Chapter 3

Sure enough, in the morning the power was gone. Even though I knew it was coming, I had hoped it wouldn't happen. That reminded me I needed to pick up generators for both houses, so I drove back to the trailer dealer and hooked up a 36-foot cargo trailer to the Excursion and headed out to make my purchases.

Since the coach had a very good stereo, DVD system, I liberated the bulk of Blockbuster's New Release section and a Music City store for bags full of movies, albums and sets of old TV shows. I found Red Skelton, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson and hundreds of others that gave me a pretty good collection of entertainment options. The movies were all over the board. I chose action, thrillers, cops and robbers, love stories, comedies and my favorite, Dracula movies.

At Costco, I picked six generators and all the gear to service them. Since Costco has so many departments, I stocked up on clothes, bedding, linens, inflatable mattresses; several lap top computers and a couple of expensive flat screen monitors. Since I had computing power, I picked up a bunch of educational and entertainment video games, a couple of electronic keyboards, with computer based piano lessons and several pallets of bottled water.

The drive through Kissimmee to Costco and back reminded me of how alone I was. Highway 192 was an unending stretch of motels, restaurants, tourist traps; Disney used- ticket stores and mini-golf. There were abandoned cars, non-illuminated neon signs, no music playing and no life. The stillness threatened to drown me, so I purposefully kept my mind on the tasks and what I might be forgetting.

Back home I unhooked the trailer from the Excursion and attached it to the coach. Then I fixed dinner from the coach fridge and showered by the outside faucet on the motor home. In the morning I would make my new home livable and safe.

I mitigated all the lifting and carrying that day with a pallet jack in the box truck, piano dollies and farm store hand trucks, which I kept in the trucks with all the moving gear from Costco. But a lot of the work was manual and I could feel every one of my muscles when I lay down in the cool coach.

As I reviewed the day, I decided to use the next few days to deliver trucks, tanks, fuel and food to both places. Only after all that was done would I set up a water delivery system from the spring to the house with hoses and pumps. I had plenty of both and a fair idea of exactly how I would pipe in running water. Now I needed to get moved in and set up.

I wasn't sleeping in our bed. I almost cried, but then I thought about all the hard times we had worked through together and that slightly eased the pain as I drifted to sleep.