We are somewhat settled in to our little house and most of the cardboard boxes are now happily degrading in a landfill somewhere. Much to our surprise, we have reached a state of organization that we believed impossible to attain just three weeks ago when faced with mountains of belongings to sort through and place somewhere.
We now get a chance to escape the responsibilities of our little house and ranch and become vagabonds again in the coach. The allure of the road is very appealing since we have been parked in one place for several months, and we bought the coach to travel. The plan is to be away until late September or early October, return to the ranch to check on things, then head to Tucson, Arizona for a couple of weeks for a rally, then back to the ranch for the fall and winter. We want to do some coach travel next winter in south Texas, but there are already many ranch projects in the pipeline for our return in October.
Our schedule (click on the map for a large version) is:
1) Las Cruces, NM (visiting with friends)
2) Grayson Highlands State Park, VA
3) Delaware, OH (my nephew Jason)
4) Branson, MO
5) Binghamton, NY (my nephew Erik)
6) Vermont (visit with old cruising friends)
7) Back home
8) Tucson, AZ (Datastorm rally
9) Back home
This will be a bunch of miles (and diesel $$) – so far I have it at 7,800 miles and about 1,040 gallons of diesel.
The other major news is that we have finally joined a church – the First Baptist Church of Harper. This is a small rural church of maybe 60 in attendance and we like the pastor (who is also fairly new to the church and community), we like the people and we both believe this is where God wants us to serve. There is much work to do here and we will be ready to do whatever needs to be done when we return in the fall. In the meantime, we can at least support this little church with our tithe.
Springtime is just beautiful around here and in a way we will be sad to leave our 30 acres of lush grass and wildflowers, but the road calls!