Goodbye, FRED.

Friday May 5, 2017

Goodness, it has been cold and rainy all day today. One person we talked to said they thought it was colder now than it was in February. We agree. It was just a raw day. The predicted low tonight is something like 44. Looking ahead it’s suppose to be 38 Sunday night in Hayesville. Too cold for May!

So now we need to tell you what has been going on. It has really been somewhat hard to write this blog some days because we were so busy but didn’t feel we should share yet. So finally, here it is. Yesterday at 4:15pm we left Hayesville and drove to Scottboro, AL. It poured rain most of the way, but stopped long enough for us to negotiate the interstates through Chattanooga. We spent the night in the noisiest Walmart parking lot we have ever experienced. It did not quiet down until after 2:00 this morning. Our last night in Fred was not a good sleep night. This morning we met Don and Pat at the Redstone Federal Credit Union and finalized the sale on FRED. Yep, we sold FRED. We purchased the motorhome on April 23, 2011, brought him home two days later and affectionately called him FRED because he is a FRont Engine Diesel. He had 19155 miles. Today when he pulled out of the parking lot with a new owner he had 51396 miles. FRED traveled the most miles in 2014 when we went to Alaska and back (click here). We spent the most time in the rig in 2016 at 32 weeks. Even if we had kept FRED until the end of this year, 2016 would have still been the winner timewise. We loved FRED. He served us well and in some ways it was hard to see him drive off to his new home. We have worked late into the night every night for the past week, packing up all our stuff that was in the rig and deciding what needed to stay at Hinton and what should be in the first load home. We are tired! So what led up to this? We did not make this decision quickly. We have been looking at newer motor homes for about 3 years. We decided that it was time for a replacement that would hopefully serve us in our mission work and travel fun for the next 10-15 years – till it’s time for us to downsize or hang up the motorhome keys. We have purchased a Tiffin Phaeton 36GH (in case you want to google it to see what we are getting) that will be ready for pickup the first week of June. So, today we are excited to have closed the sale as that brings us one step closer to our new rig. It’s also a little sad.

We know it will all be good but right now it is strange to be without a motorhome. We will be returning to North Carolina tomorrow in the pickup to finish the last week of out Hinton project and will be staying in the basement of the Lake House next week. Our next mission project will begin Father’s Day weekend and will be our first project in the new rig. Here is hoping we get a much better night’s sleep tonight.