Becoming a SnowBirder

After three trips (shakedown cruises on the land yacht would be a better description) Wayne and I are ready to launch into the SnowBird migration.

Our home-away-from-home is an Itasca RV.

Our dating life really began with the first trip to the Cranberry Square Dance festival in Greyland, WA, and continued with a second trip to the north eastern part of the state and most recently we visited Chehalis/Centralia to go to the state's square dance officer's meeting and dance.

The Wild Horses monument on a mesa above the Columbia
River was a great place to hike together for the first time.

Each adventure has given us a chance to test our ability to get along, work together, plan together and laugh a lot. He's a born-again Seahawks fan and has a progressive outlook about life that agrees with my own. I like how we traverse life's path together and particularly that he always reaches to hold my hand, even when hiking. He's a solid, man-of-the-earth kind of guy... very special.

So, for those of you who are not yet (or may never be) travelers by season, (or at all) this blog will continue to be what I intended it to be from the beginning, a short travelogue of places seen, impressions gained, and experiences of life for a new perspective, if you want it. For family and friends, it may be a way to keep up with "The Traveling Grandpa" and "Granny A" /aka Sandy Banks.

Accidentally we all chose purple for the color that night...
Les Kilwein, me, Ann Eilwein and Wayne in Centralia.

Wikipedia defines Snowbirds as: "A snowbird is a North American term for a person who moves from the higher latitudes and colder climates of the northern United States and Canada and migrates southward in winter to warmer locales such as Florida, California, Arizona, Texas, or elsewhere along the Sun Belt of the southern United States, Mexico, and areas of the Caribbean." 

Snowbirds use a variety of travel devices and I did once live aboard a sailboat for 8 years, mostly in southern climates. So the transition to an RV (big one at 40 feet!) is easy. But the challenge of maintaining my home in Washington (he has one as well), arranging for mail delivery, and various other tasks associated with an extended trip has kept both of us really busy for the past couple of weeks and now it intensifies as we plan to leave about a week earlier than originally intended.

Wayne, Carol and Joe looking at my art show at the bank.
I have made arrangements for these pictures to be collected
while I am away.

But flexibility is the key to survival. And packing to be flexible is an element of that... clothes for cooler weather, clothes for dancing, clothes for warmer weather, hiking, etc. Plus having my camera equipment, my sewing machine (making dance clothes) and my art supplies has me a little stressed. Weight on the RV, just like the boat, affects performance. And while I'm not willing to saw my toothbrush in half like a racing competitor I once knew, I am a lot more conscientious about this issue than Wayne might realize. My nighttime dreams are filled with designing an RV that incorporates some of these devices so that I'm not adding weight by bringing them.

Trying to hide anything on an RV of any size can be challenging, and my sneakiness is only because I want to surprise Wayne down the road with some special snack since he is the driver of the RV. I have to leave off this blog report for now because he wants to inventory the food supply... kinda silly on one hand since we have lots of shopping opportunities along the way, but he likes being able to choose off-grid experiences and having supplies to meet that need. Stay tuned... this is going to be an interesting ride!!