The best laid plans...

It's been a long time since the last entry in the Milagro Adventure blog, and while our mode of transportation/home has a steering wheel and tires instead of a rudder and hull, we are still out there looking for new and interesting places and people.

At the moment Larry and I are in a lovely, hilly campground in northern Ohio enjoying lazy days that go by ever so slowly, but yet pass with a blink of an eye between late morning wake ups and early evening dinners, followed by visits with neighboring campers and perhaps a bit of guitar music. But the year and a half prior to this idylic existence was anything but lazy. Let me give you a synopsis of these earlier months:

When Larry came to meet me in Cary, NC in the fall of 2013 we weren't certain of our future direction. Larry's right ankle, which had suffered three separate injuries in the past, was giving him a lot of trouble. He's always been a  stoic so when he began to wave off long walks and a limp became more and more prominent, we knew it was time to do something about it. We couldn't have been in a better place...the nearby renowned Duke Medical Center has some of the finest orthopedists in the world and we had access to them. So a general plan evolved. We would move into our Cary rental house, spend a few months giving the place a fix up, have the surgery and  go from there. Well, the best laid plans...

First we stayed with a close (well, we'd have to be close, right) friend and when one children/grandchildren group moved into our Cary house temporarily while planning their international move, we moved into another daughter's house for several months until it sold. She was moving cross country. See a pattern here? When her house sold in October, the family in the Cary house still hadn't  completed their moving plans, so we moved back in with the friend (yes, she's a gem) and stayed with her until our Cary house was freed up in March. We moved into the Cary house on the 2nd of March 2014. Originally we estimated about three months to do repairs and spruce things up...ha!

Meanwhile, we had decided to buy a motor home and travel the country before heading back to Mexico. We found a great RV, spent a lot of time thinking about it and later on purchased it.

Now a rundown of what we did over the next 15 months:

Green grass and dogwood blossoms in back yard

We began immediately working of the yard which was in desperate need of TLC. That was primarily my job, as well as shopping, laundry, cooking, and trying to keep the place clean amidst constant destruction and construction.

Larry started with the kitchen, gutting an replacing everything and tiling the floor and counter tops. At that time we had the" help" of a young man unclear on the concept of actually working for pay, and a  son who actually did put in some time helping as well.

Kitchen completely redone

About the time that was completed, I abandoned Larry and left for Colorado where I  spent three months there helping out with a grandson. While there is no contest, I'm still not sure who had the easier job.

While I was away Larry completed the kitchen and dining room, and hired people to paint the outside of the house and install new gutters while he replaced nearly all of the windows in the house and two exterior doors. Whew!

When I returned we planned a trip in the newly purchased motor home to Gettysburg, PA and another to Pinehurst NC where we purchased a program which allows us to travel the US staying in beautiful campgrounds for a mere 10 or 15 dollars a night. In between times we continued to work on the house and the yard.

In October Larry went to La Paz to do some work on Milagro and have her hauled out and put on the hard until we could get back to her. He returned in late November with our trusty Mazda Tribute (which at that time had over 250,000 miles on it) and two really good boating friends who visited for a delightful week.

On December 13th Larry had and ankle replacement surgery.

Trimming the tree...lots of laughs

Then it was on to planning for Christmas and the wonderful news that we were having some family in for Christmas and my 70th!! birthday...daughter and son-in-law from England, daughter and son-in-law from Philadelphia, granddaughter from Montana and son and girlfriend, local. We had such a great time!

Tea with the girls

Larry's healing process went well. The medical world had figured out a way to make these procedures as pain free as possible. Two nerve blocks and "good drugs" kept him fairly comfortable, although we had to do some creative planning to get him mobile. A walker, then crutches and finally a knee scooter allowed him to get around, although it took our son and his girlfriend to literally carry him up the steps and stairs to our split foyer house following his hospital stay. Still, our family is full of good sports and the guys often hung out with Larry in the bedroom, watching Netflix as the girls cooked and  talked. We even had time for the traditional afternoon high tea in a Durham tea room.

After the family left Larry began "working" on getting better. The surgeon was pleased with his progress and told Larry to use his own judgement regarding what he could and couldn't do, resulting in me being worried that he was doing too much. But his judgement must have been better than mine as he has healed nicely.

By March Larry could do a bit of work and he was soon back at it. At this point we hoped to have completed work on the house and be on our way by June 1st. We hired a wonderful guy, down on his luck and just out of a homeless shelter. J worked for us painting nearly the entire interior of house and helping to replace nearly all of the interior doors. J is a devout Catholic, a vegan and a good worker who shares what little he has with his beloved dog, Maddie. The arrangement was good for all of us and it was a privilege to know J.

In the meantime we redid three bathrooms completely, had the house re-carpeted  and other things too numerous and probably boring to mention.  Suffice it to say the house is lovely and if it were not so big (and in a non-tropical climate) I would enjoy living there myself. We've rented it to a really nice large family and I believe they will treat the house as their own and be more respectful to the house than previous tenants.