Settling Down

September 12, 2011

Dear friends,

A note to update you on the Swans. It seems strange to write without going anywhere, but our days are still full, albeit a little slower. We moved in to our little house on River Drive last week. Borrowed a pickup to get the few pieces of furniture from the new storage unit here, and drove the bus into the driveway. As moves go, pretty simple. (If you don’t count the cross country trip!) We are set up quite minimally, but comfortably. We had the Swan tribe for dinner on Saturday and ate ribs on the deck; it felt like home.

Xander would seriously consider moving in with us, he is so captivated by the backyard and the water. He made himself a net and brought a big jar and spent all his time catching things, dead and alive. Lots of crabs, little fish, eels (worms?) and turtles.

We have told our Southeast Publications managers we cannot work anymore. We are going to try and do a park just down the road from us, but our RV park sales job is essentially over. It is very hard to give up, but it is time. We are taking steps to sell the bus. Which is even harder to give up, but ….

I am very happy puttering around, but would like to go to New York every year or so, thus am looking (sort of) for a job. Dave would like to work in a hardware store, and we have a wonderful, old fashioned such place just down the street, but they seem to be fully staffed until someone dies. When we went on the road, before the RV park job fell into our laps, we planned to work at jobs we liked, sort of apprenticeship jobs. We don’t need a lot of money, but we would like a little bit of money. So we will see. There could be more adventure waiting.

Our little house is perfect. You can stand in the square of the hallway and see every space in the house except the front door. It has a very contemporary feel with the high ceilings and all windows on the deck side; we don’t plan to put drapes up. Windows on the front have wooden slat blinds, ditto bedrooms. Anyone coming up on us in the night would have to come via the river, and it seems pretty silly to worry about that. Plus there are motion sensors.

The birds have found my feeders, and the next door dachshund, Greta, comes in the morning for a treat. We go to the storage unit every other day or so and bring back more boxes. It’s like Christmas! I found the greatest SHOES! We are shopping today for a used bookcase or two, so we can get our books unpacked. It will be like greeting old friends!

We’ll have the spare room set up soon, so you can come and visit. Google New Bern and put us in your plans to visit the east coast.

Love,

Sam and Dave