It’s now close enough to Christmas that Santa is saying it’s about time for a Christmas blog or Santa can be naughty too and all the Welsh cakes will disappear. Presently we are in Yuma, AZ, and it is so warm the inflatable Santa Clauses are wilting. We were able to escape the Tucson Camping World after a full day there and two new batteries. This truly has been the season for giving. Tomorrow we move westward to CA to be in place early for our Rose Parade gathering starting on the 27^th of December.

But, back to the Christmas blog.

We needed to have a picture of the main principles in this blog. A selfie was called for; a selfie with two wiggling dogs doesn’t always translate into award winning portrait photography. But it’s us: Shannon, Tuzi, Lilly, and Alan sitting in a deserted Pima County fairgrounds in Tucson waiting for some word on the fate of our motor home. Merry Christmas.

Looking backward at 2015 because we don’t have much cooking to look forward to in 2016, it was a year filled with both routine and new experiences, renewals of former acquaintances and adding to the list of friends made on the road, health scares, and  travel adventures of the white-knuckle kind.

ROUTINES AND NEWNESS: Volunteering, preparation for moving down the road, and motor home components that fail are now part of the routine life of the RVer. The newness is seeing mountains and sunsets and sunrises and deserts that look different than any others we have ever seen, and waking up in different campgrounds not sure if we are in Ypsilanti or Walla Walla. We started the year in South Carolina and will end it in California. But that is what RVing is all about: a home on wheels.

ACQUAINTENCES: Shannon continues to expand her Face Book contacts with the always interesting characters met on the road. There is a camaraderie developed among RVers who are volunteering. Perhaps it’s because we experience similar things: most everyone has had slide issues, tire troubles, wrong turns, and volunteer coordinators from hell. But maybe too it’s because we know we will likely not see each other again that maintaining connections are important. We visited with the A’s who were loafing in Florida and the Horn’s who were working in Florida. We had lunch with the Twomeys, our favorite MN volunteer couple, in a dingy, dusty eatery somewhere in the desolate New Mexican desert that only the Twomeys could ever find again. We were pleasantly surprised when we bumped into Greg and Kathy at an Escapade event in Tucson in March. Visits are special and partings fill us with conflicts: anxious to get going and heed the call of the road but hard to say goodbye knowing the opportunities may not arise again to see each other face to face. And so we have electronic media to keep us connected and always the memories of the times we were together in the flesh.     

This year we were able to connect with members of Shannon’s family who we have not had the opportunity to connect with significantly within the past. We were able to visit with Shannon’s brother and sister, cousins, nieces and grand nieces. We especially treasure the times we were able to spend with her cousin Joan and her husband Ron and are still laughing remembering those visits. Shannon was able to fly back to MN for a week to get a grand kid fix and to continue our downsizing effort that we started more than 5 years ago. Our oldest grand, Logan, got his driver’s license this year, and our youngest grand, Olivia, was so excited to see her Nana for the first time, and now is a bouncing delight when we Face Time with Rhys. Our downsizing was what was stored at Kedric’s before his move to Portland, OR. In July Kedric and Paul stopped by to see us in Colorado on their way to OR and are now settled in Portland

HEALTH SCARES: I turned 70 this year. It’s a miracle every time I wake up in the morning and an even bigger miracle when I can roll out of bed. Shannon was hospitalized at the end of 2014 in SC for erratic heart rhythms. Her cardiologist in New Mexico in March diagnosed it as a-fib. In September it was decided not to undergo any surgery but to manage it with drugs for a year. She is generally doing okay, but as we age, health definitely becomes a focus in our lives. As of this time, our plan is to continue doing what we have been doing and see where life takes us.   

WHITE KNUCKLES: The white knuckle travel adventures seem to be every time we get behind the wheel of our big rig. Shannon worries about uphills, downhills, curves, traffic, getting into and out of gas stations, and is terrified every time I take over the driving. Our RV travel days are not contributing to our white hair because it is as white as it will ever get, but our knuckles will be permanently white and our steering wheel has permanent hand prints at the 10:00 and 2:00 positions.

So we arrive back at Christmas. And all that can be said is once again “Merry Christmas.”