Fulltiming at Last . . .

Eighteen days into fulltiming & it's been a total blur. Leaving my humble mobile home seemed easy enough. Easy if you think sorting through a lifetime's accumulated junk is easy. Easy if dealing with memories of the past is no concern. Easy if you don't find the physical aspect of packing and hauling heavy boxes to a storage unit daunting. But the last day of March arrived and by some miracle I was ready. The last boxes were on the truck.

I took the keys and title to the park office and officially turned the page to a new chapter in my life. I aimed the truck for Homer, MI, which would be my summer home and base of operations.

Two years ago I had purchased a lot in an RV park called Lighthouse Village. Two summers of hanging out there had convinced me that I could live there. At least for the summer. With that conviction, it made fulltiming seem a reasonable goal. Once the LHV lot had been purchased, a yearly maintenance fee of $600 would provide 6 months of nearly free living. A place to park the fifth wheel. It was like boondocking for the entire summer, except that it included amenities like water, electric, dumping and an excellent bath house. If this is roughing it, then count me in.

Saturday, the next morning, my friend Brenda arrived to help me celebrate my first days of freedom. She also has a lot at Lighthouse Village and in fact had originally introducted me to the park. We celebrated by going to the Stagecoach Restaurant and feasting on their breakfast buffet. Once there, we learned that "Red" O'Dell, owner/operator of the local grain elevator, had gotten ill and passed away.

Red was a regular at the restaurant and a real character. Like the time he somehow created a high frequency feedback with his cell phone and then convinced Ralph that it was one of the two hearing aids that he wore. The beeping would appear and Red would convince Ralph to check his hearing aids, first one and then the other. This went on for some time. All of us were convinced that it really *was* one of those hearing aids.

Finally Ralph left. All was quiet for a while and then the sound reappeared. Clearly it wasn't the hearing aids Ralph wore. The high frequency was coming from Red's direction. And then we knew what an enormous joke he had played on us all. Red would never admit to it, but we all knew. It was his particular brand of humor and you just never knew what to expect next. The 12 year old, red-headed prankster was alive and well in him. He never really quite grew up, but everyone liked him as he was. You knew somehow that he really meant well. He would never intentionally hurt anyone. Red was just a prankster at heart.

At the end of the weekend, Brenda returned to Lansing and the work world. I proceeded to pack and organize the fifth wheel for my first major trip: Homer, MI to Tucson, AZ for the 2007 Rally of New Horizon owners. In the two years of owning this rig, I had only partly prepared for fulltime living in it. Things were stashed, not organized. Realizing this, I thought how careless of me not to prepare the rig more properly. While most of the mechanical and maintenance items were taken care of, I had neglected the housekeeping aspect. I had only five days before heading out to gain some semblance of order. And I was nearly successful.

The clothing, towels, laundry, and dish supplies were organized in short order. I was fairly smug when I pulled out Saturday morning. I had a quick "farewell" breakfast at Stagecoach, and stopped at Jim's Radiator to top off the trailer tires. I shouldn't have been quite so optimistic. As I progressed down the road, things began popping from cabinets and onto the floor. At each stop something new had fallen. The wall clock demolished itself in its tumble. CD binders, holding 20-30 discs, catapulted all over the place. The cabinet doors of the entertainment center were not restraining the contents. Even a pair of stereo speakers took a tumble. Three tumbles, actually, and then I relegated them to the floor. They wouldn't stay put no matter where I put them. They seemed much better just resting on the floor.

I learned to overnight at Cracker Barrel Restaurants. I'd go 300 miles in a day and then stop at a Cracker Barrel to eat and sleep. My trips to Flying-J went pretty well, as I managed to hit them when they were not overly busy. By Monday I had reached Tyler, TX and I overnighted at a Cracker Barrel there to await another friend.

Dale, my mentor who got me into Escapees and fulltiming, was going to accompany me the final thousand miles to Tucson. I had invited him to join me in attending the Rally. We had breakfast Tuesday morning and headed out. Out for Dallas, Ft. Worth, el Paso, and on to Deming, NM. There we boondocked for two nights at the Dream Catchers SKP Park. For $2.50 a night we had a safe place to park, free showers, and an Escapee community to chat with.

We met BigJim from the Escapee Forum and I was able to put a face to a name. Jim was forced out of his job due to a heart condition and he survived by workamping and a small Social Security Disability check. He entertained us with amazing stories of workamping and I thought to myself: "This is how great storytellers used to entertain before the mass media of radio and TV".

My own grand father was such a storyteller. I never heard him tell the same story twice. He regaled us with long accounts of life in Scotland and the adventures he and his friends had. Jim is such a story teller. It's a touch of genius. With them we don't need the noisy boxes that mostly dispense bad news. I prefer the adventure stories that affirm life and make you feel good after the telling. What has our progress wrought? Where have we allowed it to take us?

The final leg of my trip brought Dale and I to Beaudry RV Park in Tucson, where the rally was to take place. We got here a few days early and in that time I managed to install 6 new Trojan T-105 batteries, fix two window locks (thanks Dale), install SNAPS (spring-loaded pins) onthe front landing gear, and install PressurePro sensors on the wheels of the FW trailer.

Jim, one of the rally attendees, showed me how to dump the air in the Red Ryder air suspension of the trailer. A lot of rusty water came out. Now I knew how to dump the air at every major stop. I dumped the air again after refilling the compressed air tank and a bit more water came out. A third time and it was dry. I'll leave it empty until I head out for Las Vegas.

The new batteries are working well and I sprayed them with NCP-2, a corrosion protectant. The hot Arizona sun is generating 14.2 volts from the solar cells. In Michigan, 13 volts was the highest I had ever seen. No wonder boondocking is popular in the Arizona desert. The clear skies give lots of free energy to charge the batteries, and a plentiful supply of BLM land complete the picture. I expect to try boondocking in Quartzsite, but first is Las Vegas.