It was a big day yesterday in our clan. Another motorhome was added to the mix. Karen, Jan's next older sister closed on a nice used coach. Nancy, Jan's oldest sister and her husband, CT already have one.
Vern, their father, and their mother, Viv had been in RVing forever. They had motorhomes, travel trailers, and more motorhomes. They always talked of their exciting travels around the country, and of course we would laugh at their travails that always seemed to follow Vern. Jan and I had a sailboat for about 10 years and all of our vacations back then were sailing vacations, mostly in the Caribbean. As the kids got older and more and more involved in activities, it became harder and harder for us to justify our sailboat. It was moored a 2 1/2 hr drive away from us, and it required a lot of upkeep for a very short sailing season on the coast of Maine.
Some background is required for this little tale so bear with me. I was a brother-in-law, but very close to Vern for many, many years. My love of flying got us together long before I married into the family. He was my surrogate father and mentor, as I had lost mine along the way.
Anyway, one day in 1994, Jan and I were visiting with Vern and Viv, as we both lived in the same town in NH, and we were lamenting that we had a vacation coming up and just didn't know what to do. Well, Vern stunned us when he offered the keys to their motorhome and the keys to their toad and said, go have fun! Jan and I were deeply touched and a bit nervous as we accepted their offer. We took off with our kids for a 2 week jaunt and fell in love with RVing. The rest is history. We bought our first motorhome shortly after and that started a long, long history of traveling together with Vern and Viv, and we even got our close friends' Ray and April into a motorhome, and the 3 of us traveled together for years all over the country. Karen and Tom, and Nancy joined us several times in a rental motorhome and knew they liked it as well.
While all of us were visiting with Vern and Viv in Kentucky at Karen's place in 2005, CT announced he and Nancy were getting a motorhome! We all were amazed he was getting a 40 footer as his first motorhome. We got to travel for several months together with Nancy and CT after I retired the first time, and have traveled with them several times since for shorter periods. Karen even borrowed their motorhome to accompany Jan and I last summer for a couple weeks.
Well, Vern had to get out of motorhoming eventually as it was just too much for his age, and the driving of a large vehicle was just too demanding. We helped him sell it and it was a sad, sad day when his motorhome drove out the driveway. He and Viv would reminisce with us when we visited and we'd tell tales of our adventures and mishaps along the way. He desperately missed RVing, and always talked of getting a small class C, but we all knew it was just talk.
Vern passed away a little over a year ago, and we miss him dearly, and especially miss all the excellent times we all had together out on the open road. It's too bad he never got to see the full circle of all his daughters stepping into his footsteps into this RV life. We have many adventures ahead of us, and it looks like we will keep the tradition of traveling together alive as we play with the idea of all of us heading to Alaska together in a couple summers from now.
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