Get out the maps!

I'm probably being a bit premature, but I got all my maps and trip plans out this evening for a boost to my enthusiasm. Maps never seem to fail me, and yeah, I know Streets & Trips, Mapquest, Google Maps, and whatever are just fine and dandy. But I like to lie back on the couch, head propped up with pillows, and unfold my beautiful wonderful paper maps, following my possible route across the country. Let's see, I could turn off here, take this byway and drive over to here, etc, etc, etc. After a while I set the maps down, folded my arms and got comfortable, closed my eyes, and I was soon dreaming my trip!

I have boxes all over the house, and have so many more to pack. The chaos kind of gets to me, and I remember getting rid of my stuff from the house in NC and packing up a "few" things to put into storage. I didn't think I would ever see daylight with that move, and I feel the same way right now. But I know it will all come together, and I can live with the clutter and the mess for a couple more weeks. This morning I spent several hours shredding paper, but the big plastic tub with file folders still feels as heavy as it did before I started. I would like to reprint something I received from my brother today, and I think you will enjoy it as well.

THE SHREDDER

A young engineer was leaving the office at 5:45 p.m. when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand. "Listen," said the CEO, "this is a very sensitive and important document, and my secretary is not here. Can you make this thing work?"

"Certainly," said the young engineer. He turned on the machine, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button. "Excellent, excellent!" said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine, "I just need one copy."

Lesson: Never, ever assume that your boss knows what he's doing.

With every page I fed into my shredder I thought about this story, and wondered if I might ever need any of it again. Much of it consisted of statements from Blue Cross regarding what they were billed, what Medicare paid, and then another to tell me what they ended up paying. I could wallpaper a whole house every year with the papers they send me. I usually don't care for e-statements, at least from my bank, but I would sure prefer e-statements from Blue Cross. At least Medicare does it more sensibly and sends a summary every few months rather than all those individual papers. Can it be that the Government actually does something more efficiently and cost effective than a private company?

Hey, how did I get on that soap box when I'm in such a good and hopeful mood!

I think I'll wander over to Les Schwab tomorrow to see what it will cost me to have new tires put on the front on my truck. I replaced the duallies a couple of years ago and they are in good shape, but if I'm going to have to drive across the country I think I want new tires on the front. I'll see if I get any nibbles on the ad to sell both truck and camper, but if I don't have anything serious after a week's time I will have to plan for using it. What else can I do, although I want to throw up every time I look at the door to the propane tank! I'm just shy of 92k miles on my truck and I probably need to have something done, but it's running just beautifully and I think I'll just leave well enough alone.

After I posted the above, I was studying a website that features free and low cost camping. I was intrigued that there are many locations in Maryland - a lot of them are BJ's Warehouse parking lots. For those of you who hang around in the west exclusively, BJ's Warehouse is a membership store such as Costco or Sam's. If I lived in the east where they are fairly prevalent I would get a membership. But my question is has anyone ever stayed in one of their lots? I always hear about people stopping at Walmart, but would like to know how BJ's is for an overnight stop. They also have locations in New York but those aren't listed, so maybe there is a state reg that prevents overnight stays of RVs in store parking lots.

Also, FWIW, there are quite a few free camping places in Virginia, many going back to the days of the CCC. So while there might not be great expanses of BLM land, there is govt land to camp on at no or low cost.