Kansas Is Why People Fly

We made it as far as Kansas City Missouri on Monday night. These 500 mile days are killers. We would never choose to drive so far in such a short time if it weren't for this new job of Bill's. It is killer on my hip pain! Although we had over 600 miles to go when we left this morning we are going to try and make it all the way to Pickerel as there is no way we want to stop with only 100 miles to go.

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of Gretchen Rubin and the Happiness Project. I might have mentioned her in a previous post. She is someone who basically "had it all" - a lawyer who clerked for Sandra Day O'Connor, married to a great guy, two kids and the proverbial white picket fence who realized that she never took the time to be really, truly happy with who she was and where she was in life. I have found that in myself many, many times. I am a planner so I am always looking out a week, a month, a year, to retirement. But now that we are living what I have dreamed about doing for about 20 years, which is to travel and work before we were too old to really enjoy it, I realized that I was doing the same thing. Of course, the recession and our precarious financial situation made it that much harder to enjoy the winter in Phoenix. We were constantly working - if not battling traffic on the freeways then entering reports or looking online for more work. I realized that the winter passed by and it was not all that enjoyable except for the weather.

Well, life is way too short for that. Now that the work situation has somewhat resolved I am going to try and enjoy each day. We are being sent to the areas that I am going to post below. Granted, this is not the geographic area that we would have chosen if we were taking a workamping position, but maybe that is for the best. This way we can get to know this area and leave the more personally desirable areas of the country for later on. So every day I am going to try and find something to be happy about and post it. That way I am held more accountable. Will it work every day? Hopefully, but if not, I will pick up and try the next day. So here is my first "happiness" posting - I am happy that my brother Brad paid us $1500 of the much larger sum he owes us. It really helped to pay on the property taxes!

Here is Bill's schedule for the next two months -

April 5 Fort Wayne IN

April 7 Rossford OH

April 11 Portage MI

April 12 Battle Creek MI

April 13 Jackson MI

April 14 Okemos MI

April 15 Lansing MI

April 16 Lansing MI

April 18 Grand Rapids MI

April 20 Caledonia MI

April 22 Wyoming MI

April 25 Jenison MI

April 26 Grand Rapids MI

April 27 Muskegon MI

April 29 Holland MI

May 2 Benton Harbor MI

May 3 Granger IN

May 4 Goshen IN

May 6 South Bend IN

May 9 Valparaiso IN

May 11 Merrillville IN

May 14 Calumet city IL

May 18 Homewood IL

May 20 Chicago IL

May 23 Oak Lawn IL

May 25 Chicago IL

May 26 Chicago IL

June 3 Chicago IL

So you see by the very busy schedule, we will be moving around quite a bit.