Someday Is Now

One of the "ah ha" moments of being a full timer is realizing that the best laid plans often have to be changed.   When we purchased the camper in April of 2021, we planned to begin our full time living and traveling in July right after I retired, but that plan had to be put on hold.  When James' sister was diagnosed with cancer and was to begin treatment in July, we knew that we wanted to be with them to help and support in anyway we could.  We moved the camper up to their place and James spent July and August there helping out.  I stayed back and took care of the house sale things driving back and forth on the weekends when I could.  We wouldn't have had it any other way.   The house sale finally closed the end of September.   "Let's hit the road now and be out of NY before it gets cold!" Sounds like a good plan, but as we have learned, flexibility is key.  Originally we planned to head South and then find a place to leave the cam...

Joni and I camped at the Fredericksburg KOA last week for a couple days.  We were between our dates at the NOVA sites, BullRun and Pohick.  Why not visit Fredericksburg?  There is serious civil war history here.  Let me set the stage.  Fall 1862, president Abraham Lincoln has promoted yet another union man to lead the Army of the Potomac.  After a series of less than stellar battles, union general Ambrose Burnside gets the nod.  He does not want the nod, but feels pressure to accept it.  Lincoln is also pressuring Burnside, as he did the previous generals McDowell, McClellan and Hooker, to seek out and destroy the confederate Army of Northern Virginia (AONV).   With this backdrop, Burnside devised a plan to move around the AONV, currently to his front around Chancellorsville VA.  Burnside plans to move the massive army of 120000 to the southeast to threaten the confederate capitol in Richmond VA, a mere 50 miles to the south of Fred...

Shepardstown WV, the site of the final conflict of the confederate Maryland Campaign.  After South Mountain and Antietam, the confederate army was retreating back across the Potomac river on September 19th 1862.  The abbreviated version is that after crossing the Potomac the confederate army of northern Virginia observed the union army crossing the Potomac in pursuit.  A brigade of confederates took up defensive positions among the bluffs, hills, to contest the crossing.  Once more union soldiers showed up and it became clear that the defending confederates would not hold their position, they fell back a couple hundred yards while union men crossed and took up lines of battle.  The union captured two confederate artillery pieces while the confederate general in charge reported back to command that he has lost the pieces.  This angered Stonewall Jackson who then moved two of his brigades on his own to counter the union advance and to recapture the artillery ...

Nestled in the northeast corner of lovely WV sits Martinsburg .  A town of about 17,000 steeped in what? you guessed it, civil war history.  Located 10 miles west of Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg has a long history established in 1750 or somewhere around there.  The town was a minor prize for civil war armies as it sits on the BO railroad.  Think monopoly ;)  Martinsburg, like a lot of small Virginia towns in the then western side of Virginia had union loyalties.  The county where Martinsburg is located voted about 3 to 1 to stay with the union.  Of course this part of Virginia separated from the rest of the state in 1863 to form the state of West Virginia.  The BO railroad station in town switched handles several times as Stonewall Jackson was assigned duty there in 1862 after the Antietam campaign.  Jackson was ordered to secure the railroad for confederate use.  Union forces would come back to the area and secure it, after Jackson left f...

    After 21 months of being careful, masking, social distancing and vaccinations, we tested positive.  We are not sure where we contracted the virus, but 6 of the 22 people we spent Thanksgiving weekend with tested positive.  All the adults are vaccinated and 4 had received their boosters as well. We started not feeling well on Wednesday after Thanksgiving and by Friday night we had lost our smell and taste, so Saturday we went and got tested.  One by one the other 4 family members started not feeling well and then also tested positive. It is strange how in two instances, one of the couple got sick and the other one didn't.  So it goes with COVID. So, what was it like to quarantine in the camper?  Isolating.  We were fortunate enough to be parked at our sister and brother in-laws house and they made comfort food for us and checked in via text. Considering we slept a lot and had no energy to do anything even watch TV, it worked out ok, but staying...