PARADISE FOUND
(with a wink and a nod to poet John Milton)
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Welcome to our site. We're glad you're here!
We're new at website building, so please bear with us while we're under construction.
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This is us working really hard at Yaquina Bay Lighthouse in Newport, Oregon.
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Sunset at Goose Island State Park on Aransas Bay in Texas - December, 2002
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There we were that December of 2000, each minding our own business. We’d both been alone for several years - he (Art) was divorced, I (Bev) was a widow - and we had settled comfortably into single life.
In the early 1990s I retired from University of Texas and began fulltime RVing with my late husband. He died unexpectedly in Washington in ’97, so with the help of my trusty truck I towed the fifth wheel back to Houston and returned to work in the UT system.
Life was a challenge but with lots of love and support from family and friends I learned to walk and talk again, even dating occasionally after a couple of years. I settled in at an RV park owned by dear friends Diane and Paul, and redecorated the 5W with lots of “girl stuff”: pink fabrics; flowers; candles; sheer curtains at the windows; piles of fancy pillows on the bed........well, you get the picture.
I didn’t sell the rig because I knew that eventually I would retire again and go back on the road. As a single. Or so I thought. Little did I know…..
Art had left his home in Ontario - a new retiree towing his travel trailer, living la vita dolce and wanting nothing more than to spend winters in Texas (playing golf of course) and summers in Canada (playing golf of course).
A single guy, good looking, in great shape, amazing blue eyes. And he thought he wasn’t going to be snagged? Get real, Art. Well, anyway…..
To make a long story short, Art started working for Paul in the park. Diane introduced us and we soon began to rethink our views on single life. Four months later we got the license and the rings although we didn’t know where or when we would take the big step. After 18 holes of golf one morning with Art’s brother John and John’s wife Margo, we got married in a JP’s office with J and M as witnesses.
Thus began an awesome journey that we hope still has many miles and many years to go, with many more tales to tell.
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It was now spring of 2003. We’d been married two years and during that time there had been some changes.
Art’s travel trailer was small. It was okay for one person but not for two, unless one of them is comfortable with homicide. My 40-foot fifth wheel was getting up in years and showing definite signs of aging. And so we compromised. We bit the bullet and bought a new rig, small enough to go the places we loved (state parks, national parks and such) but large enough to be livable, if you’re really good friends. We are.
We sacrificed the stacking washer and dryer, as well as tons of storage space, but gained a more practical domicile. The truck heaved a huge sigh of relief on realizing that the weight in the back was far more easily towable. As for the storage space, we (okay - mostly I) were forced to offload a bunch of junk that had been hauled all over the country for no good reason other than what had become my mantra: “I might need this someday”. Be honest – you’ve said the same thing yourself……….
Art had been, for some time, encouraging (harassing? nagging? cajoling?) me to re-retire. UT’s fiscal health was shaky and none of us knew from day to day when the axe might fall. Since I valued my neck and didn’t want to take a chance on seeing my head roll (wait a minute...is that even possible??) I decided to follow Art’s lead. He was already long-retired and had been burning the midnight oil, figuring whether it would be in our best interests to say goodbye to my paycheck. It was. In March I gave three months’ notice and set about putting my office in order for my successor, whoever he/she might be.
And on we go to the "Our Travels" page.........
THIS WEBSITE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION.