Friday, July 25, 2014

It's Official

I've read numerous times where full time RV'ers after selling and closing on their houses say "Houseless but not Homeless". Well we joined the ranks today. Had our closing at 10 am and deposited the check. That makes it OFFICIAL. We are now truly full time RV'ers. Of course since I still have, according to the countdown clock, 37 more days at work we are still stationary. I think it is a little harder for Glenda to come to the realization that this is our only residence but it has more to do with where we are at right now. We seem to be getting used to the constant drone of the traffic on the interstate right behind our site. Fortunately the traffic does let up some during the night so sleeping isn't too difficulty. Glenda and I have been talking about how anxious we are now to get moving on down the road.

The next milestone will be getting our South Dakota drivers licenses and attending the RV-Dreams Rally in Goshen, IN. Once that is accomplished we begin our trek to AZ for the winter. I'm at somewhat of a loss for words right now trying to let this all sink in. It's been a long process to get to this stage. Is this real? Did we just do this? We'll give it some time but I know this is the right thing to do at this time in our lives. That's about all I have right now. Tomorrow we go to Streamwood to see our daughter, SIL and Aiden. Next month we go to Indiana to celebrate the four August birthdays in the family and then my retirement at the end of August. Sigh of relief right now but also some uncertainty. We'll take some time and let it all soak in. Thank you again to all the fellow full timers that are willing to share their experiences and help those of us that are moving toward our dream. We're on our way and there's no turning back.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Serendipity

Serendipity means a "fortunate happenstance" or "pleasant surprise".

Well I've been reading RV blogs for the last 3-4 years since we started RVing and have learned a lot reading blogs of those that are already full time RV'ers. I first started reading RV-Dreams(Howard and Linda Payne) near the beginning of my search for RV information. I have continued to read their daily posts and enjoyed getting to know other RV'ers virtually through their site. One of the reasons I wanted to begin full time RV'ing was to meet other like minded folks. So yesterday I was reading Howard's post about their trip to Knoxville, TN to get some work done on their rig. In that post, On to Knoxville, meeting new full timers Howard had a photo of two women(Peg and Michelle) that were just beginning their full time lives and had just purchased a new Heartland Landmark from RVs4Less, owned by Butch and Karen. I haven't met them yet but feel like I already know them from Howard's posts.

Anyway, here we are in a small RV park right off of I-74 near a little town called Carlock in Illinois until I retire on Sept 1. I decided to wash my truck before coming home to the RV park. Once I got back, I noticed my windows were still sort of smudged so I was over by my truck cleaning the inside and outside of the windows when I saw two women walking over by the office. They looked like they were in search of someone there. As they walked away, I took a second look and thought "they look very familiar". To preface this, earlier we noticed a beautiful Heartland Landmark pull into the RV park with a nice matching silver Dually pulling it.

We didn't think any thing more about it other than "hey another Heartland 5th wheel in the park". Cool. So as I took that second look and thought they looked familiar, I remembered Howard's post yesterday and it dawned on me that they looked a lot like the women in the photo. Well if you know me, I can be a little bold at times so I went up to them and asked "do you know Howard and Linda Payne?" They looked at me with a somewhat shocked expression and said "yes we do". I said "I think I saw you on their blog yesterday, was that you two?" and we all started laughing.                   
 
SERENDIPITY 

 I'm not sure whether it was Peg or Michelle that said it but.... How in the world do you explain it other than that? How did they just happen to take a route that Linda had recommended and end up at the same RV park we are in and I just saw their photo the day before and then recognized them. A pleasant surprise indeed. We started talking and right away it was like we had known each other for some time. This is what I was hoping for when I decided to consider full time RV'ing. Meeting like minded folks and feeling like they are already your friends. We stood near the parking lot talking for a while and I invited them to come to our site, meet Glenda and maybe take a look at our rig. After I introduced Glenda and we talked some more they came into our rig and looked at the similarities of the Heartland products.

We showed them some of the modifications and we had a great time talking about our experiences so far. They are very new to RV'ing and had great instruction at RVs4less. Now their on their way home to pack and organize as they begin their RV adventure. It was so great meeting Peg and Michelle and I hope we get the opportunity to meet again this fall. Maybe at the fall RV-Dreams Rally in Goshen, IN. We're looking forward to renewing the new friendship.  Safe travels Peg and Michelle. I will keep working to retirement and it won't be long.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Fulltimers...finally but stationary

Sunday we made the move to the Bighorn with loads of clothing, housewares, food and misc items that we think we will need for our fulltime life. Glenda has already taken back out some of her clothing due to the limited space and re-consideration of what she really needs. I think we will be going through this alot. So far the transition is going smoothly. We have everything out of the bedrooms at the house so the upstairs is empty. We brought everything down to the main floor and once we take the left over items to Goodwill all we should have left next week is selling the remaining furniture.

The Radon mitigation was done yesterday but no word on when another test will be done before closing. Sunday and Monday was very hot and humid so we ran the A/C for the first time. We can set the desired temp digitally but found out that the fan runs continuously after the desired temp is achieved. That makes it difficult to hear the TV when we have the main A/C on. So we found out that once we have the main area at the temp we want, we can turn it off and run the bedroom A/C to maintain the temp. That makes it much quieter in the main area. We did run the A/C on Sunday night in the bedroom all night which helped with the road noise due to the proximity of I-74 to the south of the campground.

On Monday night a thunderstorm rolled through which kept us up a little longer with the rain on the roof and higher winds. Fortunately the campground sits on a little lower ground and is somewhat protected. It's going to take some getting used to the new sounds compared with the house. I had to get on the roof last night to check the surface for debris and possible breaches in the the rubber rood material. We are sitting under a tree and I did find a couple small dead branches that fell off with the winds. I also noticed alot of bird droppings and the birds like berries. Going to be a big cleaning once we are ready to move on. Thankfully no tears in the roof.

Yesterday was a beautiful day after the storms with much lower humidity and sun to dry things out. We even opened the windows and had to pull up the covers a little last night as the temps dipped into the upper 50's. A welcome relief. Glenda has been working her tail off getting the new home organized. Sometimes it's hard to find a place for everything. I'm sure there will be more purging before we take off in Sept.

I will be taking the afternoon off today from work so we can load the truck with a couple of dressers, mattress and box springs and a few totes to take to our daughters house in Indiana for July 4th to store for us. She has tomorrow and Friday off so we will get to see the grandkids and store the items we don't need. In addition to that her birthday is the 4th of July so we get to celebrate with her. She certainly has been our firecracker child. :-) Saturday we will be coming back home to continue the transition and we will be bringing back our youngest granddaughter with us so she can spend some time with her other grandma in Decatur, IL. We will get to have our time later this summer as we travel to Indiana for the RV-Dreams Rally in Sept.

Feeling good about our decision to go fulltime so far. Feel so comfortable in the rig. Looking forward to getting on the move but for now fulltiming but stationary works too. The clock keep ticking and retirement is right around the corner and it won't be long. I don't have to say retirement and fulltiming any more since we're half way there. The photo below the blog title is our site at Kamp Komfort. We are grateful to the owner for assigning us this site with no one on the awning side and a big yard. Nice for a private campground. Have a great Fourth of July everyone.