The Sandcastle

Our original plan was to leave here September 20th heading west on US Highway 12.

Then Dave decided he didn’t want to do full-time RVing anymore so he picked out an apartment to rent and we planned to leave here October 14th when this park closes to head down to Texas to sell our RV if we didn’t sell it here before then.

Then Dave decided he’d like to be here for an event the weekend of October 15th so we researched local parks we could move to when this one closes postponing our departure a few more days.

Then it got cold. So cold we had to disconnect and bring in our water hose so it wouldn’t freeze overnight. So we decided we’d quickly move a bunch of stuff to storage here then head on south. We’d be able to move more slowly if we did that, including going through Arkansas, our one missing state.  Plus, Texas is a better place than Minnesota to sell an RV at this time of year so spending a month there instead of here makes sense.

Then Dave broke a tooth. The dentist says he needs a new crown. The prep work is done but it will take a couple weeks to get the crown.

So, when are we leaving here? I have no idea. Do you?

TTYL,

Linda

While Dave and I both like to eat, neither of us is particularly fond of cooking or cleaning up after preparing food. We eat a lot of meat. So the idea of being able to cook a lot of meat at one time with only one batch of cleanup appealed to both of us. Thus, our newest cooking tool:

First, we cooked three racks of baby back ribs we bought at Trader Joe’s. So simple! How simple, you ask? This simple:

Cut each rack into three or four sections and dump them in the crock pot. Dump a couple bottles of BBQ sauce on top of them. Put the lid on the pot and cook for about five hours on high. Done. Makes 9-12 servings depending on how you cut them. Be prepared to dispose of a bunch of juice then wash the one pot, meat thermometer, and fork. Done with cleanup.

Dave likes his leftovers reheated in the microwave but I prefer mine cold. We can testify they are delicious either way.

That went so well we decided to try chicken. In our freezer we had a five pound bag of skinless, boneless chicken breasts we bought from Schwan’s that said it serves twenty on the bag. We threw that in the refrigerator to thaw. The next day we dumped the whole bag full into the crock pot and dumped a can of chicken broth in on top of it. About four hours later we had this pile of chicken:

No that’s not twenty chicken breasts. I guess you are supposed to cut pieces off some to make that many servings. I miss Simek’s; their bags of chicken actually had the number of pieces the bag said it served.

Anyway, sone of these will get cut up to put in salads. Some will get reheated to be part of a dinner. Some will be eaten cold dipped in salad dressings for snacks. I expect they all will be tasty. At least, I know they all will get eaten. Soon.

In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite chicken salad recipes:

Stir together 1 Tbsp mild-flavored olive oil and 1 Tbsp lemon juice. Add salt and pepper or herbs, if desired. Chop up one large apple and stir into juice. Chop up two chicken breasts and add to apple. Stir in 2 Tbsp dried cranberries and 2 Tbsp chopped pecans. Serve immediately. Makes two main dish servings.

You could probably make a big batch of that too but I don’t know what the dressing will do to the cranberries and nuts if allowed to sit since we always eat all of it right away. 🙂

TTYL,

Linda

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where we will be moving sometime between now and early November depending on when the current residents’ house is finished being built.

The angled wall of our apartment is where the building takes a turn. It is a common wall with our neighbor but since it is in the daytime use part of the apartment we are not concerned about neighbor noise. The master bedroom wall is also a common wall but on the other side of it is a storeroom used only by the building management so we don’t anticipate noise problems there either. And the apartment we have leased is on the third floor which is the top floor of the building so we will have no little feet running about over head. We think we’ve found the best location possible in any apartment building.

Yes, the apartment is close to the freeway. So are many RV parks. And so was our house before we went fulltiming. For us, freeway traffic is an effective white noise machine. But there aren’t any train tracks next door and the closest one of those has only one weekday local train so no more train whistles waking us up in the middle of the night.

And it’s about a half mile down the street from the house we sold when we went fulltiming so we already know how much we like the neighborhood.

One of the things we like about the neighborhood is French Park. This large facility mows pathways through the grasses for summer walking and winter skiing. It’s a great place to feel like you are in the country while still being within walking distance from home in the city.

Plus we’ve already started transferring our prescriptions back to Target. And they still had us in their files. Of course we will need to update the address and phone number but it was so nice to not have any hassles about filing the insurance on our medicines.

I think we are going to like moving back home. Except for winter, of course.

TTYL,

Linda

 

Dave does not like change. In the nearly 45 years we’ve been married his daily breakfast has been cereal and juice. True he had to substitute orange juice for grapefruit juice when his doctor changed his medicine. And he had to give up Grape Nuts when they started breaking his fragile teeth. But his breakfast is still cereal and juice.

So, when I said I wanted to go fulltime RVing he was not happy. But, he loves me so we went. For more than three years we went.

But, every summer, when we went back to visit friends and family in Minnesota, he talked about how much he’d like to live there again. Every time, I refused to consider living through any more Minnesota winters.

Now we’ve compromised. We’ve signed a lease on an apartment about a half mile down the street from the house we sold to go fulltiming. We plan to both live there for at least seven months of the year. In the winter I will become a snowbird heading south to warmer climes. We will be selling our current RV with the plan being for me to buy a small one similar to the one we started out in but custom built for me. After all, during my winter escapes, I won’t have Dave available to reach the things I can’t.

So watch this space for our ad. We’ll be taking our current RV to PPL in Houston in late October to sell for us unless we sell it privately between now and then.

TTYL,

Linda