At the beginning of the year I thought we had set an agenda for the summer RVing season. We had also recently purchased a new home and we wanted to do some additional work in the house. Compressing so many activities in the 12 – 16 week of the summer months plus still take care of our NY home was going to take some good planning and compromising on some activities. However, one can never account for job changes and circumstances that just drop on one’s lap. Along that, family commitments that must be fulfilled. A lot of activities to complete and when we realized the months have gone so fast that it is difficult to catch up with what wasn’t done. Through all that planning we didn’t count on having to take care of additional pets.
Late Winter we had a neighborhood cat that seemed like she was pregnant. There was an impending storm so we decided to let her in our sun room and let her have the kittens there. We were never cat people, we never had one and only be closed to cats when we visited relatives or friends. To us it seemed humane to let the kittens be born in a warm place and then let nature take its course. I was wrong. The kittens were born, all girls. They were adorable with unique markings. We constantly consulted the internet to learn what we should be expecting as their next step. It was adorable to watch them learning to
walk. Very quickly they
were running and even climbing and jumping as if it was a contest. Pretty soon I found myself naming every single one of the kittens and falling in love with them. Now we found ourselves with 4 kittens, mamma cat and our 2 miniature dashounds. What a family!! We have learned step by step how to care and love them. They have so many toys and it is very entertaining to watch them play. We took them to be spayed and they did well but mamma cat has been a challenge to capture and put her in the carrier to bring her to be spayed. We have tried every week to get her to be calmed enough to put her in the crate, carrier or even a trap the vet place gave us. Unsuccessfully, she still seats around and always wins the battle of being caught. The kittens are all well and playing a lot. Now we need to find good homes for them although we are going to keep at least one of them, my favorite … Oreo.
We had a full agenda when in comes to RVing. We reserved campgrounds for almost all of the rallies for the RVing group we are members and have already attended a few. It is always refreshing to see our friends and to seat by the fire to listen to traveling and life stories. We really haven’t planned a long trip like we did last year. Time has just gone by so quickly that the calendar and job commitments do not seem to align. We did go to Letchworth State park in early June. It is a beautiful park with humongous water falls and canyons. They call it the Grand Canyon of the East and the name suits it well. A few of our RVing friends came with us so we had lots of food and company. It was an amazing trip and not too far from us in the Western NY Region. It is a place everyone should visit at least once. There are so many beautiful places in NY and in America that I could understand why anyone would get into an RV, continue riding and not return home for 5 years. We actually met a couple a few years back who told us their story and they said they had been gone from the home for 5 years. Amazing!!!
Our trip to Letchworth Park was like many others. There is always something someone forgets or something adventurous happens to one of us. But we make lemonade out of lemons and don’t allow mishaps to tarnish the trip. Among all of us there is a lot of RVing knowledge and there is always someone who knows how to solve the problem. On our end, while we were on our way to Letchworth we had a baseball come out of a pick up truck bed and hit our windshield. I was driving when I saw the F150 go by me at a very accelerated speed. At the same time I saw the baseball lifted, hit the road and torpedoed in my direction. It was a very scary moment as I thought the ball was going to go through the glass and hit my head. My immediate reaction was to try to skip the direction in which the ball was coming. Thank goodness the ball didn’t go through the windshield. In spite of my careful driving this incident couldn’t be avoided. We didn’t let this incident ruin our vacations so we continued until I was able to stop. We reviewed the damage and determined it was ok to continue and meet the group at the park. We had to replace the whole windshield and thousands of dollars later it looks like nothing ever happened.
I mentioned that job changes have impacted our vacation schedule. As many have seen on my posts I have practically been on a plane on a weekly basis. The first and 2nd time is fun after that your luggage remains packed so you don’t have to do it again. I have met interesting people at the airport and at the places I went to work. At airports I like to “people watch” as so many interesting and weird things happen. You get to see the ones that at first glance you know they are going on an awaited vacation, others seem stressed or look sad. One can only imagine the circumstances that are driving those individuals to get on a plane and travel. But most interesting are the people I have met at the places I have gone to work. In many cases I have established professional relationships that will last a long time. I have established relationships with my team mates that have made it fun to complete the tasks. One would only think that traveling and working with complete strangers is a hit and miss situation. You can get paired with someone who may or may not have the same chemistry and the job then becomes a stressful task. But I have been lucky enough to have a traveling co-worker who has a humorous personality and at the same time is a caring individual so the job is not just a job but a process to help make patients better.
As much as I love West Virginia I have only been able to go there once last May. I have been limited to
seeing pictures of the newly built deck where we hope to seat and relax in our retirement age. Last time I was there was the first time in the Spring and I just had to stop the car to admire nature as I was on my way to the house. It was so green and beautiful that I had to take in a mental picture to last me a lifetime. It is so peaceful there with many trees, wild life and the sounds of the nearby creek. On my travels I see many beautiful places, America is so beautiful and it is great, we just have to take a trip and come out of our comfort zone, go to the country side and en
joy what nature has to give. Sometimes we get busy and forget, the beautiful places and the people who care for us and are around us. God knows am guilty of that!! Sometimes we hurt the feelings of those we love by forgetting those special moments or appointments. Perhaps we let ourselves be influenced by circumstances and allow us to hurt the feelings of those who care for us. Which ever the situation, it is wrong and the only thing we can do is to apologize and hope that the unconditional love they have for us is infinite enough to forget what we have done.
As we age and anxiously prepare ourselves to a life without having to worry about going to work and fulfilling job responsibilities, we try very hard to build the relationships with the people who will be part of the last phase of our lives. I have been very lucky to have a companion who loves doing well to others, who is an outstanding professional and has unremarkable ethics. At times I have to take a step back to contemplate how lucky I am. As I sit here reflecting on all of the things yet to be completed before we turn to our next chapter I can only be sure that where ever it is we will go we will make sure we find “fun around the corner.”