Our First Anniversary

It’s been a year! My how time flies when you are having fun. One year ago today we met at the attorney’s office and signed the papers to close on our house. In doing this we ended a long history of “stationary” home ownership. We still own a home….its just on wheels.

The other day I read a very touching post by Donna of (Cave Dwellings) where she explained the love she had for her RV….a 5^th wheel Hitchhiker. She wrote about how being inside her rig made her happy and peaceful. I encourage you to check out her blog and the post entitled - Spiffing Up the HitchHiker….Makes me Smile!…I Needed That.

How does this fit in with our one year anniversary?? Our new home, the Dutch Star, has become a place for us to feel happy and peaceful. A place to relax in and just be…

We haven’t traveled great distances and we knew we would be limited these first few years. Mike took an early retirement and so now we wait for his retirement money at the appropriate age. We have my teacher’s pension which includes terrific health insurance and if all goes well…one day Social Security. Until then we knew we would be doing some volunteering, sitting and slow moving. That is ok by us.

The last few years of our lives in the sticks and bricks were anything but great. Mike was working very long hours….beginning at 4:45 in the morning and putting in as much as 12 to 14 hours. His back was almost gone and he was in great pain. He had two lumbar epidurals and several (30) treatments of spinal decompressions. We were lucky in that these treatments helped the pain and kept him off the operating table. His left knee is bad and he has already had minor surgery on it. More than that was the sheer exhaustion. We hardly had a relationship due to the fatigue of his grueling job in food service.

We had tried several times to sell our home to pursue our dream of full-timing but the economy was bad and the housing market was heading south at a rapid rate taking house prices with it. We finally took the house off the market and decided to try as best we could to make the most of this situation. That is when I received the phone call from our realtor that she highly suspected that she had the house sold. We showed the house and through the next few weeks the house sold. We sold the house for our asking price and we didn’t have to assist in closing costs. The folks purchasing the house had no problems with financing. It was really a dream closing.

Life is short…..at its longest it is a short ride. I was already retired from 35 years of teaching and Mike was working himself into an early grave….for what??? Nothing meant as much to me as having him alive and well and happy. We decided to take the offer, sell the house and go ahead and purchase a motor home and give this elusive lifestyle a chance.

So here we are one year later. Any regrets? No, we are able to enjoy this lifestyle on our terms, move when we can, volunteer when we find something neat to do and enjoy family and make many new and wonderful friends. Most of our new friends are RV related in some way and many are right here in blog land. Some of the most wonderful people I have ever gotten to know are right here on this blog and Mike and I value your friendships.

I once wrote that every full-timer has to establish their own unique rhythm. We are working on that and think we are doing pretty good. We’ve made a few “timing” errors but we are learning. We may not be moving as fast as some but we are still very much in love with this lifestyle and if we have to be stationary for a few weeks or more I would still rather be here in my little house on wheels than anywhere else on earth.

Thank you Donna for your honest account of your love for your rig and what it means to your life. I applaud you and so totally agree.

Thank all of you for reading and sharing in this adventure with us. You make it special!

On to year two!!