So long Cherokee, North Carolina, and hello Salem, Oregon!
What’s that, you say? Let me explain...
Overall it’s been a great year plus a little in Cherokee,
NC.
- We made some great friends along the way, met some really nice people, and saw more of God’s beautiful creation.
- The Great Smoky Mountain National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway are fabulous and, if you haven’t seen them, they should absolutely be on your bucket list.
- We’ve loved seeing the elk herd in the area, the abundance of wild turkeys, the (extremely) occasional bear from afar and the variety of gorgeous birds that hasn’t been matched anywhere else we’ve traveled.
- The Cherokee Great Smokies KOA is a beautiful campground and we highly recommend it if you are looking for a place to camp in the area. It was a lot of fun for us but I have to say, this past summer, the work was pretty intense and the pace was insane!
- We also thoroughly enjoyed our several trips to Dollywood; we are going to miss that for sure.
All of that said, the Lord has made it clear to us that it’s
time to take a break from full time RVing. Family comes first, and we are going
to move back to Oregon, to Salem specifically, to stay with Wayne’s mother. She
was the reason we went to Portland in early 2014. We planned to stay in the
area for a few years to be available to help her. When our jobs didn’t work out,
we moved to Moab Utah and, when their season ended, then to our current jobs in
North Carolina. We’ve learned a lot in the ensuing fifteen months since we were
in Oregon, but now it’s time to go back. We will be putting our trailer in storage and staying with
Mom at her house, in order to take care of her home, prepare nutritious meals,
etc.—things she is having trouble doing.
We will of course both need full time “real” jobs and have
applied to several already. We are just praying that God will provide the best
job for each of us where we can be content and successful.
Regardless of how long Wayne’s mother is with us, we would
like to stay in Salem until Wayne turns sixty-six in April 2020. He will be
able to get Social Security (we hope!) at that time, which will make this
lifestyle much easier for us. Obviously if she is still around, we will delay
our return to RVing for a while longer.
This change is bittersweet for us as we have been so happy
that our youngest son, Joe, and his family moved to Cincinnati,
Ohio this summer—close enough for us to see somewhat regularly. We’ve been up to Cincinnati
twice since then—once at the end of September and then just now for
Thanksgiving.
We love them so much and are sad to leave with them so close by. However, this does put us back on the West Coast, closer to our other son and daughter and their families. Not as close as Cincinnati but not across the country either.
We love them so much and are sad to leave with them so close by. However, this does put us back on the West Coast, closer to our other son and daughter and their families. Not as close as Cincinnati but not across the country either.
Our plan is to leave in one week, on Friday, December 4th. It looks like the weather will be fairly good for our trip across the country. We'll take it slow, watching the weather as we go. If necessary, we'll stay in one place an extra day or two to give us the best chance of avoiding issues.