Hi Folks,
The coffee is ready and it is day one of our grand adventure. It's pouring out and I am glad that we aren't trying to cook over an open fire yet! We moved out of our apartment yesterday and our stuff is conveniently (or not so conveniently) in three different places...Meg's, Cat's and Mary Lou's. (Thanks guys for helping us with this stretch of the journey!)
The camper hunt is on full tilt. The first camper we drove out to see was out in Turner, Me. The drive was over the hills and beyond the woods from where we were, and it was misrepresented to us. (The pics of the camper had been taken in its heyday of new paint, beefy tires and all the sides were all together.) Dave and I were excited beyond our wildest dreams only to be deflated by a sorry sight of a camper that had two flat tires and missing headlight and interior water damage.
We came, we saw, we checked out everything- and then we left. The camper was located on Lily Lane. The road, if you really want to call it that, was pocked with water-filled craters that I had to slowly maneuver around. It should have had a nautical warning of two to three foot waves. I had to be careful not to bottom out our friends' car.
Dave and I had a good nights' sleep at Meg's. It was a nice reprieve from yesterday of being sore from lifting, moving, and scrubbing the apartment until it glistened. We left for the last trip with supplies to Cat's apartment while the bleach dried on the floor. We returned to the apartment to scrub the tub again to find our landlords already inside and inspecting the place. They were highly pleased that in 7years, we didn't trash the place. (If they only knew how much paint I had to scrape off the floor as there were gesso spots and splotches of many colors from my wild abstract summer last year!) We received all of our security deposit back and said our good-byes to them as well.
Tristan is up and on his computer playing games as I type this. Alyssa's taking a shower. Meg's getting oatmeal together for everyone.
The idea for this trip was planted early this year when winter wound its dreariness around us from March until July. I admit defeat. Maine had won and I have decided to be a "Snow Bird", that means I leave for the winter and come back in the summer. No longer considered a "transplant". Also around that time, Meg, Matt, Tristan and Alyssa planned their vacation to Pennsylvania also as a trip to explore a possible relocation for them.
Maine is extremely beautiful in its wildness. However, the job market has squeezed Dave and I out. The people who used to buy my art didn't come to town this season. Dave's job went through a massive change over and he jumped ship before it sank and his fellow co-workers got fired.
He became a freed soul from corporate America. No more sixty hour weeks and diddly squat to show for it. His artistic side emerged. Who is this new person I'm living with? He doned a pen, grabbed a notebook and began writing. To my surprise, he began making money at it, but not fast enough to make a sufficient living though. We began struggling in early summer. We had to rethink our lives. But ironically, the stress visibly left his face features...He actually began to smile more.
Call it a mid-life crisis...he bought an 87 Mustang race car in May of 2012 and our lives have been in the fast track ever since. One change followed another...the dissatisfaction at his work was palpable. I could see his pain. Life wasn't fitting us anymore...we were growing, but our circumstances weren't.
So, there it all is. We are here now... living life in the moment and taking it as it comes. It was rough going this past summer--letting go of all our accumulated stuff at five yard sales, selling my conversion van, and then his Mustang...and today the search for our "Happy Camper" begins in earnest.
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Signing off for now -
The Happy Campers,
Jill & Dave
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