The Road, Friends, and History

So I figured out the easiest way to lose followers is to document what we do from place to place as full time RVers. It's like a verbal montage of what we did on our summer vacation, i.e. ZZZZZZZZ! Who cares? I thought about what is the significance of what we do. People are so nice on the open road and constantly exclaim "You're living my dream!" or "Wow, I've always dreamed of doing that!" or "I'm jealous!" I understand really, but the amazing part of our journey is not the relationships we've made with other RVers although they are important to us; it is the fact we have reestablished old friendships all over this beautiful country.

I want to talk about a few specific people, near and dear to us as we have gotten to know in the last 3 years of our travels. The oddity is, I had not seen them in 40 to 50 years! That's right, it's not a typo. FORTY to FIFTY years. I want to start in on the West Coast and travel East. First, I received a Facebook message from a person inquiring if I had been in the U.S. Navy and gone to Boot Camp in San Diego and went to Naval training in Millington, TN, YES! After 50 years (1970) I'm getting a message from a long lost friend! Since our son was in college in So. California we were planning a trip out there so we planned to reunite. It didn't hurt that he and his wife lived in Lodi (wine country). So the record for reunion was at the time 50 years! Amazing! How could it be topped? A side note here: when we visited he brought out a goofy looking sand-filled frog that a friend of my mother used to make, and he kept it all those years! It was just as ugly as I remember it but he kept it!

So as I said, the record stood at 50 years ... for 1 day. A high school friend saw we had traveled to Lodi and he called me. He lives in Vacaville and was coming to Lodi to meet up again after 53 years! So much for records. Recently we met up with both of them again and are now in close contact. Truly a blessing.

The final story on this segment is also a story of a Navy friend and his wife. This is different, this is East Coast. This is Rhode Island. This is a story of a buddy I miss and his widow. This is the part of the story that is hard. It is joyful because I was (am thankfully) still friends with Laurie, such a special person and great memories of a guy that loved music, loved to laugh and who loved life. As we found out when we reunited, my friend Jeff had suffered with Alzheimer's disease for over 20 years. Laurie is the most joyful person we know. She took care of Jeff, took him on adventures, and made him live until he died. A very special person who still spends 2-3 days a week - she splits time with her sister - to take care of their mother. She still goes to the facility Jeff was in and works with dementia patients.

These are the things that make life worth living. We have so many stories about new friends, family, places but these three people have made an impact on our lives. It's almost Biblical; Faith - we had faith we would meet again. Hope - we truly hoped we would reunite, and Love. We Love spending time and memories with these folks.