14NOV-15DEC - Houma, LA (turkey day & wedding bells)

Tomorrow, 16DEC, we get back on the road for a couple of weeks after more than a month back in Houma. We have been parked in our driveway for most of the time. Every now and then we have paid to park at the Civic Center so that we can dump our sewage tanks. It has been nice to be back and visit our Louisiana friends, but even being parked in your own driveway and not being able to use the house gets old after awhile. Although we will miss our friends and the kids, we will be glad when the house sells and we have one less thing to worry about.

Anyway, our days have been filled with lots, and lots, of little errands that seem important but really aren’t; catching up on medical appointments; etc. Since the RV can only comfortably entertain six people, our daughter Rebecca decided she would take care of the family Thanksgiving meal. This was ok by us but Corrie still did most of the work/cooking. This is because Rebecca’s oven was broken, only two burners on the stove worked, the microwave was only big enough for one bag of popcorn, and her selection of pots of pans was limited. So Corrie prepared most of the meal the day before in the RV and we hauled it to Rebecca’s and Raymond’s. Everything came together and the food was excellent. Our son Joe was there with his fiancé Ashley and her daughter Allison; along with one of Raymond’s co-workers.

As we stated in our last blog entry Rebecca was engaged and discussing wedding plans with her fiancé Raymond Pitre. Neither of them wanted a big wedding and would have been happy to go to City Hall with small number of friends and just do it. The end result was because of us RV’ing, Raymond’s upcoming National Guard commitments, and other factors, that they would get married on 15DEC!!! Once again most of the arranging fell to Corrie. We arranged for a Saturday afternoon ceremony at a Bed and Breakfast owned by Judge Ellender (guess who presided over the ceremony?). Turns out the Judge owns an antebellum home called Grand Bayou Noir on Bayou Black (get it?) and he also rents the property for parties and events.

Actually having only three weeks to plan and execute a wedding was for us a lot less stressful than what we have seen of people having months or a year to plan it. And since our expenses for the entire thing were less than average cost of an American wedding, we have agreed to pay for the honeymoon (ski trip to Utah in January) and contribute to down payment on their first house.

Since Dan has a business trip 21JAN and we have another round of medical appointments at the end of JAN, we decided to get on the road tomorrow. Our first stop will be the Tiffin RV factory in Red Bay, Alabama; eventually meeting our friends the Guldenschuhs in Florida for New Years. We have no idea where we will be for X-mas, but aren’t really concerned about it. In fact, we aren’t buying any gifts and we probably won’t even have any type of decorations at all in the RV.