Wandering the Southwest for Four or Five months of Wheeling.

[cornercanyon]

...I literally designed the machine that prints the M on M&Ms. I just finished an upgrade to the Disney Springs, Florida M&M machine. I'm sure some of you have done the 'customized print' kiosk thing. Yup, I'm the engineer behind the scenes.

That is really cool beans.

My Dad always told me there is no future if you are irreplaceable. Teach someone how to fish like you.

We bought a trailer last March (2022) and have had it out over 13 weeks, plus a week in Hawaii and two in Europe—

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[wibornz]

SO I got home a week ago. After leaving the south west at the end of March. I last posted about being in New Orleans. From there our travel took us at a pressed rate as my daughter in-law called and asked when we were going to be at her house. We planned to continue to camp along the Gulf Coast, but she had a leak in her laundry room that was flooding the lower level of her home. My son is deployed and so we pressed hard to get to Fayetteville NC.

The next month, we fixed her issues at her home and helped her get her yard in order, and did a bunch of landscaping and home maintenance. Our son has been deployed a bunch over the last three years. He has averaged one night at home for every three nights he is gone. He is a on a waiver to be deployed right know because he has way exceeded what the Army tries to do at limiting deployments.

After finishing her house, my other son that lives in Fayetteville, we moved to his house and he is a new home owner. We spent weeks getting his yard cleaned up. Tree trimming, cutting down trees, building flowerbeds, and so on. We dug out 12 stumps and pulled them out. Inside the house, we ran network lines, changed light fixtures and painted, did drywall work. We left his house looking great. I think he bought over a thousand dollars worth of tools to do all the work that was needed to do. He as a new home owner owned none of the stuff that as a home owner we accumulate over the years.

Before we headed home, we needed another vacation so we headed to St. Augustine Florida and Savannah Georgia. Just know you can drive your Jeep on the beach in St. Augustine.

St. Augustine is probably my favorite destination east of the Mississippi River that is not Jeep related travel. I did make a mistake, though, we arrived a weekend before the vendor show at Jeep Beach in Daytona. I would have liked to go to the vendor part of the Jeep Beach. We have previously drove on the beach in Daytona. It is a good time, and I would have went down, but Carla was road weary and was ready to start heading home. So we headed north from St. Augustine and skipped the chaos of Jeep Beach.

A quick drone flight video from driving on Daytona beach a couple years ago.



Stopped in Savannah at the Green Truck for possibly the best hamburgers in the nation. If you are from the Savannah area, you probably know what I am talking about.


Okay enough rambling.

Some general information...

Total Miles traveled. 13,896 miles from when we left on December 27th 2022 to pulling in our driveway on April 28th, 2023. This does not include the trip to St. Augustine as we drove our car that thousand miles. Note my son has had our car for the last year and half as he did not have a car when he moved back to the states from Japan. He bought a new Chevy Silverado while we were visiting him.

We started our return trip on March 20 and drove 5117 miles to get from Yuma Arizona to Lansing Michigan. Yes, we took the long way home. The normal drive would be about 2200 or so miles.

The only issue we had with the Jeep was breaking teeth off the pinion gear and that was $1136 to repair. I know this sounds terrible, but you have to remember, we were off roading the Jeep thousands of miles and four to six time a week for three months in row.

Carla and I are blessed and we had the ability to address any problem that arose with very little impact on our inconvenience on our travel. I would say our winter/spring travel for the 2023 has been a great success. Probably the best part of the travel was we meet great people like @jlrubeinswaz and his wife, got to spend time with @cornercanyon and @DGT again. People are what makes traveling and wheeling the most rewarding.

 

[wibornz]

I gave notice 2 weeks ago with this past Wednesday (4-3-23) to be my last day. I was called into the conference room on Monday with the owners of the company. I was offered a part time salaried position. I would retain all my existing benefits including my 100% company sponsored BCBS PPO plan & 401K.

I accepted. We'll see how long I can hold out. I was looking forward to this summer off.

Just know time can not be bought or replaced. Seek balance and know that the sand falls from the hourglass. Retirement is not overrated.

 

[wibornz]

that's not good..

I'm already having second thoughts
We'll see how it plays out. I can always pull the plug

Some background, I literally designed the machine that prints the M on M&Ms. I just finished an upgrade to the Disney Springs, Florida M&M machine. I'm sure some of you have done the 'customized print' kiosk thing. Yup, I'm the engineer behind the scenes.

That is frickin awesome. I will remember this for ever. It must b e cool to know that people love your creation.

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