New York? No idea……

Honest to God, we have no idea what to say about New York. We are still in the Allegheny Mountain range and so far, we’ve seen about as much of New York as we did traveling through Maryland and Pennsylvania on our way here. Between the smoke from Canada, the fog that seems to settle in the valleys of the Alleghenies and rain, we haven’t done much sightseeing in this area.

For someone that loves her sunshine, I feel like I am about 3 weeks low on my daily quota!

We did do a couple visits to Binghamton, NY., which is about 15 miles from us. So glad we were in the truck without Homer because you exit one freeway to a four-lane road just to enter another freeway in a new direction. Let’s just say there are interesting roads around here. It seems like they built one freeway and then decided they needed another, so just built that in a different direction and figured out how to get the two of them to join much later.

Binghamton, NY has a few tourist type attractions. One was the recommendation to have a Spiedie sandwich. We did. We won’t have another. Big chunks of meat on a bun and very little sauce to go with it. (My son suggested we add more details for the foodies that read this blog. There’s our foodie piece!) We both thought the meat was a little dry, although the bread was soft and tasty. Thank goodness Dave made sloppy joes for us the next day, just to get our palettes back on track. Evidently, we are meat and sauce people.

We also discovered that Binghamton is the carousel capital of the world. There are six of these beauties in the area and all have been lovingly restored and still run today. That’s what we read anyways. The one day we went out to visit them, we discovered they were just not opened that day and then as it started to rain, we just went back home. This one did look pretty impressive as we peeked through the windows.

Flexibility and Homer maintenance

(Photo for effect – No actual sunsets were seen during our visit to New York)

Living this lifestyle means even if you have tourist downtime, there is still something to always do when it comes to Homer. I did a lot of laundry, we were able to get a Chewy delivery for the pups, and we discovered that while slide toppers are awesome, you can still build up gunk under them on the roof of your slides. Gunk, as in mold on the roof and dirt in the seals. So, we pulled them in, cleaned them up and discovered that the factory had completely missed caulking them against the inside wall. (No wonder I keep coughing in bed, and only in bed.) We did not find any water leaks, thank goodness, but did learn this is a common miss at the factory. A new yearly maintenance item to add to our Homer list and surprise, surprise, no more coughing in bed. Hmmmmmmm

We are also on Grandbaby watch as our second grandchild is due any day now and we can’t wait to find out who this newest little Sarff will be. Girl or boy, we have no idea. Our first grandson, Jacksyn, was just baptized in our lake at the family cabin and while we weren’t there in person, my son did an awesome job of filming it and sending us the copy so we could enjoy the moment. (Yes, we have watched it so many times, we lost count.) 90% of the time, we are loving this lifestyle, but missing those moments is definitely the hardest part for us. How we as grandparents, adjust our time and locations based on the seasons and our grandchildren, is yet to be known to us. What’s our word? Flexibility!

Freedom!

(I just took this pic and lo and behold, the sun is shining!)

Today is the 4th of July and we are in New York. We left Florida in mid-May and will head to New Hampshire tomorrow. Maine for 6 weeks after that and then on the road again to ???? Today I am especially reminded of the freedom we enjoy in this greatest of nations, our USA. I can’t imagine being able to live this lifestyle so completely free, anywhere else in the world.

• Free to journey where our hearts and minds take us
• Free to enjoy all of the states and the beauty they offer
• Free to live the lives we choose to live

As two veterans that understand all that has taken place, the good and the bad, to obtain this freedom and to keep it, all the sacrifices and giving of self that were made for us, I am especially humbled and proud to hang this flag no matter where we travel. Neither Dave or I take our freedom to live this lifestyle and to live in this country for granted. I don’t know any place else on earth that would provide us with the freedoms we have earned as a nation. God bless America!

See ya on the road,

Dave and Theresa