On The Home Front

We have had a very busy, but tremendously enjoyable week.  I have used the blog posts to describe our hikes and adventures this week, but there have been other things happening on the sidelines.

One of the highlights of this week has been the opportunity to spend time with our good friends from Virginia.  We first met Tony and Diana in Nashville last November.  We were parked at our winter campground home, Two Rivers Campground, on Music Valley Drive in Nashville.  We were minding our own business when we noticed a Born Free pull into the site next to us.  Usually, we notice when we get a new neighbor, but we paid particular attention to this rig because it had an Appalachian Trail sticker on the back window.   Gene went out to introduce himself.  From the first words spoken, we were friends.  Strange how that happens sometimes. They were there for several days and over that time we visited with each other numerous times and even went for a walk on the local greenway together.  Much to our surprise, we learned that Tony and Diana were planning a trip which closely resembled ours for this year.  As a result, we’ve met up with them first in Summerdale, Alabama, then Albuquerque, New Mexico, and now on the Olympic Peninsula.

Besides our hiking together this week, we have shared meals together, both at restaurants and cooking in.  We’ve celebrated Tony and Gene’s birthdays. Since they are heading down the Oregon coast when they leave here, they have picked our brains about what to do and see.  They live full time in their small Class C, which is something of great interest to us.  There is no end to the conversation comparing and contrasting big rigs to small.  We have eaten too much and we have drank far too much wine.  There is no such thing as too much laughter.  We have had a glorious week.

In between the hiking and visiting, has been the chores of daily life.  It’s funny, but we still get comments and questions from family and friends (people who have seen us in this full-time RV lifestyle for almost 4 years, but who have no firsthand experience of their own) about how we spend our time.  We are not in vacation mode.  We have a home to maintain with all that that entails.  We have laundry to do, groceries to buy, food to prepare and the mess to clean up.  We have the vacuum to run, the bath to clean.  Our home is a little different from most, of course.  Homeowners may have grass to mow or shutters to repair; Gene has holding tanks to empty and, since the outside of our RV is much like a car, it must be cleaned and waxed periodically.

We have been busy with the Peanut this week.  He is all better, now.  He’s back to his old charming self, ripping and romping through the house when he’s not sleeping or trying to get somebody to feed him.  He still has medicine to take morning and evening and that can be a challenging time for all involved.  I’m not sure if I ever said, but his problem seemed to be a herpes type event.  Apparently, cats can have herpes virus which will remain dormant until something sets it off much like fever blisters in humans.  Cats don’t have fever blisters, but rather exhibit upper respiratory symptoms of sneezing, coughing, runny eyes and nose.  Most likely, this was his problem all along.  Unable to rule out a bacterial infection, however, he is still on antibiotics.

We have stayed at home all day today doing a few chores here and there, but primarily focusing on the upcoming visit of my parents who will arrive on Tuesday.  All must be in readiness for house guests.

We plan to hike tomorrow; it may be the last opportunity since my parents will do much better in the car than on the trail.  We’ve saved all our sightseeing “tourism” type stuff for their visit.