"No, we didn't win the lottery."

When we tell people what our plans are for quitting our jobs and working on the road, we get funny looks. Not tee hee funny, but more like peculiar looks. I can see that they have a whole lot of thoughts rolling around in their head about how someone our ages can be doing this. "Quit work at age 46 and 51 ?" Who does that ? And how do you do that, cause I'm in line behind you. What most people don't realize is that there is a whole revolution of people out there who are taking to America's highways and byways and living and working on the road. From ages 20 something to couples with young kids, they are seeing the value in "living life to the fullest" and not settling for the stress filled 9 - 5 life that so many of us have been enduring for most of our lives.
I think for a full time RV-er there comes a point where the almighty dollar loses its grip on us and we want to give something back. We no longer have this need to climb the corporate ladder for prestige and big bucks to only get to the top and be miserable with our lives. It isn't fun anymore and we want to re-capture the fun and adventure that we remember CAN exist and SHOULD exist in our lives.
That is the case with us.....Linda 1 has been a gypsy most of her life, having lived in four different states and a multitude of houses while following her then husband's career wherever it took him.
Linda 2 has been working the same job for the past 18 years, seeing her kids now finish up college so that she can start a new career path. Supervising over 100 employees with all the stresses and responsibility that goes with that and being in management for 30 years has made her yearn to get outdoors and do something different.
So, exactly how can we afford to quit our "real" jobs and travel. We both sold our homes and took some of the proceeds and put into Vanguard funds. We paid for a financial advisor to look at our portfolios (retirement and non-retirement accounts) and tell us if what we wanted to do was a possibility. At first we thought that we would just use the house proceeds to buy the truck and 5th wheel so there would be nothing owed on them. He said this was not the best way to use our money. (Lesson #1 that I preach: You never pay cash for a depreciable asset.) In the case of our 5th wheel, the interest would actually be deductible as it's a house. Our goal is to pay off the truck by the time we leave our jobs so the only payment we have is on the 5th wheel. If we find that we can't make enough money working on the road, we can "re-balance" our portfolio annually and take out up to 4% of it to use to pay our bills, live on, etc. We will take the 4% out and put into a money market account or a ING account (to accumulate interest) and draw against it as we need to each month for expenses. We are hoping that we'll only need to do that year 1 (to pay off the remaining truck balance in Sept.) and Year 2 as a buffer till we get our first jobs.
Even without this type of strategy, I read about people all the time who make enough on the road to live on. Basically depends how much you need ! Some people live on $500/month while others need much more. I will keep a spreadsheet and post our monthly expenses once we get out there. 145 days to go till then !!!!!

Liquid Gold (a.k.a.... we miss the things we've lost)

Funny thing about wintering in an RV is how precious water becomes to you. When the cold winds blow, it could be there one minute and gone the next. Tis the situation in our case. Water was working fine Saturday when we left to go to my mom's but alas upon returning around 6:00 p.m., it was gone...a few drips from the faucet were all we were to get until today (Tuesday). Even with a heat tape on the incoming water hose and wound up and around the hand pump type device (sort of resembled my Christmas wrapping job), we still could not beat old man winter from injecting his icy, piercing fingers into the system somehow. Luckily we had filled our fresh water holding tank after the last episode of "frozen water" (I hate sequels !) and all we had to do was flip the water pump on and we were off and running.....Now 64 gallons of fresh water do not go very far when you value daily showers and such. And when you don't know at what point your cup will runneth over once again, you tend to parcel out the "Liquid Gold".
As I was driving home, over my lunch break, I just had a warm feeling all over, when I saw that sun beating down and heard that we were at a balmy 34 degrees outside. I felt good things were in store for us and I was right. The water had thawed and life was good again. We owe it all to my trusty heating pad that we used to wrap around the pump housing to keep it warm and toasty and hopefully break loose the icy jam. Took a couple days but with the help of the sun, it worked. Tonight we'll replace my heating pad with another heat tape and insulation wrap and we're hoping that this will be the last we have to deal with this. The heating pad will go back to being my ache and pain remedy for sore muscles. The lesson here is: Adversity breeds innovation !!

First two weeks of "camping".....

Well, WHAT a learning curve it has been moving into and living in a 5th wheel trailer. Can you say....downsize ?? We thought we had thrown and given away most of our worldly possessions but when it came time to move boxes from the storage sheds into our new abode, there is still TOO much. We are still unpacking and sorting and stuffing into remote recesses of this trailer skin. We have to do this in moderation as it really gets on our nerves to sort through "stuff" for too long so the hope to eliminate one of the three storage sheds will have to wait a tad longer (spring might be a good time).
As far as the "living" part of the day to day adventures of being in an RV, we've experienced tripped breakers (and trying to figure out how to reset them), frozen water (to be a topic of it's own some day), propane tank changeover 101 and a multitude of other things we've encountered. We've learned to laugh about these things and have decided that there is alot of trial and error to be had in this lifestyle....ain't it fun learning new things ?
We love our new house and it is so much cozier and larger than the itty bitty camper we rented from end of October till Jan. 2nd. The dogs have room to stretch out and they are so much more comfortable too.

Preparations begin.....

This adventure has been in the works for over ten years now....or perhaps even longer since I yearned as a youth to buy a bus, convert it and travel throughout the US. Getting a job at 16 and assuming all the responsibilities of being a good citizen sidetracked me for a while but mid-life is as good a time as any to begin the journey.
We've been planning, forecasting, scheming, dreaming and predicting for the last several years what our traveling "house" should be to transport two adults and our two canine companions in comfort but still be affordable. This planning took us to several RV shows and internet surfing/researching and reading all the posts on discussion boards of RV groups to learn from the folks who are out there doing this on a daily basis. And mind you this is not a small group of people who are leading the gypsy lifestyle.....there are people in their 20's, families with children who are being homeschooled on the road and of course, retirees who are traveling and living on the road.
We needed to find a unit that would be built well to withstand a full-timer lifestyle...this narrows the results considerably. We did not like the lack of living space in motorhomes that we saw nor the hefty price tags for the higher end models. This led us to 5th wheels and ultimately to take a trip to our final two contenders.....New Horizons and Excel. Since we our motorcycle mamas and have lived our lives on the back of a motorcycle, taking our bike was an intergral part of the decision. After touring both plants, our mind was made up that Excel was the company we would go with.