To be honest, we’ve made our winter decision, but I’ve been too busy to blog about it… *grin*
But before I make the big announcement (given my two readers are also Facebook friends they’re already well aware of it, but allow me the illusion that I have people breathless with antici… pation), let me start with a summer recap, and a quick run down the list of possibilities we were pondering for the chilly months.
The owner of the campground approached us in the spring, and offered our eldest a summer job in the office, answering phones, booking sites and checking campers in. Truth be told, I was a bit panicked, since she’s dyslexic and had zero experience with cash registers, but he said in his experience, people like our daughter were more careful and deliberate in their work (and he was correct – she was amazing!).
Indirectly because of her employment, we ended up scoring the biggest, nicest seasonal (aka, summer) site in the entire park. We’d asked about it in the spring, and were told it was spoken for, so we settled for a somewhat large site near the bathhouse. When the time came for the actual booking, the owner had our daughter do ours as part of her training. He then mentioned our first choice site was now available, and offered to let us have it – I think our daughter said “YES!” before he even finished asking. The site used to be two sites, and is on the corner of the camp road so we had four or five parking spaces instead of (barely) two. It’s beautifully landscaped – so much so that over the summer, a number of people stopped to ask us how we did it. The spot is surprisingly quiet and private, even though it’s a very short distance from all the short term campers.
One of the few downsides – the owners wife knocked on our door just before the summer season was in full swing, and told us that though we’d let our cat Sid continue as an outdoor cat over the winter, they had strict rules about all animals being on leash, so we’d have to keep him inside (she did say we could let him out for a short time after dark, if necessary). Short history on Sid – he was a neighborhood stray who adopted us in 2004, and had always been an independent, outdoor, run-of-the-neighborhood animal who got antsy if we kept him in too long (like during sub-zero cold snaps in the winter). The thought of trying to turn him into a 95% indoor cat filled us all with fear, but I bought him a small dog harness and we gave it a go. After an amazingly short period of time, we got into the routine of taking him out on his harness first thing in the morning (he’d go to the edge of the woods, do his business, sharpen his claws on a tree, then trot back in), and letting him out for an hour or so after dark. He was very vocal about how he felt, but seemed okay with this new lifestyle, and I was relieved, knowing the chances of him getting lost or taken were now at an all time low.
Low was also how I was feeling about being in a home on wheels that was essentially parked for the better part of a year. Hubby, the kidlets and I went round and round over what we wanted to do next, how to achieve it, and the pros and cons of each choice. We decided to focus on the winter first, then worry about our next step in the spring. Our choices were –
~ Stay put on the summer site and figure out a water source (the seasonal section of the camp isn’t winterized).
~ Stay at the campground on one of the winter sites (kind of a glorified parking lot with little privacy, but the winter folks we met there last year were awesome).
~ Move to a campground further north (more expensive but better amenities and closer to some dear friends).
~ Move to a campground further south (like, a different part of the country south).
~ Find a winter rental and spend the chilly months getting the camper refurbished and travel ready (looking for rentals is only slightly more pleasant than a root canal without Novocain…in my humble opinion, anyway).
The kids said they’d be happy wherever, as long as they had friends to hang out with. I was coming down firmly on the “throw caution to the wind” side of having hubby quit his job and sign up for workamping so we could hit the road. He was coming down firmly on the practical side of staying put, getting some money saved and repair work done, then possibly hit the road in the spring.
Another factor in figuring things out was our dog, Eddie. He’d developed full-blown Cushings soon after the hurricane scare last summer, and has gone completely blind. He has good stretches and bad, but one thing is consistent – he now hates riding in vehicles. There have been a couple of times since being in the camper that I’ve contacted his original family and told them we might have to make an appointment with the vet and say our final goodbyes, but each time he rallied and we happily delayed the decision. I know there are some people who would find the idea of planning their families choices around the health of a pet a bit silly, but we never gave it a second thought – Eddie’s well being is just as important as ours, and if it meant having to put off traveling until he was in a better place (either in remission or at the Rainbow Bridge), we were prepared to do it.
Soon after posting the previous blog entry, we had a series of events that pointed us at the only sensible choice. Out of those listed above, the winning one was…
*drum roll*
(to be continued…)
Feel free to shout out!