Silver Sisters Plus One

Sharlene Minshall and Marsha Pratt

In roughly 1997, when I was teaching seminars for Life on Wheels in ID, I met another lady who had long white hair like me. She was short like me. She wore glasses like me. She laughed like me. And we apparently looked enough alike that people began to think of us as interchangeable and from then on we were many times mistaken for each other. I look at it this way, we are two Jewish and Presbyterian sisters born of different mothers many years apart. If you don’t understand that, don’t expect me to explain it!
The “Plus One” is her husband, Chuck. I don’t have one of those but if my husband were still roaming this land, he would love Marsha and Chuck Pratt, as I do. Marsha e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago and said they were coming within shouting distance of Sequim to visit their kids for Christmas and if the weather cooperated, they would come and take me out to breakfast. How could I turn that down? I prayed for good weather.
Although we kept up an occasional correspondence with each other, since giving up their full-time RVing lifestyle for a curbed

Marsha and Chuck Pratt

existence in southern OR, and I settled in AZ, we have rarely connected in person. I met them at the Oak Table Restaurant here in Sequim. The Oak Table was busy so it took a while to get our orders and since we were laughing and chatting, we didn’t mind at all. We talked non-stop for the next three hours, the last two in my apartment.
Conversations with RVers are different from conversations with non-traveling folks. We spent the first 10 minutes discussing family and the rest of the time we delved into, “Do you remember…Who was that…That was so funny” stories. All leads took us down the old RV road reminiscing about somewhere we visited, individuals we enjoyed, and everything else under the traveling sun. Many laughs and hugs later, it was time for my sister, Marsha, and her husband, Chuck, to take to the road. I miss them already.
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions but I will leave you with a couple of Old Silver Gypsy Proverbs.
• If you are healthy and have at least a few times when your heart soars to offset the depressing moments, be grateful.
• Life passeth quickly while you slowly make up your mind to live it. Get with it!

Happy New Year and may God Bless us all throughout 2016.

Winter in the Wilderness, Minshall’s first novel (e-book & hard cover), and the fourth edition of RVing Alaska and Canada are available through Amazon.com.

Sharlene Minshall - The Silver Gypsy

At 45, Widow Minshall began 20 years of solo full-time RVing throughout Alaska, Mexico, and Canada. Sharlene canoed the Yukon, mushed sled dogs, worked a dude ranch, visited Hudson Bay polar bears, and lived six months on a Mexican beach. She lectured at Life on Wheels, published six RV-related books and wrote a novel, “Winter in the Wilderness.”