First It Was Nora, Then Lila and Now Big RED!!!!

DeBary, FL.

83 deg. clear, no wind.

Forecast tonight = Clear. Lows overnight in the mid 60s.

Forecast tomorrow = Sunny, High 96F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.

First, Nora left us when Jim and Linda took Big RED and pulled her down to Palm Beach where Laura and Lindsey traded her in on a brand new, smaller trailer. (which is really nice, by the way),  I thought that would be the end of it, but then, all of a sudden, this last Thursday, Jim and Linda went car shopping!!!!!

 When they returned, they were driving a different car and Lila had been traded in on it!!!

Friday, Jim had an Opdivo treatment in the morning and a Radiation treatment in the afternoon. Then, Friday evening, Laura and Lindsey stopped by and Lindsey helped Jim clean out the back of Big RED!! That made me wonder what was going on, but I didn't have to wait too long to find out!!

This morning, Linda took the car they had brought back from the dealer on Thursday and Jim got into Big RED. Then, they both drove away!!!

Well, come to find out, they had traded Lila and Big RED in on a brand new car!!!!

So,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  say hello to Lily!!!!  She's a brand new Toyota Camry LE and she only had 8 miles on her speedometer when Jim and Linda pulled out of the dealer's lot on Thursday!!

I guess you're wondering why they did this and why they named the new car Lily. Well. Jim decided that Lila wasn't suitable for any kind of longer distance traveling. She was great around town and was just what they needed before Jim decided that he really couldn't handle RVing any longer. But, out on the road, she wasn't very comfortable to drive for longer distances and she was quite small.

Big RED was quite large and hard to get around with. especially in towns and cities. He also didn't get real great mileage and the cost of diesel fuel is always higher than regular gas.

So, by doing some "trading", Jim and Linda traded both of them in on Lily and even got some "cash back" because Lila and Big RED were worth more than the price of the new Camry! ;-)

Now, there is only one insurance bill,  one license fee and for the first time in a long time, we now have plenty of room in the driveway!!! And Lily should get pretty decent gas mileage on trips.

Now, why was she named Lily, you ask??? Well, Linda thinks her color looks just like that of an Easter Lily. Hence, the name.

On the way back from the dealer today, they stopped at a Longhorn Steakhouse for lunch and had a great meal. It was the first time they went out to eat, anywhere special, for a long time.

Jim and Linda are both doing fine. Jim is experiencing  quite a bit of fatigue but is still able to do most things, just at a slower pace or by resting from time to time. He hasn't had any serious side effects from the Opdivo as of yet and so that's going well. This coming Tuesday he will have his last Radiation treatment, and I'm sure he won't mind not having to go to have them every weekday.

When Jim takes more photos of Lily, I'll post them here.

A Quote to Ponder = "You  will never change your life until you change something you do daily"
                                   Mike Murdock

Woof!!!!
I hope Jim and Linda take me for a ride in that new car soon. :-)

Catching Up

DeBary, FL.

60 deg. overcast, no wind.

Forecast = Cloudy early with peeks of sunshine expected late. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 72F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.


Well, let's see!!! When I last posted, it was Thanksgiving and Jim and Linda were getting ready to head over to Lindsey's parent's house for dinner. They had a great meal with turkey, ham and all the "trimin's" and lots of excellent deserts. they must have had a good time talking with Lindsey's family too, because it was late afternoon by the time they returned. :-)

Saturday evening,  Jim and Linda headed over to Gram's Kitchen where they both had nice meals. It was their first visit to Gram's since we've been back here and it didn't seem like much had changed since spring.

Monday was grocery shopping day. Lots of groceries were purchased at Winn Dixie.

Thursday, Linda had an  appointment with her cancer doctor, (Dr. Saferali). She had a blood test and everything looked good. Linda's next appointment with her will be sometime next spring. :-)

Friday finally came and by a little after 9:00, Jim was having the CT scan. Everything went smooth but by noon, Dr. Mathura had called and was telling Jim that there definitely was spot on Jim's lung that he called a "small mass". After explaining things to both Jim and Linda he said that he would call a pulmonary doctor and a cancer doctor and have them call the first of this week to set up appointments. :-(

So,  ,  ,  ,  ,  that's where we are right now. not good news, but I suppose it could be worse. They're not even sure if it is cancer or not, so I'm thinking that a biopsy will be required before any treatment is done.

Even before we left here this last spring, Jim and Linda have been talking about getting a small car for Linda to drive and to use down here in FL. Well, Jim's been doing a lot of research online and he found one that he thought would do the job. So, Saturday morning he and Linda headed down to Sanford to take a look to see what it looked like.

To make a long story short, they ended up buying it. It's a 2014 Hyundai Accent sedan that has 35,000+ miles on it. It's still has some of the factory warranty left on it and seems to be in really good condition.

Here's a couple photos of it sitting in the driveway here at the double-wide in DeBary.

Introducing, "Lila"

Yesterday morning, Laura and Lindsey came over and helped Jim and Linda put up their Christmas decorations. Jim had set up the tree, but no decorations had been put on it before they arrived. It has become kind of a "tradition" for Laura, (and sometimes Lindsey) to come over and help decorate. Linda usually puts out some snacks and they all seem to have a good time decorating. :-)

Here's a photo of the decorated tree.

Don't know what's going to happen now. I guess we'll just have to wait until those doctors call. Today,  This morning Linda has an appointment with Dr. Bernard, (her retina doctor down here in FL), to see how her eyes are doing. She's hoping that she won't have to have any of those injections.


A Quote to Ponder:   “In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.”
Daniel L. Reardon

Woof!!!

To Move Or Not To Move

Rantoul, IL.

72 deg. cloudy, SW wind @ 6 mph.
Forecast = Partly cloudy with isolated storms. Highs around 84°F. Heat index around 91°F. Southwest wind to 7 MPH. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.

Jim and Linda got an e-mail from Alternative Resources Friday and I suppose that any of you that use them for your mail forwarding service got one too. Alternative Resource in South Dakota has been our "official" residence and mail forwarding service ever since we went full-timing way back in 2001. In fact they started receiving and forwarding our mail even before that!!

Alternative Resources has been sold and the name changed to Dakota Post.The new owners are making some pretty drastic changes and most of the changes are good, but one of the changes involves them moving to a larger facility and thus, changing the address. This would mean that Jim and Linda's address at all banks, credit cards, checks, insurance companies, plus driver's license, that they have would have to be notified and changed. Plus, there's family and friends to notify also.

Not a small task!!!!

However,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  in the past, Jim and Linda have discussed moving their "official" address to their double- wide address, down in Florida, but had pretty much decided that for now, they'd just keep using South Dakota.

You can see what's coming here, can't you?

Yep, you guessed it. They haven't made up their minds for sure, but it doesn't seem to make much sense to change everything to a new address in SD and then in a few years or so, change it again to Florida!!!

They'll need to do some more research on this, but there's a few good Mail Forwarding services in Florida that they can use when we're traveling, and they do have the address of the double-wide to use.

Hmmm!!!! I wonder how many other RVers will be leaving SD because of this change?

Did you know that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, of the population of 282,556,000, the people that moved was 40,093,000? That would make the percentage rate to be 14.19 percent annually.

Woof!!!

Comment Replies and Friends Comming

DeBary, FL.

42 deg. clear, NW wind @ 10 mph.

Forecast = Today: Mostly sunny. Highs around 64°F. North northwest wind to 16 MPH, gusting to 23 MPH.
Tonight: Clear. Lows around 43°F. Wind chill around 39°F. North northeast wind 5 to 12 MPH.

Hasn't been much to report. Jim and Linda have been reorganizing, taking stuff to the house, bringing different stuff back here, and finding out how the different things in Bobbie T work.

Had a few comments on my last post that I'd like to address. Rod wanted to know about Bobbie T's name and if it's Welch or Gaelic like Myrddin or Emrys?  Well, I don't know much about Welch or Gaelic, but I think Bobbie T is just good old American!!! ; )

Barbara wanted to know if there was room for me on Bobbie T's dash, so that I can report from the road? I'm sure there is. I'm pretty small and I can squeeze in almost anywhere. Besides, I've been riding up on the dash of every MH that Jim and Linda have owned, and I'm not about to take a back seat now!!!

Thanks to all of the rest of you that commented. I'm glad you like my blog so far.

Today, Roland and Louise are coming for a visit and to meet Bobbie T. You long time readers know that they are some of Jim and Linda's best friends. We've stayed at their house in NC, went to visit them in Frostproof in the winter, and they've come up to Rantoul, IL to see us when we're up there for the summer.

Jim and Linda met them during their first year of full-timing at a CG on the panhandle of FL. They weren't full timing then, but started soon after talking to Jim and Linda. Then, a few years later, while driving their car, they had a horrible head-on accident where Louise was very badly injured. After that, they couldn't travel as much, but Jim and Linda remained good friends with Roland and Louise all through the years. They've also bought a double-wide in Frostproof and are thinking about downsizing from their Winnebago Journey to something smaller like Bobbie T.

They should be getting here sometime this morning. : )

Not much else to post about. I'm sure today will be a fun day, visiting with Roland and Louise.

Post's over folks... you kennel move on now.

Woof!!