Meeting some locals

We are at daughter's house for a while and last night we were invited to join a dinner party for friends of Julie and Dave.    It is a unique group of friends, tied together because the four women all had a brush with breast cancer and they then volunteered to be part of a group study.   The original purpose of the group is past, but the group clicked and they have continued to rotate potluck dinner parties every month.

So we joined in for a good old fashioned feast (well stocked  potluck dinner table).  There were 3 of the 4 couples present plus us.    I think one of the reasons we were asked to join was because two of the couples have thought about retiring and traveling.   It is a big step for them to  take.  Towards the end of the evening, I kind of got into my lecture mode and explained that yes, we have been full time for 16  years because we decided to bail out early.  Even though the company had an early out option, we knew that it would cost us some dollars in the long term.  I explained that we had discussed it and we both agreed that while we'd have less pension coming in each month, we'd have more years to enjoy it.  ((Hint, hint to them.))

For the other two couples, the husband has kind of retired and is waiting for the wife to decide to hang it up.   The wives  are breast cancer survivors, and have finished their treatments.  I didn't get personal, but hopefully I got the message across to take whatever time they have left, retire and do the traveling that they want to do.

We also shared with them some of the problems that they need to watch out for like making a residence change and losing some of their health insurance because of their cancer status.  It will be interesting to see what decisions they make in the months to come.

A couple days ago, Sandy and I drove to some local cranberry bogs and watched the harvest.  It  is very similar to what we saw in Warrens, WI.  The big difference is that these farms did not have deer proof fences around the bogs, yet we know that they have a big deer problem here in New Jersey.  The other big difference is that many of the bogs are hidden back in the forest and not viewable from the road (like outside of Warrens, WI.)

We've done a few things on the motorhome and have other irons in the fire while we're parked.  But there is no need to rush things.   We did order/buy a new water pump today that will be delivered next week we hope.  E bay comes through again.  The rework of the reworked pump seems to  be working again  fine.  So it is not critical that we get the replacement pump installed.   In  fact, the replacement pump will become a spare part, to be hauled along with the other spare stuff.

This is about long enough. I'm sure there is an error or two for the language police to ding me on.

Gene