Preparation/Planning

One more brick in place.  We have approved financing for a $30,000 loan to purchase the coach.  Next step: insurance.  We are looking to be actual RV owners by mid-March. The terms aren’t great, given the current low interest rates: 6.75% over 15 years with a pre-payment penalty if we pay it off in less … Continue reading »

I would like it to snow this winter.  Not a lot, mind you.  Enough to make it look like winter but not so much as to wreck my back.  As this could be my last cold winter for a while, I want to have some memories – not necessarily fond ones – of what I … Continue reading »

It took me almost a week to compose my most recent page (“Searching for a Used Fifth Wheel”).  I wrote a draft, then got caught up in trying to find a photo of the nose cap of an Open Range 399BHS. Before I found one I had to deal with some tenant issues, a granddaughter’s … Continue reading »

As we slowly, incrementally, tell family and friends of our retirement plans, we get two responses: “That’s great! I am SO envious!” “We will miss you.” The first response is direct and always seems very genuine.  The second response is conveyed more through body language and follow-up questions, such as “How often will you be … Continue reading »

Our plan includes renting our home for a year or more.  We will leave it furnished, but will remove all personal items.  Some of the most precious – pictures, quilts made by my grandmother and the like – will go into storage. But there is a lot of stuff – “belongings” I guess – that … Continue reading »

Jett and I both had Thursday and Friday off this week, giving us a 4-day weekend to enjoy family and food and have a lot of fun. Yeah. Our weekend has actually consisted of Thanksgiving dinner alone, followed by moving furniture, painting and listing on eBay some of the stuff we want to shed before … Continue reading »

One year from now, Thanksgiving 2012, Jett and I hope to be on the left coast, having dinner with my mother and my sister in Tillamook, Oregon.  One year, about $80,000 and about 4,200 miles of driving a big rig separate me from that goal. But as God is my witness (I watched Gone With … Continue reading »

It is Thanksgiving week which, in addition to turkey and cranberry jelly (which I truly don’t like, but don’t shoot me), means a short work week. Which brings us one easy week closer to hitting the road. The current count, not counting this week: 44 weeks to departure (if we leave October 1, 2012) 40 … Continue reading »

I had an amusing encounter recently with a Liberty Mutual insurance agent.  It seems that Liberty Mutual has some kind of business relationship with my employer and a representative appears in the cafeteria once every couple of months to drum up business.  I took the opportunity to inquire into getting insurance coverage for the RV.  … Continue reading »

No, it’s not the introductory line of a joke. Rather it is just my musing about how I can start out looking for one thing and find something entirely different. I suspect that this will happen a lot once we hit the road. In this case Jett decided that I needed to find an RV … Continue reading »