Lura Lake - Our First Home on the Road

So now, back to the beginnings...

Skip and Mary

Robert Preston, Terri Platner and Mary Preston in the background

Our friend Patti Urich came to visit us at our
temporary home on Lura Lake

We closed on selling the sweet little Amboy house on August 21, after months of weeding through stuff and filling our storage space, and officially moved into the R-pod (purchased at Keepers RV just outside Mankato).  The first two weeks were spent at Daly Park and Lura Lake, just outside Amboy.
















This was written at that time...

9/5/15

"The acorns are falling, the acorns are falling!"  It's not Chicken Little, but it was our reality last night at Daly Park, our current home and jumping off point for the Grand Tour of 2015-16.

The overriding reality of the last 2 months has been stuff.  Make that the reality of the last 2 years...  Karen sold her house in Fort Atkinson, WI a year ago, a large 2-story home with full basement and attic, 411 Main St.  She had lived there for 33 years and raised 2 kids (Kiley and Laura) there.  Stuff!

Then she had moved into my little 1400 square foot home in Amboy.  Realigning and merging stuff!

Then we began talking about what we were going to do to mark my retirement in June of 2015 after 40 years of teaching...  at first we talked of going to Puerto Rico and renting a house in Old San Juan for a month.  Would have been fun, but...     and gradually the plan for this trip began to take shape.

We put the house up for sale in February, and it sold in June, with a closing date in August.  Why the gap?  Stuff, of course!

So I graduated from my profession (which I loved by the way!  More on that later, I'm sure) on June 1.  Karen threw a smashing big Retirement Party for me to mark the transition!  What a shindig!!  It ended up being a four-day extravaganza, with some folks coming early and some staying late.  One of the highlights being a back-porch reunion of Grandma's Rockers, my high school band.  We started playing together when we were about 11 years old.  Lots of fun!!

Just a small sampling of the 102 friends and family who attended. Our friends Robert and Mary from Fort Atkinson, who BTW, introduced us, came to visit us for the retirement part in their "Hippie Bus."

Anyway back to the tale.  Big Party!!  Par-Tay!!! More later...