The Solstice is just past, the days are longer, the sun feels warmer, and it calls for a celebratory blog post. Maybe it’ll be a Christmas letter in disguise…?

It does feel like Christmas around the Jones motor home. We have given up lots of our previous life to live as vagabonds, but one tradition for Shannon that she refuses to give up is baking Christmas cookies. (I’m continually thankful for small miracles.) And she always is experimenting with new recipes making me the official guinea pig, and her inspirations come from the Christmas cookie contest that the Star Tribune sponsors every year. She bakes most of the winners, and all I can do is smile broadly. Even in our cramped quarters the dirty dishes pile up and all surfaces are covered with cooling cookies. The visual and olfactory senses are delighted, and all ploys are used to distract Shannon so that the taste buds remain stimulated.

Full time RVing also presents challenges at Christmas. Being in some exotic locale away from kids and grandkids means packing and shipping boxes. A production line is set up and unfortunately a lot of the cookies disappear into the boxes. It’s a sad day indeed for me, but knowing others whom we love dearly will benefit helps.

And so Christmas at the Jones motor home goes. This season as true to all the past years comes with threats from Shannon that I better write something or I won’t be able to go out and play. So, I will subject you to review and reflection. Oh, boy…

The year of 2014 started with our arrival at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. On the first day we drove into the dunes and forgot we were on gypsum sand in New Mexico and not a back country MN snow covered road. We were excited we were in NM and not MN because the weather was much warmer and there was little fear of getting stuck and suffering from frostbite.

This volunteer gig was unusual. We were called on to not only work at the Visitor Center, but deliver a talk for the daily sunset stroll through the dunes. The experience was one of the reasons we wanted to volunteer: be challenged to learn new things. We had to be on top of our game to be able to sound intelligent and be sure that we were mostly telling the correct story. It was a very enjoyable assignment.

We then moved on to Wolf Creek National Fish Hatchery in Kentucky. The climate, scenery, and message were very different from White Sands. Variety is good. This was our first volunteer gig where we were responsible for feeding and caring of animals from a skunk to tree frogs. The highlight was the annual fishing derby where hundreds of families come to spend the day fishing in stocked ponds below the hatchery raceways.

Our last and present volunteer gig was at Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. This brought us back to being close to my niece and family and allowed us to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. Our last shift here is January 3, and we will leave the refuge on the 5^th of January. Ultimate destination is Big Bend National Park in Texas for three months and then onto Colorado for campground hosting May – September. But those stops are for next year’s post.

The highlight travel experience for 2014 was our 50+-day RV trip through the Atlantic Maritime Provinces. The trip started at Bangor, ME and ended in St. John’s, New Brunswick. In between we visited Quebec City and the Gaspe Peninsula, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, and New Brunswick. We traveled with a fun bunch of RVers, saw sights we have never seen before, learned more about cod than we had ever thought we needed to know, were delighted and sometimes not-so-delighted with the local fare, loved the music and the cultures, and were favorably impressed and intrigued with life in Canada. It is a trip that we will always remember and we hold the experiences dear.

We also joined another group of RVers for a 7-day exploration of Washington, DC and surrounding environs. It was a whirlwind tour and left us wanting more time to explore more deeply, but at least we did sample what our nation’s capital and the history of the area had to offer. We also worried about a world-side shortage of marble after seeing the multitude of marble buildings and monuments. And I’m starting to suspect that the weight of all that marble in such a small area may be a leading cause of global climate change…

We were able to experience some family time. We visited with my brother and sister-in-law on three occasions (his beard has always been fuller than mine), first cousins on my Dad’s side of the family, Kedric who flew to Charleston to help celebrate Thanksgiving, and my niece and family who were the very capable and gracious Thanksgiving hosts.

Shannon was in Grand Junction twice in 2014. On the second visit she was able to see her brother and three cousins among many other family members.

Family time not only included joys of renewing acquaintances but also the sadness of saying goodbye and letting go. I lost Kris, my cousin on my Mother’s side of the family whom Shannon and I had only met two years earlier for the first time and had a delightful visit with she and her husband Ed. My nephew Evan passed in March, and I was fortunate to be able to fly to PA and join my brother and family in their mourning. And Shannon’s brother-in-law Earl gave up his gallant fight in August. Shannon was able to return to Grand Junction in October for the memorial service. These were sad events that reflect the reality of life. We grieved, but we will not forget; they all live in our memories.

Whew! It was a busy and full year. Through it all we remain committed to living this bum-on-the-road life for a few more years. We have more places to go and things to see and new food to sample. I must admit, although, we do occasionally get into conversations that center on what happens next and maybe we should be starting to think about the next phase of our lives. But I’d rather go out and play; so, that discussion will have to be in next year’s Christmas letter.

We do hope you are able to celebrate Christmas in your fashion. We hope also that you stay healthy and we can talk next Christmas. It seems Christmas is something that lives on and on and carries with it many good memories. May your lives always be like Christmas.  

And this letter would not be complete until we show once again, Not-My-Idea, aka Tuzi.