Moving day.  It is about to happen.  After two and half years of living in our little, leaky, one-slide fifth wheel trailer, today we move it home for the last time.  Tomorrow we set foot inside our new twelve-foot longer, four thousand pound heavier, four slide mansion.  Well – in all honesty it is, perhaps, not as nice as some out there on the market – but we could not be more thrilled with having a newer, roomier model.  We feel blessed.

As Lisa and I woke up this morning, we realized that last night was our last night in this place we have called home since June 2012.  We felt a little sentimental thinking back at the time we have spent in this camper.  From the day we made the purchase in Hanover, Pennsylvania it has been a blessing in many ways.  It has survived five months in the Mohave Desert, the apocryphal Atlanta two-inch snowstorm at Stone Mountain, the winds of Amarillo, Texas, the three AM ghost of Round Top Campground in Gettysburg and, in the end, two amateur RV’rs still learning how to camp.  Here we learned many life lessons such as: how to store all your clothes in a two foot wide space; how to stack pizza slices into a refrigerator the size of a desk drawer; how to flush a toilet with your feet; how to empty the black water first and then the gray water; how to keep hoses from freezing; how to make sure to lower your tailgate before pulling away from the camper (an expensive mistake) and, in the end, how to live simply and happy.

We have learned much from others who call themselves full-time RV’rs.  There is a sense of community in a campground unlike any other.  Here you find people not only willing to help – but wanting to help.  I suppose there is not much else to do but help your neighbor with repairing an awning or a leaky drain.  It gives everyone a sense of purpose and it really does feel good to lend a hand.  Back home, we have lived in the same house for over fifteen years and we don’t know the names of most of the people living on our block.  We know more people here in this campground and have been here only six months.  That really is sad.

So it is time to pull our slide in one more time and head west on I-70.  Awaiting us back home is our family, our friends and a brand new 2015 RV.  We will return with it on Sunday and here we will stay (with the exception of being home a week at Thanksgiving and a week at Christmas) until, at least, early February.  What awaits us is surviving the eastern Ohio winter.  But, at least, we will have a new RV to do that in.  Lisa and I can only hope it gives us as much pleasure and stories to tell as this old camper has.  Thanks for the memories.

Be Home Soon!