Because I love you…

When your anxiety ridden husband finally lets on that he only came along on this adventure because he loves you and it was something you were so very excited about doing, it’s only fair to give yourself over totally to the next adventure in life – especially when that adventure relieves him of all that anxiety. So, the lease has been signed (I think there were over 70 spots on that lease/90+ on the lead certifications that we had to initial or sign electronically – and holy moly, we had to do it all again after Audrey passed on!) and two weeks from today we’ll transition from full time RVers to apartment dwellers.

We’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what we’ll need for the apartment, as well as what we’ll need to close up the camper for the winter. Furniture shopping happened end of August, and it’s a good thing we didn’t wait any longer!! We’re told our bed might arrive in time for move in day (3 – 6 week estimate), but the loveseat may take 10 – 13 weeks to arrive. COVID-19 is causing delays we never really thought about. Oh well-thanks to Laura and Matt we are fortunate to have comfy chairs to sit on in the meantime.

Lots of Amazon and Tractor Supply purchases lately, too! Our first time winterizing and storing in colder climate, so we’ve watched YouTube videos and contacted Grand Design to make sure we have all the correct info. Also asked friends who have experience storing their campers in New England. Doesn’t seem all that difficult, just hoping that is truly the case! And we know there are folks willing to lend a hand should we need it.

In the meantime, we are enjoying our last few weeks of camping for this year:
Emma and I spent a night in her tent a couple weeks ago. Was hoping to do it again, but looks like that will wait until Spring.

We’ve enjoyed watching Emma and her team practice their basketball skills over the past few months.

We have had lots of fun playing board games and cards with Laura and Paul. Emma likes to play “the dice game” (a variation of Farkle) and so do we!
Campfires! S’mores! Socially distanced time spent with camp friends!

Samson hangs out with Dave and I while Paul works and runs errands. It’s going to be a huge adjustment when we move into the apartment and can’t have Samson visit. There will be other adjustments to be made also, but the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.

The Fall colors are amazing – perhaps because of the drought? I remember last year saying that everything just looked rather rusty and neither of us recalls seeing much in the way of color the year before either. So we’ve enjoyed the first glimpse of fall foliage we’ve seen in years. Although we woke up this morning to LOTS of leaves on the ground and the oak leaves beginning to turn brown. The colors seem a little bit muted after the little bit of rain we had last night too. I enjoyed the sounds of rustling leaves as Samson and I walked this morning.
We took a ride yesterday to see how the foliage was in parts of Connecticut and a bit North of us in Rhode Island – nothing we saw was more beautiful than the colors right here are camp. We did enjoy the ride and the scenery though. And we found a little IGA Market less than 20 miles away that carries Sabrett Natural Casing hot dogs. I had previously told Dave we might have to drive back to NY when my supply ran out. LOL I was also able to nab the last 3 cans of pumpkin in the store, a hot commodity around here lately!! I think we’ll all have to start cooking pumpkins, since there appears to be no shortage of fresh pumpkins in the stores these days.

And that got me thinking about all the things I look forward to cooking once we move into the apartment. The list is quite long, my friends. I bake and cook stuff in the camper oven all the time, but there are just some things that I think work better in a full size, self-cleaning oven! Self-cleaning is key for some of them as they splatter and make quite the mess. And pan size is another factor. And oven height. I could go on and on, eh? LOL
And that gets me thinking about all the things we sold when we became FT RVers! Dave and I have talked about this a bunch lately too. We’ve come to the decision that we would have spent way more money on storage for it all than we would to replace what we REALLY would like to have once we move into the apartment.
As we posted on Facebook recently, we had to say goodbye to Audrey. She was with us for 12 years. She was an interesting cat, to say the least. Not a lap cat – unless I fell asleep on the couch and awoke to find her curled up in my lap. Not a fan of people – hiding under our bed if anyone even walked past our house. But she got braver when we moved into the camper! She loved to sit by the screen door and watch the world go by. She loved terrorizing Samson. . . and attacking Dave. She would sit at the top of the stairs and watch the people who visited us in the camper. She was loved.
Just because we are moving into an apartment does not mean “Our Life in Reflection” has ended. I begin and end every day reflecting on our life and I hope to continue to share those reflections with you all.