Finne's Follies: Planning and Hoping

The Mississippi River at Natchez

"The best laid plans of mice and men oft times go astray"...or something like that. That could be the theme of 2019, at least for us. Just about every one of our plans so far has gone astray.

Mark lost his drivers license during the trip he made to pick up our car from the repair shop in Miami, which has turned out to be a multi-level problem. He left it on the counter at the hotel where he stayed the night before. Of course he called right away once he realized it was missing, an hour down the road, and they promised to mail it to his daughter's address in Valdosta. We extended our stayed in Valdosta waiting for it, but it never arrived. We suspected they may have mailed it to the address on the license--our old mailing address in Texas--but so far it hasn't shown up. After waiting longer than we probably should have, Mark went online and ordered a replacement license from the Texas DPS. In order to get a replacement card remotely, he had to mail his original social security card, a proof of Texas residency, and a sample of his DNA...along with a check for $11. Okay, maybe not the DNA. He asked them to mail the replacement card to my sister's in Lake, Mississippi, where we were going after Valdosta.

Texas cashed our check on April 14 and as yet we're still waiting for the license. Fortunately, he was at least able to get a copy of a temporary license online while he waits for the card to arrive.

It turns out you can't register your vehicle without a drivers license, and all the delays with the lost drivers license put us over our thirty-day grace period for the the temporary license plate that came with the RV when we bought it. We couldn't go anywhere until we had those plates. But once Mark got his temporary license, he as able to register both our vehicles in South Dakota by mail and the new plates finally came a couple days before we were scheduled to leave Mississippi.

Today we finally arrived in Chaudrant, Louisiana, where we'll be getting some work done on the motorhome at "Our Alfa Shop"--Ronnie Wolfe's establishment. He did all the repairs to our previous motorhome before it was demolished in Florida. Among other things, he'll be replacing our fridge.

We've been back and forth on the idea of replacing our RV refrigerator with a residential unit, but we finally pulled the trigger and made a decision, primarily because our RV refrigerator quit working. We don't know exactly why it quit working. It was working beautifully before we had it "fixed" in Valdosta. Suddenly we were getting a "no co" error message. Mark looked it up in the trouble-shooting section of the manual--"no cooling"--and found instructions for resetting the unit directly from the power board on the back of it. But it refused to reset. We think the power board was damaged during the previous repair, or it just plain fell apart from old age. It would be $250 to replace the power board, plus labor to install. We had just spent $600 to fix the leaky water hose and replace the ice maker. Combined with this new expense, that's almost the price of a residential fridge. Do I love this refrigerator enough to keep fixing it? No. Easy decision.

Fortunately we purchased back the basement freezer that came with the RV. (The dealer we bought the coach from had taken it out when we negotiated the price down.) We moved all the frozen foods into that freezer and turned the fridge into an "ice box." I've moved everything that needs to be cold into three large bins and filled them with ice. The insulation in the fridge keeps the ice from melting too quickly. Every couple days we buy a ten pound bag of ice and refresh everything.

Such are the exciting adventures of full-time RV living. It's a good thing we sold our house. I might have given up a long time ago if I had a house to go back to. But necessity is the strength of endurance. And (on most days) I wouldn't trade my chosen lifestyle for one that ties me down.

The Longwood House, Natchez MS

We enjoyed our stay in Mississippi. Doreen and Joy took us on a day trip to Natchez where we toured a couple house museums and had lunch. The Longwood House was particularly interesting. The Civil War interrupted the building of it and it was never finished. With its unique octagonal design and five floors, it would have been an impressive structure completed. Unfortunately, only the basement level was finished, and that is where the family lived until the house was turned into a museum (no picture-taking was permitted).

Natchez is an old pretty town on the Mississippi River. In its heyday, it was the largest port town on the Mississippi between St. Louis and New Orleans. It never really recovered from the Civil War, though, and today is a struggling tourist town.

Doreen took me on a little tour of Newton the last week of our visit. Newton is the closest town of any significance to Turkey Creek-- that means it has phone & internet and a Walmart. I didn't realize what a historic little town it was.

But, most of our time was spent just hanging out with the family. We got in a movie and went "balling" (bowling) to help Micah celebrate turning seven. Hannah has the potential to be quite a good bowler, as you can see by the scoreboards.

And we had a couple cookouts at our campsite, complete with roasting of marshmallows.

Our next big plan is saying hello to our new grandson, Adam Edward Knab, born April 22 to Joshua and Nicole, who live in Spokane. We plan to show up there sometime in July after a month (give or take) in Minnesota.

I've learned not to cling too tightly to my plans, though. One never knows what a day will bring.