- Breaking
Away (Leaving Indiana)
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- Thursday, May 6th, 1999
- After a year and a half of planning
and preparation, we finally departed from
Evansville (Below right, pulling away from
the log home in southern Indiana). Delayed
by a day as a storm front swept through,
we decided to hold off beginning our
adventure. It blew and rained, but we sat
securely in the driveway of our sold,
empty house. We were able to do a little
work at the computers and continue
organizing space in the new home on
wheels.
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- We are still a little crammed in with
extra boxes and belongings; however some
will be dropped off in Illinois and others
in Kansas. Some items will be organized
and weeded as we proceed westward.
- We also are carrying print and
promotional material for our publishing
and staff development businesses. As we
use these up, we plan to adopt a more
'just-in-time' production policy and not
maintain a large stock of inventory. Other
full-timers have told us that this
'paring-down' process continues for
another six to twelve months into our
first year of full-timing. We'll get
there.
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- Today's drive was under three hours,
northwest to Lithia Springs Campground at
Lake Shelbyville, IL. We arrived in the
afternoon, found our campsite under the
trees, backed in and setup. It seemed
remarkable that the first people that we
talked to at this campground, on our first
day of full-timing, were fellow Escapees
(full-timing Rvers), David and Linda
Mirenic.They were out for an evening walk
and stopped to visit. Dave and Linda were
at the park to work as gate attendants for
4 months over the summer. We believe they
said it was their fourth year, and they
had become very familiar with the area.
They told us about the 'Boomer' group
within Escapees and later dropped off some
of the newsletters. It looks like this is
a group for us.
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- Saturday, May 8th
- We were in central Illinois to visit
Larry's parents who live about eight miles
south of the campground in Clarksburg, IL.
Larry's hometown of Findlay is nearby. But
mainly, we came to see daughter Brooke,
graduate Saturday morning from Eastern
Illinois University with her degree in
English and a technical writing emphasis
with her minor study in Spanish. The
picture on the right shows Larry, Brooke,
and Pam, Brooke's mother. We're all very
proud of her.
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Brooke has edited our last two books and helped to
greatly improve the published products. She is working
this summer in her hometown of Charleston, IL and is
considering completing a masters program in Journalism
at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
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- Saturday evening the Johnson clan
(parents, two brothers and sister along
with their families) gathered at our
campsite for an evening cookout and lots
of visiting. The kids played hard, the
parents gabbed and caught up on the family
doings, even got in a card game or two (On
the left; Larry, Annette, and Larry's
parents, Sylvester and Lillian) - - well
into the night.
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- Sunday, May 9th
Son Benjamin drove from Charleston, IL and
arrived for a late lunch. Here (to the right)
he is trying on his new hiking boots.
Afterwards we took a short hike around the
lake and made plans for his joining us for a
few weeks of vacation later this summer. We
all visited his grandparents later that
afternoon.
The campground at Lithia Springs is
excellent. It contains lots of campsites with
large spaces and trees and 30 amp. electrical
hookups. There's no water, sewer, cable or
pull-throughs, but the campground does have a
dumpsite and water fill location, so extended
stays can be managed. As of this spring, you
can now reserve your campsite by phone or
online.Because of the close proximity to
relatives, I'm sure that we will be back.
Maybe we will get to visit again with
Boomers, Dave and Linda.
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- Created by Annette
Lamb and
Larry
Johnson,
1/99.
- Updated, 5/99.
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