What RVers do on Rainy Days and Bad News

I am writing this on Easter Sunday, March 27 from Hales Landing Campground in southern Georgia. The prediction of rain for the past three days was accurate. With the exception of a few short periods, it has rained non-stop since Thursday night. It has been a time of deep reflection and sadness. Even though we are fine and when it rains we just enjoy the downtime, we got some dreadful news on Friday followed on Saturday by worse news. 

A man that we have known for many years became very sick this past week and then passed away on Friday night. This was a very special guy. As many of you know, I have been involved in the sport of off-road motorcycle racing for about 40 years. In the past 20 years I became friendly with a local family of racers. The patriarch of that family was Ken. Ken was known to most as simply "Pops". One of my sons, Scott, has had his ups and downs over the years. Ken somehow saw something special in Scott. He was the first one to give him a job. He drove a hay rake and learned many lessons about life from Ken. I have spent many hours talking to Ken and learning many lessons from him also. He helped me a great deal in learning how to be a father of a son that just did things a bit different. He had an amazing way of making you feel comfortable and everyone liked him. 

It saddens me greatly that I will never be able to have one of those conversations with Ken again. I hope that my son and his sons are not taking it too hard. I know how much they loved that man. 

It is not only my son and his own sons that held him dear. I know of a huge group of very tough men that have shed a tear over the past few days. Ken was a mentor to them all.  

When life is hard for me, I like to write about it. It helps. 

This is another thing that can be difficult when you live on the road. I would like to be there to let the family know how much I cared for Ken, but making that trip is not reasonable. We will surly make those dreadful trips when we have to, but returning is not always the right thing to do. A note now and a visit when we return next month is the right thing to do in my opinion. 

Life in an RV when it is raining? Nothing different. We each have our special place where we sit, read, watch TV or a movie and I even like to play Wii. We are lucky that our rig is very large and we have plenty of space to get comfortable. 

I have been paying attention to the lake to make sure it does not get too high. These roots of the cypress trees have been my gauge. The kind of look like Hoodoo's. The water has only risen about a foot. It looks like we have nothing to worry about. 

I have been watching NCAA basketball. My bracket is pretty much a bust, but my champion is still in it - Go Villanova. 

Kim has been rereading the Harry Potter Books. She is just about done again. I have no idea why. I finished the "Lewis and Clark Journals" this past week. It was very interesting to read the story of the voyage of the Corps of Discovery in their own words. I was able to tie in much of the journey with our travels last year. I am now reading a book called "The Longest Winter". It is an excellent book about a unit that fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War 2. A special thanks to my friend Mike for lending me those books. I will send them back soon. 

The forecast is for the rain to quit this evening. We will probably move on either tomorrow or Tuesday. We are looking at sites in central Alabama.