Page-34

Ed & Johanne's
Notes from the road

Page 34

.Early December: As our first month in Florida was coming to an end, Johanne and I decided we were too anxious to let another month pass before we started furnishing our new house and moving in.
The closing happened on December first as planned and technically the house was now ours.

2008

.    Before we had left for Florida we had the realtor agree to get the green kitchen repainted to yellow. I could not live in a green room anywhere.
      Then later we also decided we did not want to have the rest of the house the dirty brown color that it was painted so we hired the young couple that was doing the house painting to redo the whole rest of the house a light cream color.
      Almost immediatly we started building a punch list of things that needed to be done to fix little flaws or omissions. That list included installation of the window screens, recaulking windows, adjusting door sills, touching up trim paint, fixing the garage door seal, replacing a missing light fixture cover and so on.
      Gary, the builders handyman was very attentive and handled almost all of the problems himself and called in the tradesman when required. As our moving in day approached, Gary and his wife Rose came in and did a thorough cleaning of the house.

.December 7th: After saying goodbye to Aunt Peggy, Arnie, Jeannette and Fred and also our friends at the RV park we left FLA and headed for Fair Harbor RV Park in Perry, GA. (a fairly nice park) to stay while we get the house in a liveable condition.
     We had already ordered two queen mattress/boxsprings from Sears (at almost half price). Then we ordered a refrigerator from Lowes because Sears did not have the model we wanted.
     Most importantly I picked out a 50" flat screen TV for the LR.
     We also ordered a dining set from Mobley. All these items were delivered before we moved in.

. We took him to lunch at the nearby Fatz Restaurant.
And we got to visit our "grand dog" Shayla. She is always excited to see us. She lived in our Southington home for several years before we started RVing.

.Dec 12th: Our son, Ed Jr the truck driver was assigned a load to Winder, Georgia about an hour and a half from Byron.
He arranged to pick up our stored boxes that our good friends Lil & Charles had stored in their basement. Ed Jr loaded his sleeper cab with our boxes of pictures, knick-knacks and other memorabilia and we drove up to meet him and bring our things home.

. The start of a new life, far from the ones we love is a bold move but one we have taken with eyes opened and looking forward to having visits often from family and friends.

But above all else

NO
SNOW

.Dec 19th: We left the RV park for the last time and brought the RV up to the house and started unloading it. All the clothes, bedding, towels, cleaning supplies, pots and pans and the food.
It took the better part of two days to clean out the RV and then to clean the RV itself. Then we delivered it to Mid-State RV for the repairs.
Note: We wound up leaving it there until early June as we had no place else to store it. Finally an opening became available at a nearby storage facility.

.Dec 25th: Christmas was practically a non-event. We were so involved with setting up house we did not have the materials or energy to do much decorating. But thanks to our good friends Lil & Charles we had this nice wreath to decorate our front door.

.Our 50", floor mounted Samsung HDTV

Most important though was to remove the satellite dish, receivers and wiring. I set the dish up in the back yard and fed the wire under the back door and hooked it up to the new TV

. We did have our small RV Christmas tree and our stockings that have traveled with us as well as a few ornaments. So we did maintain the CHRISTMAS spirit and traditions.

. So this ends the year 2008 and the end of our three and a half years of Full Time RV Traveling. Mixed feelings for sure!