Christmas 2022

Glad Tidings of the Year!

NOTE: To clear up some confusion regarding this blog post, this is the Christmas Letter we sent out with our cards this year. I am reprinting it here on the blog with some added photos. And yes, it is me writing it.

2022 has brought a few changes to our lives, the biggest one being that we have moved (again), and this time out of Colorado and into THE SOUTH. Say what? Yup, the Robinson vagabonds have been on the roam again.

(Above photo: Moving day...UGH)

This time we settled in Concord, North Carolina, a small town northeast of its big sister, Charlotte, and so far are as happy as can be! Lynne’s sister lives in a suburb of Charlotte, so that makes it even better. We see her and her husband often.

The other major thing is that we added a new member to our family on the same day that the movers were packing our house in Windsor. No, not another dog. That is the last thing we need. We added a Maine Coon cat, Monroe, aka MR. Monroe. It’s been a long time since we had a cat in the house. Monroe fits into our family purrfectly. He loves the dogs, he makes us laugh with his silly antics, he is a buddy, and he is gorgeous. We love him.

But here I will go backwards a bit and what would a major move be without a scouting trip, I ask you? We took our almost new motorhome (first outing you might remember turned into a broken foot for me; a fractured wrist for Rick) on a cross-country search for “the” place.   

We had Tennessee in mind and Kentucky. At the last moment Lynne was looking on Zillow and found some places that looked good in North Carolina. We even placed a bid on a house, sight unseen, in this very town, but we were outbid (thank goodness).

And so we headed out and made a few stops in Tennessee. Two things changed our minds pretty fast. 1) we couldn’t understand a word they said and 2) the side of barn with a full size ad saying FUCK BIDEN. Well. 

(Photo above: Dogs while traveling)

Onwards to North Carolina where we had lined up about 5 potential houses. The last one we looked at was the house we ended up buying. It was not what we were originally looking for at all. We had wanted land, away from town, a place to park the behemoth motorhome, a pool.  This house was within walking distance to the downtown, very much in town, very old (built in 1935), no pool but a lovely backyard—fenced and no place to park the motorhome (which as you will see a bit later in this letter matters not at all). Yet, it spoke to us. Certainly not a cookie-cutter house, it had a lot of old world charm, a wonderful kitchen, wood floors that creaked when you walked on them,  delightful old built-ins, plus more space to maneuver around 3 big dogs and ourselves.

The trip wasn’t all moonlight and roses, the ugly “Adventures in RVing”was not quite done with us yet. On unhooking the car the first time from its tow position, it rolled down the hill from our campsite and took out another camper’s picnic table and dented the stairs to their RV. ($1,000 to the folks who owned it) The slide broke when we were putting it out. We had a mobile fixit person come out to the campground and somehow we managed to get it back in (almost-within an inch or so) so that we could at least drive it.

(Above photo: The Behemoth)

This meant limping home with only one slide, and way less room than we had before and not as much fun for sure. We had a lot of rain, the broken slide started leaking. The air conditioner over the bed decided to dump a load of water right on Rick’s side of the bed. He was not amused. The door got stuck, again. Neither could we open it from the inside, nor from the outside. Sound like we are having fun yet? Then on the way home it was coughing and sputtering and refused to go over 40 mph. We crawled along the interstate with my making phone calls trying desperately to find a place to have it looked at. We found one, they identified the problem but they did not have the parts. We finally found a place near Kansas City that did have the needed parts and lo and behold it was only a mile away from our campground. You’ll be glad to know that the rest of the trip home was uneventful once they replaced the spark plug wires.

The motorhome went in for service June 2nd and was finally fixed and ready to be picked up November 15th. Now what? Well, we’ve managed to sell it quickly back to the dealership (but at a loss) and it’s now history. We have had our fill of “Adventures in RVing” as they were not the kind of adventures we particularly enjoyed. I see lots of Air B&Bs and VRBOs in our future.

I am sure you are hoping for me to wrap this up soon. So…

We’ve lost a couple of good friends this year and their passing saddens us.

We love out house, we love our town, we love the life we are leading here and we love each other. What more is there to say?

May peace, joy and happiness abound for you and yours in 2023.