Going Home

We can hear the music in our heads. About five months ago we heard Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again." A lot of RVers hear that song, and a lot of us sing along with it.

What we're hearing now is different -- We're hearing the main theme from Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony," the "Going Home" theme. We can't identify the singer, but we can hear the voice, tired but filled with longing and excitement. "Goin' home, goin' home, I am going' home."

Dvorak began writing that symphony, or at least parts of it, while living temporarily in the second floor apartment over the Bily Clockworks in Spillville, Iowa

The Bily brothers were farmers and carpenters. They built their hand-carved clocks as a hobby during the long, harsh Iowa winters. To learn more about the Bily Brothers and their clocks, see this site.

But that was another trip. Today we are heading back to our own home base, the SKP Saguaro Park in Benson, Arizona.

We're feeling good about that. We've been away for about five months. In 51 years together, Suzy and I have never before spent that long a period away from whatever we called home. Yes, for over seven years we were 100% full-timers, on the road without a home base, but the motorhome was home, and we weren't away from it very long at all.

Going home means picking up the traces of the jobs we left behind: both of us are officers in the SKP's Chapter 21 (Suzy Treasurer, Jerry VP), and a rally is coming up for which we are co-hosts. In addition, I'm on the park's Board of Directors; the Board is facing some interesting challenges, which I won't go into.

Going home also means catching up with our friends at the park, getting back into a social life.

Going home also means: turning on the water (we turn it off when we are gone for any period); re-lighting the water heater (that's going to have to be replaced soon, we fear); dusting the inside of the trailer and the casita; bringing back into the trailer and casita all the stuff we loaded in for our trip -- clothing, some food items, computers and peripherals, etc.

But we'll back in this wonderful place we call home.

And that's just fine at this stage of  ... Our Life on Wheels.