Selling the House

[Glenn Baglo]

Originally Posted by honda03842

In that vain there has been no temperature increase in 18 years and global sea ice coverage is the highest in 30 years.

I presume you mean "in that vein".

[Huck]

Originally Posted by honda03842

Huck,

The south is mighty big. Where do you plan to be?

I don't know yet, but it will be on the gulf. I would like to move every 3 or 4 weeks, but haven't done much research yet. As long as I don't need ac, I can dry camp if necessary.

One place I want to spend some time at is Grand Isle in LA. State campground right at the beach and excellent fishing.

This might sound a little strange, but it seems I need a lot of sunlight to be healthy. I have tracked my health via labs for a few years. My blood pressure, hormones, and weight normalize over the summer and then, right after fall equinox blood pressure starts going up (like from 125/80 to 180/90), hormones drop, I start gaining huge amounts of weight, and my energy plummets. About May everything starts to reverse (to the good side).

So I figure I can extend summer by about a month in the fall and another month in the spring by traveling south. My doctor agreed with my plan when I told her about it. Now if I could just get Medicare to pay for it!

If anyone knows of campgrounds along the gulf coast that are relatively inexpensive (in the winter), near the beach and fishing, and where you are not crammed in between 2 huge trailers, please post them or pm me.

Note: Removed the rest of the post because it appears I thread jacked.

[Nut501]

Originally Posted by Huck

I don't know yet, but it will be on the gulf. I would like to move every 3 or 4 weeks, but haven't done much research yet. As long as I don't need ac, I can dry camp if necessary.

One place I want to spend some time at is Grand Isle in LA. State campground right at the beach and excellent fishing.

This might sound a little strange, but it seems I need a lot of sunlight to be healthy. I have tracked my health via labs for a few years. My blood pressure, hormones, and weight normalize over the summer and then, right after fall equinox blood pressure starts going up (like from 125/80 to 180/90), hormones drop, I start gaining huge amounts of weight, and my energy plummets. About May everything starts to reverse (to the good side).

So I figure I can extend summer by about a month in the fall and another month in the spring by traveling south. My doctor agreed with my plan when I told her about it. Now if I could just get Medicare to pay for it!

If anyone knows of campgrounds along the gulf coast that are relatively inexpensive (in the winter), near the beach and fishing, and where you are not crammed in between 2 huge trailers, please post them or pm me.

Note: A little info on my needing sun. A fairly new hypothesis on health is that our bodies run on electrons. Much like a battery, we recharge by adding electrons.

So where do we get the electrons? If your body is working properly, it strips them from food. But with the changes in our diets over the last few decades, there are fewer and fewer electrons available to be stripped off.

Another way to get electrons is from being grounded. One of the possible reasons people feel so good walking barefoot on the beach is because it is so easy to absorb electrons when you are barefoot and standing in wet sand.

And a 3rd way to get electrons is by absorbing photons from the sun. Obviously, during winter you will absorb fewer photons and more in summer.

So it appears my body is very ineffective at stripping electrons from food, fairly good at absorbing electrons from the ground, and very good at absorbing photons (although I have to spend several hours a day in sun to get benefit).

This makes sense to me when I realize I have owned a convertible on an almost continuous basis for the last 40 years and have moved to the beach at least 4 times. My body seemed to sense I needed lots of sun and I acted on it without even knowing it.

Huck,
Thank you for the electron theory! I think you are on to something! We all need to keep our bodies charged up.
Please keep us posted on travels and feelings?
Carl

[Daniel A.]

Wish both of you the best !!

I can say that even after only four years of retirement so far I find myself looking to keep things simple after forty years of being on the fast track.

[Bobbie Mayer]

Nuts to the electron hypothesis. Complete nonsense.

However, the idea that you might need lots of sunlight is not nuts. Could be as simple as vitamin D but there are other benefits to sun as well. (And the latest info is that it does not cause skin cancer!- though that was really that it does not cause melanoma- it probably still causes the everyday, usually non-lethal cancers to form.)

[starbrightsteve]

That's it exactly Glenn. Ice melts, water warms and expands, sea level rises, then the wind blows and sometimes it blows a 100 mph! My sister is planning to build a new replacement retirement house on a New Jersey barrier island. When I bring up the issue of rising seas, she says she is not worried because at her end of the island the elevation is 7' above sea level. The end of the island with the access road is 3' above the sea.....when the wind isn't blowing. Instead of telling her she is nuts, I told her to get a zodiac.

[drstock]

Norm and Ginny

I am in my last year of employment and will retire in May 2015. My husband, 20 years older, retired 15 years ago. He said it's time for us to spend the years left together, so we made the decision to sell the condo in North Carolina. We will move to our cottage on Lake Huron as our "permanent" summer home. It is simple, small, and close to family. While we have not yet listed the condo for sale, we look around at our stuff and shrug. A few things to keep with sentimental value, but not very much of that. As we have gotten older, we have been more and more inclined to get rid of things and try to simplify our lives.

We are looking forward to exploring the south (further south than North Carolina) during the winter months--a few months here, a few months there--to keep us out of the winter weather. We will most likely camp or rent or both until we get a better idea of where we would like to land as a winter haven.

Anymore, my husband and I need very little to keep body and soul together, and we are both very happy with that. I draw inspiration from the two of you and your travels, and I wish you the best as you begin the next chapter. May it be a very long one.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by kb1flr

Norm and Jimmy,

I have just sold my house and started fulltiming, though my situation is different. Five years ago, my now ex-wife left and I became a single parent of an Autistic daughter. For the last 4 years my daughter has been attending regular college in FL with an independent living skills program on the side. She has her own apartment and wants to live and work in FL.

As part of the original divorce agreement, we planned to sell the house after 5 years. It is too large for just me and my daughter loves FL and does not want to freeze in MA. The house went on the market and sold in 6 days. I worked all nights and weekends to clean it out. Amazing how much completely useless stuff one accumulates.

I came to fiberglass trailers via the tinyhouse blog and am also very interested in low impact living. I have been planning to fulltime in a trailer for 2 years now, but had not set a start date. The sale of the house did that for me.

It took 3 nights of sleeping in the trailer and getting stuff arranged for it to feel like home. I was surprised the transition was so easy.

Jessica will be joining me shortly, as she is in the process of selling her house in CT. We are looking at a bigger trailer (Escape, Bigfoot), though I would hate to part with the Casita.

I hope we will meet you two sometime on the road. We plan to travel quite a bit after an etended stay in FL to help my daughter transition from school to work. We will come back to FL to see my daughter and to CT to see Jessica's kids.

You two have been a source of constant inspiration and I am freely stealing from your modifications list

Rick and Jessica
1999 Toyota 4Runner
1995 16 Casita

Rick, Definitely wish your daughter well. It sounds like she's overcoming tough obstacles.

Where do you come in FL? We will be in central FL this winter, in Wauchula, 45 miles inland from Sarasota.

Glad to have you use anything I've written. Don't hesitate to ask questions.

Ginny and I both grew up in central CT and now live in southern NH. Drop by anytime.

Best to you and Jessica.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by Glenn Baglo

I presume you mean "in that vein".

Thank you Glenn. My editor died last year and she would have caught that as well. Sorry too late to edit.

Keep up the good work. I need someone to keep me on my toes.

[honda03842]

Huck,

We often stay at Seminole lake in northern FL/southern GA, right on the border. It is a Corp of Engineers park, it has beautiful sites with water and electric, right on a great lake, quiet, huge sites and I recall it was about $9 a night.

There are Corp of ENgineer parks all over and usually large sites and low prices. Get a guide tot he Corp of Engineer parks or look on line.

[honda03842]

Huck, I know a lot about electrons but not a lot about electrons and health. One thing we get more of in the summer is vitamin D. This year the University of CT football coach had his players tested for vitamin level. Everyone except the kicker was deficient in Vitamin D.

I take vitamin D because I read a study that said that nursing home patients that take 800 mg of vitamin D fall 40% less frequently. Just a thought.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by Daniel A.

Wish both of you the best !!

I can say that even after only four years of retirement so far I find myself looking to keep things simple after forty years of being on the fast track.

Daniel A.
Ginny and I just returned from a surprise party for her sister. One of the attendees was an old TV person that had interviewed me back in my working days. Hadn't seen her in years.

SHe had just heard about my new career on the road and was shocked I was no longer inventing gadgets. She just could not believe I was so satisfied by life on the road.

She started to understand as I described Fogo and Icebergs.....

Change is possible.

[Huck]

Originally Posted by honda03842

Huck,

We often stay at Seminole lake in northern FL/southern GA, right on the border. It is a Corp of Engineers park, it has beautiful sites with water and electric, right on a great lake, quiet, huge sites and I recall it was about $9 a night.

There are Corp of ENgineer parks all over and usually large sites and low prices. Get a guide tot he Corp of Engineer parks or look on line.

I don't mind paying $500-$600/month with hookups, but I was thinking it might be hard to find sites near the beach in FL with those kind of rates.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by drstock

Norm and Ginny

I am in my last year of employment and will retire in May 2015. My husband, 20 years older, retired 15 years ago. He said it's time for us to spend the years left together, so we made the decision to sell the condo in North Carolina. We will move to our cottage on Lake Huron as our "permanent" summer home. It is simple, small, and close to family. While we have not yet listed the condo for sale, we look around at our stuff and shrug. A few things to keep with sentimental value, but not very much of that. As we have gotten older, we have been more and more inclined to get rid of things and try to simplify our lives.

We are looking forward to exploring the south (further south than North Carolina) during the winter months--a few months here, a few months there--to keep us out of the winter weather. We will most likely camp or rent or both until we get a better idea of where we would like to land as a winter haven.

Anymore, my husband and I need very little to keep body and soul together, and we are both very happy with that. I draw inspiration from the two of you and your travels, and I wish you the best as you begin the next chapter. May it be a very long one.

Monica,
Thank you for the kind words and sharing your thoughts.

Before RVing the NC coast was our choice for retirement, now it's all coasts. I continue to be amazed how little we need to be happy. I think the struggle for stuff can undermine true happiness.

Wishing the two of you well as you make changes.

[Huck]

Originally Posted by honda03842

Huck, I know a lot about electrons but not a lot about electrons and health. One thing we get more of in the summer is vitamin D. This year the University of CT football coach had his players tested for vitamin level. Everyone except the kicker was deficient in Vitamin D.

I take vitamin D because I read a study that said that nursing home patients that take 800 mg of vitamin D fall 40% less frequently. Just a thought.

Professional teams and top college teams have been testing for vitamin d for years. It took several years of experimenting with supplements and sun exposure before I finally figured out how to keep mine in upper range year round.

I think the 800 mg you mentioned is actually 800 iu. That is probably way to low to do much good. The only way to know how much you need is to have a vitamin d blood test. I keep my level in upper range because it is supposedly preventative for some forms of cancer and heart disease.

[honda03842]

Huck, taking the vitamin discussion off line though it is iu and not milligrams.

[Melanie B in NC]

This is all very interesting to me, but I am afraid this type of life would not be the right one for me. As I have discussed on another thread with Norm, I feel strong ties to my small house and garden. I grew up very poor in an unstable family. Fortunately, fate sent me to a good man for a husband (better than I ever hoped for or deserved) and he and I have rubbed along for 47 years. Both of us like simplicity and live in a style much less grand than we can actually afford. We have a small house surrounded by woods and love it here. We have enjoyed the camping we have embarked upon since last fall with our Lil Snoozy. But I derive a great deal of pleasure parking the camper, walking in my back door, and breathing a sigh of relief that my haven is still here and safe. We both know how to survive without material things (lots of practice in childhood), but I appreciate the ease of a physical home. To me camping is a lot of work with little space to relax. I guess Norm and Ginny 's example will take a while to work on me (probably will never be a complete convert). Maybe I am just not adventurous enough. All you free gypsies will have to share your experiences so I can enjoy them. Maybe one day I will branch out and actually be willing to be gone from my cottage for as long as a whole month - time will tell. In the meantime, keep up your reporting and encouragement. I am already looking up Corp of Engineers campgrounds and Seminole Lake.

[honda03842]

Melanie,

Beginning with Seminole, it's a very nice campground, we love it, very relaxing and generally quiet. It's a place to be at ease, to read and relax. The local area is not too special, particularly the town of Chattahoochee.

As we travel about we seek Corp parks, they are inexpensive, always clean with large sites and typically on the water.

We have driven all about the area and in our wandering way, are interested in people and communities.

I really don't expect anyone to travel as we do. I'm a little different and have had many lives, this is just the latest and I expect last. Fortunately Ginny has supported me in all my life changes. I think my life motion hither and yon, through jobs and on the road has been successful for us in that it provides challenge, maybe better, new challenges. Of course a single life style, a single job has it's challenges but it's not the same as totally new challenges.

This weekend we met a relatively famous artist. I was telling him that on Fogo there are 6 small unusual dwellings built as studios for artists and writers from across the world. I suggested he might want to consider applying for one, as a change from his Maryland studio.

He asked me why Fogo. I told him going to these small isolated communities is a change from our hectic every day lives in ways that's hard to imagine.

Sometimes you need to really get away to see what you are and what you might be. This is not to say better or worse, but a chance to provide personal perspective.

It's so rare to be able to step back and see what we are, considering the different can sometimes provide new perspective. I am a dreamer and though living on Fogo or the Change Islands is not going to happen, I can now imagine it, maybe become better because of it.

[Timber Wolf]

Originally Posted by honda03842

Beginning with Seminole, it's a very nice campground, we love it, very relaxing and generally quiet. It's a place to be at ease, to read and relax. The local area is not too special, particularly the town of Chattahoochee.

Ha! Norm, I wondered if y'all had passed close by in your travels and I see that you have. I live in Havana, FL about 30 minutes East of Chattahoochee and agree that it is not much, unless you fish in which case I understand there is some great fishing on Lake Seminole. I am completely embarrassed to say I had no idea there was a Corps of Engineers Campground over there (or any where else for that matter). I will have to check it out. It would be nice to have somewhere to just get away after work on Friday and come home on Sunday. It does not have to be hundreds of miles down the road to just get in the woods and recharge.

[Letitia]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn Baglo
I presume you mean "in that vein".
Glenn,
You missed this one: recent thread where someone told someone they were "sending a private massage"!