Wandering Wahls

Well, the time has come. The “Wahlstar” (our Newmar Allstar 4154 RV) is being put out to pasture in a sense. We’re driving it to Steinbring Motors in Garfield, MN so that they can try to sell it for us on a consignment basis.

This doesn’t mean that our RVing adventures have ended. Far from it: Two of the discoveries we made on our RV journey were that we truly enjoyed our countries state and national parks, and that we liked the RV life. “Roughing it in style” was how one RVer put it to us. So we want to buy a smaller version of an RV (a Class C for those who know) and explore the national and state parks within reach from Colorado – from Rocky Mountain National Park to Bandelier National Park to Grand Tetons National Park to Custer State Park. Seeing the parks in this fashion allows us to hike the trails, see our country’s unique natural beauty, and still sleep on a comfy mattress.

Speaking of Custer State Park, that is where I’m writing this entry. We’re here for 5 nights on our way to Minnesota. This is a wonderful park in SW South Dakota that you should consider seeing. It is where Lt. Col. George Custer surveyed before his little adventure at Little Big Horn up the road. This strikes me as interesting coincidental since Custer had his last stand in this area, and we’re having our last stand in the Wahlstar.

I hope our “last stand” has a better ending though.

Well, the naming game has been settled. We had some good nominations, and endless conversation with the kids. Choosing a name seemed to put everything on hold for a whole weekend, as everyone wanted a name they liked. We tried to take a vote on a list of names, but that produced hurt feelings. Then we offered to have Mary Claire and Anna name one dog and the boys and I would name the other. Then Sam dropped out and didn’t care – until we it looked like there would be a name he didn’t like.

We also had to address names not fitting: I liked Fuji for the German Shepherd but my daughter thought it odd calling a German Shepherd a Japanese name – I tried to explain that they were allies.

Finally, with the weekend over, and the PetsMart training approaching, we settled on names. Gone were names such as Blackjack, Eiger, Teddy, Bryce, Zion, Timo, Fuji, Kuro.

In were Rocky for the light colored German Shepherd (and part Lab) in honor of the great time we had at Rocky Mountain National Park (not an homage to the movie series); and, Marcus for the Weimaraner/Lab (pronounced “VYE-ma-rah-ner” everyone wants to call him a “why-mah-riner,” but there’s no “I” in the name). We chose Marcus as a good solid German/Austrian name for a breed from that area. Plus, we have a good friend in Stuttgart with that name – both the dog and our friend are really nice.

Who would have thought that our transition back to the states and civilian life would be occupied for a time by naming a pet?

We chose 5 acres because of the view and the ability to have an abundance of land to run around and, well, just do things on. I’ve built a tire swing for the kids and a climbing wall is up next (still deciding on Craftsmen tools vs. Home Depot’s brand though, and watching “This Old House” – I started with “Home Improvement” but realized I knew all of those tricks).

Another area the kids were excited about is that we could now have animals. Our German neighbors had dogs, cats, rabbits, and goats. One neighbor told us that we should have a rabbit. When I replied that the idea wouldn’t work because we couldn’t move it, she promptly replied that we could have it for dinner (she might have used the German word for “duh” at that point). This explained why we kept seeing changes in her rabbit stock.

As we’ve moved though, we always told the kids that we couldn’t have a pet; it would be too hard to PCS overseas and back. Now that we’ve settled, we’re getting requests for dogs, cats, chickens, goats, horses, and alpacas. We finally jumped into the fray and got not one, but two puppies at the pound – they were so cute. We adopted a 6-month old black Weimarner Lab mix and a 4-month old German Shepherd mix.

Now comes another transition – pets, and training them. Any suggestions? Mary Claire and I hadn’t quite prepared for this transition.

As a final note, the dogs came with the names of Thunder and Bimmer. We’re trying to think of new names. We’ve covered Jack, Snoopy, Marcus, Fuji (we’re trying to think of a name that relates to Japan or Germany) – but we’d like to ask our readers (reader?) for ideas. Any good names that fit these cute guys (they are both guys)?

Returning to the states has presented transitions for us, such as: MC going from active duty to retirement (and not working); the childrens’ schooling; and, my switch from hausmann (as the Germans called me) to being the spouse going to work (I keep wondering though if I’m technically the “breadwinner” of the family when MC’s retirement pay as a LtCol of 23 years is greater than that of an adjunct professor at a state university).

Another transition we’re making is cultural. For instance, we’ve noticed the green movement in the states and the efforts to lessen everyone’s footprint. Heck, I’m thinking of looking into a wind turbine for our 5 acres if we’re able to sell excess energy back to the utility. First, though we have to decide on a dog, then I’ll address wind issues.

Coming from Germany, where green has been a way of life for decades, we got used to and appreciating the benefit of things like sorting our garbage, watching our neighbors collect rain water, hanging our laundry out to dry, and walking or riding our bikes to the store (or pub). The lifestyle appealed to my utilitarian Scotch-Irish heritage. Thus, we decided we wanted to continue as many habits as we could upon our return to the states. So, what do we do first, we buy a 41-foot RV – no footprints, just 6 wheel tracks. Granted, an RV trip does sound like a big footprint, but if you consider that the RV was our house, and that we got the same mileage as a Hummer, our footprint was smaller than a typical household with 3 kids and 2 cars.

The other trend we’ve noticed here, but happens to be the opposite of Europe, is the cleanliness issue. We went from Europe, where food workers don’t wear hats or gloves, and there are sugar bees flying over the pastries, to being asked to use hand sanitizer on grocery carts, kids being told not to reach for candy during Trick-or-Treat, and business execs “fist-bumping” instead of shaking hands.

America seems a bit “germaphobic” to me (if you’re over 40, you can appreciate that feeling remembering your childhood), but I realize that the two issues are confusing Americans, or, at least, me. I was using a public restroom and as I washed my hands (lifelong habit), a sign instructed me to keep the water running, go dry my hands, then come back and turn the water off.

I’m torn by the do-gooder issues: Am I supposed to be green? Or clean? Should I waste water or be wary of germs? Did people really get that sick in the past by turning off the water first? Don’t germs stick to dry hands as well as to wet hands?

Don’t the green and clean groups ever talk to each other about these conflicting issues?