Day 1

This is the first day of the rest of my life, and what I'm considering to be the first day of my life as a fulltimer. I hitched up this morning - the 2nd time in my life I ever hitched. The first time was nearly a disaster, and this time was nearly flawless. (I would say completely flawless but I don't want to tempt karma.) Since I'm going to be living in Cali for the next few months, i will start talking Californian and say I had a HELLA GOOD day!

When I had driven 320 miles and stopped at the Flying J where I had planned to overnight, I found they didn't have pull-thru spaces. My backing up skills wouldn't bear up in a crowded lot, so I drove on to the next rest area. It didn't feel so great there, and a woman who travels with her husband in a big truck told me a man was shot in the head there a couple of weeks ago, and the perp still hadn't been caught. Soooo, I drove on out. The sun was going down and I felt a little desperate since I don't see well in the dark. I had driven nearly an extra 40 miles and decided to get off at the exit for Loretta Lynn's RV Park, even though I knew it would be outrageously expensive. As soon as I got off the interstate I saw a sign for a KOA campground just about .3 of a mile back a little lane. I'm here now, have electric, the 5ver is warm, I had a bite to eat, and life is good.

After I had hitched up the rig this morning, and was preparing to do the walkaround, Brant from the CG drove up and asked how I was doing. I told him I thought I did ok, but would he please check it out to make sure I did it correctly. It was comforting to have someone check me out and it bolstered my confidence in myself. What a great place and what great people!

I was thinking of the similarities between learning how to hook up & drive a rig, and my first few days backpacking. I made a lot of mistakes at first, but each time I got the routine down and soon I could set up and take down a camp almost on auto-pilot. Of course the fulltiming life requires more critical skills and the consequences of a mistake can be catastrophic, but I see that I can do something new, and do it well, and get better and better at it. Maybe everything in life is a practice field for what comes next, and I feel so fortunate to be where I am today. And being raised by parents who constantly reinforced their belief in my worth certainly played a major role in who I am today. WOW, I'm on such a high it might be hard for me to get to sleep. Nah...