Terry and I both want to thank everybody for all of your well wishes following our announcement yesterday that we have purchased a place to be our winter base and someday retirement home here in Florida. You really have made us feel very special and very loved.
A lot of you had questions, and I will try to address some of them here.
First of all, I AM FINE! Several readers wondered if we made the decision because there was more to my health issues last year than I have revealed. No, not that I am aware of. When they discharged me last November, the hospital in Petaluma, California said I had a “mass” on my left kidney. Mass is a very scary word, and given my family’s history with cancer, we were pretty freaked out. But follow-up X-rays, CAT scans, and an MRI at different VA hospitals have found no evidence of said mass. Keep in mind that this was the same hospital that insisted I was an alcoholic even though Terry and I both told them repeatedly that I have not had a drink in well over 40 years. They also said I was an African American in one of their reports. Nope, wrong again, I’m a pasty white boy.
Another question is will be replacing our Ford Explorer with the pickup we bought last week, or towing one while Terry drives the other when we are traveling. No. We’ll continue to tow the Explorer and leave the truck in the garage when we are off having our RV adventures. We had not planned to buy a second vehicles at this time, but it was such a nice truck at such a good price that we just could not pass it up.
Some readers asked if we plan to sell our Winnebago diesel pusher and downsize to something smaller. We don’t see any reason to do that. We love our motorhome, the floor plan is perfect for us, it’s in great shape, and it’s almost paid off. It would cost us way more to downsize and buy less.
How much time do we plan to spend at the house and how much traveling? I have no idea. We sure don’t want to be in Florida during the hot, humid summer months. Terry’s parents, my daughter and her kids, and my cousin Beverly are all in Arizona, and we go back to see them every year. There is also a lot of this great big country of ours that we still want to see, and places we want to get back to again.
And finally, a lot of people want to know how long it will be before I get that pontoon boat. That’s going to have to wait a while. Moving from a 320 square foot motorhome into a 1600 square foot home is going to require a bit more in the way of furniture. So toys will get pushed to the back burner for a while. Then again, I did not plan to buy a truck when I woke up Friday morning, but I had one by the end of the day. Sometimes unexpected opportunities come along, so who knows?
Thought For The Day – The biggest problem with communication is that we don’t listen to understand, we listen to reply.
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Nick Russell
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Congratulations on purchase of your new
home! Now you can get more stuff and not
have to have your clean out days. It is nice
to have a place to call home, it makes the
travel plans so much more fun. Still looking
forward to your blog, G/J, and books. Now
to get the boat.
Gene & Cheri
We went through the same thing when we bought our place last fall. We didn’t want to gut the motorhome of everything in it and have to move it all back in next time we went out. It was like getting married and stocking your home – even down to a potato peeler! As far as furniture, consignment shops and thrift shops were our best friends. Congratulations and good luck!
Hi Nick,
I must admit that I am a snoop, so you may want to say “none of my darn business”:) Is this deeded property or a long term lease on the property? I looked at some of the addresses, and there is no property tax assessment. A few have an assessment for mobile home attachments.
We have a place in a park that is a cooperative. Since we are share holders in the coop and lease our lot from the coop, we are taxed as real estate. The few people that are not share hold have a trailer tag, even thought, they are manufactured homes.
We’re going from a 32′ motorhome to a 729 square foot park model and arizona room and have a hard time believing all the extra room…I can’t even imagine 1600 square feet. Miss Terry will have lots of space now for those looms, so furniture may not be such a necessity.