We are still sojourning in Maryland, and haven't set a definite date to get back on the road. The “family business” that brought us back here was the birth of our first grandchild. Because this blog is in the public domain, I refrain from putting anything too personal about family on it. I don't mind giving some crazy details about our traveling life, but the rest is off limits. So, there will be no pictures of the new baby, but I will say that we have been blessed with a beautiful, healthy, dark-haired baby grand-daughter, and Mom and Dad are recovering after a tough labor and delivery. We are so proud of our daughter and son-in-law!
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Our stay in Maryland has been cold, snowy, icy and crazy! After 3 winters seeking warmth in Florida and the Southwest, we planted ourselves back in Maryland just as the insane weather started. Instead of bringing the warmth here with us, we have been blamed for bringing the cold! We dragged our winter clothes out of the storage locker and bundled up. The RV is still being stored in north Florida. Thank God we didn't bring it with us and try to live in it. That would have been a disaster. But, north Florida had record cold as well, and we didn't winterize the rig, by the draining pipes and the water pump, and putting in antifreeze. Didn't think we would need to! We are praying that on our return we won't find damage. So instead we found a rental on AirBnB, and have been snuggled up a short drive from our daughter's house. The owner left us a snow shovel, which we needed, and a warm house, so we are fine, but ready to move back to our house.
We originally rented for a month, timing ourselves to arrive in the area ten days before our daughter's due date. This baby was in no hurry to be born and arrived 11 days late! We didn't want to plan much for three weeks while we waited, and wanted to be easily available. Then the weather hit, and with a storm every few days, and lots of icy conditions, we spent an anxious time worrying about their trip to the hospital. As it turned out, they did need to drive through the beginning of one of the storms, but our son-in-law who grew up in Cleveland with lots of snow, handled the ride well.
With the late arrival of our grand-daughter we decided to extend a week in our rental. Then we'll stay a few days with family and friends before we head south again. When we arrive back in Florida and are reunited with our home, we'll have to get a hitch installed for the car. Speaking of the toad, it has been in shock in the snow. Our car originally had a Miami owner. We discovered that the windshield washing fluid was so diluted that the first time we tried to use it in the cold weather it was frozen!
Our plans for the rest of the year involve staying East, slowing down, and work camping. We've spent a lot of our free time working on applying for jobs. Joining workamper.com gave us an opportunity to network with employers. We wrote our online couples resume, picked out jobs that looked interesting and sent off resumes online with a click of the mouse. To our surprise the first employers we heard from saw our resume online and contacted us. With no previous work camping experience, we had gotten the impression it might be hard to find a suitable job. We got offers from all over the country, including Alaska. Since we had already discussed the details of what we were looking for, we could pretty quickly weed out the inappropriate ones. We knew we wanted to stay in the East, have free hookups, and full time jobs with hourly pay. A lot of employers want a certain number of hours worked to pay for your site before you get paid hourly. Some just want to give you a site in exchange for a part time job, but no pay, essentially volunteering. Our goal is to make money to offset some expenses, so we were looking for specific types of jobs.
We also had to decide what we are willing to do. Greg wants to be outside doing groundskeeping and maintenance. After years stuck in an office, the geologist is ready to go back to his fieldwork roots, and enjoy the outdoors. I knew that I would be happy working in some type of customer service job, at a front desk or in retail, but not housekeeping. My deal breaker is cleaning toilets! So between the two of us we could offer a variety of skills. Interviews take place over the phone. We had several with employers from the east. Two interviews were with employers that we contacted, and two with employers that called us and we thought sounded interesting. Doing an interview on speaker phone with your spouse takes a bit of getting used to. After traveling together for the last two years, I think we have learned more about each other, and how to communicate better, so those skills helped us to share an interview.
Our interviews resulted in four definite offers, so we are now in the process of sorting them out. Actually, we've made our decision and are waiting for the “paperwork”, so, I will wait on releasing the details of our employment until everything is finalized. I will say that I will not be cleaning toilets! We are very excited about our plans and expect to be in New Hampshire from mid-May through October, close enough for the occasional visit back to Maryland to see the grandbaby. In the meantime, we will stay in Maryland for a few more chances to see our grand-daughter, and take care of a few other matters. I have other family members including elderly parents in Maryland, and still have some more shopping trips with Mom!
Be back up again when we are on the move back to Florida. We are both getting itchy feet and we miss our humble home!
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