The Great Reset

 It has been 2 years since the COVID-19 pandemic started and with life finally beginning to get back to normal, I sit here and cannot help but be grateful for what I consider my “Great Reset” that 2020 brought upon me. Because of the draconian lockdowns, many of the things that I liked to do were taken away overnight all in the name of “2 weeks to stop the spread!” However, “2 weeks to stop the spread” provided me the opportunity to appreciate my family, get back to the outdoors and camping, and get creative with my workout routine that had gotten staler than a loaf of bread left on the kitchen counter.

The best outcome of the pandemic lockdowns was definitely the time spent together with my family. My son came home from school in Minnesota in March 2020 and stayed home until August 2020. This was the longest stretch that he had been home since 2016! Although he got royally screwed out of the end of his Senior year of high school, I loved having him back in the house again. The conversations, laughter, arguments, and the full house were a blessing I will never take for granted. Because we had planned to have a graduation party at our house later in the summer, my son, daughter, wife, and I spent much of March through June working in the yard together. It was amazing how much we accomplished and we had our yard looking the best that I could remember since we moved in in 2013. Picking up leaves, trimming trees and bushes, sweeping, hauling away trash, planting new shrubs and trees, and making small repairs around the house were quite the bonding experience. It is quite surprising how hard work can bring a family closer together. I do not know how they feel about it, but I get sappy looking back at the spring of 2020. **tear drop**

Because of the kids’ participation in sports, our family camping trips came to a screeching halt sometime in the early 2000’s. Soccer and gymnastics practices, matches, meets, and out-of-state travel took much of the weekends and vacation time that we had. As a result, camping became a fond memory. With everything locked down, the itch to get out of the house was definitely needing to be scratched. Camping became a perfect outlet. By June 2020, it was clear looking at data widely available that the COVID-19 virus was affecting elderly and those with health issues more severely than young to middle aged healthy persons so we took our chances and hit the road to the great outdoors. I am glad we did because camping memories are some of the best a family can make. We bought an “instant cabin” tent from Costco and camped off forest roads with cows out to pasture in the Jemez Mountains near Fenton Lake, drove to a new destination near Chama at Trujillo Meadows where the kids created their own boat out of their air mattress to float in the reservoir, we met friends in Heber, Arizona at a cabin and played board games, cornhole, horseshoes, and beersbee, we discovered the beauty of Pagosa Springs and the nearby Teal Campground next to Williams Creek Reservoir, and we ventured off to the other side of the Jemez Mountains near Cuba and enjoyed a new forest road spot suggested by a good friend. Mother Nature refreshes the soul, makes the stress of civilization go away, and allows the mind to wander. The summer of 2020 will definitely be one I will not forget.

Finally, COVID-19 really did something strange to me that was completely unexpected. It made me miss the gym IMMENSELY! I never truly knew just how much being active kept my mind in a stable state. When gyms locked down, I took a couple of weeks off from working out, mainly due to all the yard work we were doing. I did notice, however, that the yard work was not satisfying my need to work out to maintain a healthy state of mind. I like lifting weights and running but without a gym with weights and a treadmill, I was forced to rethink my fitness regimen. I began running outside on the trails near my house and going to a nearby park to do push-ups, lunges, pull ups on the monkey bars, squats, and step ups on the benches. After a few weeks of this, I began feeling physically and mentally well again.

Because I was going to the same park around the same time everyday, I met a young man with a disability who would ride his bike to the park. One of his jobs was to refill the doggie poop bags provided by the City of Albuquerque in the receptacles near the playground. He would tell me the same story every time I saw him about his job at Smith’s and how customers can be real pain. I loved it and it took me back to my time working for the City of Albuquerque Therapeutic Program during college. I will need to do that workout again and see if he still shows up! Since 2020, I have been more consistent with my fitness and have never felt or looked better.

2020 was a difficult year, but somehow we created lasting, positive memories during that time, reminding me of a quote credited to Epictetus: “It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” I cannot agree more.

The Kids Are Leaving. Now What?

Having college-aged kids makes a married couple do crazy things. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my wife and I are no different. Our situation is a little unique, however. Our oldest child - our son - has been living in another state since he was 15 due to his pursuit of soccer glory. Consequently, for the last 6 years, we have been single child parents to our daughter. This past May she graduated high school and is planning on moving from the high desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico to the arid, saguaro filled city of Tucson, Arizona for college. This is all great and exciting for the children looking forward to their long, bright futures, but for the elderly parents left at home with each other, there are some adjustments to be made! 

In January 2022, my wife and I began discussing what we were going to do once our daughter moved to Arizona. We both want to travel more, visit the kids as often as possible, and see places we have never been. The other complication is we have 3 dogs: a 14-year old chihuahua/terrier, a 4-year old mutt, and a year old Labrador Retriever. It is very difficult to travel with pets!

Gratuitous Dog Pics

Our decision was to adopt the recreational vehicle life! The next argument….errrr….discussion was what to get. People who know my wife and I know we do not easily agree on anything! This made our search very challenging. At first, we looked at travel trailers. We looked at toy haulers, short, long, slides, no slides, fifth wheels, used, and new trailers. We agreed the toy haulers were nice but the cost of a toy hauler and the cost of the truck to pull it carried a heavy price tag! Also, the wife decided she wanted to drive our RV as well, but did not want to pull a trailer. Now what?

Time to check out motorhomes! We did agree that a Class C is big enough for us and the 3 pups. We would need plenty of storage and it had to look sporty af (or as sporty as a motorhome can look)! :) We ended up test driving 5 Class C RV’s in different price ranges. To get what we wanted, my wife and I discovered we had to go a little larger than we thought and would need slide outs. We also agreed that the Ford chassis looked the best. The Fords also have more torque, which seemed to make the Class C’s, equipped with the Ford engine, get up and go a little better than the Chevy. Plus, the Triton V-10 has been tried and true for a long time.  We also tried out a Mercedes Class C with the diesel engine, but the storage just was not enough. 

On a windy Saturday in April, we decided to go look at a couple of Class C’s we had found on Craigslist. The first one we test drove was a smaller Class C Winnebago that was nice but seemed a tad noisy while driving. My wife did not love it. We were feeling a bit discouraged in our search and were beginning to think that maybe the RV life was not for us. We almost did not go and see the next RV on our list. Thank goodness we did!

We made the drive to Belen, New Mexico to check out a Coachmen Concord. It was a Chevy, but the design of the Concord was very nice. Instead of the boxy look most Class C’s have, this model had a slight tubular shape and the front cap did not protrude over the top of the cockpit. We were intrigued. The owner let us in and we loved the interior design. One slide out contained a U-dinette and a jack knife sofa creating a spacious seating/sleeping area along with the kitchen. My wife loved the counter space. We had not seen counter space like that in any other RV we had looked at previously. The bathroom and shower were sufficiently sized and conveniently located between the kitchen/living area and the master bedroom. The master bedroom also had a slide out creating a nice sleeping space. The windows were nice and big, providing a good view outside the vehicle. The test drive was very nice despite the windy conditions on I-25, and the road noise was much improved compared to the other RVs we had test driven. The only drawback was the RV was not very clean, but everything looked in good working order. We now knew what we wanted and what to look for. Back to searching the Internets!

After a couple of days searching we found a 2016 Coachmen Concord in Anthem, Arizona that seemed to meet all our requirements for a Class C. Without seeing it in person, we made an offer over Easter weekend, had it accepted, and we were proud owners of a Coachmen Concord. My wife named her “Connie”, but said when we are drinking wine, her name is “Constance”. Funny stuff. But anyway, getting Connie back to Albuquerque is a story for a different blog post! Let’s just say that nothing is ever easy!