Christmas?

Lilly was kind enough to let Tom borrow her Dora lunchbox to take to work


We’ve been on the road a month today, and it’s definitely had its ups and downs. We’re now at my brother Pete’s house in Athens, GA, where we’ll stay til sometime after Christmas.

We’ve been unsettled and haven’t felt much like Christmas, which we thought was a combination of being on the road, and the fact that the weather has been so beautiful since we’ve been in Florida and Georgia for the past couple of weeks now that it seems like endless summer. But, last night we went to a Christmas party at JB’s dad’s house, which was held mostly outside on the deck – the first time we’ve been to a Christmas party on a deck. What was funny was that as we talked to all the people who live in GA, they all said that this warm weather is unusual even for GA, and that none of them are feeling much like Christmas either. Lots of the GA natives said they wanted it to snow or at least get cold – not at all how we feel, since we’re pretty happy leaving the cold and snow behind, but it really doesn’t feel like Christmas.

Maybe that’s part of our unsettled feeling, but to go back to the astronaut analogy, it seems like we’re now sitting in the rocket waiting to launch, or just waiting to see what is going to go wrong next since that seems to be how the past few days have been going. We’ve been without internet access for a week or so now – since we started camping – and it seems like in the catching up, all I’m going to do is complain. It’s really hit home that we don’t have an income, a fact that Tom is trying to remedy a little by working with our friend Del and my brother Pete, but the outflow is definitely exceeding the inflow, and it’s making us nervous.

Remember that fridge we were so proud of? Well, it worked great until we got to Athens. We pulled in Sunday night, left it running on propane – it had worked great while we were camping in Florida and in Savannah – and when I tried to switch it to electric on Monday morning, I noticed it was warm and the freezer was dripping. I rationalized it by thinking that the camper wasn’t quite level, and it was in the sun and in the upper 70’s, so it was just not cooling well. But then it didn’t get cold when we switched to electric. So, we called around today and found out that the cooling unit is probably shot, and it would cost upwards of $800 to fix – for a fridge that we spent $300 on when we bought it on eBay in October. So, we’re sucking it up, and will probably just make a point of stopping for ice every day, and we’ll use it like a $300 cooler. We can’t even blame the guy who sold it to us – it worked when he sold it to us, and it worked for us for a couple of weeks, but it still hurts to know we basically flushed $300 down the toilet, which is about 1200 miles in our truck.

Our other unexpected expenditure was a vet bill for Nock. When we were de-ticking her in Florida, we found a small lump on her belly. It’s just a little lump, and it was just under the surface of her skin, but we were a little worried that we hadn’t ever noticed it before, especially since she’s always sitting up for belly rubs. However, it was small, and since we usually don’t look at her belly while we rub it, we really have no idea how long the lump has been there since even if we felt it we probably just thought it was a nipple. Pete and JB are friends with a couple of vets, and Melissa the vet stopped by Monday night to pick up her cell phone. We’d mentioned the lump to JB, so she told us to have Melissa take a look at it. Melissa recommended having it removed and biopsied, which we did Tuesday morning. We’re now waiting a week to 10 days, or possibly longer due to the holidays, to get the biopsy results. So, we know we’re here until we get the results because if the lump is cancerous, we trust Melissa to give us the best advice for a course of action and to take care of Nock if any further care is needed. And, we’re out another couple of hundred dollars, which is definitely well spent to take care of Nock, but still – it’s a couple of hundred dollars we didn’t plan to spend, and then if the lump is cancerous, we’re going to have some tough decisions to make, which we’d definitely make in the interests of the dog rather than the interests of our pocketbook.

And all of this is after a weekend of living large in Savannah – again, definitely worth it, and it was in the budget, but we didn’t know we were going to be eating the fridge and a vet bill immediately after the weekend.

However, we’re having fun catching up with Pete and JB, spending time with Del and Vicky, and playing with our nieces Collier (6), Lilly (3), and Margaret (16 months). Tom has gone out to work for a couple of days with Del and Pete, and Vicky has been kind enough to let me ride her horse – which feels great. I have to confess that I am hopelessly addicted to horses. I knew I couldn’t wait to get on and ride, but even I didn’t realize how bad the addiction is until I rode, and I had to wonder how I made it through the past month without riding, and how I’ll make it through the month or so until we get to Belize and I can find something to ride there – hopefully pretty quickly.

We’re now in the final ramp up to Christmas, which is a pretty big deal in a house with three kids under six. And, as I said above, we’re not sure when we’ll be able to leave. Both Pete & JB and Del & Vicky say we’re welcome to stay as long as we’d like – and forever would probably be fine with all of them – but we wish we could make better plans, for all of us. I was talking about this unsettled feeling with Pete today, and his reaction was, “What? You didn’t think you’d just have clear sailing all the way to Belize, did you?” No, we didn’t. And to put it in perspective, nothing really terrible has happened that in any way changes our plans, and even the $500 or so that seems to have evaporated in the past couple of days isn’t going to make a huge impact on the big picture – but the bottom line is we’re just feeling a little less comfortable than we did at this time last week. A large part of that is probably worry about Nock, who we know is just a dog, but as most of you know, we’re pretty attached to our dogs – after all, we’re driving because we think that’s the best way to get Mel there – and we’d really like to get there with all three dogs in good health. It’s also hitting home that we’re homeless and unemployed – funny to say, but a little less funny when reality kicks in, and I think a little bit of homesickness is part of this picture. So, stay tuned for the next installment. I’m sure we’ll be feeling better, and hopefully we’ll have some idea about when we’ll be back on the road and heading south.


Margaret & Lilly letting Nock know she's loved, post-surgery