Next Stop 2015

Ho-Ho-Ho, Merry Christmas.

Christmas 2014 has come and gone.  We are back in Cleveland, Georgia  spending time with Kathie's family and awaiting the final purchase of our country cabin.  We stayed in Kingsport, Tennessee until December the 14th and then moved back to Georgia.

Once we got back to Georgia we set up camp at Leisure Acres RV Park.  We have stayed there several times now on a few separate visits and like the park a lot.  The owners are great folks and give a big discount to active duty and retired military.  I like that as I like saving money everywhere I can. 

 

 

Once we were set up and settled into our life at Leisure Acres it was retirement as usual.  I have become a master at doing nothing.  With so much free time I need to find something to do.  My lazy lifestyle has added about 50 pounds to my frame over this last year.  Just when I was trying to figure out how to shed a few extra pounds the RV Park owners invited us to a Christmas luncheon at the park's community center.  Oh well, how about I start my new exercise program after the new year.  I got an idea about a New Years Resolution :)  Isn't that the way it's done?  Until then I will continue to eat my Lucky Charms and have skinny thoughts about life in 2015. 

 

 

Just a few days before Christmas Kathie and I hosted a pizza party for our Cleveland family.  It's always good to get together and see the kids and catch up on all the news of the adults.  It's also a great excuse for me to eat lots of my favorite food, PIZZA.  Wow does that go great with beer, but no beer at the party.  I'd have to wait until I got home before enjoying the brewesky.

 

 

 

 

We celebrated Christmas Day with Kathie's mom Jane and then with daughter Heather, son Jeremy and their families the day after.  The weather was a pleasant 60 degrees and plenty of sun.  After lunch the kids were ready to go outside and play.

 

 

 

 

Mike, Heather's soon to be husband has been one busy elf and erected a tree house for their kids complete with a zip line.  It is a 10'x10' platform that stands 22' off the ground.  The kids had a blast riding the lift chair seat from the top of the tree house to the tree line below and then getting double the fun when Mike pulled them back to the tree house.  Great job Mike, I can see you will have job security at your platform station for many years to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids all took turns and had a great time.  I can see that will be a big event at their house for years to come.  A child never out grows an adventure and the tree house will be their lookout into their teen years and beyond.

 

The following day, December the 27th we headed back to Tennessee.  Our visit was only an overnighter and then back to Cleveland.  We would share a delayed Christmas with our Tennessee family.  The weather on the drive up was scattered rain, but nothing heavy.  Our plan is to stay out of the ice and snow as much as possible.  So far that horrible winter that has been predicted hasn't yet happened.  We are only a few days into the winter season, still plenty of winter and time for that bad weather that everyone thinks is sure to come.  I'm hoping it won't happen, not until we get clear of the mountain region and into the sun belt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For as long as I can remember my Mom has always had a big Christmas dinner for her family, their families and all the neighbors who wanted to attend.  If there were 50 people who showed up, that was a small crowd.  Mom has always loved putting together the event and did most of the work herself.  Now at the age of 86 and failing health she has had to sit the last couple of years out and allow someone else to do it.  This year my youngest sister Linda took charge and did one heck of a job to continue the tradition, with Moms help of course :)  Having a full time job didn't slow baby sister down, she did a fantastic job.

 

 

 

A big Thanks sis for stepping up and making this happen.  Thanks also for all that you have done and continue to do to support Mom and be attentive to her care.  I hope once you have had the time to catch your breath you find those glasses you misplaced.

 

From here we are looking forward to the new year and the start of 2015.  What will this next coming year bring?  Regardless of where we go or what we do it is sure to be another adventure.  Hopefully we will start the new year moving into our log cabin, then on to a warmer climate until spring and the return of warmer tempts in the Smokey Mountains of Tenn-E-See.

 

 

We are waiting to get the call for our new property closing date.  Most likely around the 1st of the new year.  Until then we will remain here in Georgia where the weather is milder than the Tennessee area we are wishing to settle in.  

 

Kathie and I have done about all we can do for now.  2014 has been a fantastic year. We have traveled thousands of miles living as full time RV'ers, met a lot of nice people and seen a lot of this beautiful country of ours.  We await the start of 2015 and look forward to all the new adventures and challenges that are sure to come.  Hopefully your New Year starts off with a big bang and all your resolutions come true.  As for me it's the usual, I plan to loose weight, haha.  Thanks to all of you for your love and support thru this past year. 

 

Hugs, Dutch and Kathie.  See you back here next year.

 

 

Here's to a skinnier us in 2015 :)

 

  Http://whygodutch.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

Where to Next?

We  have been back from our summer long vacation spent in Alaska, almost three months now.  It seems like yesterday we were looking at tall mountains, long hours of daylight and large animals.  We were back to Tennessee on the first of October and since then we have been running back and forth between Tennessee and Georgia.  We started off with Tennessee and my having doctor appointments, then back to Georgia for Kathie's doctor appointments.  Back and forth it seemed from one state to the other, from one doctor to another.  We are blessed as the distance between the two states are only a little over two hundred miles each way.

At the present time we are back in Tennessee until after Thanksgiving.  Then it will be back to Georgia for the month of December and the Christmas Holiday.  During our month in Georgia I will have to return to Tennessee for more doctor appointments.  These appointments are for wellness visits and nothing serious.  A couple of the appointments have been for dental, again nothing serious.

 

Our stays while in Tennessee have been spent at the Eastman CG as well as Warriors Path State Park CG.  The picture above was taken while at the Eastman CG and the one below was taken while at Warriors Path CG.  We had great sites at both places.

 

 

We are now back at Warriors and our favorite campsite.  We have stayed here so much that we know which sites work best for us.   We're not happy when the campsites are right on top of one another.  Having a great view of the lake is also a plus.  This time of year it's also a great bird watching location. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had not intended to remain in Georgia or Tennessee during the cold months. Our plans after returning from Alaska was to start our southern migration after Kathie's appointments in mid October.  Then my doctor scheduled me another appointment as well as my having dental appointments scheduled at the last minute.  We knew this might happen as we spent the entire summer away and held off those appointments until after we returned.  As it stands now we most likely won't be able to escape to the warmth and sun of Florida until around the first of January.

 

While we wait out our doctor visits and move from campground to campground, the weather has been of a concern.  The temperatures have been up and down.  You expect that for this time of year.  What we didn't expect was that we'd set some records for low temperatures this time of year.  The fall season turned bitter cold long before the start of the winter season.  It has been record setting everywhere it seems. Buffalo, NY receiving seven feet of snow in a week.  That is as much as they get for the entire winter season.  The residents of Buffalo have endured one problem after the other related to the bitter cold and record snow falls.  Here in Tennessee we haven't suffered much more than frozen water pipes a couple of times and going thru a lot of propane in order to keep our travel house warm.  With the temperatures dropping below 20 degree Fahrenheit, we set the thermostat high to stay warm and comfortable.  We can't afford for our plumbing to freeze up and burst.  During those cold spells not even a campfire was enjoyable, so cold you couldn't get warm, even when rotating your body around the fire.  As cold as it was, there was an actual benefit to it.  The low temperatures didn't require refrigeration of the beer, haha.

 

 

Kathie and I have also been tossing around another idea or two since we have returned from Alaska.  Such as, we need a home base to operate out of, a place where we can get our mail, register to vote, drivers license and such.  We thought about a mail service, a place where our mail could be collected and forwarded to us wherever we were.  That would take care of the mail but that's about all.  I also wanted a home in the event we needed to come off the road and remain fixed to a certain location.  We decided to buy something in TN.  A place where we could spend our summers and still travel during the colder months to a warmer climate.  We started the process of looking and seeing what was available at what price range.  It didn't take long for us to be disillusioned.  The property we were looking at for what we felt was a mid range price, was old out dated and way over priced.  Even property was at an all time high.  A level piece of ground was over 10 K an acre, depending on location.  We weren't fixed on any location, county or town.  To us it mattered not where we bought as long as we remained in Tennessee.  After doing a lot of running all about we did settle on a certain area.  That resulted in us picking property we had see on the "For Sale by Owner" site while we were in Alaska.  After a couple of trips to look it over we decided to make an offer if the seller was willing to survey and change the property lines.  The property was being sold from a larger parcel and sold with two and half acres.  After a brief meeting and my explaining where I'd like the property lines, the seller was willing to move the property lines and have it surveyed to my approval.  We felt like we got a fair deal and a great buy.  It was just what we wanted and the price was below the actual value according to everything we had seen in the area.

 

 

 

 

 

We were buying a two bedroom, two bath log cabin, in the county where I wanted to remain,  in the state of Tennessee.  The structure is 10 years old and comes with two stocked fish ponds, one in front of the cabin stocked with catfish and another pond on the back side of the property stocked with bluegill.  There is also a large storage barn/shed as well.  The property is 12 miles from the center of town and far enough out in the country not to be over populated and crowded.  That suited us just fine.  We applied for a low interest rate VA loan and are waiting to close on the mortgage.  We hope to have it all done before Christmas.  In the meantime, we will travel back to Georgia after Thanksgiving to await the closing date on our house.

 

We are looking forward to spending time with family in TN for the Thanksgiving Holiday.  With a large family we have decided to dine out at one of the local restaurants.  It's a lot easier to get everyone there and then to go our separate ways.  A few of us have traveled from out of state to be here with family and friends.  We have been doing this for several years now.  It works well for us as a family and we also get to spend time with some invited close friends.

 

 

 

With Thanksgiving over we have now focused on the Christmas Holiday.  Kathie and I are still in Tennessee, longer than expected.  The deal on the home we are buying has hit a couple of set backs, nothing serious but a delay nevertheless.  The home inspection was delayed a week due to the completion of the new well.  We have extended our stay at Warriors Path State Park CG to await the home inspection as well as my last dental appointment for the year, I hope, LOL.  We have changed our plans several times it seems these last couple of weeks.  We hadn't intended to buy another house just yet. It happened all of a sudden due to such a fantastic buy and the type of home we wanted.  It just made good sense to act as the time was right.  Using the delay time, we measured the cabin room sizes and made some furniture purchases.

 

 

We started to look for furniture that would go well with the décor of the log cabin.  Again the time was right as we found a great sale at a local business that was closing that location.  We saved thousands and bought some fantastic items at a big savings.  We had sold our previous furniture with our former home.  Now we were buying a new home and in need of new furniture as well.

 

 

 

 Between now and the closing date of our home we are in limbo between Georgia and Tennessee, running back and forth.  We will remain here in Tennessee until about mid December and then move to Georgia.  If we are scheduled for closing of our home during that time, we are close and will return to Tennessee for that event.  An overnight should be more than adequate.  Our plans are to be in Florida for the balance of the winter starting on January the first, if not sooner.  Our log cabin residency is to be summer only, then to a warmer climate for the winter season.

 

That's our plan and now we wait.  I'll keep you updated on the events as they happen.  Life is truly an adventure, change after change.  Until our next blog, we wish you and your families a Merry Christmas. 

 

From:

Dutch, Kathie and the traveling gnome along with his side kick moose. 

 

 

 

Http://whygodutch.blogspot.com