Our first few months of RVing

This is the first of a series of entries to try to cover the earlier days of our Rving life style. We sold our house in Gautier Mississippi before Hurricane Katrina, bought the Tiffin Phaeton RV in Birmingham, AL. (The actual purchase is a story in itself -- ask and I'll tell you about it.) After a few weeks at Shepard State Park in Gautier, we sold the house and got rid of anything we felt we could part with, put the rest into storage or into the RV if we felt we would need it and headed east. Following the Gulf Coast, we made a stop in Destin and Panama City FL and then continued on the Cedar Key.

The bend in the tree seemed just made for our RV and "toad" (referes to our "towed" vehicle the Jeep Grand Cherokee). Cedar Key is a neat little fishing villiage and the location of a significant aquaculture clam raising business. I got to tour the breeding area where they grow the seedclams for sale to the farmers. The farmers lease plots of bay borrom, seed the bottom with the small calms and in a few years go back and harvest their catch. I had stopped at the facility to buy some clams for steaming.

Biloxi and the Mississippi Coast

We spent Christmas and New Years here in Biloxi. Today is our last scheduled appointment. We’ve cleaned most unnecessary stuff out of our storage and cut the storage requirement in half. All our doctor visits have been very good. We’re doing pretty well for being young senior citizens. We have managed to visit with some friends. I’ve been able to play golf once or twice a week but my scores have not been too great. I’ve had a few scores in the mid 80s but failed to break 90 twice. (YEECH!!!) Bicycling has been one of our pastimes. We have taken a few short rides locally to Hiller Park, a nearby city park, and to the VA. Yesterday we were in Lucedale for dental appointments. On the way home we stopped at the Pascagoula Wildlife Management Area near Wilkerson Ferry and went for about a five mile bike ride on the dirt roads through the management area. The river is at 18’ which is just a few feet below flood. The higher water prevented us from getting all the way to Josephine Sandbar but we were able to enjoy a pleasant picnic on one of the walkways out into Rimes Lake.
Sandi had done a little work on her quilts—one she is doing a repair job on for Marisa and Sammy our grandkids in Maryland. I have been able to complete a few maintenance chores on the RV and Jeep. I may try to complete them today. All I need to do yet is change and flush the coolant in the Jeep and do an oil change on the generator. We are starting to get antsy to move on. We’ve been doing some buying and selling on E-bay and Amazon and have some stuff in the mail. As soon as we receive all that stuff, we will probably move on.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone!
We spent the day at the Keesler Fam-Camp in Biloxi MS. Christmas away from family is a bit lonely but that is one of the sacrifices we made when selecting this lifestyle. We are gratefull for the time we do spend with family during the year when we get back east. We did exchange gifts with family members and made phone calls throughout the day to wish everyone holliday greetings.

We did go the the Beauvoir Methodist Church for Christmas Eve Services and then Sandi took me to see a lighted neighborhood that she and her friend May visited the day before.

Christmas dinner was ham (excellent), and our Christmas Cheer was either margaritas or Creme de Menthe Grasshoppers. The gifts we received were most appreciated. I still think we could cut back more which should be easy for family buying for us since room is a limiting factor when you live in an RV.

We have complete seperating our storage stuff into the stuff we still are not ready to part with and the stuff that we feel we no longer need. We will get ride of the un-needed stuf in the next few weeks - either by selling it of taking it to a charity. We'll be glad not to have the big storage bill.

We have either scheduled or finished most of the need-to-do things except for visiting a few of our friends from when we lived here, and will be ready to depart Mississipi for the far west in a few weeks.

We did take a drive down highway 90 from Gulfport to Biloxi and it is quite apparent that the coast is on the way to recovery but it still has a long way to go. Our hearts really go out to everyone down here.

Nashville to Mississippi Gulf Coast

We departed Nashville and continues further south. We got on the Natchez Trace at its terminus just south west of Nashville and followed it to a point just north of Tupelo MS. From there we went to Red Bay, AL for some maintenance at the Tiffin facility. The good news was that I was able to get some questions answered and decided that I did not need to have them do any maintenance. So I got in a quick round of golf 45/45 at the Redmont Club and we departed for McCalla, AL to spend some time with Jayme, our daughter, her husband Chris, and especially our grand daughter Braelyn. Braelyn is still as pleasant as ever but Sandi and I both found out quickly that she likes to stand and just be supported. Attempts to hold and hug her resulted in crying granddaughter. Since she almost never crys, we will have to curb our desire to hug. We are camped at McCalla Campground about three miles from Jayme and Chris’. I had hoped to play some golf but the Tannehill Course near here where I used to play a lot of golf is being turned into a subdivision. I’ll need to look for some cheap golf around here somewhere.

11/19/2006
The weather was beautiful two days ago. Sandi and I went out for a bicycle ride and after returning, I could not sit around with the weather so nice so I went out to Frank House Municipal Golf Course in Bessemer for a 42/41 round.

Jayme and Sandi took off shopping leaving me alone with Braelyn. Boy did I like that. What a great child she is. Doesn’t cry unless there is something wrong – tired, hungry, or wet. Even I can figure that out.


We attended church at Pleasant Hill UMC, Jayme’s church. The Paster gives the best sermons.After lunch at Subway and lounging around at Jayme’s, Sandi and I went to hear Handel’s Messiah at a Methodist Church in Hoover. The Birmingham Civic Choral Goup and the Birmingham Symphony did a great job. After the Messiah, Sandi took us out to the Firebird steak house for a very good dinner. Most enjoyable evening

12/07/06
Weather here is turning cold. After a rather mild period, temperatures dropped to into the 20s at night and on warmer days up to 60. Looks like it may get down into the teens the next few nights and only into the 40 during the day. For the last week and a half Sandi and I have been afflicted with a miserable cold. Although we are both starting to recover, we still have some persistent symptoms. We had baby sat for Braelyn and believe she probably brought it to us from her day care. Chris and Jayme both had it as well but in their youth they recovered a lot quicker than we did.

I did not get to do any golf marshalling so I have not played as much as I would have liked. Between the cold temperatures and having a cold I only got out once. That was yesterday when I shot 41/48 at Frank House Municipal course in Bessemer. I figured that would be my last until I get to MS but it appears as if the weather may get up into the 60s again before we leave so I may get to play one more time here.

We did get to ride our bicycles. One day we headed west on the road by the campground. The hills were too much for Sandi so even though we only went a few miles, she was beat and on most of the hills, she had to get off the bike and push. A day or so after that trip we went again heading east and went the three miles to Jayme and Chris’. I helped Jayme hang Christmas decorations/lights outside. Their place looks nice and Jayme is obviously proud of her accomplishments.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

We leave here in two days. Just a week and a half from Christmas, Christmas is going to be lonely. Jayme and Chris have plans to go to his parents this year so we would not see them much even if we were here, We have had some time together and we have had a lot of time with Brealyn. I got to spend time with her while Sandi and Jayme went shopping, Sandi had some 0ne-on-one while Jayme and I went out and Sandi and I had her at the RV on several occasions during our month here. She is one fine little baby. It has been fun watching her grow up. We have seen changes in just the four weeks we were here.. She can grab things and reaches for things, is very attentive to the cats or anything that attracts her attention, She is so close to crawling. I know that one of these moments she will be off a going. She slides along but is not quite crawling.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Last night was our last get-together with Jayme, Chris, and Braelyn for a while. We hope to get back to visit them sometime between March and May but the parting was painful. Don’t know if it is because we are getting older and more sentimental, the grandkids or what but everytime we leave family it gets harder.

We had an early Christmas at their house last night. We exchanged gifts and had some champagne and wine with a pizza supper, some small talk but lots of watching Brealyn. Her first priority seemed to be to eat the wrapping paper but she did get to examining and playing with a few gifts from Nana and Pop Pop. It was a great night.

We drove from McCalla to Biloxi and we are now set up at the Fam-Camp at Keesler AFB in Biloxi.