After almost 95 years our mother quietly passed away in her sleep. A peaceful end to a difficult year as she became weaker and weaker, not able to walk during her last 10 months. I never thought I’d see the day when Dad, Mom and any brothers were gone. Just Mike and I left from this motley crew, seems so surreal. Life goes on and there are lots of Mom’s personal affairs Mike and I still have to take care of. Plus Alice and I hope to fit in several more RV destinations before my severance pay runs out and having to find another job…

Feb 21, 2021 Sharing some background on this post and the silence on this blog from Feb 2019 to August 2020. We continued our travels in March 2019 trying to fit in as many destinations as we could before my severance ran out in May. Amazingly I did find a new job immediately after severance ended in May but, I just couldn’t post about anything here (trips or otherwise) without mentioning Mom first.

August 2020 I finally was able to start posting about new trips but I still could not write about anything during 2019. Here it was two years later I was finally able to publish this draft that Mom passed.

I’m sharing these thoughts for anyone else wondering why they’ve hit a weird mental wall with one thing and yet feeling just fine on others (regardless of the life event that caused it). Hearing and knowing we just have to be patient and persistent on making the most of life until it all begins to make sense was a known for me but I still found my own mind to be puzzling. Luckily for me, this blog was the only (obvious) mental block for a long, long time. What ever it was, a switch flipped and I finally feel like I’m past it and ready to share some really great places Alice and I were able to enjoy during our “2019 Severance Tour”. The severance tour was the most enjoyable and memorable vacation I’ve ever had, also the longest vacation since I began working at 16! I can’t wait for retirement and begin some longer, farther trips to other great North American destinations with the RV (and foreign trips the RV can’t go to once this COVID thing settles down).

Please don’t leave any comments of sympathy for our family, but feel free to share any thoughts that might help yourself or another reader work through a difficult time.

Cheers 🙂