Life From The Front Tees

"And so this is Christmas" - John Lennon

It's Christmas Eve.  The tree is trimmed.  The gifts are wrapped.  I'm thrilled to have my beautiful daughter visiting St Petersburg for a while.  We decided to risk the two hour flight from Chicago.  But is that really riskier than her hanging with her college friends ?  We'll find out in a few days as we drove thru a Walgreen's this morning and self swabbed our nostrils.  Having done this several times now, I highly recommend the self swabbing versus having a nurse do it. 

My boy and his girlfriend will be down after Christmas.  The last thing to move to Florida is my old SUV which they're driving cross country for me.

It's been a while since I've posted.  I've been busy.  I spent my first five Florida weeks in a nice Largo RV park while I shopped and closed on a house. 

Closed on a Tuesday. Relocated my RV to my new driveway and slept there as my stuff from CA hadn't arrived yet. 

I woke up this morning with one last leg to complete The Great RV Move Adventure of 2020.  I had arrived last night in a downpour and the fact that I was in Florida hadn't really sunk in.   A few miles on the freeway fixed that.

It's the billboards..... loads of 'em

- Florida Welcome Center featuring a 14 Foot Alligator

- Florida Welcome Center featuring Baby Alligators

- The Big Daddy Don Garlits Drag Racing Museum

"Lord, I was born a ramblin' man" - The Allman Brothers

Downsizing from 3000+ square feet to a 27 foot RV you'd think I might be feeling cramped by now.  I'm not.  I'm quite comfortable and am in no rush to upsize.

The trip east has gone in phases...

Drove the beautiful and amazing Columbia Gorge.  Parked the RV and grabbed a rental car to explore the Highway to the Sun in Glacier National Park.  Entered the north entrance of Yellowstone and took the middle route visiting Mammoth Hot Springs, Geyser Valley, Yellowstone's Grand Canyon and cruising thru a herd of bison on my way east.  On the way east caught the headwaters of the Missouri River and Devils Tower. Plenty of pictures of all can be found on my Facebook feed.

The RV parks around Yellowstone were full so I randomly found a couple of cool boondocking spots on the way in and out.  'In" was a highway rest stop on the banks of the Yellowstone River.  "Out" was a secluded parking area in the middle of Shell Creek Canyon where I awoke to a truck departing after a ranger left a "don't do that' ticket on my windshield.

'Does anybody really know what time it is ?" - Chicago

It took me two days and two states to realize I changed time zones.

I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.

Parked by the Clark Fork in Montana, the countdown timer on Joe's Sunday night on-line poker game said I showed up an hour early.  Huh, Montana must be mountain time.  Then, I checked.  Idaho was too !  Guess I slept through that one....twice.

The grand tour has been progressing slower than expected but the beauty is, that's just fine.

I like to travel.  I like to golf.

For years, I've kept a spreadsheet of all the courses I've played.  I save a scorecard from each course and those now fill four photo albums.  I was never a great golfer.  I'm no longer even a good golfer.  But I've played a lot of bad golf in a lot of cool places.  Collecting courses... it's my thing.

A couple years ago, I found a new app called GolfPlayed.  It includes a worldwide directory of courses to keep track of where you've played and who you've played with.  I would be it's target market.

So, I loaded up the 390 or so courses I'd played and immediately jumped to 6th on the app's leaderboard. Since then, the GolfPlayed has attracted a lot of similar fanatics and I've dropped down the list significantly but I was 6th at the time.

In 7th, was the owner of the app, Andrew.  Now Andrew is a young strapping Bok, who played college golf in the states, spent a decade on the Sunshine Tour and even got a start in the British Open before giving up full time tour golf to jump into the app biz.  Judging from his posts he can shoot 67 in his sleep.

...or One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

Buy an RV.  Head north and escape the heat before heading to Florida.  That was the plan.  Three days of 100°F+  Sacramento heat later.....

I'm a fan of Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy.  He's been preaching for years about the shortage of tradesmen in the US.  Well Mike's right.

I bought the RV.

Gave it a good test run driving it from Missouri to California coming back to gather some belongings.

"Every new beginning starts with some other beginning's end" - Semisonic

Monday morning I sat at my house a broken man.

Broken by U-haul of all things.  

I got over it.  

But first...how'd I get there...

This may be my third or fourth mid-life crisis.

Let the chorus of “you’re too old to be mid-life” begin.   So, maybe it’s my first late-life crisis ?  OK, second ?  Whatever.

Regardless what one labels it, in my life, right now, these times are a changing.

The nest has been emptied of the kids, the wife, even the dog.... with all parties seemingly heading in a positive direction, excepting of course my bank account.  To no one's surprise, it ain't cheap emptying the nest.

After a couple month covid delay, the house is now in escrow.  The target date to launch life’s next great adventure is a fast approaching matter of weeks.  Soon, I'll be intentionally homeless for a while.