The World’s Largest Treehouse; New Friends; Wire Trees

We are still in Crossville, TN, awaiting the completion of my dental work. In a couple of days we should be ready to hitch-up and head off to continue our journey of living and loving life. I loved Bill and Nancy’s comment ……..” you just weren't done doing what you need to do where you are doing it!!”. I think they were right. We have had more time to explore this area, and to spend with Bill and Gloria, our new friends that we met here at the campground.

We visited the “World’s Largest Treehouse” which is in Crossville. The treehouse stands 10-stories high and is roughly 10,000 square feet. It is built by a minister who had a “divine vision” to build the structure which is mainly supported by a single large tree that makes up the foundation. He has been working on the project for 16 years and has cost around $12,000. He has used only recycled lumber, most of which was given to him.

While there, we spotted a bullfrog – notice the feet hanging out of his mouth? He was eating another frog! He sat along the edge of the pond a very long time, trying to digest his lunch.

Our new friends, Bill and Gloria, left the campground over the weekend, as his Dad was in hospice and not expected to live much longer. We talked to them yesterday, and he did pass away on Sunday. We wanted to do something special for them, as a token of our appreciation for sharing all of their experiences and knowledge of our new home. They have the same brand of RV and truck that we have, and he is a retired Air Force mechanic with lots of good habits!

During his college years, Phil made wire trees to sell for extra money. They were purchased by specialty shop owners, and sold all over the country. In the last few years, he has made only a few and those were given to friends and family. We wanted to do something special for Bill and Gloria, and I suggested Phil twist a tree in memory of Bill’s Dad, and as a reminder of the value of love and friendship. We searched for the perfect rock, which we found in the campground. The rock is “Crab Orchard Stone” which is indigenous to this part of Tennessee. The sandstone is sought after around the world for its durability and color. Here is the wire tree that we will pass along to Bill and Gloria.

And, another picture of the beautiful stone from the Stone Museum in downtown Crossville. 

Life is good, and Hanni is happy!

 

I Needed a Sugar Daddy

I am learning that fulltimers who make reservations for the future, will likely change and/or cancel them. Yesterday, I discovered that my dental bridge was loose on one of the “anchor” teeth. I knew this had to be fixed, and better now, (only 81 miles from my dentist at no charge), than on down the road, (with an unknown dentist and thousands of dollars). So, I had a lovely drive back to Chattanooga today, to my dentist, Dr. Gallien. The best fix was to hopefully remove the bridge intact and glue it back. My dentist took one look, probed around a little, and told me to go find a Sugar Daddy, and come back. I looked and looked, but couldn’t find a Sugar Daddy. So, I settled for a Jolly Rancher! But, even that didn’t help, so the dentist had to cut the bridge to remove it from my anchor tooth.

I had a chance to see my good friend Terri again while in Chattanooga. We had lunch together and laughed at my predicament, as I tried to pull my bridge out with a Jolly Rancher.

So, long story short, we have a two to three week wait for the new bridge, before we can head north toward South Dakota. I was pretty disappointed, as I am very anxious to get on with our journey. Then I realized that we are still on our journey, even in Crossville, TN. Now we have more time to explore the area. And, we will have more time to spend with Bill and Gloria, a really nice couple that are staying at our campground. They have a wealth of knowledge on routes and campgrounds in the West, since they winter in Yuma, AZ. They have an RV like ours, and have taught us so much about the operation and maintenance that it has been like having a personal trainer for RV’ing!


I think it is important to remember that things can and probably will happen on the road such as, sickness, break-downs, dental issues, and pet issues. When they happen, we will deal with those things the same as we did when we lived in one place.


Life is good!

Our Chattanooga Departure; Spring Lake RV Resort, Crossville TN

We have finally departed Chattanooga. After months of preparation for fulltiming, we have accomplished our goals and are on our road to life’s adventures! Before leaving, we had many of our friends come by to see our new digs, share barbeque and hugs. It was a wonderful gathering and send-off. As a whole, our Chattanooga friends are some of the most remarkable, happy, generous, caring, people that live life to the fullest. We have been truly blessed to have such beautiful people around us during the ten years that we called Chattanooga “home”.



Most of our friends had never seen a home that looks like a “transformer” and were very interested in our plans for life on the road. It really is odd that these slides all suck in to the width of a lane on the highway.


It took some doing to secure everything for the first trip since we have moved all of our “stuff” into our home. I am sure we probably have more than we need and will lighten our load as we travel across the country.


Early Tuesday, our dear friend Terri came by to see us off and for last minute hugs. I am still amazed that Phil has the hitching-up part down so well. He backed the truck up with the kingpin dead center in the hitch the first time, without needing to make adjustments! Terri and I were there to cheer him on and pump up his male self-esteem. (I think a person needs that if he is about to pull a rig for the first time that happens to contain all, (well, most) of our worldly possessions.) Just as it started raining, we pulled out for our journey! Terri followed us out of the campground and until the divide in the interstate took us in different directions. What a nice gesture that she took time to see us off so early in the morning!


We headed to Knoxville so that RV’s For Less could install a bed cover and front mud flaps on our truck, and to diagnose our bedroom A/C problems. The A/C compressor is toast, and will need to be replaced, which means that we have a change of plans on our first day out, to return to Knoxville next week to get the new A/C installed.


Finally, we were headed to our campground in Crossville, Spring Lake RV Resort. The office personnel were very friendly, and offered to help us back into our campsite. The campground is immaculate, although I haven’t checked out the bathrooms or showers. The owners live onsite, and pride themselves with having a quiet, clean, adult campground. There are 62 full hook-up sites. The daily discounted rate is $29.50 per night. We are backed up to a beautiful spring-fed lake. It is smooth as glass and very serene. The campsites are gravel, but very level. There is a swing, nice grill, and table and chairs on a concrete patio on our site.

We settled in, and then took a walk around the campground. There were a few folks fishing in the lake, and a family of ducks enjoying their habitat. Hanni is happy and enjoys watching the ducks.....They have a “catch and release” policy, which honestly is a little disturbing to me….poor fish. One little girl had caught a catfish, which, according to her grandfather was about 20” long and had three hooks in him. He removed all of the hooks and put him back in the lake. Phil said he is getting a fishing pole today and plans to catch that fish.

After a restful evening, we called it a day and slept with the windows open. The weather is beautiful and is suppose to be sunny and bearable summer temps throughout our week in Crossville. Life is good!

Crowded Nest; Truck, RV and Kitty Update; RV-Dreams Rally; and Tornadoes

Wow, busy times. We are still waiting on our NEW TRUCK and NEW RV. Our truck has a supplier issue, in that the seats will not be available until mid-May. Yuk! Our RV is finished, and probably already in Tennessee, but will need to be inspected by the dealer before delivery to us. Believe me, the nest is a little crowded. We are still in our 23' motorhome, with the dog and the cat. Needless to say, we are ready to move into the much larger 350 sq ft space!!


My kitty, Paleo, is still hanging in there with his kidney failure. We have learned to give him fluids under the skin to rehydrate him, and give him softeners for his poopy problems. Seems kidney failure contributes to dehydration and constipation. Poor kitty. He is one old cat, and sometimes loses his balance, or wakes himself up nodding during sleep. He is very skinny, which also goes along with the disease. I dread the day I am faced with the decision to let him go, however, I don't want him to suffer.


We attended the RV-Dreams Spring Rally in Sieverville, TN, which was awesome and far exceeded our expectations! Howard and Linda Payne really know how to bring people together with a common goal of fulltiming. We had seminars on Choosing an RV, Choosing State of Domicile, Emotional Impact of Making Decision to Fulltime, Costs of Fulltiming, Internet on the Road, Boondocking, Choosing a Campground, Workkamping, Packing the RV, and a session on making the trek to Alaska. It was great to meet other fulltimers and wanna-be fulltimers and see that they are not crazy, lazy, nor broke, but are instead people that want to see this beautiful country and experience all that there is to offer. We met so many interesting RV'ers and were invited into their homes during "Open Rigs", shared wonderful meals during "Pot Luck" and "Chili-Cookoff", and shared laughs during the "Ice-breakers" and the "70's Theme Party".  We made lots of new friends, that we plan to stay in touch with and hopefully meet on the road in the future.


We were very fortunate to have survived the deadly tornado outbreak on April 27th which killed at least 350 people, mainly in my home-state of Alabama. The hardest hit in our area was Ringgold, GA which is 10 miles from our campground. We skirted tornadoes for 15 hours, from 8:00am until 11:00pm. The bathhouse in our campground is small, and many trees lie on the western side, so I did not feel the structure would survive a bad tornado. So, we left our RV early Wednesday morning to go to a friend's house in Chattanooga, which has a basement. We didn't make it before the first tornado hit the area. We quickly pulled over and ran into a CVS Pharmacy about the time the power went off in the store. Thankfully, the pharmacist said we could bring our dog inside, as I know she would have been freaked in the truck. When the weather calmed, we went back to the campground to catch the weather. More tornado activity was on the way, so we headed South to Fort Oglethorpe, GA and went into a Costco so that we could watch the weather reports. I talked to a friend of mine who lives outside of Chattanooga, and she said that the first round of tornadoes took out 4 huge trees in her yard and flattened everything in her yard except for a St. Francis statue that we had given her during our downsizing. She was pretty freaked. We then decided to go further South, to Dalton to ride out round three, which promised to be the worst yet. We went to a restaurant bar and was there when Ringgold was hit, and we heard it had been totally wiped out. Our waitress tried to get in touch with her husband in Ringgold, but all of the Verizon phones were down. We had AT&T, and she tried on our phone, but she could not reach him and needless to say, she was very worried about him and her little girl. Another waitress called her sister who was at work at a Ruby Tuesday in Ringgold. Her sister answered the phone begging for help as the roof had caved in and they were trapped. They were then disconnected. Ruby Tuesday was flattened. Seeing these ladies concerned for the welfare of their families was heartbreaking. The restaurant closed early and we went across the street to a hotel lobby to wait until all was clear to go back to the RV, not knowing what we would find at the campground. Finally, the weather cleared and we headed north to return to our campground. As we passed the I-75 exit to Ringgold, traffic going South was totally blocked, and backed up for miles and miles and miles. Two huge tractor-trailers had been caught in the tornado and their twisted remnants and contents were spilled onto the interstate. Metal signs were wrapped around trees, and naked tree trunks could be seen from the interstate. The Ringgold exit was closed to all but emergency vehicles, and they were not letting anyone in. I thought of those poor waitresses that would not be able to find out if their families were safe. We finally got back to our campground around 11:00pm. Our little RV was safe, and all was quiet. A couple of RV's were damaged by fallen trees and branches, but our campground was spared the devastation. That was one day I, alone with many others will never forget. I hope the waitresses found their loved ones safe.

Flowers and a Haircut

These flowers were delivered recently, from a dear friend who knew that life for us has been like a roller-coaster lately. The flowers have been a reminder, amid the "estate of confusion" that lots of beauty and good times are ahead.

And, speaking of delivering flowers, this morning, I delivered flowers to an employee in my neighborhood post office. I was sort of, well, let's say "not very nice" on the phone with her a couple days ago, and I knew that I owed her an apology. As I posted before, I have been darn stressed-out over details, and thought I had considered everything regarding my mail. But when she said that the post office could not hold my mail for me to pick up, until we are ready to hit the road, I sort of went "postal". Later, I felt really bad about being so short. I am sure that I just passed my stress on to her like a sick virus. I knew that I could always get Mr. Phil to go and get that post office box, and I would not have to face her. I didn't know her, and she didn't know me, but I had to make amends. When I walked into the post office with flowers, and asked if she had dealt with a really irate customer recently about mail forwarding, she laughed and said "you didn't have to do that". I told her that "yes, I did". I apologized, and told her everything that has been going on, and she was unbeliveably helpful. She even gave me butterfly stickers to put on my po box so that I wouldn't have to remember the number and could quickly spot it in the sea of boxes!  It feels so much better to bring joy in someone's day instead of stress.

Now for the haircut. Not me - my cat. Paleo is almost 16 years old, and is a mix of Manx and Himalayan. His hair gets matted, and he does not tolerate brushing. So, in preparation for our new adventures, I thought he would be much happier with a new cut. 

Ok, don't laugh at him! He is thinking that he looks very dapper with his new lions cut. He is known as a "stumpy" in the Manx world, as he has a nub of a tail. His brother, Bucky, who went to "Rainbow Bridge" last year, was a "rumpy", as he had notta for a tail. When Bucky got his haircut, I always had them leave him a little puff of fur at his tail, because I felt he experienced "tail envy" seeing Paleo with a tail and all. He always hissed at Paleo after they got haircuts.

I think Paleo felt he had posed enough, and decided to move on to more important things.

I did get the news at the Vet today that his blood work indicates that he is in moderate stage of kidney failure. He is a really good cat and I hate to see him deterioate.  But at least he will spend his last few months/years doing something he loves - traveling in the RV. He loves sitting out in his crate at campgrounds, birdwatching and sunning.

Happy Trails,

Deborah



Eight Days!

Unbelievably hectic. Friends have been dropping by to pick up the items that they bought from our sale. One week ago today, I sent to friends that live locally, an email with a link to pictures of the things we were plannig to sell. I put sticky notes with a price on items that we didn't plan to store nor take with us on our new adventures. Folks started coming by and scooped up almost everything! It was awesome. We even sold our truck and car!

Our new truck and RV are on order, and we will live in our little Winnebago until the new fifth wheel comes in. We have been enjoying our friends coming by and picking-up their new purchases (free movers!). When we come back to visit, we can see our stuff at our friends houses! We had our local auction company pick up things that didn't sell, our dining table and chairs (lovingly covered with organic fair-trade coffee bean burlap bags), an antique sideboard, a few Persian rugs, and a couple of side tables. This weekend, it's more packing, and next weekend, we are outta' here!

It has been a little sad, looking around at the "stuff" that we have accumulated, knowing that it is now in the past. But, we remind ourselves of the good times ahead, collecting memories of adventures instead of stuff! 

Happy Trails,
Deborah

Sold more stuff!

We have a buyer for our old truck, and he is letting us drive it until the new one comes in! Ordered our new truck in Knoxville, TN yesterday. I really do think I'll need a cowboy hat, boots and chiffon skirts to drive that baby! We also finalized our decisions for the new fifth-wheel. Planned to order, but the owners of RV's For Less had to make an unplanned trip to the emergency room, so we will order tomorrow by phone. Lots of friends came over today and bought LOTS of "stuff". It has been hectic, wild and crazy. We close in two weeks! Yep, got a little weepy again....sure will miss my friends. Exhausted.....

Leaving Old Friends and Making New Friends

I got a little weepy last night, as I was packing up getting ready to move out of the house and into the RV. We are seriously downsizing. For the most part, I know pretty much what to get rid of, and what to keep. But, occasionally I run across stuff that stops me in my tracks - unexpectedly. Last night, I got weepy over a teapot! On the one hand, I don't use it, so of course I cannot justify keeping it. But on the other hand, I like it. But, I don't use it. When I make tea, I make it by the cup and nuke the water. But I like it. Then I realized that it wasn't parting with the teapot that was the problem. I got weepy because I have lots of good memories, sharing tea with my "girlie" friends.We have laughed, cried, bitched, moaned, and groaned over hot tea from that teapot. (Lots of bottles of wine, too.) I wondered if I would meet nice ladies on the road to sit down with and share hot tea. I called one of my friends, Terri, to tell her that I will miss her, and to share my weepy story. She reminded me that we will carry our memories with us, in our hearts. 

Mr. Phil got a little (lot) choked up a few days ago, when he remembered his plans with an old friend to go rock digging together "someday". Phil realized that his "someday" was getting closer, but his dream would not be shared with his dear friend Andy, who died not long ago. I am sure that Mr. Phil will carry Andy in his heart everytime he gets the opportunity to dig rocks.

When we moved to Chattanooga, almost ten years ago, we thought we would be here forever. But, we never know where "forever" will find us, nor when it will end. We have made some wonderful friends here, and we will carry with us on the road great memories of good times with them. I don't know if we will ever move back, but we will be back.

Reality has not hit that we won't see family as often. I do have the cutest granddaughter in the world, and I will miss visits with her. But, hopefully, when we come back this way, we can make up for lost time. And, we plan to kidnap her occasionally so that we can have her all to ourselves for a few days or weeks. She has just turned two, we can't wait for her to get old enough to take to Disneyworld.

So, I just hope that if I meet some of my RV'ing bloggers on the road that we can sit down over a hot cup of tea, or glass of wine, and spend a little time sharing our lives. Maybe stare into a campfire and reflect on the past or dream of the future. Or, just talk about what's happening today. I look forward to making new friends on the road.

Thanks for listening,
Deborah

Hit by the Good Luck Duck

I was hit by The Good Luck Duck, and have been blessed with three more "followers": Through Gates of Grace, Kenny and Angela's Adventure, and Kate and Terry-Travels in Cholula Red. How cool is that? Now I hope I have properly linked to their blogs, 'cause I am all about sharing. Now, Good Luck Duck, my wish is to spread all of that good luck to my new fellow bloggers, and back at you! (I see a contract on my house, I see a contract on my house, I see a contract on my house........).


OK, I haven't seen any signs worthy of reflection today, I think because I have been too busy examining my legs to see if they can be considered "CANKLES"! Who the HELLO posted about cankles, and now I cannot get my mind off the possibility that my ankles and calves could fall into that category? Crap! I've been poking around in Blogville too much!


I will share a special event that is very much worthy of reflection. My friend needed two lungs, qualified for a transplant.....and waited, and waited, and waited, not knowing if his own lungs would hold out until a match was found. One year ago today, someone died. And, they were an organ donor. One year ago today, my friend got the call that there was a donor that was a match. Both donor lungs were healthy. If only one lung had been healthy, it would have gone to the person waiting for one lung. One year ago today, my friend had a double lung transplant, and tonight his family and friends celebrated the anniversary, and honored the donor. So, if you haven't thought about it, you may want to consider being a donor....http://www.organdonor.gov/ It really is a miracle.


Now, I got to go snooping around in Blogville........

"Blog Worthy"

I have a "Follower"....geez, Teri....you have made my day! Someone out there actually decided that my blog is "blog-worthy". I am so honored! In all seriousness, the ability to connect with others that have common goals and dreams is huge. When we first moved to Chattanooga from Atlanta, we bought an old house to restore. Never having restored old homes, we were reluctant to buy because of the unknown. But the real estate agent introduced us to his friends that had been through the restoration process. These folks were so into what they did that they offered to literally crawl underneath the house, check the systems, and "kick the tires" before we made an offer. That was huge, because the process seemed overwhelming to us, and they were willing to calm our fears. It is the same now for us. We are planning a new chapter in our lives that is foreign to us. And, so is my new friend Teri. Having a network of folks out there that are willing to share their experiences about life on the road is priceless. Friends are huge in life, they make us live longer! By the way, we bought the house, and ten years later, those guys that helped us are still our friends!