Joan and I have always enjoyed traveling.  However, unlike many of our friends we really do prefer driving to other modes of transportation.  It gives us the freedom to follow whatever schedule we choose and to make whatever detours appeal to us as we see things that sound interesting along the way.  So, with that in mind, last year we bought a motorhome.  We have always enjoyed camping, but did it in tents often carried several miles in a backpack to achieve that “true outdoor experience”.  Many many times when we were in our 20’s, 30’s and 40’s we have made fun of the old white haired geezers driving these behemoths and questioned why they would even bother to leave home in such a contraption.  But now in our 60’s the idea of sleeping on the ground, crawling out of a sleeping bag and going outside to find someplace to pee in the middle of the night just does not hold the appeal for the old bodies any longer.  I guess we’ve gotten soft (and definitely old).

After talking endlessly it seems about driving to Alaska in the motorhome (nicknamed WildaBeast or just Wilda for short) we finally departed from Ponce Inlet on May 6.  We have nine month old twin grandchildren in Houston, Texas and wanted to get one more dose of them before really leaving for the summer long journey, so that was our first destination.  As we pulled out all of my tennis playing friends were out on the courts of our condo complex for the usual Tue/Thur/Sat mixed doubles and gave us a rousing sendoff with a group wave of their racquets.  This was the highlight of the first day and things went downhill from there.  Shortly into the drive the refrigerator started beeping and flashing a message that it was not cooling.  We moved the few items into the little auxiliary cooler and kept on trucking.  The end of the first day found us near Pensacola, Florida and tired.  It also found us in a campground where we discovered after getting all set up for the night that the electricity in the campground was not working.  We also discovered that that little cooler worked a lot better than we expected since everything inside was now frozen solid.  If you have not experienced frozen hard boiled eggs I do not recommend them.  Not really wanting to move on this late in the day we made the best of it that night with our generator power.  Days two and three were rather uneventful, except that at the end of day three upon arrival at our daughter’s family’s home in Houston our towed car battery was DOA.  Ford has since replaced that with a new one and Wilda has headed for the refrigerator repair shop.  The visit to Houston was just to be for a few days, but evidently parts for motorhome refrigerators are not so readily available as home refrigerator parts.  So, already that need for a flexible schedule has kicked in.  And while we are chomping at the bit to get back on the road, there could be worse things than spending a little extra time with the grandbabies.