[6-wheel, 2-slide Healing]

I feel your grief in the loss of your son-in-law. I lost my baby brother just before his 21st birthday due to a motorcycle accident. The driver that caused it was clearly in the wrong, he fled the state before his arraignment and as far as I know has never been apprehended (this was years ago). My father died at 63 due to a brain tumor, 10 years after my brother died. Grieving the loss of a loved one is always difficult and sometimes people who haven't had that loss have little understanding as to the many paths it takes to accept it and that sometimes, unbidden it can return while in the middle of a happy, fun moment because of a memory. I also had to get away after my Dad's death, at the time I had a sailboat in San Diego Bay, and I spent way too many hours on it.

My mother-in-law died due to pneumonia caused by the flu the same year my grandson was born, she was my daughter's favorite Grandma, I had to take care of all the paperwork for her, my wife is the oldest child. That legal stuff seems to take forever, it lasted almost a year to close that stuff up.

I'm glad you could be there for your daughter, I'm sure she really appreciates having a Dad and Mom to love her and hold her when she cries as I'm sure she does even if she is a strong woman.

Oh, partly because of my brother's accident, I teach motorcycle safety. He had all the wrong advice from friends who rode and I hope that by virtue of the lessons I teach I might be able to spare another family some of that grief we went through, even though some of what happens on the road can't seem to be avoided.

I hope some healing has happened by now, but I do know how long the process can take, hope to see you at a rally we end up at some time.

[Restless]

I have always been a wanderer......that is, up until I retired from the Navy. When I retired, and we moved up here in North Central MN, where my wife grew up, I was so enamored with having a home that I own and close to 4 acres of property, I had a hard time pushing myself to travel very far. I sort of became a recluse, the thought of going anywhere near a military base almost scared me. I'd had enough of govt., more than enough of large noisy ill mannered cities, and besides, up here, it was just very beautiful and peaceful. For the first time in my life, I've lived in the same place for more than 5 years.

I've been over half the globe aboard ship, as far west as you can go when turns into the far east and the mid-east, down to Australia south, up to the Arctic waters north, at times following Soviet subs into Russian territorial waters off of Siberia, eating the foods of all the locals in every port visited. When I retired, I was ready to quit traveling, but my wife wasn't. So, gradually, over a period of years, we started traveling again (even during that time period I ended up going coast to coast, our son was stationed at Quantico, my mother lives in CA, our daughter was in college in WA). I still wasn't comfortable traveling, but I gradually lost my aversion to it, we went through tw truck campers and a borrowed pop-up trailer before we bought our motorhome in '03. My wife immediately wanted to full time, put the house up for sale, and go. I dragged my feet, which turned out to be a good thing due to some problems that surfaced during that time period. Now, we're both ready to full time, but she's getting her MBA in Quality Systems, and owes her employer the next five years for their assistance there and the house isn't sold yet anyway.

My itchy feet have reappeared, so now we're both on the same page. I hate to have the motorhome sitting not being used, but if we don't use soon, we will be out again with it in April.

On the gaming subject, I've never played on-line games, I've been content playing the X-Box my daughter bought me. I'm going to pick up a Wii to play, my grandson has one, it's a lot of fun, and there's also good exercise to be had there, and my wife will even play that one.

[Eighteen Months, Part One]

When we make it to the East Coast again (we've got no kids there any more), I'd love to stop in. If you ever make it to the upper MidWest, feel free to stop in, I've got 30 amp available, not 50, but we have property we're planning on building our home base on (when we sell our house) and start full timing. Looks to be about 5 years in the future and we said that 5 years ago.

Our Midwest area rally is in June in Elkhorn WI, if you happen to make it that far west, it could be nice too, I think you'd enjoy it.

[Eighteen Months, Part One]

Hi Gramps, I'm one of them too with two wonderful grandkids. Your story here brings back a lot of memories for me as well, I turn 56 on 2/18. When you kids were going through the trying times of your Dad retiring from the Navy (which I have also done, as a Petty Officer 1st Class), my Dad was in the Aerospace industry. We uprooted my 5th grade summer and again my senior year of high school when the Aerospace industry did mass lay-offs in reaction to Congressional budget cuts. I've read your 18 months in it's entirety, I'm hoping that maybe sometime we'll meet at a rally/convention somewhere, we could probably yak all night, boring our spouses to tears....

Keep up the good story telling, I might have to blog sometime too, who knows?