Where Did the Year Go? October 2017 into January 2018

November 26, 2018

A few weeks ago I realized that the only chronicle I have of our adventures from the past year are my daily updates on Facebook showing what we did a year ago on that date. I decided I needed to write a few blog posts about the past year in order to have a place to save our activities and hopefully update those of you who have not been following along on Facebook. The plan is to put up a few posts and photos to summarize the year. Knowing me, this will turn into more detail and photos then I am currently planning, but, oh, well, it's my blog to fill!


My last update had us purchasing a new Airstream and pickup truck to pull it, transferring all our belongings over from the View and driving away from Colonial Airstream in New Jersey and directly to our Amazon jobs in Campbellsville, Kentucky. We hit the ground running, almost literally, but Amazon's rules don't allow running in the aisles. We were pickers again and joined my brother Brian, Lynda and Lyle, and other friends from the previous two years. I lasted all of two weeks before I quit. Greg made it until the end of the season. I spent the rest of the season slowing down, getting settled into the new trailer, and just taking time to recover from the past year of deaths and changes. I just needed “me time”, and there is no time for anything besides working, eating, and sleeping when you are an Amazon picker! We passed the fifth anniversary of our nomadic life on November 12^th.

Towing our new home from Amazon to Maryland

We rotated back to Maryland to spend the holidays with family and enjoy our granddaughter. The weather in Maryland was unusually frigid, and although we stayed inside our daughter and son-in-law's house, we worried about the trailer parked in their driveway. Hooked up to their house current we were only able to run a small space heater inside without blowing the circuit breakers in the house. We occasionally ran the trailer furnace as well, but since it was a new rig for us, we weren't sure what to expect from the effects of the cold.

Looking out our daughter's window to see how the Airstream was surviving the windy, 10 degree weather

A white Christmas is not as much fun when towing a trailer

Just after New Year's on a windy, frigid day with a few inches of snow on the ground, we hooked up and fled to Florida. Interstate 95 South was within the snow and ice band, so to stay away from it, we swung west and traveled down Interstate 81. By North Carolina we began to work our way east again. With no campgrounds open that time of year, we pulled into a Walmart lot for the night. We raced over to the closest restaurant and stayed as long as we could to enjoy the warmth. Back at the trailer we wrapped up, but it was getting colder. We set the thermostat for the furnace fairly low, so as not to drain down the battery needed to run the fan. The furnace just couldn't keep up. We decided to get in bed in lots of clothes with lots of covers, sleep as much as we could, then get up at 6 am and start driving again.

Wearing a whole closet-worth of clothes to keep warm!

It was 5 degrees outside when we crawled out of bed in the dark and raced to the truck. That day we resolved to drive until it was warm. We reconnected with I-95 and drove through the rest of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. There were patches of ice covering the center lines where obviously there had been no plowing, and the incongruous site of snow on the ground at the base of palm trees. Accidents and the evidence of accidents were everywhere. Our long day brought us to a Flying J outside of St. Augustine, Florida. It went down to near 40 degrees that night, and we discovered that the heating duct work under the sink had come unattached. The heat that we were trying to pump into the trailer the night before was just heating the inside of the sink cabinet! The dishes were almost too hot to touch. Greg reattached the clamp and we stayed warmer that night.

Palm trees don't like snow!

The following day we arrived a day early for our third winter of volunteering at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. It was warm, sunny, and good to be back in a place we love!

Ahhh - Back to the Prairie!

Setting up camp at our volunteer site