My father-in-law Frank always wanted to return home from a visit tour house no later than 5 days after he left.
When I travelled for business I seemed able to tolerate a roadtrip of 30 days before the longing to be back home with my Sweetie got the best of me and I had to hot-foot it back home.
I love people but sometimes just being with someone for 3 hours is too long — if it’s constant conversation.
We all have our tolerances and we apply them throughout life. I’m discovering that my tolerances are changing. I’m not sure why, but I know it’s true.
Yesterday we had a wonderful time reconnecting with Reba and Phyllis, but after we were done I just needed quiet and we never made it to the Toledo Art Museum. Peg’s been trying to get me in there for years and while I’d love to go, it just seems as if the forces of the universe have conspired to keep me away. This time it was a lovely get-together that just tired out my ears.
I miss my ‘house’!
But the real issue is how long we’ve been away from Serendipity. I’m finding I’m ready to be home again. And it hasn’t even been two weeks. And it’s an odd sensation.
When I was younger I didn’t seem to have much attachment to places or things. But in some ways I seem to be getting more that way than I have been in the past. We don’t have as many of them: things that is. Downsizing did a number on our possessions. And when we decided to go mobile part of the reason we made that decision is that we (neither of us) sleeps very well in strange beds. I haven’t had a decent nights sleep without a Tylenol PM since we left Serendipity. And I think I’m missing my bed. And the compactness of living in the coach. And I’m tired of having to eat in restaurants; although we fixed that problem last night as we often do by stopping at the closest grocery and buying our dinner out of the deli case. 
As a bit of an aside, we have always traveled with a Picnic Attache Case. We got the idea from my parents who did the same, and it’s just the cheapest attache we could find at the time that contains some plastic cups, plates, silverware, napkins, a corkscrew, and a sharp knife so that no matter where we co we’re always ready for an impromptu picnic. We do that a lot. It’s cheaper than eating out at a decent place all the time, and a lot more fun.
But back to today’s thought…..
How long are you comfortable being away from things: your house, your job (if you’re still working), your family-children-grandchildren? This is a factor that seems to affect a lot of us full timers in very different ways. I hear a lot of RV’ers talking about how long it’s been since they saw family — and I can understand how not seeing the kids, and the grandkids can be a determining factor in how long a couple stays on the road as full-timers.
When we left Milwaukee we were also conscious that we had always lived near water — in our case Lake Michigan and in Peg’s case Michigan and Lake Erie (being a former Toledoan). We weren’t sure how we would do away from the water; and we haven’t really found out because we seem to keep staying at campgrounds that are close to water…. Maybe we should take a hint from that behavior pattern?
We have always been a close family and for three years now we’ve been making up for the lack of physical proximity with regular meet-ups. But whether that will prove to be unsustainable over the long term — and become an ultimate decider of where we spend our time, or how long we stay on the road has yet to be seen.
This trip, as nice as it has been in many ways, is also showing me that when we downsized something changed about my tolerance for hotels/motels. Bottom line: I miss my RV. Not one thing about it; I miss everything about the lifestyle; bed, convenience, pace, you name it, I miss it. We may make future auto trips — leaving the coach behind — but I don’t think they’ll be long ones. And I wonder whether I’ll be able to talk myself into leaving the coach behind for an annual return to Milwaukee for medical appointments or whether we have sort of limited our options and we’re going to have to take the coach back every year, just because we miss our ‘home’ when we aren’t in it?
Frankly, none of this is anything I gave any consideration to before we went mobile. I never saw myself as becoming attached to my ‘house’ in this way. But, it is what it is, and I am who I am and that’s that. I have to start thinking new thoughts about what RV’ing means to us.
So, Sunday was the longest day of the return. About 490 miles — all Interstate — pretty scenery but Interstate.
We have been talking about our way of travel between ourselves and we are owning up to the fact that for us it really IS about the journey and not so much about the destination. We realized that there have been a lot of times that we have gone to a place some distance away and when we arrived we spent very little time there before leaving again — and that what we were enjoying was the trip.
Since being in Los Fresnos we have spent more time than we ever imagined we would just in getting to know the area — I guess that’s who we are. We’re nosey. We’re curious. My parents used to sit on a park bench for hours just watching the foot traffic in a National Park pass them by — that’s NOT so much who we are. I guess we’re more likely to drive past than to sit and watch. Hmmmmmm…. I’m not sure what that says about who we are but it is who we are.
This trip is the perfect example. We didn’t so much want to DO things in Toledo – we wanted to see what had changed, and of course to reconnect with Phyllis with whom we had spent a lot of time over the 20+ last years of Frank’s life. So too with the Natchez Trace. It’s a just-plain-beautiful-part-of-the-country. We are looking forward to a SLOW and laid back 2 day drive through the valleys and over the hills of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, followed by some back roads through Louisiana before we return to Texas. We’ll stop and get out of the car — but we won’t do any 5 mile hikes. My leg doesn’t lend itself to miles of walking anymore. So we’ll check out the scenic overviews, and do a little walking — but nothing serious. And we will enjoy the heck out of each minute. Each Moment. Each Instant.
Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll talk with you tomorrow.
Embrace Serendipity 
Happy trails and safe travels.
We are around the 60s corner and wanted to do as you–sell house, get rv travel and then perhaps settle down Fl. Can you tell me where your address is? Not physical but for tax puprpses? I’m curous to know for us and tax and estate purposes. Where do we find info on this?
Thanks
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Diane,
I would check with the Escapees on taxes. I know there are other online resources but I suspect they might be the quickest source to an answer — which I would verify through other means if it were me.
Our domicile is Wisconsin. We do still have to pay State income taxes though with our particular income that is nill. We have trust issues and personal reasons for not moving our domicile out of Wisconsin to, for example, Texas, South Dakota, or Florida. That’s a personal preference on our part. Life is not JUST about avoiding taxes. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and feel free to chime in anytime!
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I can totally relate on this subject, Peter. We love our rolling home, and we miss it when we are away. We have always said that we would rather sleep in our RV than a motel, as we know that any dirt in it is ‘our dirt’. We are actually more comfortable now in 1/8 of the square footage than we were in our house.
Great post! 🙂
Jim
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Jim,
I so agree about feeling more comfy in less space.
This 2 weeks of staying in strange beds (even when we were at our daughter’s house — it’s still a strange bed to us [and a standard double bed]) have really emphasized that to us. In the last three years there have been a couple times when we left the RV for a couple days, but to be away for 2 weeks is more than I want to do in the future if I can avoid it.
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We solved the missing home part by going back every summer and staying long enough to see friends, family and doctors. But, we lived in our RV while there so we were home home. And we hosted gatherings in the campground as one way of reconnecting so others could see our home.
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Linda — Your point is well taken and as we are still new at this we are still learning. When we have returned for annual doctors’ visits we have done the same — stay at a state park or at the State Fair RV park. We have talked about whether we would consider leaving the RV in storage somewhere if, for example, we end up in the end of August and we are 2,000 miles away from home. Till now it has been theoretical. This current problem gave us reason to actually DO that (although we could have had the problem fixed in TX — but she wanted to see her own doctor because it was a repeat problem) — and being away from the coach this long has been an eye-opener. There are always places to plan get-togethers no matter where you are. That’s not a big deal for us. And for that matter we are far more likely to get together with two or three people at a time than to do so with a dozen. We’ll have another chance to ‘practice’ in September when we return to Milwaukee for our annual checkups.
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Though I am certainly not an RVer, this post was quite thought provoking for me. Not in terms of how long but in terms of what one considered home and why. It got Rick and I talking about what made Chico so special for us and really, a lot had to do with having a great old style down town…or even special places in town that for a couple buck would bring simple pleasures. We loved that they shut down all of the main streets in downtown every Thursday for Farmers Market, mini arts and crafts, a bunch of bands and street venders with ribs or sausage cooking. We had a tiny little house that was perfect for two. It certainly wasn’t about the people. I still keep in touch with many but I am fine on keeping in touch long distance.
After looking at what we like we saw that we are completely missing that element here in Daytona. There is nothing quaint about it at all. I’m not looking for artsy or as we call it Biffy and Muffy style, just good old every day down town, often found near colleges. I know when I went to visit Michelle in Santa Cruz last spring, I was blown away at how cool the beach town had become. It had an awesome downtown and I knew that Rick would love it. Anyway, we have both decided we need to take a few somewhat local side trips to some of the neighboring towns. I know of three towns that we like. The closest is 45 minutes away and the farthest is several hours. I don’t mind a drive for something we really enjoy. In fact we quite regularly take an extra side trip forty five minutes out of our way when driving up to see my aunt…just so we can have ice cream at our favorite ice cream place in Charleston.
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Today is the last day of driving for us, and it’s a long one till get get back to Los Fresnos.
A couple of your points really resonate with me, but I want to think about what you said before responding at length. With luck tonight, maybe in the morning.
🙂 Peter
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Drive safely…enjoy the scenery too.
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Mrs P,
I’m glad you commented. I could have written about length or characteristics, this time it was length but the ambience of a place is hugely important and while I may not have exactly talked about that in the same terms as you I think finding the ‘right’ place for one’s own self is not an easy choice. Too many of us end up where we can find a job, or where our family lives — or doesn’t, or some place to which we might have fled for any number of reasons. And then at the ‘end’ of life — not that retirement is the ‘end’ but it’s certainly closer to the end than the beginning — some of us get a choice of whether to stay or to go.
Peg and I have known many people — some family, some not — who retired, moved quickly away, and within three years had returned again to their long-time home because life in their new place was just what it was for the 2or 3 weeks a year when they visited a few times but the rest of the year the social climate was wrong, the climate was wrong, or the just missed what they had. That’s an expensive way tot make a decision and a hard way to realize what’s important to you.
For us, we knew we had to sell the school. While we were able to maintain it currently, we knew the time would come when we could not, and we also knew that to turn that building into what we’d like to have it become was beyond our ability or finances. So, the sooner the better — it seemed, and still does.
We were and are agreed that it’s doubtful we’ll ever own property again — but that doesn’t mean we may not find a place or places to settle into for 6 months a year — and that’s what we’re looking for.
When we were younger what really appealed to us were the planned communities where young, middle aged and aged all lived in contact with each other — smaller communities, public services right in the middle of town, a sense community. But those are hard to find and there aren’t really many of them. We think that it’s important for young to learn from the older, and the older to learn from the young — but not a lot of people share that view.
Things like closing off the commercial area for markets are wonderful — I don’t know how many of those kind of requirements I’d say we have — in fact I think we have requirements. We’re being realistic in searching for a place that has a happy mix of what we like, and a bearable mix of what we don’t like. S. Texas goes a long way to meeting that blend of good and bad — but there may be better places — we just don’t know of them yet. I throw into the mix of criteria some sense of environmental concern. For example, the California water situation has been a firestorm smouldering for at least 35 years. I know professors from UC-Sacramento who have been trying to influence government for that long and longer because there WAS sufficient water for people, or for agriculture — but there has never been enough for both — and all this time those warnings have been ignored until the state now finds itself on the brink of ecological disaster. I don’t ever see us moving to CA. And, for similar reasons I find it hard to see AZ as a long term solution for us. It might work for many others but not for us.
I admit going in that for me temperature is high on my list. I simply cannot tolerate cold; I’ll put up with a lot of other problems in order to be warm. That cuts our options significantly. On our way home we stopped in Livingston TX — the home of The Esacapees RV club. They have 6 or 7 campgrounds where there are short term & medium term rental lots as well as medium term lease lots and deeded lots that the owner can modify even though the property sits within the organization’s boundary. We looked at that place and took an immediate dislike to it. But moreover, its at a latitude that produces COLDER winter temps than I am shooting for. Even if we loved the idea of the place it simply lies too far North to be an acceptable option.
Like you — the idea of scouting the nearby area for options — is one way of finding an acceptable solution. We spent a lot of time in the last three months — and we will spend more — learning what’s hear, what we love, what we hate, and how to find an acceptable compromise. In the past I thought nothing of driving 230 miles on the rare Saturday morning to have breakfast in a little town in Northern Wisconsin that we loved. A drive for pleasant findings is great — as long as you are able — and that’s key for us. We can drive now. We don’t see any arbitrary point at which we won’t drive — but life has surprises and just as we made an unexpected trip to Milwaukee, sometimes one’s health has different ideas than one’s brain.
I wonder whether you’re really thinking of moving to one of those other towns? Or just scouting out the places to go to get what you want. Even living in Milwaukee we would drive 20 or 30 miles to get certain things: Great Bread, the freshest fish, unparalleled (in our area) Pizza) The blend of how often you are willing to go a long way to get what you want is a very personal decision. We have known for a long time that our values are not common. We will spend a lot of money on things some people find valueless, and conversely we find valueless the things some people spend a lot of money on. But that’s the great things about life — we get to have our own opinions and make our life accordingly. In another 2 weeks our grand-kid is moving to Minneapolis where she’s going to move in with her b/f. That is not anything I would EVER have done. But it’s her life and she gets to make her own choices. And whatever she does we support her. In life when we make bad decisions not everyone is going to support one… but decisions like this aren’t really the purview of public opinion — no matter how much family and friends stick their nose into our lives. As long as we are happy that’s all that matters.
Oh — 45 minutes out of you way to visit an aunt — is not ‘out of your way’ — that’s what families do. There seems this public and common idea nowadays among younger folks that the ‘cost’ of maintaining a relationship; whether it be in fuel to get there, in the cost of food to participate in communal meals, etc. — that those things are too much to ask of younger folks — and that’s a huge flaw in our society. Family is really the only things most of us have; Sometimes it may not be great family, but they are the only ones to be there at the crucial times of life. and death.
Anyway…. good luck on your search. We’re still searching on all levels. And it’s good to realize that maybe you need to search a little wider than you had; there are those lightbulb moments in life when suddenly something comes clear and they’re priceless no matter where they come from. 🙂 P
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I think with us it’s a matter of living a s a couple for a few years and then living with three generations, all adults, for the last six. Our time alone is limited and infrequent. We LOVE St Augustine, but I am not sure we would want to live there full time. We also like the idea of being northerners during the summer and Floridians the rest of the year but our economics can’t handle that at this point. I am working on it though. 😉
I think you have it more correct in that we need to get our wings more often. But in doing so we will look for areas that we might find appealing for long term when we no longer need to live with his mom. Rick’s son works for the county and is on duty every other weekend so we figured we could plan a lot of our get-a-ways around his schedule. The last few years have been limited because my dad’s health had ben declining and I knew he didn’t have a lot more time so I wanted to spend as much free time as possible with him…so we/or I commuted to Virginia for a long weekend about every two months. Since he has passed, I have a bit more time but I still have a desire to squeeze in visits to my aunt at least two times a year…and my daughter in California gets a visit about every other year, not ideal but what we can manage. Sometimes, it’s just easier for me to take off and go alone…too hard to plan airfare in advance with work schedules varying so frequently.
As far as the travel to my aunt’s. It’s a 12 hour drive, which we have no problem with and most of the time we have had at least four days so we get two good days for visiting. On the way home it takes 13 1/2 hours because we detour off 95 to go to Charleston for our favorite ice cream. Sometimes it’s a little tricky with the timing because we prefer to drive at night…less traffic.
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We were fortunate in having our parents and grand parents needing our assistance prior to retirement. We were busy working and we ‘fit them in’ in between all the other barrage of living details. When retirement came along we had the luxury of choosing with only taking into consideration ourselves, our daughter, and our grand daughter. On that front it’s entirely possible that any and every choice we make now might be re-made in the event of any sudden debilitating event. We did the living with multiple generations — at one time we had 5 generations in the same building — and to be honest I do miss that. But that was at a time when we were the MIDDLE GENERATION. Now that we are the older generation I’m sure that will never repeat. The world has changed too much.
Like you — we loved St. Augustine, but not so much Jacksonville, Daytona, Gainesville, Ocala, Leesburg, Orlando, Kisimmee, St Cloud, Tampa, St Pete, …. well, you get the idea. Do like Tarpon Springs. Do like the AREA around Ft Myers, but not so much the town.
When you say you aren’t sure you’d want to live in St. A full time WHAT is it that holds you back? l sometimes think that identifying the negative helps clarify the search for the positive. If I know, for example, that cities with populations below 12,000 are unlikely to have the goods and services I want — I glance only briefly at those smaller. That is one of the lessons we learned from our time in Oregon. Here, Los Fresnos (3 miles) is pop. 6000, but Harlingen (12 miles) is 64,000 and Brownsville (12 miles) is population 175,000, and Mission (40 miles) is another 81,000 — but that’s following the strip cities of Mercedes/Weslaco/Alamo/Donna/McAllen/Pharr/Mission — so we have good services in the AREA — and yet I can look beyond the boundaries of the park and see farmland on two sides, a 9th grade school on one side and a single row of houses on the last side. It’s a very different social makeup — I’m fine with being a minority in a hispanic area — but for things like contracting and communicating with workers it’s not so easy — if a contracting crew shows up (as was the case with the couple who bought a new Mobile home and just had it brought into the park) the crew speaks Spanish — one foreman may speak English and you communicate with him — but there’s no telling a crew HOW you want things done — only WHAT you want done. They have their own ways and they will walk off the job if you get to be too Anglo and demanding. We don’t plan on doing any construction — but the nature of the problem remains — communication.
My biggest thing has been that in my estimation Florida is too much like NY/NJ/CT — While there are residents in FL who arrived from all sorts of states it always seems to me that the predominant culture is more East Coast than West Coast and I don’t find that appealing. The place is nice — I can’t say I feel the same about the people. Do you know what I mean? That’s a gross over-exaggeration, and it’s terribly unfair to many people and places but we also don’t have forever to keep trying different places till we find the right one.
Splitting our year North and South may well be our conclusion. I seriously doubt that at this point with our investment in our coach that we could afford to sell that and buy two small park models, or condos. That was never a goal even though many people do it. Our problem is that we tire of places and I don’t know how many years we would want to return to exactly the same place. Here, in FL, or AZ, or even along the Gulf Coast we can change parks from year to year. Up north if we ever found a place we liked we might be able to find multiple places to park for the entire summer but I suspect they would be too much Chicago-weekender/vacationers which was the case with the property we had and sold near Wisconsin Dells. The people were just too rowdy for us and you were too close to them. I don’t know. We were talking about this very thing in the car yesterday for a while. At the end of this summer we will have spent most of the three summers along the Mississippi River. I’m sure we’ll enjoy this summer. We did the previous two summers. Would I want to repeat for a 4th summer? I THINK NOT!
But never say Never!
All of that being the case for us — splitting the year North and South can be done in many ways and maybe you’ll find something that works for you that might not work for us. 🙂 We don’t need a lot of space. Even if we had to do sticks & bricks again I think we could do nicely in 400-500 sq ft. The biggest issue would be a place where I can compute without waking my bride with the screen brightness. 🙂 A Happy Wife is a Happy Life.
FWIW — what we did not want was a life in which we had to keep planning getaways. I have traveled a lot for work and hotels/motels are not fun in my book. I know people my own age who get all excited about a weekend away at a hotel and frankly I don’t get it. But neither of us sleeps well in general, and definitely not in strange beds. We really want a lifestyle where we are living where we want to be and return to MKE to see family, doctors, do important stuff — that is to be preferred to living in MKE and having to keep going away to be happy. We love roadtrips — or to be more correct, we have loved them. I don’t know if we still love them as much as once we did. My BUTT gets tired driving — blame it on the car if you will, or the fact that I have gained weight this year. (We started our diet today.) But in the end, I have always been offended by people who needed to get-away to be happy and that is something we have never done. I do have the Wanderlust — and I find the wheels need to turn every few months, some people call it Hitch Itch, but we have always tried to stay happy where we were. Which was why we sold off the weekend property my dad had purchased @ Wisconsin Dells — we had a house we loved, why should we leave something we love to go someplace and be annoyed? That didn’t make sense to me.
When my mom died, and considering my dad’s long term health issues we really made an effort to spend as much time with him as possible. We had a great 5 years and I would not have done anything differently. Great memories for us, and his last years were enjoyable. Now we ponder what may happen with our Grand-kid who seems to be embracing the Twin Cities as Utopia even before she moves there. We’ll see. It might be that to see our great grand kids we may need to live between MKE and MPLS…..
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The thing that holds me back about St. Augustine is that there are ALWAYS tourists. I am wondering if having that many tourists around all the time might wear on me.
What you say about the people in Florida resonates with me as well. The thing with Daytona is that they are having an identity crisis. The people who make the decisions don’t do what’s best for the city. I find that there is one extreme or another and we are more in the middle. We could care less about racing and live in the heart of Daytona Speedway. Same goes for Bike Week although I do like the revenue Bike Week brings to the city and have no problem with bikers coming to have a good time three weeks out of the year. Race fans are known to spend little money and tip poorly. So half of Daytona is the biker racer type and the other half is what I call Biffy and Muffy. They are the type who would feel completely at home in Tampa or Miami and their wallet matches the income they would need to have to live in those places. Now, I don’t mind Biffy and Muffy because many of my clients are that type, we get along fine. Were the rub is…our local government wants to cater to the Biffy and Muffy’s and the literally chace the bikers to the next city and lost all of that revenue. They tore down an old style board walk to put in a major hotel and shopping district. Like their aren’t enough hotels in the area. Speaking of which I just about died when I first saw the eastern coastline lined up with hotels…shocked, really. Never saw that in California though I hear Sand Diego is doing some of this now.
Since we have another ten years before we can contemplate retiring, I like the road trips as a way of feeling out other places and also just getting to know our state a bit better. I lived in California for over forty years and Rick was in Syracuse area for fifty. We are both used to knowing all the ins and outs of where we live, maybe we aren’t as energetic as we used to be but we still do pretty well. Two towns I have and interest in checking out are Stuart and Winter Garden. We’ve both been to Winter Garden and liked it but need to see more of it. Rick has been to Stuart and loved it. Both have larger cities nearby so finding things is not too much of a problem. I guess mostly, I am doing long term research to get a better idea of where I do want to settle down. Daytona is not my first pick, people wise but I love the proximity to the ocean and river. I can almost ignore all the other stuff. Following your adventures helps me look at a variety of things and we are way to far off to make any definite decisions.
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Ahhhhh…. well, the inescapability of tourists; that’s a problem not so easily resolved — but a valid concern. I’m not sure how I feel about that because in some ways that’s ‘where’ we are too. I don’t know the percentage of winter residents in the Rio Grande Valley who are local and how many may be Winter Texans — there is a large population here to begin with; close to 300,000 but there are over 500 RV parks and many of them are 300-800 sites — meaning on average 1.5 temporary residents per site — because there are a lot of solo winter Texans. You are in a much smaller population area.
Social changes made by people who don’t have the best interests of the populace in mind is a big part of why we left Wisconsin. Scott Walker has been the most polarizing governor in a LONG time. I can see the conflict you feel about doing what’s financially sound for the community and unfortunately the likes of you and I aren’t enough to make a change — and truthfully…. I’m no longer in a mood to fight those battles. I WANT a smaller life and I’m trying to be content with accepting the drawbacks that come with a smaller life.
The Biffy’s and Muffy’s of the world are way too prevalent — and unfortunately with racing being THE LARGEST SPORT in America I think it’s easy to confuse the numbers with the value. The drivers and teams make money — but by the time they have paid for their tickets and transport and basic living expenses I don’t think they are interested in contributing to the community — definitely a difference from the bikers I have met. Could be wrong, but thus far I’m not convinced I am. The shoreline filled with hotels turned me off instantly. It’s the same on Padre Island — but we don’t go there much except to eat at a couple favorites and to bird at the World Birding Center site.
That feeling of knowing all the ins and outs is wonderful. It’s also fleeting. Our rush trip to Milwaukee dropped me smack dab into a town that is no longer home. Even in three years so much has changed that the ‘feeling’ of knowing intimately where you are is long gone. And I think that’s a lesson other RV’ers might share — and something for non-rv’ers like yourself to bear in mind. You can’t go back. If knowing the in’s and out’s is important to you — find a place and stick with it. Of course — finding the place is the problem.
What about the Gulf Coast? I say that I like Tarpon Springs but I think that’s a lot a baloney because I suspect that the Greek culture — loud and boisterous — would not last long in my favorite’s column — but there’s something about the place that I haven’t spent long enough there to determine why I say that. I like that it’s smaller, town-like as opposed to city-ish, condensed — but too small and the town gets clicquish — I suppose that is more the nature of Tarpon Springs than I know for sure now. But I guess my point is determining what’s important.
You said that proximity to the ocean and the river are important. — Like with us, I don’t know if I would be happy long term in a dry place — so at least you know part of what you want. Maybe now the job is to find places with ocean/river that meet your other criteria?
Then again, what about Charleston, Savannah, New Brunswick? Are you committed to FL? I am learning as time goes on that Peg and I are ruling OUT more locations than we are ruling in — but that’s good. The more places we can say we don’t want to live the easier the job of narrowing it down to one, or two, or some such setup.
IT’s good you have time to do the research. You’ll suss it out — I’m sure. And maybe something I say will help along the way…..
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Have not checked out the gulf coast at all, one of the things we do want to do. I have a friend in Bradenton between Sarasota and St. Pete. We are planning on visiting one of these days which would be a great time to give some of that coast a looksee.
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I’m sure you’ll suss it out. I don’t know all that much about Florida so my help isn’t a lot of help.
The whole Tampa/St Pete/Clearwater area, even down toward Ft Myers is really too much city for me. And that’s part of the reason I doubt FL will be a final resting place. But, what I don’t know about FL fills a pretty big book.
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Like you, it depends. I spent 2 weeks in Pgh with family after the loss of my sister. I was anxious for days before going because I don’t consider myself “normal” anymore. I had to take a lot of medical gear; mine plus my husband’s. It turned out I was anxious for nothing. Pam and her family were gracious, fun, giving of themselves, and tolerant of my needs. Then there’s the flip side–I can be around one friend 5 minutes and I’m ready to go. And I do believe there’s a few who can tolerate me for only 5 minutes.
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Yeah — friends you can be around forever, and friends who exhaust you instantly —
I really think ‘friendship’ really only exists with those with whom you can just ‘be’ without stress.
And the others are the people we think we should be friends with, or whom we want to be friends with and they don’t reciprocate.
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