My Heart and My Home on Wheels: July 2011

My excuse is that no matter where you are, it is hot! One cannot escape!

Blue is in this year!

I have just returned from an extended stay in Virginia. I spent one month there with Daisy meeting her friends, a special cousin, celebrating her 62^nd birthday, and introducing her to all my brothers and sisters.

The Birthday Girl

Cousin Jean

Blacksburg, VA is not only Daisy’s home but is also the home of Virginia Tech where I got my forestry degree and USAF commission. Daisy is on faculty there, so during working hours I walked the campus and visited folks I knew who were still connected with the school. I also worked on my golf game.

My daughter Shannon with Matt and the grand boys journeyed from Alabama to Northern Virginia to attend a family church camp.

The Boys at Play (older and young)!

As kids, Shannon and Michael would abandon the old folks each summer for a week at the camp during the summer. It has been a long time since she has been with my side of the family and I arranged with my siblings a mini reunion in Winchester, VA. Brother Bruce lent his house and grill, and a good time was had by all.

Chip, Debbie, Angel, Mark and Bruce

Ah...the master at work....except he did burn the dogs...
cannot cook and take pics at the same time

1st Cousins

So our last minute family gathering had 29 people there--all my siblings except for 2 and many 1^st and 2^nd cousins of Shannon’s.

The next day, Daisy and I traveled to Petersburg, VA and Fayetteville, NC to see my other two sisters and some of their family members.

Sister Kaye

Sister Pam

And Back at the Ranch....

As you can imagine, Daisy has over 30 years of friends there and I met bunches of them. We drank a little, dined a bit more and danced a lot.

A Dancing Machine we are!

Daisy has this dancing skirt that flares as she twirls. She loves to cover the dance floor and I go along for the ride. We took several waltz, swing, meringue, and contra

lessons in the early evenings and danced the night time hours away.

There were friends to meet

She picked flowers at breakfast for me....

They fed me tasty items

Yep we even had Buffalo..southern style of course

But where is the RV you might ask?

I decided to base the R.V. in a year round home in southern Texas for winter living. I am not ready to give up the road yet. Daisy is retiring next year. We are planning part time travel to natural and historical sites. But we will base out of the Arkansas house (Spring to Fall) and get a truck camper as a tool to aid in that weekly travel. This will be an adventure in close living. I will be going from 38’ to 19’. But we think it is doable. So now the search is on for the right slide-in truck camper. Luckily I have a heavy duty dually

truck with a camper support package.

And we took a little trip....

This is a truck camper. Slides in Pickup Bed.

The largest truck camper dealer on the east coast is in New York on Long Island. They have numerous truck camper models there. That is where we went for the July 4^th Holiday. It is 590 miles from Virginia there. We discovered the features of the unit that we want to acquire. It has all the perks of the big boys just in a smaller space-queen bed, shower, sofa, dinette, awnings and generator. Now we just must find

one!