New Freedonia

I have a good friend named Al. Actually, I’m not so sure he knows he’s a good friend or not, and that’s my fault.

We’re pretty brutal and merciless when it comes to our friends. Our whole group is, actually. Humor at the expense of others seems to be our norm. At times I think we take it too far with everyone.

We all have an area or two that should probably be “off limits”. I mean, no matter how comfortable we are with one another, there are just some things we should not tag about one another. I know I have ‘em. I know Al has ‘em.

There’s a level of love and acceptance with this practice. We’d not be so brutal with one another if we didn’t love each other, and it’s a mark of pack membership to be the target of such attention. But still…

For all the utter crap we give him, Al is one of the most stand-up guys I know. He’s loyal, he’s smart, he’s always willing to go the distance for a friend, he never asks for anything in return.

We’d all be so lucky to know someone like Al, let alone be able to call him a friend.

I don’t try to excuse my behavior. I’m old enough to know what I’m doing (for the most part) in my inter-personal relationships. I think my friends make more than a few allowances for me and my…quirks.

But a guy like Al, he deserves better.

Thanks, man.

As of late, I’ve just felt confined. Yes we just went through the holidays and all that, but neither Jo or I really had any time off. Retail (especially our flavor) just gets crazy busy that time of year, and we’ve really yet to let up from our holiday volume. Of course, this is a good thing, but still…it’s getting to be somewhat overwhelming.

Couple with this my school-load as of late (2250 new pages yesterday!) and I’m just getting close to a burnout on something.

Early last year, Jo and I started to seriously consider buying a Class B motorhome. The advantages that we saw were that we really disliked flying anymore, and with the kids, it’s just easier to drive.

But then hotels and stuff, they just get really expensive and annoying. When we do tend to travel and drive, hotel space always seems to come at a premium. It’s easy for me to drive at night (I kind of like it) but sleeping in the car for the rest of the family isn’t always the best.

So something like a Roadtrek RV really seems to be just the ticket.

We’ve been looking at gently used models, and then just found out Roadtrek is now offering a 4-wheel drive version.

*sigh*

Ah well, if I won the lottery and all that.

But we’re still interested in a used one. They run around $85k new, but we’ve found some decent prices on them just a few years old. They also tend to serve well as a second or family car. Thus, we could easily drop the minivan and use a Roadtrek for the same thing.

Still, lots of stuff to consider and get behind us before we can seriously look into this.

I just think the ability to get away at the drop of a hat…that has a strong pull.