Frigid Water and Sunshine Sandwich

Posted on October 22, 2015 by zanedriver under Motorcoach, Newell, Troubleshooting

There is a children’s book by Remy Charlip called “Fortunately”. It starts out:

Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.
Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.
Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane.
Unfortunately, the motor exploded.
Fortunately, there was a parachute in the airplane.
Unfortunately, there was a hole in the parachute…

So, our week has kind of been like that.

Fortunately

On Monday, October 12, we woke up bright and early at our parking spot outside the Newell Factory for a 6:30 am appointment.

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After the beast was brought into the bay, it only took them 50 minutes to get most of the work done, then another few hours for the only guy who knows how to restring the old style motorized window blind to get it completed. By 12:30 pm, they were done and ready for us to leave.

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Then we loaded in our fresh groceries and headed down the road to Oklahoma City for our first routine inspection of the 515 hp Detroit Diesel Series 60 engine. We want them to fix a few things as well: it takes a long time to finally turn over from a cold start and there is some stray exhaust leaking out by the muffler. We just want to be safe on the road.

Unfortunately

And then it got interesting.

Fortunately, the engine repair shop was on our way out west. Unfortunately, they don’t take appointments.

Fortunately, when we arrived on Wednesday morning, they said we could stay on their front parking pad until they could get us in. Unfortunately, it might be two days from now.

Fortunately, a few hours later, they came and said, Hey we have a spot for you inside! Unfortunately, you cannot stay in the RV, so you have 10 minutes to gather your stuff and find a motel.

Fortunately, we have no place to be. Unfortunately, the coach will take a long time to fix. The engine shop didn’t call Newell Factory until Friday to find out how to get into the engine from the hatch in the floor of the rear bathroom. So, 3 days wasted. Then no parts available until next week. Worst case scenario, lots of time and money to fix the injectors and manifold. Some dollar figure between Ouch and Zoooiiiiiiinnnggggg.

Fortunately, we found a lovely, inexpensive little motel with a pool, microwave, fridge and free full breakfast. Unfortunately, all the non-smoking rooms in the city were completely booked for a national horse show, no matter what the Hotels.com online reservation showed me.

Fortunately, the kind desk clerk worked some magic and gave us a non-smoking lovely patio room facing the pool, which was still open in October! Unfortunately, the water was FRIGID.

Fortunately, the sun was blazing hot.

So the combination of icy cold on the bottom of my wonderful floaty thingy with roasting sun on top, idling around the pool (with no one else crazy enough to swim in an outdoor pool in Oklahoma City in October), soothed by the drifting current and bright blue sky – it was a bliss, contentment and zen sandwich.

For the foreseeable future, we are living in a Howard Johnson motel in OKC. We went to an RV show yesterday and there is a professional rodeo finals event tonight in Duncan. I haven’t been to a rodeo in decades- really looking forward to it.

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So, Yeehaw, Oklahoma- looks like we’re staying a while.

Wendy

What’s in Your DNA?

Posted on October 18, 2015 by zanedriver under Genealogy

Isn’t this the most cool image? These are the people who created my DNA. They are my ancestors. I enjoy just looking at all of these people, going back four generations. Wouldn’t it be fascinating to go back in time and see your great grandfather, to watch his mannerisms, to see how he treats his wife and children, to see how he reacts under pressure? Was he good with his hands? Was he an independent thinker?

Clay’s G-Great Grandpa Oren Smith

What mannerisms and ways of thinking did I inherit? So many people have commented to me that when they see me in a public speaking situation it’s like watching my father. And you know what? It’s probably like watching my great-great-grandfather Oren too.

Create Your Ancestral Fan

My genealogy fan was created in familysearch.org. They’ve made it incredibly easy to trace your ancestors. You start by putting in your full name. Of course, you know when you were born. So start filling in your information.

Now add your parents. Don’t know where they were born? Just look at “sources” and it will show you census records, military records, marriage records, etc. which have your parent’s name. By using a little deductive reasoning you can identify the right source documents, which will have their birth places, etc. Before you know it, you’ve used source documents to trace your genealogy back several generations. Then you can create your own way-cool fan. Most genealogy research can be done from your computer at home — zip, boom, bam. But sometimes you come to that source document that doesn’t just pop up on the screen for you. So then you have to get up from the computer and go hunting. Wendy will tell you about that game.

Clay

————————————————————-

Gene-Caching

OK, now it’s my turn (Wendy).

We love to geo-cache, which is a new type of world-wide treasure hunt. After downloading an app, it uses your GPS coordinates to help you find caches others have hidden in parks, buildings, paths and natural settings. It’s a fun way to take a walk while having something to search for. Another version is LetterBoxing– great for kids (you put stamps in your notebook for every cache you find- the picture below was from a four part Star Wars themed stamp finding expedition).

Terri and the kids Letterboxing

So genealogy is a lot like that— gene-caching. Instead of finding a plastic or metal container, you are locating information about your ancestors. It can be just as much fun as geo-caching but is much more rewarding. Instead of finding a trinket or stamp, you find Grandpa!

We were heading to Silver City, New Mexico, where my great grandfather Charles Thomas White was born. My sister, Kerry, wanted me to see if there was a birth record for him and any information on his father, William Henry White.

The hunt was on!

As Clay mentioned, although there are many digitized, searchable records online (so you usually don’t have to go to the actual place to find source records), the majority of records are still sitting in local towns and cities, waiting for you to physically find them.

Digitizing is really important for genealogy work: imagine a document hand-written in cursive, like a land deed, a military muster list, a ship’s passenger manifest or a birth record, with barely legible names. Someone has taken a photo of it and put it on microfilm, but how do you ever find that document?

Someone else now has to digitize the names in the document: type in the actual names into a computer program, with the book, page and file number, that then becomes available online. If a source document has been digitized you can do an online search by name, date, and location and it will pull up the source document.

Digitized documents have revolutionized genealogy. It’s made the difference between hiking to grave sites, county courthouses and church record vaults (the old way) versus simply sitting at home in front of the computer and doing an online search (the new way).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a huge digitizing program called Indexing. Anyone can volunteer to be an indexer, from their own computers at home. It’s actually quite fun to be an indexer and doesn’t take much time. Many hands make light work and it’s a much better use of time than playing computer games.

So, let’s go on a treasure hunt together!

Silver City New Mexico Recorder’s Office

I went to the Grant County Clerk’s office and asked blundering questions about where to go for information, birth records, etc. They pointed me to the Recorder’s Office just down the hall. The Recorders Office showed me into a records room, with old wooden tables, clunky enormous copy machines and shelves filled with rows of big huge heavy ledgers that recorded mining deeds, property deeds, marriage and divorce records.

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I grinned like a monkey. This was going to be fun! The hunt was on for William Henry White.

It’s always good to have a well-formulated question when started a genealogy search. When and where was he born? Who were his parents? Did he purchase any land? Did he have a mining claim? In this case, I just wanted proof he was there in the county in the late-1800’s and what his occupation was and did he get into the mining fever for silver while living in New Mexico?

I quickly figured out the system and looked through mining deed ledgers from 1884-1887 (according to past census records and information on previous children, they were in Texas right before this time and then in Arizona after that time, so it narrowed the search). Sitting on the floor, I found the slim index books for each fat ledger that listed the grantors and grantees (sellers and buyers) in double alphabets. A forward and reverse directory. All handwritten in cursive script.

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And I found Wm H White, with a page number. A tiny burst of excitement went through me. I hefted the huge ledger to the floor and leafed through it to find the flowing script of the mining deed itself, looking for clues that this was truly my great-great grandfather.

Through searching through multiple indexes and ledgers, I found that some of the documents even listed his name in full as William Henry White, and that he had purchased a 1/3 interest in the Carbonate mining claim, in the Chloride Flats mining district. Then a few years later, he did a power of attorney to a friend to sell his share, just about the time he would have been heading to Arizona.

It would have been a true ordeal to get a copy of these pages, so I photographed them with my IPhone. Much easier. And, I can enlarge at will to read the faint ink scrawls.

New Mexico Territorial Census

I felt happy about finding the mining deeds. Next, I really wanted to see if any other family members were on file. The Records Office directed me to the Silver City public library. The librarian showed me the titles of all their microfilm. One was the New Mexico Territorial Census of 1885. That was right when my White family would have been there. Now that’s a primary source document!

After being taught how to load microfilm into the reader and how to copy pages of interest, I started hunting through the handwritten census. It’s a tedious process with lots of scanning up and down pages and pages and pages of documents. For hours and hours.

And there he was. Wm H White, farmer, in the agricultural census. With a small bit of land, $350 in farm assets, two horses and a mule.

Agricultural Census- line 6: White, Wm H.

And then, in the list of families recorded in the census, Wm H White and his wife, I. F. White (India Francis), three daughters and a son– 1 year old Chas White (Charles).

Territorial Census, W H White and family

I had found my family! It was a sweet, tender moment. Hello there, Great Great Grandpa and Grandma, nice to meet you!

On the Territorial Census, William was 55, born in Virginia and India was 29. Now I had an approximate birth year for William (1885-55= 1830) and a state to start looking for his parents’ names. That’s how genealogy goes- clues lead to more clues.

Newspaper Hunt

We knew from other sources that Charles’ birth date was April 10, 1884 (findagrave.com), but we don’t have an actual birth certificate. The local health department said all the birth records were in Santa Fe. I looked on their website and it stated they may not have much birth information before 1911. Typing in his name didn’t reveal anything. Drats.

My sister suggested I try looking through the newspapers of that time to see if there was a birth announcement. Another source I later discovered is the Library of Congress, which has gathered tons of newspapers, searchable by state, date ranges and names. (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov).

At the local library, the microfilmed copies of the newspaper were tattered and blurred and useless, so they suggested I try the university in town. At the university library I got the appropriate microfilms and began searching. Not easy– newspapers of that time were basically gossip columns with no real organization.

After searching backwards and forwards in the April 1884-July 1884 editions I finally found a birth announcement in the Silver City Enterprise, Friday, May 2, 1884:

“W.H. White, residing at Oak Grove, was recently presented with a ten-pound boy by his wife.”

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It made me smile.

We still don’t have an official birth record for Charles T. White, so the search continues.

Wendy’s Great Grandpa- Charles Thomas White

Do you see how the hunt goes? It’s about asking questions and finding experts (librarians rock!) and searching for answers and a big dose of luck.

And if your ancestors really want to be found, I’m sure they do some nudging from the other world.

Having said all that, again, most genealogy research is done as Clay described — just sitting comfortably at your computer and pulling up digitized source records (census records, land deeds, birth, marriage and death certificates) from simple online searches. Try it. It’s fun!

So what’s in your DNA? Show off your family fan!

The Mighty Mississippi

Posted on October 13, 2015 by zanedriver under Destinations, Motorcoach

The Long Way to Wisconsin

When you start out from Crestview, Florida and intend to wind up in Wisconsin, the shortest route is through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois. But nay, nay, my friend. Been there, done that.

It was one of Clay’s dreams to watch the barges slowly make their way up and down the Mississippi River and not be in a hurry. Just sit on the bank and contemplate one’s navel.

So, we left Crestview and drove due east, making it to Vidalia, Louisiana on the first day. The AllStays app is amazing- showing us both real time location on a map, then you can flip to a satellite view to make sure the beast will fit (65 feet with toad attached). This works well for rest areas and truck stops as well. Since we boondock (stay overnight without hookups and live off our generator, batteries, water and dump tanks) on the way to longer stays, we need to know if truck stops have pull-through parking, as we cannot back up in the RV with the toad (towed vehicle) attached. Not all truck stops are created equal, but you need to know this ahead of time.

Riverview RV Park, Vidalia, Louisiana

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We stayed at the Riverview RV Park on the Mississippi River. The GPS voice pronounced it “Muh SISS a pee”. Being a word nerd, I giggled at that and kept repeating the mispronunciation. Clay has to put up with a lot.

The RV park is smack dab next to the river. You have to cross the levee to get to it, and sometimes it is closed due to river flooding.

Sideways tug blocking part of the Mississippi River– I wonder if they ever got it turned around?

We got situated and then walked along the river. I also floated in the pool on my super duper Swimways Spring Float ($15 from Target online). A delightful floaty thingy with a small blow up rim and pillow and a mesh bed. Folds up into a small circle. Small is good in an RV basement (the bay doors you see under a rig).

Natchez, MS

The next day, we crossed back over the river and toured Natchez, MS- the start of the Natchez Trace, an overland route which ran from the river through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. Flatboatmen would sell their goods and boats (as lumber) in New Orleans or Natchez then make their way back by cart or on foot over the Trace. Plantations shipped their cotton south to New Orleans or upriver to St. Louis or Cincinnati.

Industrial progress sometimes has unintended consequences. The cotton gin (a simple machine used to separate the fluffy cotton from the prickly seed) allowed an increase in speed of processing cotton which then caused the planting of more cotton to keep up with the mill’s need for product. But this meant buying more slaves to do the unmechanized planting and picking.

Before the civil war, Natchez had more millionaires than any other city in the U.S and most of the antebellum mansions were spared during the war.

Stanton Hall

Longwood was an interesting octagonal mansion that was started right when the Civil War began and never completed inside. The succeeding generations of owners lived in the basement level and the rest of the top four floors were left open and unfinished.

Longwood

Four stories of unfinished faded glory- looking up through the central gallery

Longwood – bare bones

Vicksburg, MS

Vicksburg National Military Park

After a few days, it was time to head upriver to Vicksburg, the site of one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War- where the Union Army staged a brutal siege of the town and finally captured control of the Mississippi River, dividing the Confederacy in two parts: east and west eliminating their ability to re-provision over the river.

But, we didn’t want to spend the night in Vicksburg, and didn’t want to leave Zane unattended in a WalMart or rest area, so we got a satellite view of the Vicksburg National Military Park and saw there was bus parking. We’re as big as a bus, right? No problema. I was driving and, as you enter the parking area, there is a sharp right turn, then a guard shack on the driver’s side and a stop sign planted in the center of the two lane road on the left. About 10 feet apart. Eight foot wide Zane towered over the guard shack as I crept past it, trying not to bump my mirrors on the shack’s roof, and trying to keep that pesky stop sign in mind. It was a tight squeeze. Then an immediate sharp left turn into the parking lot, where we slid into the first spot we could find.

Whew. Yay for satellite views and nerves of steel (or at least really tough nylon cord).

A guy walked up to Clay later and said, “How in the world did you get that huge RV in here?” Clay replied, “I didn’t. My wife did.”

We took a quiet drive in Squirrel (our toad) through the battlefield. The signs of where each regiment was stationed along the battle lines (blue for the Union, Red for the Confederacy) as well as marble monuments at each state regiment’s position illustrated the tragic story of the long and dreadful battle. One child born in the caves the residents of Vicksburg lived in during the bombings was named Siege.

Union cannons

We also saw the ironclad boat, USS Cairo, which had sunk during another part of the war, and was dredged up in the 1960’s and reconstructed. It was a feat of engineering and its ironclad sister ships were responsible for securing the river for the Union.

USS Cairo Ironclad

Heading North to West Memphis, Arkansas

Then it was back on the road, part of the way driving on the Natchez Trace, a lovely two lane road through quiet woods and cotton fields.

Across the river from Memphis, Tennessee, we found another cool riverside camping spot called Tom Sawyer RV Park. Watched mighty tug boats with huge engines, smoke billowing out the exhaust pipes, fighting the current and sandbars going upstream, pushing 24 barges lashed together. At one point, they were probably only moving 2 miles per hour. Awesome to watch.

Tug boat barge

Tug boat barge struggling up river

I quickly got groceries and rushed back to Zane to get ready to attend the Friday night session at the Memphis LDS temple. We drove about 40 minutes and noticed: no cars in the temple parking lot. What?? I checked the schedule on line and everything. What??

Oops. It was Saturday, not Friday. Temple closed at 1pm.

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So, I guess I am officially retired. Cannot keep track of the days. My phone gets misplaced too now. For over 20 years, it has been constantly at my side, no matter where I was (and yes, it was near the shower, too) because I was on call for the hospital and my patients.

No longer. My phone is now just a great way to talk to family and text friends and check the internet. How wonderful is that?

Peace on the river

Wendy

That Doesn’t Sound Good….

Posted on October 13, 2015 by zanedriver under Troubleshooting

We rolled out of bed to a sunny, beautiful day after an overnight at a truck stop in Tulsa, OK. It’s my turn to drive and I’m going through my pre-flight checklist (as any good pilot would do). Everything checks out so I release brake and start rolling forward between semi trucks to the sound of grinding and screeching and not much forward movement.

“Woah!” We both said in unison, “That doesn’t sound good!”

How suddenly our world can go from trouble-free fun to …. the other thing. We had just left the Newell Coach factory the day before. What bad timing!!

So what was that sound? Maybe it will go away if we pretend it didn’t happen and try again. So I push the accelerator and again we get an agonizing noise. Nuts!

So what could it be? Well, remember last night when we rolled in here and Wendy had a difficult time getting the parking brake to engage? (The parking brake on this beast is a rectangular yellow knob which you pull to engage. When engaged, it releases all the air from the disk brakes and their springs put the jaws of life clamps on the brakes).

So maybe we have a locked brake? Wendy goes out to investigate and hears a constant hissing sound by the main/tag tires. Hmmm. Maybe we have an air leak. But I’m checking the gauges and am showing full pressure on all the air systems. (We sound pretty sophisticated at this point, right? Well, just wait.)

So I call the factory and they ask a bunch of questions and get a specialist on the phone who asks a bunch of questions, which culminates in a suggestion that I look into the belly of the beast (behind and above the main and tag axles) to see if a brake line has come loose.

The ground at truck stops is filthy. The underbelly of Zane is nasty and it’s a really tight space, with 56,000 pounds of beast on top of you and only air bag suspension to protect you from getting squashed. I’m not enthused about getting in there to have a look-see. So the next question is: Do we call CoachNet (for emergency services) or do we see if the small mechanics shop at this truck stop can resolve our problem? We opt for the mechanics shop and meet Luis. (There are people in this world who love to solve problems of this nature and do it with a smile. And Luis is one of them.) He crawls under and around and in and out. I don’t know who cleans his uniform, but, wow!

Luis hard at work– overshadowed by worried RV owners

Two hours later Luis has jacked up the coach, removed the tag wheel and …. “Ohhh, he says, “I see what the problem is!” I’m thinking, hmmm. What is it: An air leak? Is the brake caliper shot? Who has parts for these things? Luis says, “Let me show you. Do you see the skid marks on the bottom of your coach? You’re dragging bottom! You see this big mounded hump in the asphalt? You’re just in a low spot.”

I had mixed feelings about the diagnosis. On the one hand, Yay! A simple problem with a simple solution! On the other hand, Duh.

But as we looked around the truck parking lot, which is in really bad shape, there was a pot hole that could have swallowed a Smart car, and a trio of trucks hauling 70,000 pound rectangular metal structures: one had tried to get out of lot and his rig slipped its king pin, leaving the huge trailer dropped to the ground, with no jacks to get it back up. It took them as long to solve their problem as it did ours. When they finally got their rig back together, they gave me a thumbs up.

We’re learning all the time. So what do I take away from this? My world is filled with good people who are ready to help me. The Newell factory was right there on the line ready to help me troubleshoot. And there are people like Luis who are ready, willing and able to crawl around in the belly of the beast to discover and solve problems.

What was the bill for this adventure? Would you believe our 2-hours of Luis’s time and equipment cost us only $53?

So how did we solve the problem of bottoming out? Usually, when we arrive at a campsite (or truck stop) we push a little button and the suspension goes from travel mode through a processes of filling and removing air from the corners of the suspension to find level.

It’s pretty cool to hearing little hissing bursts and see the world sway as it finds level. This system also allows you to raise or lower the entire coach. So I simply manually raised the suspension and we s-l-o-w-l-y rolled on out, with the high air suspension alert pinging, found a flat spot a few feet down the road, then put it back into travel mode suspension. No muss, no fuss- just 2 hours of fun and games to start our day. And we got to meet Luis, a really awesome guy.

Clay

What about the airplane?

Posted on October 11, 2015 by zanedriver under Uncategorized

The single most frequent question I’ve had from family and friends in the past few months is “What about the plane?”

They’re speaking of 212CS, the RV-4 airplane I spent 8 years building and the past 15 years flying. They know me as the airplane guy. Perhaps I gave them an aerobatic experience or landed near their home for a visit. They just can’t imagine me without my wings.

Test flight in March 2015 after extensive overhaul and paint.

Well, the short answer is, I sold it.

When Wendy and I contemplated our next phase of life we considered any number of possibilities, including a bigger airplane or a faster airplane. We imagineered a life in Italy, Australia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Costa Rica and the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. We explored all kinds of possibilities over the past few years, we lived them in our minds and took vacations to simulate them.

Wendy and I are great planners. I specialize in thinking outside the box, and Wendy excels at researching all my crazy ideas. We love to dream together. And each of us is careful to ensure that whatever our plans might be, it fills the needs of the other.

Sometimes we get stuck in life because of our possessions. We want to continue to grow, explore and develop ourselves. But often, such growth requires leaving our beloved “stuff”, and our foot gets stuck in the possession trap.

This step forward in our lives required that we sell virtually everything. And while the airplane was the most difficult to consider selling, it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. Yes, I did shed a tear after I watched 212CS take to the sky at the hand of it’s new owner. But I could not ask for a better new owner. He loves her and is an extraordinary pilot. She is in good hands. Here’s a link (with Randy’s permission) of his most recent video post of 212CS.

There is a time and season for everything. Building 212CS, and then flying her has taught me much and provided me with some amazing experiences and memories. Through her I met some of the finest people you will find on planet earth.

Now it’s time to explore the world with my sweetheart, Wendy, at my side. And we’ll do so in Zane, our 45-foot Newell motor coach. How much fun is that!

Clay

Zane and Squirrel (our Jeep towed vehicle)- with motorhome sisters at the Newell Factory– ready for new adventures!

President’s Day — well, sort of

Posted on October 11, 2015 by zanedriver under Uncategorized

After a great visit with our (grand)kids and (grand)kittens in Wisconsin we decided to spend some time at the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, IL. We figured, if it could be done easily, let’s do it.

Wendy called ahead and got permission for us to spend the night in the bus parking lot next to the library. It cost all of $5 to put Zane in there. Next morning we walked across the street and learned about Lincoln, the Great Debates and the Civil War.

Not all presidents are created equal!

It just so happens that I’m also reading the recently published book by Dr. Ben Carson (presidential candidate). I find that books by candidates are a great way to understand what makes these men tick, rather than the soundbites we get from the media.

So this day was President’s Day for me (Lincoln and Carson). A pleasant day. What a great life!

Abraham Lincoln

We left Springfield in the afternoon and rolled on Southwest through St. Louis toward our next hard stop — Miami, OK where we have an appointment at the Newell Factory for Monday, Oct 12th.

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This night we stayed at a truck stop where we gassed up. Truck stops are free and can be very busy places with trucks rolling in and out all night long. But we sleep well. Just close the windows, turn on the generator and run the A/C and it sleeps like a tomb (or a really comfy hotel, since we have never actually slept in a tomb).

As Wendy was looking at videos for purchase at the truck stop market (because there’s nothing else to do when you’re at a truck stop), a sweet older African American man, a long distance trucker, said very softly, “I like your house.” She smiled at him in thanks and he continued, “Your RV is what we wanted to get some day, me and my wife. She would spend hours on the internet looking at all kinds of rigs, dreaming and planning. I’m close to retirement and we wanted to spend our time traveling the highways together. But she died last year, and now, I’m on the road with my daughter. I’m still going to get that RV, because it was our dream.”

Wendy came back to the RV and hugged me. With tear-filed eyes, we gratefully acknowledged our blessings: that we are young enough to enjoy this experience together and have enough energy and health to do so for many years to come.

Clay

Old Route 66- the heart of Miami, Oklahoma

Moving to Florida- for an entire week

Posted on October 7, 2015 by zanedriver under Uncategorized

Retirement

Retirement?!? Are you Bats??

After planning for three years and spending the past year trying unsuccessfully to sell my solo ENT medical practice in Blairsville, Georgia, and while still negotiating the sale of the hearing practice, we decided to walk away. We had felt an overwhelming urgency to leave, strongly prompted to go now. Not in 2-3 months. Now.

I quit my practice on September 3- stunning our loyal staff. Losing a job is never easy and they had no warning. But, I’m a surgeon and I like to cut cleanly and get the healing started up as soon as possible.

I had seen 16,400 people over the past 14 years from the surrounding 9 counties and 3 states. It was a well-run and professionally adminstered practice (thanks to Clay) and I was treated very kindly by the local hospital and my 200 referring providers.

But it was time to go. To be done living and working in Blairsville. Sold the house, the airplane, the hangar and the extra car.

Not quite done working, though. If we had sold the practice, we would have been able to live off the dividends of the investments that Clay has so carefully cultivated over the years. That didn’t happen, so I will do locum tenens (temporay doctor) assignments around the country for 3 months of the next few years until dividends equal yearly expenditures.

So, now what?

Clay and I both made quick Labor Day Weekend trips to see our Moms (Clay to Greenwood, Indiana and me to Plymouth, Michigan). So grateful for our brothers and sisters who watch out for them.

Then, on Tuesday, September 8th, we released parking brake and took off for Crestview, Florida to establish our new state residency. We had already changed our mailing address to the Good Sam Mailing Service in Crestview, as well as arranging health and auto and RV insurance from that location.

Establishing Florida Residency

The first full day in Florida, after paying for a week at the Eagles Landing RV Park in Holt, Florida, we showed up at the Tax Collector’s Office in Crestview. Three hours later, we had Florida Driver’s Licenses, Voter Registration Cards, an official Declaration of Domicile (for taxation and residency), library cards and picked up our accumulated mail at Good Sam Mail Service (also called My RV Mail) and were back in the RV having lunch. Pre-planning is the key. There are plenty of websites about how to establish residency.

Good Sam Mail Service — can you see our mailbox?

Why Florida?

Yes, we were residents of Georgia for 14 years- but there are three states that work very well for residency when you live on the road full time and don’t plan to spend very much time in any one state: South Dakota, Texas and Florida. Health insurance for full time travellers is becoming hard to find in South Dakota. Texas requires a special driver’s license to operate a motorhome (including a driving test expecting you to parallel park the RV. Seriously??? Forty five feet of motorhome— at no point, I promise you, will I be parallel parking her. No offense, Zane dear, but you’ve got a generously endowed rear). And they want it inspected every year. Too many hassles.

Florida has no state income tax, good health insurance for people like us and they understand snowbirds when it comes to jury duty. And you don’t have to renew your driver’s license in person for 16 more years. I’ll be 70 by then.

So, legal Florida residents, a week later we were back on the road, heading up the Mississippi River to Wisconsin to see our children and grandkids. Stay tuned.

Wendy

Clay fulfilling the dream: watching barges on the Mississippi River

Maiden Voyage: North Georgia – NOLA – Gulf Shores – RTB

Posted on October 5, 2015 by zanedriver under Destinations

Zane (Our 2004 Newell Coach)

The Plan

Our first great adventure with our 2004 Newell coach (Zane) was to be a trip from our home in the mountains of North Georgia to spend 4 days in New Orleans and 2 days at Gulf Shores State Park, then RTB (that’s military talk — Return to Base). Start date Christmas Eve, December 24, 2014. RTB January 3, 2015.

Given that this was our first trip together in our new coach, the first time Wendy would be driving with a toad (our Jeep Grand Cherokee attached at the tail), and the first time she had slept in it away from home (although we live in Zane full time) this was a big deal. And so began the questions.

What if?

What if she breaks down? Well, we’ll unhitch the toad (Jeep) and Wendy will drive home while Clay sees to the repairs in Timbuktu.
What if we get off the freeway and find ourselves in a “too tight to turn” scenario? Well, we’ll unhitch the toad and back out, then re-hitch the toad.
What if we get mugged? Everyone I talked to about going to New Orleans looked at me with the bug eye and then proceeded to tell me of their experience of a mugging or smack down while in NOLA. Hmm. OK. We’ve been in some dicey places outside the U.S. and managed to use our heads to stay out of trouble. So we’ll just go with our eyes wide open, watch our backs, and avoid walking alone at night.

OK, worst fears dealt with because we have a plan. So let’s do this thing. New Orleans French Quarter — Gulf Shores Alabama — RTB.

We left the mountains of North Georgia on Christmas Eve with Wendy at the helm. Her first time driving our 45′ 7″ behemoth with our Jeep attached to the tail. No problema. The RV driver training we got in November paid off in spades.

So what do you do when you’re not driving?

Co-Pilot

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The co-pilot’s job is to put their feet up on the dash and look calm.

Additional duties may include:

- scouting ahead on Google Maps to see satellite views of the next stop (truck stop, rest area or RV resort) to strategize the approach plan. Driving something this big requires fairly detailed planning for turns.
- answering navigational questions that may occur. Our Garmin GPS (for RV’s) gives us warning “dings” when there’s upcoming heavy traffic, a speed limit change, a curving road, etc., usually 1/2 mile before the event. So the usual pilot question is “What was that ding?”
- starting and stopping the audio book (Audible.com, Overdrive.com) playing on Clay’s i-phone, which is connected to the whole house stereo. How much fun to hear a great story while you’re tooling down the road. Overdrive is a digital download of books and audiobooks attached to your local library card downloaded to your phone. We like free.
- wander around in the kitchen, bring up snacks, use the facilities, take a nap in bed. Goof off.

As you can imagine, the co-pilot job rocks!

Captain Clay at the helm of the good ship Zane

Travel Attitude

Wendy and I made it a point to set very low expectations. We never got up until we wanted to on this trip (there were some epic sleep ins!). We planned it out so we drove only 4 hours a day, max. Some days we traveled only 1.5 hours. We changed drivers every 1 to 1.5 hours. We love this relaxed attitude. We typically had the wheels rolling between 10 and 2pm. And we typically parked for the day between 1 and 4pm.

Yes, there were some anxious moments. Even with the best laid plans, we missed our turns twice. Once with Clay at the helm and once with Wendy. The result? Some very tight turns with nary a foot to spare. The lesson? As we got more comfortable and confident, we got more relaxed with our planning. Not good!

New plan? Be vigilant about every detail of the satellite map when planning our entry and exit from stops (truck stops, rest areas, and RV resorts). Planning is not hard or unpleasant. It’s fun. The electronic tools we have for planning our trips are amazing. So don’t get lazy. Use them to their fullest. AllStays is our favorite app for where we are now.

French Quarter, New Orleans at Christmastime

Damage Assessment

How far did we go and what did it cost? 1240 miles in 26 hours of driving. We used 177 gallons of diesel at $2.71 for a total cost of $480 at 7.1 mpg. Hmm. We couldn’t have flown two people on that 3 legged trip as cheaply, either commercially or in my small plane. And if we had driven our car we would have had much higher expenses with hotels and meals. As I look at what we typically have done on a 10-day trip, this was by far the cheapest vacation we have had in a good long while. (Of course, there’s the cost of the motorhome, but let’s pretend that budget-buster away for our little financial fantasy.)

The condo might not be haunted, but the St. Louis 1 Cemetery is hauntingly beautiful

There’s just something amazing about sleeping in your own bed and eating out of your own fridge at all these places, whether you’re in the French Quarter of New Orleans or a rest area or a sandy campground on the Gulf. This bed of ours is by far the most comfortable bed of our lives. And waking up and opening the blinds to see a new view is amazing.

Gulf Shores, Alabama

And driving in Zane is fun. Unlike all the new RVs we test-drove at dealerships which squeaked and groaned in their joints with every bend in the road, this 2004 Newell, which is built of aluminum around a massive steel chassis that looks like it belongs under a locomotive, this thing is quiet. The Series 60 Detroit Diesel is some 40 feet behind you in the back. You can hardly hear it humming away. And the view out the massive front windows is — shazaam!

Bridge to Nowhere

So this first trip gets a big thumbs up. And we love Zane.

What did we see and experience on our trip? That will need to wait for another post. Soon.

Clay

RTB- Crossing Creeks RV Resort, Blairsville, Georgia

Going In Zane

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Maiden Voyage: North Georgia – NOLA – Gulf Shores – RTB