a beach walk, to say the least.
Instead, I have been sorting through stuff and deciding what to leave and what to move into my new place. I am leaving a lot of the basics and even some clothing in case I want to take a short trip up into Michigan to visit some relatives in May. I am at least at this point not selling it. I am planning on my shoulder being replaced in June, but it will be quite a few months before I can drive it, but there is a real possibility of my returning to Florida for a month next winter.
So, while I will not be posting about campsites for a while, I will be writing about my adventures camping in below freezing weather and getting to Ohio to move into my new place. (After 13 years on the road, however, I have no furniture other than a couple of pieces the previous owner left me. I need beds, tables, recliners and a couch or two, bookshelves, and a credenza in the den to store documents, a new printer that actually works all of the time, and a lot of other things. I am leaving my old pans and most of the kitchen things in the motorhome, so need new ones of those. At my age, I want new stuff, not to use all my old stuff I have owned for decades!!
One nice thing is that the seller replaced all the kitchen appliances with brand new ones, so I am looking forward to having space to cook something bigger than chicken pieces and room in my refrigerator/freezer to actually store SEVERAL large tubs of ice cream!!! I plan to go out grocery shopping and buying at least two of everything!!
Anyway, please feel free to ask any questions you have about my life on the road, and I will answer them. In the next week or so while I am waiting for Ohio to melt, I also plan to write about some of my favorite places on the road. Hope you enjoy that.
