Since our June trip to Nashville we have pretty much been housebound for a couple reasons. First, the coach was out of commission for a time but it is now back in service and ready to hit the road. And then there has been the overwhelming job of transitioning my mother-in-law from being independent to assisted living. She was hospitalized in early July, went to rehab for 2 1/2 weeks, and was moved to her new residence this past Friday. Along with that there is the huge job of dismantling and re-distributing 90 years of accumulated belongings. The burden of this job falls mainly on my wife as her brother is more of a nuisance than help, although he doesn't dispute anything she does, he just argues and complains about everything making the whole situation more stressful than necessary. The old apartment will be vacated completely by today and then the job of deciding what to do with the storage shed full of her possessions will begin in earnest.

From this experience I have decided that I don't want to leave this much "stuff" for my daughter (and only child) to have to deal with when we have made our final journeys. Although we will not likely become fulltimers because my wife does not want to be away from our grandson (and his future siblings) for any length of time, I think adopting a fulltimer's mindset will be the way to go--"If you can't carry it with you, you don't need it." It will be a mighty task convincing her to unload much of our accumulated "stuff" before daughter is forced to deal with it.

As this process is cleaned up in these waning days of July, it is time for a much needed break. Next weekend we will be taking a short trip to Frankenmuth, aka Michigan's "Little Bavaria." It is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from home and yet a world away. And hopefully, all the cares and worries of the past month will disappear for at least three days. It will also be a chance to rest and recharge before our journey to Myrtle Beach in three weeks with our daughter and her family.

We will stay at the Jellystone Park which is a short distance from downtown as they provide a shuttle to Zehnder's and back. There will be at least one dinner in Zehnder's bar while watching the Detroit Tigers try to re-establish their comeback from a disappointing season thus far. My wife has a pre-determined route of shops to visit when in town. Other than that there will be a lot of kicking back and unwinding intermingled with walks with Scout intended to burn off his excess energy and get him out to meet others of his species.

The Frankenmuth Jellystone is an older park built before the proliferation of slides and awnings. Many of the sites are very narrow and require a willingness for "closeness" with your neighbors that I don't possess. They have, however, done some restructuring of a couple areas and converted two old sites into single "deluxe" sites. We will be on one of these. They are also upgrading the electric on these bigger sites to 50 amp but you need to make sure you are getting one of the upgraded sites if you stay there, at least during hot weather if you want to run both air conditioners. It is a good family park as they have lots of planned activities for the kids.

So all I have to do is get through another work week and I can work on enjoying the good life (at least for a short time).