The leap of faith

Although we had known the day was coming, it was still a giant leap of faith to once again release, in a figurative sense, the dock lines and become nomads with no permanent "home." The only thing we had decided was that we would head west, with a general destination of South Dakota. We had paid our fees and become members of Travel Resorts of America and Coast to Coast and, because of the privileges afforded to us with those memberships, would plan our trip based on where member sites

were located.

By July 13th we had nearly completed the move of personal belongings and furniture to storage areas and motor home, and we moved the camper to our home campground near Pinehurst NC. We did some decompressing, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. The last month of our stay in Cary was extremely rigorous. We both put in 10 to 12 hour days of really physical labor and were often too tired to eat...a great plan if you are looking to lose a few pounds. During this time Larry was having numerous medical tests in order to find out why he continued to be quite anemic despite B12 injections and prescription iron supplementation. The anemia caused him to suffer extreme fatigue;  at times he would find it nearly impossible to get out of bed!  I was just plain tired, as might be expected of somebody my age. We are both active and energetic ordinarily, but we had really pushed past normal limits. The move to Pinehurst lessened certain pressures; still there more jobs to complete  before we were truly retired once more.  Larry still had two days of work at the house and we still had to reorganize the motor home (which had be covered and winterized),  find a way to fit our belongings into our new home, and drive the 7 to 8 hours round trip to the western part of the state -twice- to deliver two vehicles for storage. The two weeks at Sycamore Lodge went by rapidly. We did manage a few  golf cart forays to explore the campground and spent  some time visiting with fellow campers. We continued a practice begun in La Paz; at sundown each day we stopped what we were doing to take a deep breath and toast the ending of another day...our sundowners. Often the sundowner ritual took place sitting on the front steps, watching the sprinkler shower the grass in Cary, or at Sycamore Lodge, relaxed in our camp chairs  rather than sitting on the Milgro's white deck, but the feelings were just the same.

One of the things we enjoyed about the Cary house was the friendliness of the neighborhood. As we sat out front neighbors strolled by, some walking dogs, others just out for a bit of exercise. They followed our progress and encouraged us with compliments. We grew particularly fond of the residents of a large house across the street. One young man owned the house and rented out space to four other professional  guys. We were quite surprised when they wanted to get together for a meal  with stories and  videos of our adventures and we did so a couple of times, both at our house and at theirs. Just a great group of nice young men.

Other favorite neighbors were the Egyptian Muslim couple down the street. Larry first met their adult sons  during the summer I was away, and later on the husband, end even later his wife who was quite shy. But while shy and quiet at first they began to be more outgoing and we often had religious discussions, in no way argumentative, but a sharing of information. The husband in particular wanted us to understand him as a human being first and went to great pains to share information with us. I learned a lot and in a strange way felt we four were taking a tiny step towards peace in the world.