Wandering Wahls

Our most recent transition experience arrived in the form of the need to wash clothes. We had a nice washer and dryer in the RV. Unfortunately, we can’t use them in the new house because we don’t know how the W/D could physically be taken out of the RV. So off Mary Claire went to research the brands, energy efficiency, etc.

There were so many questions with this purchase:

• Do we get top loaders or front loaders?
• Why don’t the front loaders just come with the pedestals vs. charging the consumer another $200 to avoid broken backs? (I’d like to thank manufacturers for looking out for consumers with that development: build a newly designed, energy efficient consumer appliance but make it 10 inches too short and charge $200 for the necessary pedestal.)
• Are the utility savings from the energy-rated units worth the extra cost?
• How does the Base Exchange system stay in business?

I know that last item came out of the blue, but the thought did occur to us as we shopped. As both of my readers know, one factor my wife and I took into account in considering where to settle was to be able to take advantage of base benefits, such as tax-free shopping at the commissary and BX. However, that experience does come at a cost. Frustration.

Mary Claire found good buys on a Whirlpool washer and dryer at the local BX. We traveled there ready to announce: “We want these,” thinking that spending $1,000+ would make us valuable customers. However, we couldn’t find anyone to listen to us. When we did find someone, they did take our money but then informed us that the units were on back order at the manufacturer and delivery was 2 months away.

It was explained that the sales promotions are done 6 months out so they aren’t always sure that the sale items will be in stock when the sale occurs. On top of that, the washer could be delivered sooner than the dryer. But, the manager didn’t want to allow that because the two are “one unit.” We pointed out that a washer could operate without the dryer, so hopefully we’re getting the washer delivered early. We aren’t too sure about this point though, because we can’t get our calls returned.

But, you can’t deny the savings and lack of sales tax, so we’ll be washing our clothes in an energy efficient frontloading washer, and doing our part to help the environment by hanging the washed clothes out to dry until our dryer arrives.

We actually prefer clothes hung to dry anyway.

One of the goals for our blog entries for MOAA is to include different perspectives on  our experience. We’ve heard from Mary Claire, the active duty family member, and me (the spousal unit – I will not refer to myself as “DS”). What have been missing is our kids’ perspectives. In that regard, I thought I would submit today my daughter’s thoughts on the 16 month RV trip across the U.S. – specifically about what one part of the trip stood out in her mind. For me its whoopee pies. For Anna though, not surprisingly, it was our visits to the 60+ National Parks and the impression they made on her.

As background, Anna is 11 years old and in the 5th grade. These thoughts and words are hers alone – and I am proud to say that her mom and dad DID NOT write this for her.

Tom

National Parks are important to me first of all because they all feature wonderful wildlife which cannot be found in many other places (zoos do not really count because the animals cannot be called “wild” life). The wildlife varies from the many bats in Carlsbad Caverns National Park to colorful fish in Biscayne National Park. Second, National Parks let me get away from people, and give me peace and quiet.

I consider myself very lucky to have seen about 60 National Parks in the last 16 months. I never realized all the natural beauty in the USA before we took our cross-country trip in our RV. Starting in California we saw Joshua Tree National Park. There we were lucky enough to see a tarantula. Unfortunately, we missed the National Parks around Oregon and Washington, but we did see the wonders of Yellowstone National Park (in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming). With bears, wolves, and geysers, Yellowstone is one of my favorite National Parks. Theodore Roosevelt National Park treated us to bison in our campground; prairie dogs in Prairie Dog Towns; and, wonderful hiking trails. Mount Rushmore National Memorial taught us about the presidents. I can’t list all of the National Parks but some special ones were Everglades National Park in Florida (alligators in every swamp), Rocky Mountains National Park in Colorado (Mountain Goats if you’re lucky enough), and Carlsbad Cavers National Park in New Mexico (stalagmites and stalactites in the beautiful caves). My brothers and I also got Junior Ranger badges or patches in every National Park we visited. We prefer the patches over the badges.

Traveling the country really inspired me to try to help protect the National Parks. Protecting National Parks does not always involve hard tasks. Some rules like “don’t bust the crust,” “leave no trace,” “stay on the trail,” and “don’t feed the wildlife” can actually help a lot.

“Don’t bust the crust” means not to step on Biological soil crust. This crust is actually alive! Biological soil crust can be found in Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.

“Leave no trace” means to not litter, not to take anything, or just not to change the natural habitat. The only thing you can take is pictures and memories.

“Stay on the trail” means, well, to stay on the trail. Why the National Park Service wants you to do that is because if you step off trail you may step on plants that are growing there. Only one person stepping off trail may not do anything alone, but if one person does it then other people are bound to do the same. Soon everyone will be destroying plants, and animal’s habitat, all because of a few (maybe even one) people off the trail.

“Don’t feed the wildlife” also means what it says. Why the National Park Service wants you to follow this rule is because when wild animals are fed they forget to feed themselves because they depend on people too much. Also they (mostly larger animals like bears) can become aggressive and attack humans for their food. Sometimes the animal has to be put down because they are too dangerous. The saying “a fed bear is a dead bear” comes from that fact.

An idea that may help protect National Parks could be that school field trips be held at National parks and the schools could raise money to help the National Parks.

In conclusion, America is very lucky to have these fabulous National Parks. I hope that people will keep helping and Protecting National Parks so that I can take my grandchildren there some day.

It’s been 18 months since my retirement from the Air Force, but the reality of this retirement is just now sinking in. The first couple months of the trip were busy with the actual move back to the USA, searching for and negotiating the RV, and planning our trip. Once we took off, we were consumed with the adventure itself. There were travel routes to plan (many on the fly), destination spots to research, and kids to teach! My days were filled with new and amazing discoveries of our beautiful country, as well as discoveries of my own family—things that I missed when I was active duty. Being together 24 hours a day for 16 months in 200 sq. feet of living space fostered a kind of family intimacy that I had never imagined.

Now as we transition from RV life to “real life” in Colorado Springs, I can’t help but feel a bit lost. The kids are in school, Tom has started his job, and I am feeling role confusion. I have always been an active duty mother—squeezing in motherly duties between the military duties, and relying on my great husband to keep the house together. Now it’s my turn…and it feels strange. Filling out paperwork at the dentist’s office today, I pondered on the line “occupation.” First, I put “retired”. No, sounds too old. Then I put “RN.” But I’m not actually working as an RN. I scratched that out, and put “housewife.” But we don’t have a house yet, and no one would get “RV-wife”. By that time there wasn’t room for “transitioning.”

You’d think after being full time RVers for 16 months, we’d not make expensive mistakes anymore. We were proud of ourselves for carefully planning the journey to Colorado Springs to avoid crossing mountain passes and potentially having to put chains on this 41-foot beast.

Instead we drove south through Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino (are you getting hip to this kind of trip – stop me if you’ve heard this). We arrived in Colorado Springs among snow and 40 degree sunny weather—even my California Girl of a wife could handle weather like this! We checked in to the FamCamp at the Air Force Academy, which is a quiet, peaceful place, especially this time of year. (I wonder why.)

We knew enough to fill our water tank, then disconnect the hose so the water hose would not freeze at night. There are only about 5 other RVs here, and we did notice that some of them had lamps turned on under their RVs. Not bothering to ask why, maybe that was where they read the paper, we then set out to see our good friends who live in Colorado Springs.

They warned us of a cold front coming in (temps predicted to be -20 F with wind chill,) but we assured them we were cozy and warm in the RV. We came home late that night, with temps now down to -8, and found we had no running water. Hmm, that’s funny, we filled up the tank earlier—could the water have frozen in the tank? We called the RV manufacturer, Newmar, to ask about the problem.

Their reply: “Did you leave the heater on when you were out?” No, we were trying to save propane. Oops, that meant possible frozen water pipes, which ran along the furnace ducts, or a frozen water pump.

Our experienced RV neighbor Al helped us thaw out the water pump the next day by lending us a spare hot lamp and space heater. The culprit was found—a cracked water pump. Thank goodness for mobile RV service. $500 later, our water pump was replaced and we were back in business.

Now we know to leave the heater set at a comfortable 60 degrees while we are out. No more frozen water pumps. Do you think we will learn as many lessons when we move in to a normal house?

We had a wonderful 2 months in CA and AZ, where our primary mission was to spend time with our families. My family is in AZ, and we enjoyed desert weather and swimming in my dad’s 90 degree pool in his townhouse retirement community (it is always set to 90 degrees, slightly cooler that the temperature his fellow residents get when they see kids in their pool). MC’s (large) family is scattered around CA, but never fail to all aggregate for holidays and parties! Being stationed overseas for 8 years was glorious, but we missed so many family gatherings. It was terrific to spend time with family—and enjoy the parties.

With all this family time we were actually contemplating calling California “home”—(I know what you’re thinking—too many people, too much traffic, too high of prices – I kept telling my wife that same thing). But then the call came. I had been sending out resumes to many Universities to continue my on-line teaching. Then, I got a call from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, offering me a full time position teaching Business Writing (the class I’ve been teaching part-time for UMUC the past 10 years) in their Professional Writing Program. (This offer is for face-to-face teaching, not on-line.) So…we pondered it a bit – Colorado is a beautiful state, and was on our “Top 10” list, but 20 driving hours from family members that we just reconnected with.

When weighing our pros and cons of the move, we realized that we were sitting at the same dining room table at my brother-in-law Dan’s house in Wilton, CA, that we were sitting at 16 months ago planning our “Wahls Across America” trip – talk about full circle (irony or sign from God?).

We broke the possibility to MC’s family, thinking they’d be heartbroken that we’d be moving 3 states away. But they were actually pleased, promising to visit often! My brother-in-law Dan, always full of sage advice, smiled and said “Party’s over, Tom, time to go to work!”

And with that, the Wandering Wahls are pondering  (is it final?) “settling down”, and moving to the beautiful state of Colorado. But I assure you, the party is NOT over! Nor, the blog – I still have (mis)adventures to tell and new adventures about transitioning from military life to civilian life – from the perspectives of a retiree, her spouse, and their military brats (children) who have spent the majority of the past decade living overseas as a military family.

Sorry NY, We <3 CO now!

We keep thinking we’ve come full circle on this trip, from meeting up with friends from MC’s first assignment, to visiting the friends who introduced the two of us. But, here we are at Travis AFB coming full circle two more times!

We arrived to visit our first “joint” friends from the military (friends we both met after being married). Gary and Bridgette Grabowski are retired AF friends (fighter pilot type and nurse) who we met during our early days at Nellis AFB (after meeting in the O’Club, they promptly “no-noticed” us later that night at our apartment and we’ve been friends, Godparents to kids, etc. ever since). They were also the first people we visited in the RV.

So, here we are at Travis thinking we’ve come full circle yet again. However, we went to church on base and sitting a few pews in front of us are Sonia and David Kuch – the people we bought our car from when we PCSed to Landstuhl, Germany. They’re now stationed at Travis, of all things. What makes this another form of “coming full circle” though is the car they sold us is the one we kept at my brother-in-law’s and ended up being burned to the ground at the local auto repair shop (through no fault of my brother-in-law). They enjoyed hearing that story.

It appears that there are many ways to come full circle. Maybe we should change the phrase to “come full concentric circle.” In any event, it’s a small world out there, especially after a military career.

You spin me right round...Coming full circle!

Mary Claire and I have dedicated part of our trip to “Eating Our Way Across America.” From $2.00 Coney Island hot dogs in Fort Wayne, to Whoopee Pie in Maine, to Key Lime Pie in Key West, we’ve sought out local eateries and delicacies as part of our RV journey. Now, we have a Tempe, AZ location to add to our list. I met with a friend at a local Mexican restaurant called Suzie’s. The food and atmosphere was perfect: great homemade food inside little “joint” on the side of the road, away from the strip malls.

Speaking of malls, I have to admit that I really, really dislike them. I know some people enjoy mall time as a hobby, and I respect that. However, I abhor having to go to a mall (the worst for someone like me was having to go to the world’s largest mall in Minnesota to get my laptop repaired at the Apple store). Anyway, I was struck by the number of malls in the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, etc. area. If people are experiencing personal economic downturns, it doesn’t seem to be reflected in the malls. I’ll know when the recession has hit bottom when a mall doesn’t have 4 different candle stores, 7 different tennis shoes stores, or 4 different expensive “gadget” stores.

Finally, have a happy Thanksgiving! As our family has traveled the country, we’ve become aware of all the things we have to be thankful for due to my wife’s military career as well as from living in America.

We'll pardon these turkeys...Happy Thanksgiving!

I realize this story is a little dated, but please bear with me. For Halloween, we were in Phoenix to see my family and old friends (from the civilian side). The stay was fun and it was great to catch up with my brother, his family, and my dad for a few days.

Additionally though, our children got a taste of American culture – literally, since it was Halloween. Our friends have three children the same ages as ours; so Sam and Anna traipsed around the local neighborhood and Joe went to a Halloween party with our friend’s oldest boy. All three kids were pretty excited by the events – and the collection of treats (those that their dad did not confiscate).

Joe and Anna also went to school with our friend’s children for a day. They were only supposed to stay for a half a day, but when I arrived to pick them up the two wanted to stay at school. Now, how come we can’t get that attitude at their “road” school?

Phoenix might not be a place on our list of consideration; but, other than the heat, it was a nice RV stop. Plus, the kids had great fun and it was nice to have them see an American school. Tomorrow, Sam gets his turn. We’re in Cayucos, CA visiting my wife’s brother, and Sam will spend a day at school with his cousin.

Before

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-fter!

One of the biggest challenges of our road trip has been space, or lack thereof. While our Newmar Allstar has a “super storage” below the master bedroom, space is still a premium for a family of five living full time in an RV. The kids are allotted 2 drawers each. They use their top drawer for clothes and their bottom drawer for toys/rocks/Halloween candy, and other treasures that kids collect. Off-season clothes are stored below in rubber bins. We routinely make trips to clothing donation boxes. So where does all our other “stuff” go? Here are a few ideas if you are storage-challenged and interested in this type of trip:

1. Games: Put all game pieces and instructions in separate zip lock bags. Put game boards and pieces in a large rubber bin, and THROW AWAY THE BOXES! (We fit about 15 games in one bin.) For jigsaw puzzles, cut the picture of the puzzle from the box and put that in a zip lock with the pieces.
2. Kitchen items: We have 2 frying pans and 2 saucepans. Everything must have dual purpose to take up real estate, i.e. the colander is my salad/fruit bowl. Corning ware is the only dishware to consider for RVing—plates stack snuggly; they are microwavable, and break resistant. We quickly hand wash dishes after each meal, and they are ready for the next.
3. Electronics (cameras, IPODS, computers): We have 2 laptops. We keep all cords and rechargers in small bins in an overhead cabinet. The printer sits at the bottom of our one and only closet.
4. Bikes: We rigged up hooks in the super storage. We keep the expensive bikes there, and two kids bikes go on the bike rack on our towed car. Helmets, locks, and bike bags are in a bin below.
5. Decorations/knick-knacks/keepsakes: Don’t have them! We visit thrift stores for holiday decorations, and then give them back after use. We do have some small souvenirs in a box below.

I can’t tell you how liberating it is to travel light. We could lighten up more—the digital piano and golf clubs haven’t been pulled out the super storage much! Hopefully we will keep “simple” when we move back in to a house.

On an end note, we do feel like we live simply. I told an Amish person once that we can afford this trip because we live a simple life – me telling an Amish man that “we” live simply…my wife laughed at that.

We had a great stay on Coronado Island for the MOAA Career Fair. Not only did we taste the exquisite cuisine and shop the wonderful shops of North Island NAS, we were only paying $12 a night for the view pictured here. We stayed at Coronado Naval Base’s Fiddler’s Cove RV Park, which is located at their marina (we’ve noticed that the Air Force calls their RV Parks FamCamps while the Navy likes to use RV Park or RV Resort).

We had a little problem with our sewage holding tank though. Our toilet has a sensor for when the tank is full, and a light turns red when this occurs. The light turned red on the way to Fiddler’s Cove, and would flash on and off during our stay. Yet, we knew the tank was empty. The resulting problem was that when the red light was on, it stopped the toilet from being flushed. While the kids were crossing their legs and hopping around, I did find out that we could override the toilet sensor and force a flush. Thus, there was joy in RV-ville. Now we just have to get the tank’s sensor checked or cleaned – this seems like an episode for the “Dirty Jobs” television show.

The MOAA Career Fair was a very good event: great location, well set up; and, a good group of vendors/employers. We all went and I parked myself at a table and waited for the employers to stop by. Before long I realized though that I had to walk around and visit the employers. This really opened things up for me.

The Fair provided good access to employers and useful insights from them on how to explore job opportunities. In addition, MOAA offered seminars on job-search related issues. If you have an opportunity to attend a future MOAA Career Fair, I highly recommend doing so.