The Weirdness of My Life

Gulf Shores Alabama
Anchors Away CG




RV living is strange. I wouldn’t call it totally weird, but it certainly is an odd way of being.

First of all, the mushrooms. Yesterday, I looked down at the wall next to the toilet and there, at the juncture of the wall and floor, was a big old mushroom like the one in this picture, growing in the crack. We’d had rain a couple of nights running, so I guess some moisture got in there and … but wait, aren’t mushrooms propagated from spores? I have mushrooms in the refrigerator, but they haven’t been out for a walk since I put them there a week ago. They’re probably busy shriveling and weeping, getting ready to be thrown out, the typical fate of the mushrooms I buy. So where did this rogue fungus come from? I hesitate to consider. Let’s just say it’s one of the strange events that happen in this RV.

Second, I can appreciate a missing sock in an 8-room house with its attendant nooks and crannies. But when you do the wash in a 2x3 space (that’s inches, by the way), how does one sock escape? Is it now seeking its future in the outside world? Is it now standing by the highway, thumbing (or more correctly, toeing) its way to Florida and the warm weather? Did it enlist the dog to sneak it out the door? What was his reward for such treachery? I’m the one with the doggy treats, not my sock.

Third, when your one carpet is both your entry mat and your living room rug, you end up shampooing it weekly. And since there’s no room for a Bissell in this rig, it’s hands and knees, baby, the way the pilgrims probably cleaned their carpets. I didn’t sign on for the Luddite lifestyle.

Fourth, when was the last time your toaster flew off the counter?

Fifth, how many scales have you broken without even standing on them? How insulting.

Sixth, does your mate yell, “Turn on the diesel,” when the shower water turns chilly?

Seventh, does your whole house shake when the dryer gets going? Wait. Maybe that's not as weird as I think it is.

Eighth, are your overhead cabinets not really over head, but at head, so that you crack your skull at least twice a week? I’ve always thought that 5’3” was short. Now I discover it’s life threatening.

Ninth, no junk mail. Which is a good thing, I think, although I miss my catalogs. On the other hand, I must have saved $60,000 so far.

Tenth, no mail. Not a good thing. The forwarding service we hired is wonderful; the DHL service they’re using is decidedly sub-standard. We just got mail from two months ago. The late fees from our credit cards are eating up my $60M savings.

I’m sure if I worked hard enough at this list, it could go up to 100, but I remind you that I am retired, which means permission to be lazy. When I think of another ten, I’ll write another blog. Meantime, I’m going on a mushroom hunt. I have a thing about sharing my private time with a shitaki.

Betty

A Hot Adventure

Cloud Nine RV Resort
Hot Springs, AK

Here we are, perched at the top of a mountain, enjoying the 82-and-breezy weather. Earlier today we went into Hot Springs National Park, having visited the Baths yesterday. The park is unusual in that it surrounds the town’s main street, which is not parkland. Everything else is. But it’s the street of bathhouses through the center of town that is really unique. Some pictures follow.

The hot springs are really hot and throw a lovely mist over every fountain and stream. I read that the water has to be cooled so people don’t get scalded. It’s 145 degrees when it comes through the pipes. There is a central fountain equipped with faucets where you can fill your bottles and containers with the water, which is reportedly very pure and good tasting. I’ll let you know on that one. Our jugs are still way too hot to drink.

The town was famous from the 1800’s on, and especially in the early 1900’s, before modern medicine, when “taking the waters” was thought to cure just about everything. Some of the old time pictures of wealthy people relaxing in their individual tubs and being attended to by African Americans, who of course were not allowed in the waters, gives one pause for thought.

The big news about Hot Springs, however, is that it is the boyhood home of President Bill Clinton (“Billy”) and it would appear that the town is dedicated to him. I was so, so tempted to point out that he is MY neighbor now, not theirs. But in the interests of North-South harmony, I held my tongue.

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Middle America

Here's a list of the fast food and chain restaurants I saw along a mile and a half strip in Hot Springs Arkansas. No wonder America's middle is expanding.
Applebee
Arby
Bennigan’s
Buffalo Wild Wings
Burger King
Chik fil A
Chili’s
Cracker Barrel
Domino’s
Hardee’s
Huddle House
I Hop
KFC
King Buffet
Longhorn’s
McDonald’s
Olive Garden
Outback
Papa John’s
Pizza Hut
Popeye’s
Quiznos
Red Lobster
Ruby Tuesday
Scoops
Sonic
Starbucks
Subway
Taco Bell
Waffle House
Wendy’s
Notably missing from the list is Dunkin' Donuts. How can they establish significant growth without a Dunky's in the morning?

Betty

A Diller a Dollar

West Memphis, Arkansas
Parked by the Mississippi
On the way to Alabammy

You can tell me I’m a hick. You can tell me I’m a redneck. You can tell me I’m cheap, low-class, addicted to bargains. You can tell me anything you want. But don’t tell me I can’t shop at the dollar store.

Once I got out of the big city and into small-town America, I encountered a phenomenon that was so alluring, so captivating, so full of promise I just couldn’t resist it. A store so full of bargains you’d never stop spending your dollars. All of them.

In every small town across America, I am hypothesizing, there exists at least one dollar store – A Dollar General – and more often than not, a second one -- Family Dollar. I’ve seen as many as two Dollar Generals and two Family Dollars on one block.

I guess they buy overstocks of basic items like cosmetics, groceries, tee shirts, household cleaners and candy – aisles and aisles of candy – and sell them well below the ordinary price.

What a find! Yesterday I was in Bowling Green Kentucky on the outskirts of town, and I spied the Dollar Store, so of course I had to check it out. I ended up buying flavored rice, mushroom soup, a ton of plastic plates, napkins, Corian countertop cleaner and a velour jacket and pants in my favorite washable polyester, all for a grand total of $29.

Not only that, when I walked unto the store this morning WEARING the pants that turned out to be enormous on me, they happily let me exchange them for a smaller size, and lent me their bathroom to make the switch.

Now that’s my kind of store.

It occurs to me that the one thing I would invest in, during this time of craziness in the stock market, is Dollar General or Family Dollar, and given that their stock was exactly the same and laid out in exactly the same merchandising configuration, I suspect they are one and the same store. So consider this a stock tip from one redneck, bargain hunting, low-riding chick. I’m sitting here typing in my polyester warmup suit, happy as a clam.

Or maybe even happier, since clams rarely shop at dollar stores.

A Mammoth Adventure

One of the goals we’ve set for ourselves on this great adventure is to see all the National Parks in the country. We’ve already been to Acadia in Maine and the Grand Canyon, but all I remember of the Grand Canyon is the small-plane tour with both kids throwing up in my brand-new Coach bag. So I think we’ll visit that one again.

A few days ago, we arrived in Bowling Green for the express purpose of visiting Kentucky’s own natural wonder, Mammoth Cave, about 30 miles north of the city which, by the way, is tiny by New York standards. Tarrytown is twice as big.

We stayed in a campground just off the Interstate, right in the middle of what I am coming to know as the typical strip mall suburbs of America, with every bad food restaurant ever invented.

Mammoth Cave is so named, not for the wooly mammoths that never lived there in prehistory, but for the fact that it is mammoth. As in enormous. We took the historic tour, tracing the path of the aboriginal native Americans, when they were wanderers, alone and in small family groups, before they were tribal. They used the cave, with its something like 237 miles of tunnels, for four thousand years before abandoning it to outside living. And presumably, sunburn.

The cave was rediscovered in the 1700’s, and then was used for mining saltpeter for use in gunpowder during the Revolution. (And I always thought saltpeter’s primary use was to de-randify young men in private schools.) Once the war was over, the mining operations were no longer profitable so they were discontinued, and the cave was turned into an early tourist attraction. I saw initials and names with dates like 1839 and earlier. Today, writing on the walls is forbidden, but I did find the visitor history fascinating.

The visitors on my tour, by the way, were a bunch of High School kids from Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Idaho, in town for a National Conference of the FFA, which turned out to be the Future Farmers of America. Yes, Virginia, there still are kids who aspire to the land, only now they take courses like Ag Science and Meat Processing. They were silly, and typical, but attentive and respectful to the guide, although the lights did go out briefly three times during the tour and the girls all shrieked every time.

Inside the cave, the mining operation stands as it did 250 years ago, with the original lumber and water- sluicing pipes created out of hollowed out trees. The paths through the caves were widened and elevated where necessary by slaves who created massive walkways, each man carrying one shovel of dirt at a time.

Our two-hour tour took us only a mile or so into the cave, but we were satisfied with what we learned and enchanted by what we saw. It was cool and dry, which also accounts for the fact that we saw no stalagmites or stalactites, which are caused by dripping water. There are some elsewhere in the cave, but not on the "Historic Tour." We went down to about 320 feet below the surface, bending over to negotiate some passageways, and slipping sideways through the narrow ones. I was glad to be only 5’3” and thin enough not to embarrass myself.

The return trip was interesting, because after two miles of walking, we had to climb 255 steps up to the surface. I would have preferred a Disney mining car that rode on a little rail and winched us up to the surface, but the US Government seems to think that low lighting, the original bumpy pathways and a lung-bursting climb up to the surface all add to the experience. Oh god, how many more of these National Parks with their authentic experiences are we to endure?

On the other hand, our guide was older than we were, and he does this twice a day, sometimes more, so who am I to complain?

Damn overachiever.

Betty

Whew!

Hog Heaven Gun Club
White Pine Tennessee

John's observation: Well, at least they have the six food groups.

Betty

EEEEEE Mail

Swansea, SC

Riverbottom Farm CG
Hey Tish!

I just got back from Congaree (River) National Park in South Carolina. Not to be confused with the Pee Dee, Swanee, Catahootchie and other eeee sounding rivers.

It's one of the only -- and tallest-- swamp forests in the world. We took the short trail, about 2 1/2 miles on a raised boardwalk, and looked at the Loblolly Pines, and the towering Swamp Cypresses, and other incredible flora -- but no fauna except for one little green newt and a grey squirrel. Beautiful and eerie.

Miss you guys.

Betty

It's Not a Town Without One

River Bottom Farm CG
Swansea, SC

I’ve taken to noting the kinds of businesses and institutions that no small town lives without. A deli, of course, bars, food stores, at least one antique dealer, which presumes at least one antique in every town, no matter how tiny.

A gas station, one or more churches, schools, someone to do hair, if not in a shop, then in her home. And at least three Dollar Stores. Can’t live without a bargain.

Funeral parlors do come up, but they apparently don’t make the must-have list. I guess it depends on how many dead people there are in any given town.

Now and again you come across a business particular to an area – like the combine, tractor and thresher store. Or the big stretch of land set up for Antique Tractor Pulls. Somebody is making money by providing people a space within which they can pull old farm equipment around. Go figure.

Today I saw yet another sign advertising “Deer Prepared here.”

What do you think they are preparing the deer for? Christmas? “Here, put on these jingly bells, you’re gonna love them. How about a fur-trimmed Santa hat? You’ll look like a reindeer, believe me bubby.”

Or maybe it’s more serious preparation. “Look the season is coming up, you want to practice your zig-zagging, your camouflage techniques, get your sniffer checked, your hearing tested. Don’t wait until some Bozo is shooting at you to discover you’ve forgotten how to disappear into the woods.”

And speaking of preparing, they’re very big on preparing for the Lord down here. They may have a church the size of a chicken coop, but the sign out front is huge, often inviting, and always worth reading. A few of the signs from around these parts:

1) STOP AND REJOICE…RECEIVE THE LUNG WATER. This one had me so confused I doubled back to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong. I don’t know about you, but if I had lung water, I wouldn’t be rejoicing. I’d be drowning. Did they mean to say Lord’s wafer, but ran out of letters? Didn’t anybody throw a dollar in the basket last Sunday?

2) WRINKLED FROM YOUR BURDENS? COME IN FOR A FAITH LIFT.
I like a church with a sense of humor, and no shame about really bad puns. These Christians are obviously my kind of people.

3) GIVE TO GOD WHAT IS RIGHT. NOT WHAT IS LEFT. Ah, the financial statement.

4) NOW SERVING: THE BREAD OF LIFE. The epicurean approach.

5) And finally, the simplest of all: JESUS IS ALIVE.
Not Jesus lives. Or Jesus is among us. But the can’t-argue-with-it-statement, Jesus is alive. Well, first of all, where? In Swansea, South Carolina? Why’d he pick this town and not some other small town. Land values? And second of all, where is he investing these days? I could use some advice.

But maybe the most curious thing I’ve discovered about America’s small towns are the number of stores that sell chrome. Bob’s Chrome Store. Come in and buy some chrome.

What for? Your bike’s rusted? Your bumper is getting a little pitted? You just want a pick-me-up and why not some nice new chrome?

Your town leaves its dead bodies out for the garbage man because you don’t have a funeral parlor, but you have a chrome store? I like shiny stuff too, but it seems to me that you could collect the tinfoil off gum wrappers instead, and use your town funds to at least build a cemetery. It’s the humane thing to do, no?

And now that I’m on the subject of signs, do you suppose that the new funeral parlor will have a sign in front? “Happy Hollow Funeral Home. People prepared.”

The deer would have a good laugh over that one.

Betty

Walkin' the Dog

KOA Campground
Fayetteville NC

John just got back from walking the dog in the RV park's dog run. There were a bunch of kids there. One of them said "There's not a lot to do in here." Then another one brightened up and said, "Will your dog do tricks?"

That Kind of Day

Cape Hatteras National Seashore
Outer Banks, NC

It’s the kind of day where you put a sweatshirt on over your pajamas for your morning coffee. You take a shower and get dressed, then put your sweatshirt on to walk the dog.

Coming back in for that second cup of coffee, you don’t bother to take your sweatshirt off, and before you know it, you’ve worn that shirt inside, outside, driving, exploring, lunching, shopping and walking the dog again.

It’s a sweatshirt kind of day.

The sky is a riot of kites. The ocean teams with windsurfers and sailboats. Parasailors launch themselves from water to heaven and back again. People with cameras litter the shores, trying to capture the pageantry. Everybody wears sweatshirts except the ones in wetsuits.

It’s useless to comb your hair. The gusts are non-stop. The sun competes with the wind for your soul: one warms you up, the other cools you off. As a result, you are neither hot nor cold. But your nose is almost icy and you find yourself sniffling a little.

It’s not a fall day, at least not the kind of fall I know. No leaves have turned, except for one variety of sea grass, so no fall colors are apparent. You don’t smell fire, or autumn decay anywhere. You smell beach, salty, clean and crisp.

You don’t wear fall clothes. You’re still in flip-flops, although you’ve traded your shorts for jeans. You’ve pulled on the usual tee shirt, but over it you’re wearing a sweatshirt.

It’s that kind of day.

It’s the kind of day you drive 40 miles just to look at a lighthouse. You stop on the way back at a crab shack for lunch and discover that the food is beyond delicious. Then you jump on your bike and look for things to photograph. You buy a new pair of your favorite sandals just because they’re on sale.

You launch your kite, only to have the wind whip it relentlessly about, and watch helplessly as it winds itself around and around the one the only lamp pole within a thousand yards of where you’re standing. And you abandon it there, because it’s kind of pretty and you think others will enjoy it while it lasts.

That’s the kind of day I’ve had. A sweatshirt kind of day.





Camp Hatteras

A Great Site

Memo to all my friends who are younger than I am. Which is just about everybody. Don't wait until retirement to plan your retirement. No, this is not about the money. I don't have any, so why would I know about that? Finances you'll have to manage on your own.

I'm suggesting that now is the time to take a look at some of the wonderful places to retire. Even if you'll never leave Tarrytown -- and I don't blame you -- there are some wonderful places to visit in this country, and you can find them easily by googling retirement sites on the Internet.

And just coincidentally, I'm writing a series of articles for www.topretirements.com Not the observations and musings I'm putting on this blog. This series is grownup writing, and actually contains useful information. So consider this a shameless plug, and an unapologetic and unsubtle hint to visit the site.

Look for me at t http://www.topretirements.com/tips/Adventurous_Retirements/Living_the_Mobile_Lifestyle_in_Retirement.html
Betty

The Sickie

I’m writing this as much for me as for you. I want to document a miracle.

On September 15, after a season of traveling through deer country, starting in upstate New York and continuing north through eastern Canada, then south through all the East Coast states (we doubled back and caught Vermont after Long Island), John was diagnosed with Lyme Disease.

He had six big red circles, including a row of four on one leg, so we both thought he might have been the target of a nasty spider. But no, it was more like a deer tick. He was given three weeks of doxycycline and told to take Advil if he had pain. If? The aches and soreness kept him up at night, and during the day he would crash. In very short order, I learned to plan for solo afternoons, as John snoozed away the day, recovering his strength in order to eat dinner, watch half a TV show, then crash again and call it a night.

Nevertheless, we continued to travel, even going so far as Nashville to catch the Eagles in Concert. In fact, the concert was only three days after his diagnosis, so that must have been a real effort for him.

But Lyme Disease is certainly not the miracle.

Two weeks later, he started to have pain in one side, then developed a nasty rash around his torso. Ah, I sagely diagnosed, a reaction to the medicine. I’ve seen this before! So we made another visit to another doctor. He came out of the examining room looking stunned. I pulled away from my People Magazine long enough to catch the look of shock. “What?” I said.

“Shingles,” he mouthed.

Now Shingles hurts. It is a nasty little afterthought, a virus that hides in the body after you’ve had chicken pox. When the immune system is compromised (see above), it can flare up along the nerve pathways, often traveling from one side of the spine, around the torso, and ending in the middle of the belly. Bingo.

John is classic. Ask his friends.

Two nasty things at the same time. The miracle? Wait for it, wait for it.

In all this, John has managed to keep his good humor. He crashes and burns, but apologizes for falling asleep in the middle of … whatever. Use your imagination. He makes fun of his weakness and says he’ll do the dishes, vacuum our tiny rug, wash the buggy windshield. Soon. Not now, but soon.

He’s also gotten behind the wheel of our big rig and driven upwards of three hundred miles at a stretch, then done all the set-up when we arrived. He’s trying to keep up his part of the work. And he’s doing it all with grace and good humor.

Now that’s the miracle. A sick man who makes jokes. Hallelujah.

So I’ve decided we’ll stay longer in Cape Hatteras, spending our days at this heavenly place, sitting in the sun, lying in the shade, reading, resting, watching football and movies and eating out on occasion, until he’s decidedly better.

It’s a sacrifice, but that’s the way I am.

I know. I’m a saint.

Betty

Go Fly a Kite

Camp Hatteras
Outer Banks, NC

I have never in my life had success flying a kite. The highest kite I ever flew got six feet off the ground and collapsed, dead, four seconds later. But today, I flew a kite.

Not only that, I flew it right into the sun. On a string so long it took me almost ten minutes to reel it in.

When I was little, the kites we had were paper. They came disassembled, with their balsa frames in two pieces. You spent a good fifteen minutes trying to put them together, creating aerodynamic tension by slipping the frame into the string that was glued inside the edges of the paper, and it wasn’t unusual to break either kite or frame before you even tried it out.

More often, however, you crashed on your first or second attempt to get it airborne, and some vital part of the kite’s anatomy was forever damaged. We tried everything – scotch tape, glue, bracing the broken limb with a toothpick, but nothing worked very well and the deceased kite was abandoned to the garbage pail, not to be replaced until the next special occasion.

We were blue-collar kids. There wasn’t extra money for breakables. We shared one kite. Nobody had a personal kite unless it came on a birthday, and even then, there was a lot of wheedling and cajoling. “Please, pleeeeze, let me try. C’mon Rich. You can have half my Popsicle. Puhleeze!” Of course, that’s when you broke the kite and still had to give up half the Popsicle anyway.

The boys were better at getting the kite up. Maybe we girls were dynamically challenged, I don’t know. But my mom couldn’t do it either. My dad, of course, was a major flyer. He could even make a kite out of newspaper. It wasn’t as airworthy, but it was an acceptable substitute when we had nothing. He stopped making them after a while, probably because he was sick of the tears and drama when it would crash, as it inevitably did.

Later when I was into dating mode, a kite-flying date would present itself, and I invariably embarrassed myself with my klutziness. I’d break the kite, or fall while running, or run into the lifeguard’s stand (once) or step into a hole. I couldn’t maneuver and look where I was going at the same time. I was a lost cause.

My kids could fly kites. They never asked me to start a kite on its way. Enough said.

But yesterday I went to the Kitty Hawk Kite Shop and bought an airfoil, a lightweight poly-something kite with a baffle construction that is easy to launch because each baffle traps air and pulls it aloft. All you need is a little breeze.

It’s breezy here in Cape Hatteras – or more correctly, Camp Hatteras in Rodanthe at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. I got my kite up in approximately five seconds, and it would be up there still if I hadn’t gotten the idea to come in and shout my good news to the immediate world.

Look at me! I’m flying!

Betty

I Used to Be President

Greensboro Campground
Greensboro NC

I am struck by the way retired people refer to themselves, and it occurs to me that one of the quirks of being retired is the loss of one’s identity.

We live in a world where we are defined by the shape of our bodies and the age we project (younger is better), the toys we can accumulate and put on display (diamonds, boats and Jaguars do say something) and not only the work that we do, but the heights we achieve in the work that we do.

What happens when we put one-third of our identity on the shelf? When we are no longer the president of, or the owner of, or the speaker on the dais, or the manager, section head, or whatever grounds us in the social structure?

It’s not easy defining yourself to the world when all your life you’ve been doing that in terms of your work. I find myself telling people that I am a writer before anybody asks the question. Then I think, “Who cares?” It’s as if I can excuse this lack of employment, this extended vacation or whatever it is that I am doing, by letting people think that the only reason I’m sitting in my motor coach and exploring the country is that I intend to write a book about it. I’m not retired. I’m on a mission.

Hoo-hah. I am too retired. I am not 45 anymore. I don’t own an advertising agency anymore. I am not the president of, the owner of, the speaker at. I’m just me and I’d better get used to it. But what is me?

That’s what we recent retirees have to discover. I suspect it takes a while, and for some of us, it will never be more than what we used to be or do. But I’m trying.

Meanwhile I’m trotting out the bling, telling people that my other car is a Lexus, and mentioning that” I used to be.” And not only that, I still am. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the place where I can say, “I don’t DO anything. I’m retired.” It sounds too old and useless to me right now. But I sure would love to be loved and respected for who I am, not what I’ve accomplished.

So even in retirement I have a growth goal. Being. Not used-to-being. Now there’s a challenge.

Betty

They Call This Camping?

Lake Toxaway, NC
Resorts of America

We’ve just spent six days in a place that could almost not be called an RV campground. In fact it is on the leading edge of a new trend – motor coach resort. This place was gorgeous. Nobody smaller than a Class A motor home invited.

Instead of gravel, bugs, a rickety table and a rusty fire grate, you get an extra-wide, extra-long slab of cement bordered by manicured gardens, trees and grass which is mowed once a week. And an incredible view.

If you’ve never experienced parking in a site that slopes to the left, leaving you to sleep in a bed that slants in the same direction, you won’t appreciate the bliss of a flat, firm surface where there’s no need to drop the levelers – and no swearing, and cursing when you can’t get that damn little bubble to stay in the middle of the level on your dashboard.

Your garbage is picked up at your door in the morning, and if you want to sleep late, the little man with the cart will come back later. We rented, of course, but we were greeted by a lovely man who helped us back in successfully, then let us know that if we wanted to buy, he was the man to talk to.

In addition to three pretty ponds, a gated entrance and a reception building that looks like Trump would be at home here, the whole place is surrounded by its own golf course, and of course you get a cart that you pay for. Which everybody does. Next door is a fabulous four-star restaurant, this in a town that considers Arby’s upscale eating. This is the mountains, people, not the big city. Nevertheless, there it sits.

Most of the people we met were owners, which meant we were in a class below them. Transients, heaven forbid! They had paid – ready for this one? – upwards of $129,000 for their spot, then proceeded to replace the perfectly good cement with slate, brick or some other beautiful paving stone, add an outdoor kitchen and enormous barbecue, high-end table, umbrellas and chairs, and of course, a nice big bar. Then they called in their own landscapers to finish off the look. Here were people who’d paid maybe $300,000 for their motor coach, $150,000 for the site and probably more than that for the customization. Then they called in the gardener! Where do people like this come from?!? Who are they anyway?

I’ll tell you. We went to a cocktail party in the Entertainment Tent on Sunday and met “I was the president of …” and his friend “I was the CEO of…” and their wives who all wore designer jeans, Jimmy Choo sandals and enough bling to light lower Broadway. One of them was named Ann Kroc, and when she told me she owned two sites adjacent to each other PLUS a home across the street on the lake, I decided she had to be that Kroc. As in McDonald’s. Ray and Joan's daughter-in-law? They were nice people, all of them, but if we weren’t outclassed, we were certainly out-moneyed. We decided to act As If.

We met a lovely couple from Florida, Chuck and Cathy Hopper, and spent a day at a local craft fair with them, another evening playing cards at our house, the next learning Euchre at theirs and feasting on key lime pie made from her own limes, then went to the aforementioned 4-star joint the next. He’s one of those presidents and she’s had a long career in civil service and they were lovely and unassuming and nice to be with. We’ll call them when we get to Inverness. I hope I can pick up some nicer clothes before then, but I don’t think they’ll care.

There are maybe a dozen of these over-the-top resorts all over the country, and we’ll try to visit more of them, just because it’s such a change from the ordinary KOA. And it certainly isn’t Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Campground by a longshot.

We figure, if we go to enough of these places, we’ll get used to the altitude, and maybe even be able to act like we belong alongside of the rich and famous, if even for a couple of days.

Ray Kroc’s possible relative included. Either way, a nice lady.





Betty