Saturday, September 24, 2011

Heading west (home) again. . .

A year ago last week we left the Monterey Peninsula in California for points east, south and who knows where else following the hood of the truck would take us.  And we did go to points in the south and east, in fact, all the way to the eastern-most point in the U.S.

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About August, while we were in Maine I started missing “home.”  But wait a minute, I’m a full time RVer who loves the lifestyle of living and traveling in a fifth wheel RV!   For seventeen years home has been where we are for however long we are there, so why for the first time was I feeling this way?

Almost all full time RVers have a “home base”, the place where they return to periodically.  For many it is where they lived in a traditional home prior to going on the road.  This is often where their primary care physicians, dentists, accountants etc are located.  This was the case for us although Gary had elbow surgery and I had dental work done in Louisiana.  My brother Don and sister-in-law Lee kept Bellingham, Washington as their home base the 10+ years they full time RVed. Others adopt a home base along the road.  Our full timing friends Duane and MaryJane adopted South Carolina as their home base and then settled there when they were done full timing.

Ah ha, so what I am missing is not my home but our home base!  The familiar places we love to eat, our family and friends, the roar of the race cars and motorcycles at Laguna Seca Raceway, beautiful Monterey Bay, “my” Safeway market and even the summertime brown hills of the Golden State.

While home is where the heart is, it is also true that home is where the familiar is.  Of course this doesn’t mean we are anywhere near settling into a home that doesn’t move. . .not by a long stretch!

2 comments:

  1. I've been in Kuwait for 17 years so I feel like I don't have a home base either. My parents are divorced and my dad no longer speaks to me or my brother because he married a psycho woman who has him psyched out too; the rest of my family is scattered across the US. We didn't make the trip "home" this past summer because the one before was just way to stressful going from here to there and everywhere in between, sleeping in different houses and hotels, different beds, cities, states. It was a little much. "Home" has definitely got to be in the heart, because I don't consider Kuwait home and neither does my husband who was born and raised here. Happy trails to you and hubby! Hope your day is great. Tammy

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  2. I was curious if there was such a thing as "home" when you live full-time in an RV. Thanks for answering my question so wonderfully.

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