We’re Still Here, But Still Planning on Leaving

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

Wow, time sure flies. There hasn’t been a blog in a long while, mostly because there hasn’t been a lot to write about. Here is the latest.

We moved out of our apartment, and moved into our condo to sell it. This condo was a second home for us for a few years when we lived in Arizona and commuted to
Kansas City. Later we bought a house, and kept this condo as a rental. We asked our tenants to move out at the end of their lease, and we moved back in April. Paul did a lot of work on it, such as stainless steel in the kitchen, re-did the hardwood floors, bathroom upgrades, then put it on the market mid-summer. We are selling it “For Sale by Owner.” We missed the Spring and most of the Summer selling season and now we are into winter with snow on the ground, but we feel pretty good that it will sell by spring.

Meanwhile, this is a BIG one, we both have now quit our salaried jobs!! We each are earning incomes as independent contractors, and although it takes time to really gear that up, we are making steady progress. All we really need to do our work are our cell phones, our computers, and wi-fi. We are travel ready. In preparation for a loss of over 6 figures in income, we pared down a lot in our style of living. We gave up cable, we gave up our gym membership, we gave up our newspapers, fancy restaurants, and just about everything that is not a “need” but only a want. Our monthly nut is the lowest it’s ever been. And remarkably, we haven’t missed much. We now walk outdoors, this morning was 19 degrees, but we layer up and do our 50 minute outdoor walks no matter what. We eat out, but only at fairly inexpensive restaurants, and try to split a meal when we remember to. Our dog that requires frequent grooming, well, he’s wearing a new cut, his long cut, and gets bathed at home. We switched our cell phones to Cricket and just have your basic android. We use an antenna on our TV’s and get the local channels for free. And for the first time in many decades, I am about as close to my natural hair color as I remember, no longer wanting to pay the ghastly amount I’ve paid for my “natural” highlights. But honestly, I think we are professionally happier than we’ve ever been, most certainly for me, having clocked in now for 22 years of nursing. We don’t have to account to anyone but ourselves. We don’t have to ask for vacation time, or clock in at 6:30 a.m., or report to the boss, or schedule our life around our work. Sundays don’t mean it’s back to work tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, we are working harder than maybe we ever have, but it’s our work, for us, and we love it. And our businesses are growing every month.

So our time-table for leaving now rests on two things. First and foremost, our daughter Sarah became engaged to Shane (which we are elated about!!). They are getting married in April. So we will be here through April, so we can help plan the wedding. Even if our condo sells in the meantime, which we really hope it does, we will live in our RV till after Sarah and Shane’s wedding. We have checked out a couple of local RV sites, and they are perfectly fine. In actuality, it will probably be a good training ground for us before we actually take off.

We’ve also come full circle on our choice of RV. We have decided we will go with a Class A. Those are the really cool looking ones that you drive in. We’ve discovered there are lots of amazing bargains out there, so what we thought was out of range really isn’t. Also, we will keep one car to pull behind us for ease of getting around once we land in one place for an extended period.

In the year and a half since we decided to pursue our travel goals, not once, have either of us second guessed our decision or lost any enthusiasm. We both are 110% gun-ho about going, and if it weren’t for the circumstances about creating new incomes, finances and condo’s to sell, we would have been long gone by now.

We will check back in as we get closer to Sarah and Shane’s wedding. Thanks for hanging in there with us! Happy 2013!!

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Moving Right Along

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

It’s been a little while since we’ve updated our blog. We’ve been super busy non-stop with moving, a few weekends of travel, and daily life. But things are moving along nicely towards our goal of hitting the road. As part of our plan to fund our adventure, we have moved (yes, once again) back into a condo that we have been renting out for the last several years. Our lease on our city apartment was up, our tenants lease in the condo was up, so it made sense for us to move back into our condo to not only have one monthly payment instead of two, but also to get it ready for sale.

Paul has done an AMAZING job with renovating our 100-year-old condo. It has been renovated several times before, and updated with modern granite counters and glass block walls, but it still has the old charm of ceiling mouldings and baseboard mouldings, deep-set windows, and columns on the front that I think are just not made anymore. We had the hardwood floors redone, Paul installed all new stainless steel kitchen appliances, changed out several fixtures, installed new bathroom cabinetry, you name it, he’s done it. We haven’t had a single worker in here except for the hardwood floor finisher. Not bad for an insurance salesman who rattles off numbers like nobody’s business, that’s my guy. I think he missed his calling, he really loves working with his hands, and being able to see the results of his work.

So we’ve moved back in, which is very déjà vu, since we used to stay here for short visits when we lived in Arizona. It’s in a great location, walking distance to all sorts of restaurants, shops, activities. Interesting how a few years ago I said I don’t think I could ever live here, but now with our new mindset of being able to live in an even smaller RV, this 2 bedroom, 1 bath condo is a lot of fun to live in. Because too many people think of Kansas City as ‘cow town” I’ve made a page (see above)of our condo and a few other photos, all within walking distance.

As much as we would like to put it on the market today, and take off, we are going to hold off for a bit on selling it so we can get our independent incomes going a little more. I have cut down at my hospital job to 2 12-hour shifts a week, so I can focus more on my Juice Plus business. And how’s that going you may ask?

Thanks for asking. Well, I love it, and even though it’s a whole new challenge I’ve never done before, I find myself living and breathing it. What I do is share Juice Plus, which is 27 fruits, vegetables and whole grains in capsules or chewables. I too, of course, said how can that possibly be, how can they put that in capsules. But here’s how they do it. They pick the fruit and vegetables at their ripest, juice them right there at local plants, remove the water and fiber, and at a very low heat, dry them to a powder, and then into capsules. When you realize that fruits and vegetables are mostly water and fiber, when you remove that, you are left with the essence, the phytonutrients (aka as plant nutrients, aka micronutrients, meaning micro-tiny!) of those plants. The technology is amazing. Not that this is ever meant to replace eating 7 – 13 daily portions of fruits and vegetables, you need the fiber, etc., but as a complement to that. And really, how many people eat that many servings every day, really no one.

So the RN (of 20 years) in me who is passionate about nutrition, and how nutrition is our number one avenue to staying healthy and avoiding disease, wants every person to be taking Juice Plus. And it’s my challenge to get the word out. I chose this company because they have the research and science to back it. 24 gold-standard, double-blind, placebo controlled published studies in the most prestigious, medical journals around the world. And more pending. You have to understand, that alone, is huge. These institutions and their results can NOT be bought. They will only publish facts, whether they are positive or negative doesn’t matter to them. So those in the know about medical and health studies understand how much credibility these studies give Juice Plus.

What they prove is that the product is what they say it is. So my customers know, when taking Juice Plus, it is actually absorbed in your bloodstream (not pee’d out), it reduces oxidative stress caused by free radicals (which is important to keep cells healthy in the first place from cancer, infection, and other harm), decreases systemic inflammation (which they know contributes to heart disease), helps support a healthy immune system (I haven’t had a cold for as long as I can remember), protects the DNA (slows the aging process), promotes cardiovascular wellness, even supports healthier skin and gums. And the newest study by MD Anderson shows cancer survivors on Juice Plus did better.

Sounds too magical, has she lost her marbles, am I drinking the KoolAid here? Guess what, here’s the thing. There’s nothing magical at all, if you ate a PERFECT diet every single day with tons of fresh, raw, vine-ripened fruits and vegetables with no pesticides or herbicides, you would have the same benefits!! You can get these results on your own. But the problem is we DON’T eat the large amount, the wide variety, the vine-ripened, raw, nutrient dense produce every day, NONE of us do. And today’s produce is picked green (and therefore lacks nutrients), shipped, trucked, refrigerated, sprayed with pesticides and herbicides, so even the produce we do consume does not have the phytonutrients of Juice Plus. Even juicers are not getting the Juice Plus benefits. And vitamins have NOT been proven to be the answer, and if fact may be damaging. Therefore, we are not giving our bodies the amazing effects that only fruits and vegetables can provide. You can’t read a magazine, a medical journal or a published study now a days that doesn’t spell out the irreplaceable benefits of fruits and vegetables. Juice Plus is the perfect solution.

OBVIOUSLY I love this product, but it still is a challenge to get people to understand its importance. In fact even within my large family, I’ve had my challenges for sure. When people say the cost factor, it’s less than a cup of Starbuck’s a day. For your health, for not having doctor’s bills, and co-pays, and feeling sickly and un-well, that small amount of money simply doesn’t compare to having good health.

So that is my challenge of having people understand the benefits and the ‘whys’ of taking Juice Plus. My soon-to-be (July)60-year-old husband is a walking, talking advertisement for me. He is energetic, looks amazing and nothing close to his age, takes NO medications at all (ditto for me also, no meds), and is well, when you have great vascular health, it’s all systems go.

So we are working on growing my Juice Plus business, and Paul is working on growing his seminar business. When we feel it’s at a financial level that we can quit and go, that is our next step. We are receiving 2 RV’ing magazines and read them end to end. We are ready and waiting. But we want to do it right so we’re being patient. And by the way, when you are ready to start your Juice Plus, and join those of us who aspire to healthy living 24/7 (which does allow for our chocolate and occasional indulgences since you are flooding your body with the nutrients it needs), you can message me, email me, call me, or order from the website link. And I would love it if you would send this on to anyone you know who also aspires to good health, or who has health challenges that need this the most.

Healthy and happy living till our next blog!!!

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It’s Never Too Soon to Get Started

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

I had the most adorable couple for a pre-op visit the other day. The wife was scheduled for a total knee replacement next week, she came in along with her husband for an appointment with me to do all the pre-op preparation I do with patients. Close to being done with the business-at-hand, they mentioned something about their travels. I had some time, so I was able to ask them about what kind of travel they do.

They travel in their RV, they told me, spending about half the year at their home in a small town close to Kansas City, a part of the year traveling around, and several months stationed in Texas during the winter. They told me they’ve been doing this for many years and have never tired of it. The husband described their coach RV in great detail, how it has 3 slides, how he got it from a re-po, that it would have been too expensive otherwise, and that it’s a beautiful Coach RV they got for a huge bargain. I was telling him about our plans to get a fifth-wheel and a truck, both of which they have had in the past, and he was sharing with me about what kind of truck we will need to pull it. He was curious about my husband’s experience in pulling the horse trailers, describing how it can get a bit tricky pulling the fifth wheel through difficult places. He knew all the lingo.

My patient, the wife, excitedly described the set-up of their Coach, the washer/dryer they have, how they like that it’s all on one level, and how beautiful yet comfortable it is. They were also animatedly telling me about all the little side trips they take, they tow a small car behind, so are able to go off on little adventures when they are on the road. They told me they really like the KOA sites because there are so many amenities and they have more space available. In fact they stay in one in Texas that is close to the indoor heated pool, so my patient can do her pool aerobics every morning.

The husband was saying that the people who do this, that spend a good deal of time traveling, are a different breed, that we will be amazed at the friendliness, the generosity of ‘the community’ that reaches out to help each other. And my patient was telling me about the great friends they have made on the road, that they stay in touch and share each other’s travels, and will at times travel together, with one after the other in their RV’s. She said “We have so many friends I couldn’t even tell you the number.”

Since I had another patient and my time was up, I did have to move on. They both exclaimed many times, “Don’t wait, do it now while you have the time and the energy”. They make a lot of time to see their family all over the place and how they get quality time with each, since they can be where the family is. My patient even invited me to come stay on their home property, they have a large lot of land with a beautiful pond, and they keep an RV pad with a look-out to the pond. I had just met them and they were inviting us to park at their home and visit with them awhile! They said they would love it if we did. I asked how she will fit her rehabilitation in from getting her knee replaced, she had already had one knee replaced, so she knew what was in store. Her incentive to heal quickly and do what needs to be done came from wanting to get back out there and on with their life.

So we said our good-byes, even though we book an hour for these appointments, this went on a bit longer than the norm. I don’t usually hug patients, but they reached out with a quick hug to me. And off they went. Oh, by the way, did I mention my patient is 81 years old, and her husband is 82?

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We are not the only freedom seekers out there

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

Since we’ve started this project, I’ve done my homework. One of the fun things I’ve discovered is that there are tons of people out there doing exactly what Paul and I will be doing. There is a whole world of full-time RV traveling people. There are older couples, younger couples, families with small children, single men and single women. They have colorful interesting stories, all of them travelling the country. I’m especially amazed at the number of women that RV alone. Many of these people have been on the road for several years, and apparently love it. They have beautiful blogs. In fact, we have a long way to go in upgrading ours, but all in due time. Here are a few I thought particularly interesting. I tried to capture the essence of their blogs in their titles or “About Us” info, but if you click on their photos, you can read a bit more about them. Cheers to leading an adventurous life!!

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My Biggest Fears

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

So let’s be realistic. There are a few items in the back of my head I worry about with our traveling plans. Not that any of these will stop our plans, but we are very aware it is not going to be one long vacation. There is work involved, and a few concerns.

For one thing, I hate sharing a bathroom. We’ve always kept separate bathrooms wherever we have lived. Paul has his, I have mine. That’s a perfect plan. Our RV will only have one bathroom, so I am working on getting myself into a place of acceptance with that. Remember I am not your born and bred outdoorsy girl. Also, I bring along the blow-dryer when we go camping. So I like to have a little bit of private priss time. I also like locked doors in the bathroom and complete privacy. Paul, like most men, doesn’t know what a closed door means while in the bathroom, which is a bit horrifying to me. So there will be some common ground to find when we give ourselves to one small shared bathroom. We will have some early training coming soon when we move into our one-bathroom condo to get it ready to sell. That will be a primer for us.

Another big thing is, well, I think Paul is a terrible driver. He’s not really, but in my head, most everyone but myself at the wheel is a bad driver. I know in reality Paul’s a very good driver, but no one is as good a driver to me as I am. I realize it is my issue, not his. I am a nervous nelly as a passenger in anyone’s car. I’m astutely aware when Paul is not braking as quickly and early as I think he should, or not using the blinker every time, and keeping the proper speed limit. I like a lot of distance from the car in front of us, well more than the DMV taught us for our driving tests. Nothing gets by me in the car, my mind goes into red-flag, super alert Ms. Monitor everything. I am the kind of driver that is in the correct lane to exit about a mile ahead of my exit, never in the last few yards. Not always so with Paul. So either we have some tension when Paul drives, or we’ve simply learned it’s better for our relationship when I drive.

This problem gets a little bigger now that we will be driving a truck and pulling a 10,000+ pound fifth wheel behind us. That truck is not something I aspire to drive. Maybe when we are on a wide open 6-lane freeway and I can pull away from a truck stop and do freeway driving, I think I can do that. But the rest of the driving is worrisome for me. My saving grace, knowing Paul will be doing most of the driving is, well, sorry to all of you out there in smaller cars, but we will probably be the safe ones. We are, after all, in a huge monstrosity of a vehicle. Maybe knowing that, I can actually not be the nightmare passenger I am known to be with Paul. Not that he has ever even been in an accident when we’ve driven together, but I am prepared for one at every moment, keeping my foot on my secret brake and calculating every driving maneuver. Not one of my better qualities, I know that. And I bet some of the husbands can relate.

And it’s not just about driving skills we individually claim. No, I have bad dreams of maneuvering that big truck with that super long RV behind us. Although I firmly believe I happen to be a superior driver, I fully acknowledge I have a spatial perception problem. I have visions of pulling into gas stations and taking out a gas pump, or backing the fifth wheel right into the lake. How do you drive through a city with all that length attached behind you? How do you make right hand turns and clear those newspaper stands on the sidewalk? That’s what keeps me up at night. And why is it that in my dreams there are always 50 people standing in the parking lot watching me. Have I mentioned my spatial challenges? Often when pulling into a parking spot I seem to leave it a couple of feet short. I think I’m pulled in all the way until I come back to the parking lot and see I’m not even close. And I simply won’t go through those car washes where you have to align your tire in the 6-inch wide rolling bar. If I can’t see my tire below me from my driver’s seat, how can I blindly align my whole car in that thing. I break out in a sweat with those things, so that job has gone to Paul. Since I’m usually the one driving, Paul and I wordlessly switch drivers before we go into any car wash, those things terrify me.

Another reality check may be the television situation. Paul loves to watch every sport that is in season at the time. So that means, we have basketball, golf, football, tennis, you name a sport, Paul loves to watch it. I mean who cares who wins the NCAA basketball tournament? What difference does it make who was drafted where and when? Why do the play offs last so long? We have always had two TV’s (if truth be told we usually have at least double that) and while we do watch some TV shows together, I openly admit to a few times weekly saying good night, to really be able to go into our bedroom to have a different channel on. I usually have on the news or some documentary, and love my one favorite sitcom, Modern Family. I guess a Dish satellite will be able to allow 2 different TV’s to be on different channels, I sure hope so.

And lastly, what about my hair appointments? I’m really worried about that one. Will I just have to check out the yellow pages in our new town every 7 weeks for a different hair stylist? Can they match my previous highlight colors? I won’t know these people, how will I know they do good work? I don’t wear fancy hair, but I do need my blondness to be updated quite often, and a decent haircut. When I was looking at some other full-time RVers blogs on their posted yearly expenses, and saw budgets for haircuts for the year at $287.00, my jaw dropped a bit, that might get me the first 600 miles. So this is a real problem for me, and I have no clue how I’m going to work this one out. Our 6 month dental cleanings and yearly exams, no problem, we will just plan on getting all that done when we are in town or driving back through. But there is simply no way I can wait that long on my hair.

So it’s not all fun and roses. We have some apprehensions and concerns. But we still can’t wait for the day we leave. But remember that saying I mentioned many blogs ago….It takes 20 seconds of courage to create a lifetime of change. I will frequently be calling on those 20 seconds.

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Timeline for Departure

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

Here’s an update on our timeline. As we said, we wanted to blog about the preparations it takes to leave our roots and take off full-time to travel. One doesn’t just pack up and go, unless you are a bit crazy, best to get everything in order first. We planned it would take about a year to get everything ready, and we are now only a few short months away.

So far, we have begun and are fully engaged in transitioning our careers to earn an income while traveling. I have let my boss know of our plans, and have been given the okay to decrease my work hours at the hospital to two days per week. In the meantime, I am working every off-hour to get my other income streams going. Paul is still juggling his current position full-time, and adding his new income stream in his off hours. It has been a busy few months for us, but with our end-goal in sight, it is fun and more than worthwhile. The good kind of hard work.

We live in a city apartment and own a condo that we have rented out as an investment. Our current tenants in our condo have completed their lease and will be moving out in the next couple of weeks. We ourselves are also at the end of our current lease. So we will be moving into our condo in April. Our next step is to get our condo in tip-top shape to sell. It won’t take a lot, it’s in good shape already, but we are installing stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and re-doing the hardwood floors. Then it goes on the market, and that will decide our take-off point. Once it sells, we are truly on our way. Maybe June, July, August? There’s no way to know until our condo sells. We’ll buy our RV once the condo sells.

We are also in the process of paring down our “stuff.” Some stuff we will keep in storage; a couch, a bed, our big screen TV, stereo equipment, whatever we can fit into that space. In an RV all your furniture is built-in, so you take NOTHING other than kitchen stuff, clothes, bedding, etc. We will of course be bringing our computers for setting up two workstations in our RV. Most other stuff we will get rid of, through Craigslist, Salvation Army, give-aways. We’ll be getting a Dish Satellite for our condo, which we will bring along when we hit the road.

By the way, I discovered there is a Meet-Up Group called Meet, Plan and Go, they have several chapters across the nation…and they are all about exactly what we are doing. If you have ever thought about doing something like we are doing, it might be fun to meet with some like-minded people before taking off, and even when traveling to meet up again.

In an earlier blog I explained what a Tower Garden is. It’s a state-of-the-art vertical aeroponic tower, where you can grow your own organic produce without a yard or even dirt, you just need a little bit of space and sunshine. Remember when I said I don’t know how we would fit that in an RV? Well, we couldn’t resist and went ahead and bought ours. It was simple to set up, I started the seeds last Sunday. It’s Friday, and my seeds are already sprouting. We hope to be picking our own lettuce, tomatoes, basil, bell peppers for our salads in the next several weeks. We will figure out a way to bring it along. Once we reach our destinations, it won’t be any problem to set up, it’s just the traveling with it that may be a challenge. But where there’s a will, there’s a way! Stay tuned, I will be posting pictures of our Tower Garden as it matures, a couple here today for starters.

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Modern Day Camping

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

Before you say “I hate camping” you’ve got to hear what grown-up camping is all about. Living in an RV is all within the realm of camping, staying at campsites, living amongst campers. So I hope you stick with me for a little bit here, you may even want to give camping a try. (Pics included under camp pics.)

Unlike my husband Paul, I had never camped a day in my life until 3 years ago. I am not a “natural” outdoor type. I never grew up in a family or culture of camping, boating, hiking, outdoor-type activities. But guess what..it is a blast! We were invited to go on a float trip/camping weekend by friends, thank goodness, because it simply never occurred to us to try camping. We borrowed my son’s small tent, had one small cooler of food, a change of clothes, a couple of chairs, and off we went. We learned a lot that weekend, but mainly discovered it was fun and a great change of scenery for a weekend away.

We’ve come a long way since then. Here’s what modern-day, grown-up camping is all about. We now own a tent you can stand up and walk around in, with a screened-in porch. We now have a queen-size air mattress with an inflater/deflater that is almost as high as our bed at home. And no sleeping bags, I bring along sheets, a comforter and pillows. We have a large cooler on wheels. We even have a second tent we set up for shade and privacy. We have recliner camp chairs. We bring wine glasses, candles, a tablecloth, and tableware. After a couple of camp-outs we assigned each other individual and joint jobs, and so now setting up and breaking camp goes very smoothly and takes little time, rain or shine.

Here’s a big secret. We have a couple of long, sturdy, outdoor extension cords. What are these for? To connect to the campsite electricity that is meant for an RV. So even though we are tent camping, we plug into our laptop to watch movies. We plug-in our CD player to listen to great music. We plug in our electric skillet for an easy meal. We plug our fan in when it gets a bit too warm, and I’ve even brought an electric blanket for cool-weather camping. I even admit to plugging in my blow-dryer for a little hair vanity. So maybe it’s not really “roughing it,” but who the heck cares.

Our dogs simply love it too, and each time we tease them by asking “JJ, Toby, want to go camping?” They dance around in circles of excitement.

Even though you have a nice, dry, cozy little (or large in our case) tent, you really are living outdoors for the weekend. Sipping wine under the stars, listening to the crackling from the campfire and feeling the warmth from the red glowing coals as they light up the surrounding area, it’s such a great get-away. Sleeping outdoors with the chill in the night air, under your comforter, is something I most love about camping. The darkness at night when you are away from city/suburb life is an experience in itself, lanterns are a must. Waking up in the morning, drinking hot coffee, making pancakes that for some reason taste incredible when made outdoors. The scent of wood smoke from your morning campfire and the warmth of the sun coming up never fails to lift the spirits and elevate the mood. thibaut-point-006

We love taking morning hikes with the dogs, or taking a long walk around the lake. We often come back from our hike and just relax and read. We like to explore the local areas. It’s fun to watch the activity on the lake, idly passing our time before it’s time to make lunch.

We even have our own kayaks now. Early morning and late afternoon kayak expeditions exploring the coves and backwater areas of the lakes and river is both educational and inspirational. We take afternoon naps in the tent. Preparing dinner outside, more wine, (lots of wine when camping!), watching a DVD under the stars from our reclining camp chairs. It’s a little piece of heaven on earth, trust me. There is some work involved, I will grant you that, but when has it ever been that great things don’t come without some work involved. In our case it really doesn’t feel like work.

Here is a really important tip. Do some research, and find the best campsite. We only will camp where it’s a beautiful setting. Take a look at our pictures on our Camping page above. Here in the middle of the country we don’t have mountains or an ocean obviously. But we have beautiful lakes and rivers, and incredibly green areas. We can only imagine the locations you coastal people could find. Always choose a site that is a lake, river or a scenic view. When choosing a site try to find an end site so you have maximum privacy. Almost all the locations come with a picnic-table for your use only. You can find campsites and book them through this site, www.recreation.gov. Don’t book any site in the inside circle, stick with view sites only. If there are no photos included, google photos of the locations first, before picking your site.

Keep this in mind. When you drive in, it’s a bit overwhelming to see all the RV, tents, cars and trucks everywhere. At first you may feel like you’re in a parking lot. But when you get to your site, facing the scenic view, get all set up facing away from the activity behind you, you create your own little world. There is “extreme camping” out there, and part of the fun is watching the set-ups and all the stuff some folks bring with them. You would be amazed at the overhanging lights, the outdoor grills, the cook tents, the boats, the bicycles, and the weekend worlds some of these campers create.

So plan a weekend camping, borrow your camp stuff when you start, ask around for a great campsite place, give it a try. You just may find it’s a wonderful, fun, relatively inexpensive addition to your life.

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JJ, Toby and Macy – RV Travel with Our Pets

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

After our kids all left, animals came into the picture. Our two little adopted dogs, JJ and Toby, as well as our cat Macy, will be joining us in our full-time travel life. We know that JJ and Toby travel well. They both love to go to the lake, ride in our boat, and JJ is quite the camper. Macy the cat may be another story.

st-louis-2011-007Toby, our most recent adoption, is a Pomchi (half Pomeranian and half Chihuahua) and weighs about 9 pounds. He looks like a miniature fox and has a bit of that personality. I think he’s adorable, but when we walk the two, JJ gets all the attention, Toby none. Toby was rescued from an animal hoarder where they found some 40 animals. We were told the conditions were deplorable and many of the animals had to be put down. Toby was 7 when we got him, about a year and a half ago. He has some understandable peculiarities coming from that background. He has come to love Paul and I, but it stops there, he is not a social dog with other animals or people. We made one attempt to leave him with my daughter’s boyfriend Shane, and go on a week’s vacation. How could a shy tiny dog be a problem? Shane would tell you otherwise. The power of a small animal with glaring fangs and a growling, menacing, attack-mode fox face makes him seem more like 90 pounds. He wouldn’t come out of his kennel for anything without going into attack mode, and Shane ended up having to devise some contraption hooked to the front of his kennel that would allow him to get his leash on but not attack. I must admit, his texts had me cracking up, but I don’t think Shane thought it was too funny. We’ve since taken Toby with us on all road trips. He hides easily in his carry kennel that looks like a gym bag, and as long as he is with us and away from other people and animals, he is quite the little sweet boy.

lake-perry-camping-010JJ is our Tibetan Terrier, about the same age as Toby, who we’ve had the past four years. He was also adopted through a pet shelter. He was found one winter wandering around in an ice storm. JJ’s personality is the opposite of Toby. He is very sweet, loves all other animals and people, and will go with anyone who will pay attention to him. He doesn’t bark much unless he sees a dog on TV, then he goes ballistic barking until the dog goes away. We haven’t been able to watch even a commercial with a dog in it for a long time. He’s 27 pounds, an easy size to take anywhere. He is a snuggler and wherever we are in our home, JJ is there too. He even puts up with Toby growling at him, and except for a couple of times when Toby pushed it too far, he just looks aside and quietly walks away from Toby. The only problem traveling is he wants to be in your lap every second, so we’ve had to get him used to a car harness. All in all, our dogs will be easy enough to have along.

img_20120115_195411Then there’s Macy, our cat. Oh boy. Sarah got Macy for me as a surprise birthday present to replace my empty nest after the kids all left. She knows I like small-sized pets, so she got the smallest little kitty cat she could find. Well, little Macy has grown up to be the fattest cat we’ve ever seen. I just don’t get it because I don’t over-feed her, and we always get the cat food for overweight cats. She doesn’t eat out of the dog bowls, so I don’t know why she is so fat. She lives for eating though, meowing first thing in the morning to let us know she is hungry, then starts in again late in the day for her 2nd feeding (the vet recommended dividing her daily feedings into two to help with weight management). Macy, like Toby, doesn’t like people at all, except for Paul and I. Even Sarah, who saved her life, can’t come close to her. She hisses and bats at her and anyone that tries to warm up to her. Two of our three pets are anti-social, on the extreme side, I’m not sure what that says about us. (And frankly I’d rather not know.) This is weird too about Macy. She likes me just fine and will be affectionate, but she is madly in love with Paul. She will climb on Paul’s lap when we are watching TV at night and sit there, staring into Paul’s eyes for the longest time, just staring, nudging her head against his chest. It’s spooky and weird. She’s been doing that for almost five years and never tires of trying to get his attention. She’s a strange cat. She always has been an indoor cat, and getting her used to the RV may be a challenge. My feeling is she will find a comfortable window ledge, a wide one, and perch herself there to happily watch the world go by, waiting to be fed and waiting to pounce on Paul’s lap at night.

Most campgrounds/RV Resorts accept pets, especially small ones like ours. We can’t imagine traveling without our animals, peculiarities and all, so they have no choice but to come along for the ride. All three are older, so they sleep a lot anyways, and after all, they are a big part of our roots. But still, I hope they enjoy their journey.

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Tower Garden – A Must See

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

I’m going to divert a little bit from “on the road” blogging. I just have to show you this because I think this is incredibly cool! This isn’t officially on the market until April. This is the newest state-of-the-art vertical aeroponic growing system from Juice Plus. They are calling it the Tower Garden. You don’t even need a yard, all you need is a sunny patio, terrace, deck or balcony to grow your own vegetables, herbs and fruits. Notice this is not hydroponic, this is aeroponic. They already have several restaurants in Chicago and New York growing these on their rooftops. No dirt, no weeding, no ground pests, and the vegetables will to grow in half the amount of time, so in 3 to 4 weeks you are picking your salad from your own garden. It comes with a nutrient solution so the product is full of nutrition. I haven’t actually gotten one myself yet (not sure how they would fit in an RV), but the feedback I’ve heard is that everyone loves them. I saw the tower itself and I will be honest and say it is fairly large. But since it grows vertically, that’s not really a problem. I am really excited about these and wanted to pass this along.

The website you can look at is www.towergarden.com.

HERE’S TO BECOMING SELF-SUSTAINABLE!!!

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What about all the moving around?

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Paul and Lorrie

Some people have asked us, what about all the moving around? What about not having roots, isn’t that scary to you? Of course we don’t actually know if we are going to like our new lifestyle until we are out there doing it. But I would say we have a pretty good idea that we are okay with lots of transitions. Since we have married, about 10 years now, I don’t even want to tell you the number of moves we have made. Okay, I will tell you. It’s more than ten. That sounds like it would be once a year, but in reality it’s not. There were a few years that we owned two homes, one in Arizona and one in Kansas City, and we commuted back and forth. We switched from our main home in KC to a second home in AZ, then vice-versa, so that accounted for a few moves. We have stayed in a couple of homes longer than a year, yet overall, we have moved a lot! Each move made sense to us at the time. A couple of times we moved because we had made a killing in the housing market. Other times we moved because we had lost a small fortune in the housing market (that’s a story for another blog). In the last couple of years, thanks to our daughter Sarah who inspired us after she moved into the city, we also moved into the heart of downtown Kansas City just to experience city life. We loved it. A year later we moved to another city apartment, for the outdoor patio, the one thing we missed in our first city place.

With each move, we find ourselves looking forward to exploring our new surroundings. We enjoy the looking, the planning, the finding. We like exploring new local restaurants and the local libraries. We love walking and exploring new neighborhoods. We even like setting up our new home and have boxes gone and pictures up within two days. We’ve gotten efficient at moving. It may seem like we are always living for the future, and maybe in the past that was true, but after reading the famous philosopher, Eckhart Tolle, several years ago, I truly became all about living in the moment and enjoying everything we can in our immediate surroundings. We seem to create a home very quickly and have a knack for melding the old with the new. Within a day or two of each move our new environment feels familiar and comfy, it’s really the address and the front door that changes.

My Dad always kids me that he has used up almost all the pages of his address book on my address changes alone. He isn’t too crazy about using technology, so he doesn’t remove the old and enter the new. I guess I should get him a new address book.

When you consider the difficult part of traveling is not having your own bed, living out of suitcases, not having your own pantry with the food you like, and not having your pets with you, then it’s always great to get home to those comfort things we all need in our life. But in our new life traveling we will be bringing our home with us, so we will have our own bed, all of our clothes, our stocked kitchen and our pets. We will have our “stuff” with us.

My daughter Sarah asked me recently, “Mom, what is your back-up plan?” (Always a weird feeling when your child asks you something a parent should be asking the child, especially when it makes a lot of sense). Our answer is simply that when the road is no longer enjoyable, whether that’s six months or six years, we will pick our favorite part of the country, find the right neighborhood and set up roots. That’s not really scary to us, that is our track record.

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