What's Happening with the Jenkins?

Louise and David Jenkins and Georgia

 

This past Monday, July 11th, marked 18 months of full-time RV living for us. It has been a mixed bag, but mostly good.

On January 11th, 2021, the sale of the home we built and where we lived for 27 years was complete except for signing the final papers and we had to get out of the way for the estate sale people to do their thing. Instead of renting or buying a smaller house or an apartment, we bought an RV, a fifth-wheel trailer, and moved into it at a campground near Chattanooga because we didn't know where we wanted to settle for the final phase of our lives. (We still don't know.)

There are two aspects to being full-time RVers. One is living; the other is traveling. Living in our RV has been great. We are extremely comfortable. There's just enough room for us, but not enough that we can allow ourselves to continue our clutter-bugging habits.

On the other hand, we haven't been able to travel as much as we had hoped, primarily because of health issues. When we first moved into our RV, Louise was in a great deal of pain and we knew that she was going to need two surgeries in the coming months: one to fuse vertebrae in her neck, the other to fuse vertebrae in her lower back. Both of those surgeries went well, and by July, 2021 we were able to travel around Georgia to work on the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia (which is finally finished and in the hands of the publisher), and also went to Florida last fall for a few weeks.

We were scheduled to go to Florida for the winter, but while we stopped over in Chattanooga for a few days in early January, Louise fell and broke her hip. We didn't get to Florida until March 1st, but spent two months there, at two different campgrounds.

The night we arrived back at our campground near Knoxville in early May, Louise fell off the steps of the RV and had to be taken by ambulance to an emergency room. Tests showed nothing broken, but she was shaken up and sore. She fell again last week, but not as far, and skinned her arm. Meanwhile, she is seeing a doctor about her hiatal hernia and I had my pacemaker replaced yesterday, July 12. I guess this is what we get for getting older. We shoulda stayed young.

On the day you read this we plan to move to a campground at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for two weeks. We plan to go to southern Indiana on August 2nd for the Jenkins Family Reunion at Spring Mill State Park, and after that we're not sure what we will do. We would like to go to South Dakota, Montana, and Yellowstone, but the price of diesel fuel in Mr. Biden's economy is very, very scary. There's also talk of rationing.

Please notice that when we talk about our plans we are very conscious of the old Jewish saying "Man plans; God laughs!"

In any case, we are scheduled to return to the Escapees campground near Knoxville October through December, followed by January through March in Florida.  We consider Knoxville our base for now, since we spend more time there than anywhere else. We greatly enjoy being near our son Don and his family, and we especially enjoy attending Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church (EPC).

So, what does the future hold for us? God will give us clarity in his own time and way. Meanwhile, we want to enjoy to the fullest each day as it comes.

The Rig. Ready to roll.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be released on December 6th.