Oh, the plans! For a year or more I had saved money for a trip that got cancelled. This was now my fund for what became my summer-long retirement celebration.
After toying with and discarding the idea of a sisters' cruise, my youngest sister decided to follow her heart and buy a used camper, and arranged to do missions work by volunteering to tutor at a childrens' home in the mountains. It seemed logical that she would need a teacher's aide, so I volunteered to volunteer and she graciously accepted. We started buying things for the camper, stocking it up for the summer and planning our travel and work schedules so we could enjoy the whole experience. I also was thrilled to be invited to join my daughter and son-in-law, and the two oldest grandchildren, (and both our dogs) on a two week vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine later in the summer! They had spent several vacations up there, but this was to be my first experience with "Mainers".
I arranged for bills to be paid before I left, for internet access to pay things I couldn't pay ahead, to have the mail held, for the lawn care, and got the dog up to date with his vaccinations and tags. I didn't plant a veggie garden since I knew I would be gone most of the summer, but I did have shrubbery and flowers I didn't want to lose, so I set up a sprinkler on a timer that would water regularly while I was away. I have wonderful neighbors who kept a keen eye on the place for me, and good friends who drove by to check on things, also. I got my clothes together, several times before I was satisfied that I had enough for a month but not too much to store in the limited space of a camper with two grown women, two dogs and their crates, and teaching supplies for a whole summer. April and May just FLEW by, and suddenly it was time to go!
CAMPING FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE: Nevilee and I, our two Shih Tzus, and a camper full of stuff to use doing reading intervention at the school headed out for Foscoe, NC outside of Boone. Our brother David and his wife and son were kind enough to pull the camper up there for us with his big pickup. We got set up on our campsite, which was right on the banks of a creek with a view of Grandfather Mountain. They stayed the weekend, and then we were on our own.
But I forgot the 'health' issues we started out with! Two days before we left, I had a bad fall in my kitchen, and sprained my back severely. I headed out for a month of camping with pain pills, muscle relaxers, heating pads and not much confidence I would be able to stick it out. Before that first weekend was over, Nev's diverticulitis had a very painful, serious flare-up, and she ended up in the ER having a CT scan, and back to the camper with pain pills, two antibiotics, and bed rest. What a sorry lot we were, but we had a week before our teaching was to start while waiting for our security clearances. So we rested a LOT, and sat by the creek a LOT, and moved around really slowly and trying not to moan too much.
Finally, we were better and the clearances came through. We started volunteer tutoring at the Crossnore School. It is a beautiful facility outside of Boone. Some of the kids live there, having been removed from their family for various reasons, and some are day students. We were assigned to 3 little girls from 5-7 years old, and two brothers 8 and 10 but with wildly differing abilities and needs. We had another teacher friend of Nev's there too, and we did individual work with these kids four days a week for 3 hours a day, rotating the days and kids. Nev and Tina are very experienced reading intervention specialists, and I am just a gopher, but with the materials they brought to use I was able to work as a tutor also. What a blessing these kids were to us, showing us how blessed we are with the lives we had as children. I think it really hit me hardest when the 8 year old boy was talking to me the first day and I mentioned that I have a granddaughter the same age. He quickly looked up at me and asked me "who does she live with?", as if he expects all children to live with someone other than their parents. I really fought hard to keep the tears back. I was amazed though, at watching and listening to my kid sister teaching, and counseling, and the depth of her knowledge and experience. She is an amazingly gifted teacher and I am very proud of her!
I guess we did some things right, though. They had a program there where mothers and kids could live on campus if the mom agreed to work in their fabulous Thrift Shop as well as continue her own education. One of our little girls was in this program, and we shopped at the Thrift Store frequently and met her mom. One day the mom told us her daughter was mad with us, and we asked why in the world....she said because we weren't teaching her EVERY day! What a great feeling, and no better compliment could she have given us.
We did tons of sightseeing, and cooking at the campground, and going to neat restaurants. We spent lots of time (and money!) in quilt shops and antique stores, and even ended up with me buying a dulcimer before we left. No, I still cannot play it, but it sure is pretty :-)
One Saturday we went to the Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival up in Mouth of Wilson, VA. Some cousins were going to meet us there, and said it was only 55 miles from the campground and we could be there in an hour. Well folks, these were 55 mountain miles. No lines, no guardrails, mostly twisting single lane and 35 mph if we were lucky. Two and a half hours later we finally arrived, me with cramps in my hands from clutching the door handle and console due to being extremely, extremely skittish about riding on curvy roads that drop off into infinity right outside MY car door. Nev is a really good driver. I am a poor passenger. She deserves a medal... for driving so well and ignoring my gasps and flinches, and staying in a good mood! It stormed not long after we arrived there, and about half the crowd left, but the show went on and we had great fun listening to the music and even getting a private dulcimer lesson! Needless to say, we left in time to get us back 'home' to the campground before having to travel those horrid roads in the dark! Adventure????
A couple of our weekends were pleasantly shared with Nev's daughter and son-in-law camping near our site, and my daughter and grandkids sharing our camper. It was great to take the kids 'mining for gems' and to the Mystery Hill so we could walk crooked and watch water run uphill, to make s'mores around the fire, and walk up the hill to see the nightly display of literally MILLIONS of lightning bugs. I have never seen anything so breathtaking, better than the stars in the sky and those who know me well know how crazy I am about sitting out late at night looking at the stars!
Did you see us on America's Funniest Videos?? We should have been on it... our campground neighbors missed a golden opportunity to video us if they didn't. We were parked in a spot between two huge, brand new, jaw-dropping-gorgeous RV's and felt like the poor cousin stuck in the middle. You see, our little camper was old, dented from being wrecked, and not everything worked exactly correctly; there was the leaky tub, the freezer door that wouldn't stay shut, the heater that wouldn't come on the night it was 45 degrees outside, and the awning....ah, the awning. We knew the supports didn't pull out just right, and had C-clamps holding it in places. What we didn't know was that it was dry rotted and in two layers. We found this out the morning after a huge all night rain. I opened the door and it dragged against the sagging awning! The rain had run between the two layers and filled up the bottom one like a huge bladder. The weight of this had bent the roller, so even after we pierced the bottom layer and let the water gush out we had trouble, lots of it, trying to roll it back against the camper. Mind you, this was all happening during a pretty steady rain, us 'old women' with raincoats, hoods, and glasses that kept blurring from the water. I can't imagine the comments that must have been made in the neighboring campers, but I am sure they had the best laugh of their week! An estimate later that week to replace the bent roller and rotted awning, and seal the top of the camper came in just a little under what had been paid for the camper to begin with that summer! It still isn't fixed. Adventure, right?
The month came to an end, and the experience enriched my life beyond belief. I am amazed that two 'mature' sisters could spend a whole month crowded up in a small camper, trying to adhere to a very strict diet for her with no wheat, gluten, sugar, dairy or yeast (and pretty successfully, too!) and never once get all huffy and exasperated with each other like we sometimes do in just short visits. I guess we have both finally grown up. I love my sister, and love the woman she has grown up to be....heck, I even LIKE her!!
Back in Barnwell, everything was fine at home. It was time to recover a little and prepare for the next big adventure at the end of July!
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What a great adventure! You've started your retirement with a bang.
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