Everything old is new and everything new is old. Setting up Gee 2 in the driveway in the cold of the New Year is becoming part of our normal life. As we park in the slot behind our townhouse the neighbors recognize we are getting ready for our winter travel and stop by to wish us well, offer to keep the keys and plants, look out for our unit and in general be good neighbors. Everyone wants to know where we are going this year. Our answer is, as usual, a bit vague. We will visit the kids in Virginia and the ones in Los Angeles. Somehow there is an awful lot of country between those places and a lot of time available this year. We too are fascinated to know where we will have gone by the time I am ready to close this section of the journal in early April. For now open roads and a sense of adventure lie ahead.

Other knowns about this year’’s trip are a visit with Leigh and Pat in Austin, TX; we hope to meet up with the Hoggs in AZ; as of today we will be at the FMCA Convention in Pomona, CA in late March where Carol will do her seminar again. I assume there will be a group from Chai there for us to meet with. After that, we will cross the entire continent (well, most of it) to Rochester by the end of the first week in April or so.

The drive from Rochester to Covesville, VA was uneventful. The weather was various shades of gray with an occasional splatter of rain. We stopped at the Flying J in Carlisle, PA for Gas, Propane and a nights rest. Unfortunately, people far less considerate then us, pulled in behind where we were parked and blocked access to the fueling islands, propane tank and dump station. At 9:00 PM a peremptory knock on the door informed us they we had to move on because no one could move until those who were first in had left. We rolled 6 miles down the road to a Wal Mart along with a dozen others and were left alone in blessed quiet for the rest of the night. I won’’t even try to stay at that Flying J next year. This intersection of I 81 and I 76 (PA Turnpike) is a madhouse with hordes of Canadian Rvers coming down 81 from the 1000 Island border crossing where they pick up it up and many others from northeastern US who are not headed for Florida (or are and are just avoiding the traffic and large cities on I 95). Each year when we reach this point coming down US 15 we haven’’t seen any RVs at all until we get to this intersection.

The kids, large and small and the dogs are wonderful to visit. We were able to be here for Josh’’s 14^th birthday and what a party it was. He had his entire class -– 7 in all -– at the house for active play in the yard and individual pizzas that each got to dress for themselves and a gluten free birthday cake that did not seem to be missing anything. Malena is a miracle worker putting the whole thing together in a day while also driving the older children into school and doing all kinds of shopping.

Dan and I are working to develop a more appropriate site for the motorhome on his property where I will be able to have some more amenities to extend our stay. We are currently limited by the size of our holding tanks to less than a week. Also using a 15 amp circuit from his house really limits what we can use on board. The microwave pulls the circuit way down. Our 1500 watt heater leaves us almost no ability to use any other appliance while it is on. Also, as I may have mentioned in the past, positioning Gee 2 in the driveway is more of an art than a science. It takes 5 or 6 very small maneuvers to essentially turn it around in 10 feet more than its length, without hitting the house, fence or tree and once we are in the space is not very level and requires a lot of blocking to get the refrigerator sufficiently level to work well. In the next year or so we hope to improve the parking, get in a 30 amp service and most importantly get access to his septic system. Now that the specs are in place we can start looking for what it will take to make it happen.

Carol and I had dinner with the Gretchen and Ed Robb last night. We went to the Mill Street Grill in Staunton as we did last year and had a delightful evening chatting about all kinds of subjects. We even got on to politics, amazing that that would come up. Ed has two years left on his current term and I guess politics are never too far from the top of his mind. We read “Friend of the Family” since the last time we saw him and I must admit it casts a different light on this gregarious friendly guy to know how much time he spent undercover in the Mafia for the FBI. Gretchen is still managing their menagerie and has added another quarter horse from the King Ranch to the stable. She is going off to a hunt this weekend.

The weather was in the 60’s today (Monday the 9th as I write) and Carol and I took a wonderful hike further up the Hollow to a hunting lodge (a fancy name for a derelict cabin in the woods). WE hiked with the dogs for over an hour and returned to the house tired and ready for showers. We were disappointed to find the power out, which meant no shower for the time being. Power was restored in time for dinner. Tomorrow Carol will join Dan at an open jam in town, I may go along as audience. We plan to be on the move Wednesday, the 11th.