Never Have Been on an RV Vacation? Why not!

When I was younger I traveled all over the USA and even several places throughout the world. Why not? I have always loved to travel but one form of travel I never considered until later in life. That unique way of travel is to travel by Recreational Vehicle. When my wife and I were contemplating retirement we considered several options. We could stay where we were living in Texas or we could buy a retirement home in some other location such as Florida or we could rent or purchase a nice motorhome and set off to explore the USA in search of our future retirement hot spot!

Since we had never traveled in an RV before we had some anxiety about driving such a big rig. After much soul searching and plenty of looking at RV’s on lots and online we found a motorhome just for us… so we sold all of our “STUFF” that wasn’t going to fit into our RV and put the rest inside and hit the road!

They say ignorance is bliss and it must be true as we happily took off knowing we were about to learn a lot about RV’ing in a learn-as-we-go fashion! As we quickly found out, there is a whole community of us out there and with the world wide web we have appreciatively received tips, support and advice from many seasoned full-timer RV'ers.

In looking back, as newbies to the RV world there was a steep learning curve but we managed to travel from Texas to the Florida Keys in about four months without destroying the RV or our marriage. We have been traveling by RV now for about three and one half years and have only one regret! Our only regret is that we didn’t RV sooner!

After traveling along the east coast the first year the second year we traveled along the west coast from California to Washington. Last year we went north to Niagara Falls and visited Canada before traveling around all the Great Lakes.  This past year we went to Louisiana to experience Mardis Gras, spent a month in Texas in the scenic hill country and then explored the mountain states including Arches, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks!

Now you don’t have to get crazy and sell everything and do what we did but I will tell you don’t put off your travel plans too long. We have met many RV’ers and guess what the most common answer was to the question: “Do you have any regrets?”  Nearly everyone we ask this question says their only regret was that they didn’t start RV’ing earlier!!!

For those of you that are considering Rv’ing… we highly recommend you stop procrastinating and delve into it!  If you aren’t sure about RV’ing the best way to go in one for your first time is to go out and rent one to check out what this lifestyle is all about!  We feel you will happily realize that checking items off your bucket list as we have is fulfilling, invigorating and exciting. The road with its many superb adventures is awaiting you!

Ms. Heyduke’s Retirement Revelation…

Editors Note: Sharon penned today’s blog…

In all our travels the past two years we have had on our to-do list finding the ideal retirement place once we tire of our RV lifestyle. I felt as though I would really miss having a community and a routine so I try to keep a watchful eye wherever we go to see how my peers live everywhere we go. It has been really eye opening observing how our peers choose to live out their “golden years”. Our first experiences in this observation process came in Florida when we happened to book stays at communities that had a mixture of permanent residents in manufactured homes and designated spaces for RV’ers like us. We learned that in many of these places the permanent residents were former RV’ers who chose to live in these locations either year-round or seasonally. These park models often come with beautiful lanais and excellent floor plans. Many Floridian seniors buy them and don’t even bother to insure them because they say if a hurricane takes it, one can easily buy another. In one such community we saw park models advertised as “free”. This, we learned is because there is a Homeowners Association Fee within these communities and those wanting to sell often are happy just to get out from under the yearly contracted HOA fee. These communities intrigued me because I loved the community feeling I received visiting their clubhouses and participating in the community activities. Often there are fantastic amenities such as state of the art gym facilities as well as beautifully maintained tennis courts, shuffleboard courts, horse shoe pits, etc. I could begin to envision myself barely using our car as I could spend my days tooling around in my adult tricycle with the drink holder on the handlebars comingling with other residents. However like John after a month-long stay I would find myself becoming a little bored with the routine and ready for adventure on down the road.

Another retirement experience we observed was in hearing how some of our friends live at a working ranch in Kerrville Texas. This retirement community is built around a working ranch. Cowboy Ranch-hands work the cattle and horses receiving their salary from the resident home owner association fees. These residents enjoy the ranch life and tell us they love seeing the cattle and horses from the windows of their home. It is a gated community and also has a clubhouse, pool, tennis courts, etc. but the most attractive part to these people is the ranch experience. Communities we found in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas were more centered around golf and line dancing activities. In both settings the residents were delighted to partake in these activities everyday and although I found it very interesting, I could not see myself in either setting.

Next I tried to envision living in places where we really had a lot of fun such as Key West Florida, Portland Oregon, Camden Maine, Cape Cod, and Abbeville Louisiana. Each of these locations are beautiful and fun but weather can be a big limitation at certain times of the year. Add the fact that generally after a month and falling into a routine I find myself actually wanting a new adventure. Therein came the revelation. I already have what I have been searching for… that sense of community and routine is in this RV lifestyle I am living. I have a community of friends old and new that interact with me daily either on Facebook or on the blog. We often visit family or friends along the way and have had the pleasure of crossing paths with new RV friends sometimes more than once. No longer am I in any hurry to settle down somewhere. I love the comfort of my home on wheels and the time to experience new places with my best friend and spouse. Since retirement I have rediscovered how interesting and fun John is. At the end of the day it is such fun to relax and reminisce about our day or to eagerly discuss what’s ahead. I find I am truly blessed in that I am right where I want to be!

The “Haves” are here…

We have traveled a lot many miles and to all of the states along the east coast over the past nine and a half months and one thing we have always noticed is that the state of our economy seems to have impacted the lower and middle classes to a greater extent than it has the wealthy or the “haves”…

Throughout the southeast we noticed a lot of businesses and properties have been boarded up and listed for sale due to bankruptcy, foreclosure or short sales. We have seen a lot of run down areas in the east. It is sad for America to have degraded to such a state that it is slowly destroying the most important building block of the country – the working middle class.

However, when we walk along the beaches and in particular the beaches in southern Florida it becomes obvious that all the people in America are not suffering. The economy down here in the Bonita Springs and Naples area seems more robust than most of what we have seen in our travels. Strip malls are still being built and most of the area looks vibrant and energized with few signs that our economy is a bit disheveled.

This takes us back to the homes along the beaches here in southern Florida… These properties start at near $2,000,000 and go way up from there. The houses in these photos are examples of such properties. These homes appear, for the most part, to not be lived in annually and thus are likely “winter retreats for the haves”… must be nice, Huh?

A lot of hubbub has been in the news lately that the “haves” have not been paying their fair share of taxes because they are creative enough to tax shelter much or all of their income. When you look at these magnificent properties along the beaches of southern Florida you can only wonder who is living in these homes. Are they doing anything we wouldn’t do if the government allowed us to do so?

But there is no reason to muddle my post retirement thoughts since we never made it out of the working middle class… We were once envious of these people and wanted to excel in our lives for the chance opportunity to be like them. Now the only thing we are envious about are their infinity pools since we are able to enjoy their same backyard views and beaches without having all their property expenses and all their stuff…

You know they may only be the “haves” because they have most of the stuff.It is interesting to note when we talk with some of  these “haves” that they are jealous of us and our lifestyle. Jealous of us??? What do we have that they don’t have??? We have freedom to do what we want to do when we want to do it… and of course we have all this while having so little responsibility and so little stuff.  Maybe we do have way more than they could ever have in their current lifestyles…

Maybe we are the true “haves” in America…

Barefoot Beach…

The last few days have been some really lazy days of lounging around the house till lunch and then venturing over to the beach about 10 minutes west of here. The weather here has been absolutely fantastic as we have had overnight lows in the sixties and highs in the low eighties… perfect beach weather.

Back where we use to live in Texas they had a hard freeze the last few nights which is pretty unusual there in early December. The weather forecasters here have been forecasting a cold snap starting today as they are calling for a low of 50 and a high of only 72…. Now this is how cold should be properly defined to retired people!!! The closest thing we have seen of fall here in Florida is the colors on the coastal Sea Grape (Coccoloba uvifera)

The days are filled with me waking to the sounds of pileated woodpeckers in the pine grove on the far side of the park followed by a beautiful sunrise. At the beach we are serenaded by the sound of the infrequent but periodic waves lapping the sandy shore depositing sea shells with each pass. The beach we go to is loaded with shells of every pastel hue known to mankind and these beaches also serve as resting spots for the various birds found near and off the sea shore in southwestern Florida.

The extent of my exercise lately has been the long strolls we take along the surf while examining the shells left behind by the sea. Occasionally a nice find will be discovered, examined, photographed, enjoyed and then left for the next person to discover it do it all over again…

There are some very fancy homes here along the beach some of which are rumored to be owned by movie stars and the like. But when we are on the beach with the sound of the surf it seems as if it is just us, the sand, the shells and the birds here on our beach along with a few others walking the same path as us…

You see there are many of us in Florida whom are enjoying our lives here, on the road of retirement…

We both got A’s on our tests at the Mayo…

Some readers of our blog asked us to relay our experience at the Jacksonville Florida Mayo Clinic. Below is a synopsis of what we went through during our visit.

We were scheduled November 2^nd to pre-register then begin our appointments for physicals by visiting internal medicine first. Upon driving in to the clinic, it was reassuring to see clear signage and plenty of free parking nearby. We also noticed RV spaces taken by 3 RV’s but there is signage asking there be no overnight parking. We elected to stay 10 miles away at Hanna Park, a convenient Jacksonville location just ten minutes away.

Pre-registration was scheduled an hour prior to the doctor visit and consisted of finishing any undone paperwork and copying of our license and insurance card. The paperwork was mailed in advance of registration, but as happened with us, we did not receive all of the paperwork needed. Surprisingly the Mayo will not email paperwork. We speculate we didn’t receive some mailings due to confusion about our address. We use our daughter’s address for our mail but since we knew we would not be able to retrieve the Mayo paperwork after leaving North Carolina, we chose to ask a friend in Jacksonville if we could use their address. Unfortunately this created some confusion and we didn’t get everything the Mayo supposedly sent.

Therefore the hour on the front end of our appointment was helpful to allow us to fill out 9 more pages of medical history questions. A nurse had also called us about a week before our visit to note all our medications and remind us to fast the day of our initial visit. Upon completion at registration we were presented with two folders containing our individual “itineraries”. These itineraries not only listed our appointment times but also instructions for prep prior to the visits. We presented our itinerary to each department and EVERY receptionist and technician asked for our name and birthdate to ensure they had the right patient!

On the second floor of the same building as registration we headed to our doctor visit. (if you do not call way ahead you will be asked if it is ok to be scheduled with a Physician’s Assistant). The exam rooms were especially spacious and comfortable with a nice couch and a changing room in the far corner. An interesting touch noted by Sharon was the exam chairs did not have paper wrapping as we had always seen before. There were re-usable cloth covers!

Once the doctor interview is over, orders are written for lab, x-rays or any needed tests. We were asked to wait in reception while staff made our appointments some the same day the remaining visits the next day ending with a final visit with the doctor to receive results. Every appointment is within walking distance and the campus is a very pleasant and relaxing walk along tranquil landscaped sidewalks and waterways. Staff are very friendly and accommodating. It really is wonderful to have everything so easily done. It is especially convenient for RV’ers in that barring any complications, you can be done in as few as two days allowing you to go on with your travels!

We were actually able to completely and finish our physicals, x-rays and exams in two days. It was the best patient experience we have ever had in that the results came back so quickly. I am happy to report that we both were declared healthy and got A’s on our exams... Some of our blood-work numbers came back so good that they asked what we were doing for our health. We said we exercise and eat well and we errrrrrr retired early... and maybe being produce junkies apparently pays off !

Getting ready to leave and pondering…

We have been in the Pinehurst/Aberdeen area for two months, about a month longer than we plan to stay anywhere else we may travel in the future. When we first set out on this RV journey one of the things we wanted to accomplish over the long haul was to keep our eye out for places that we may call our home in the future when we no longer want to RV our way around the land.

Before we decided to purchase an RV and travel the land we were contemplating retiring in a sticks and bricks somewhere other than where we were in Texas. Where this would be depended on a lot of things but first and foremost it had to be somewhere that we really liked and had a lot to offer. Well what we found here in North Carolina in the Pinehurst/Aberdeen/Southern Pines area was a place that we could live in the future.

  

Why would we consider this place?

• lots of activity in this area – festivals, live music, horses
• a really pretty part of the USA with mature long leaf pines and mixed hardwood forests
• affordable although taxes are a bit higher than desired
• good medical facilities
• very friendly people

So this area was originally on our itinerary as just a layover to watch the daughter’s last season of softball yet it may well end up being our future home. But then again the next place we go to may be even better… That is why we chose to see the land this way…

 

So today it is off to watch the softball games we thought were going to be cancelled but that were rescheduled after all.  Then tomorrow we will leave Aberdeen and set out sights on Spartanburg South Carolina to stay for a couple of weeks and watch our daughter's last ASUN tournament.

One crazy week…

Wow, what a whirlwind week we have had… selling large pieces of furniture at the last minute, the last garage sale, the trips to take stuff to the mission, the purging of the remaining stuff to the curb for the ever present craigslist “curb alert”. The going away luncheons, parties, and events. But here we are ready to hit the road tomorrow if we get all our last minute chores done and all goes well.

What else made this week crazy? We were getting a wee bit stressed the car wasn’t selling and were planning to take it to Houston to sell to a CarMax which was going to pretty much kill a day when we really couldn’t afford a lost day, but at the last minute a buyer came forth and we closed the deal on Monday.  Whew… car sold, stuff sold, what about the house? The plan was to turn it over to a realtor today (Tuesday) to sell while we were on the road but just like the last pieces of big furniture, and just like the car, we accepted a last minute contract offer on the house last night. Barring any unforeseen circumstances we may have sold the house!!!! Fingers and toes are crossed.

So we got to use our car up to the last minute without having to become the dreaded one car family… we got to stay in the house till we were ready to leave… and we got to use all of our stuff to the bitter end… So could things have come together at the end any better?

Me thinks not except for the crisis in Libya spiking the price of diesel and gasoline nationwide… but I will take this small bump in the road that lies ahead for us… and lastly this is the time the blog needs to be renamed from On the Road to Retirement to On the Road of Retirement…

^{ps. the punch list has been updated and we added the additional items we need to do on our last day before departure…}

Five days and counting…

Well with the punch list updated and days dwindling (down to 5 days) we are starting to see a wee bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I had the base plate installed on the CRV and the motorhome was dropped off today for repairs to the refrigerator. They also serviced the generator and checked out all the plumbing after all of our recent freezes.  The only plumbing casualty was the kitchen faucet (which may have already been damaged from before).  So they will fix everything and have it ready for us on Friday.

The final garage sale is on Saturday so by Saturday evening we should have a nearly empty house. Finally!!! All that will be remaining in the house is what is to be moved into the motorhome by Tuesday. Planning to still hit the road by Wednesday.

With Sharon’s retirement party out of the way mine is next.  It will be on Thursday at one of my favorite local taverns named Fitzwillies. If you are ever in College Station, TX you need to go there and have a burger and fries or an order of extra crispy wings along with a nice ice cold beverage. Tell Shelby John Z. sent you…

Couple of recent nibbles on the house and we hope to have an offer before we leave… if not a realtor will take over the endeavor for us.  Selling the car is another story we hope to resolve soon. And tonight I will work my last college basketball game as an NCAA statistician as the home town Texas A&M Aggies take on the Oklahoma Sooners.

What a crazy life we have now…

So with 8 (EIGHT) days to go, our lives are crazy (CRAAAAZZZYYY) right now!!! I have had some of you ask do we have to leave the day we planned to leave… the answer is no… but we still plan to leave March 2nd : )

So what has been going on in our crazy lives… Today was a hectic day to say the least. It started for me at the crack of dawn when I first installed the new hitch on the CRV that will support our bicycle rack and then I  started to disassemble some furniture that my son’s family was going to take home with them. Next I made some chorizo and egg tacos for breakfast for them all.. My son and his family were visiting to attend my bride’s surprise retirement party.

The party was held at a really fine local restaurant and it was fun seeing all the people we hadn’t seen in some time. Our son and his family got to come up and enjoy the festivities but our daughter was playing softball at Auburn, Alabama this day. It was really great to hear all the wonderful things that were said about my bride by her current and past co-workers… it brought a tear to the eye now and then. It was a bit eerie in that at times I felt like I was attending her funeral hearing all the great things she had done… : )

But what made the day hectic was that not only was my son taking a lot of furniture home with him for his family to enjoy… but much of the rest of our furniture had been sold and was being picked up this day as well. So by the time the sun was setting we realized we had nearly no furniture left in our house… so where were we going to sit???

Then I had an epiphany… we bought chairs for the motorhome… so until we leave we are camping in our house until the time comes to go…

The last this and the last that…

One on the more pleasant things about retiring and knowing your last working date is that you start realizing that many of things that you use to do (and possibly took for granted) are all coming to an end. I recently worked my last football game as a statistician and I went to my last office Christmas party last night.

I have worked in my current position since 1994 (well if you don’t count my area’s recent consolidation into a larger department). My work at this large University has been nothing but enjoyable and I have been fortunate enough to work alongside many wonderful people. The department that employed me all this time has always empowered its staff to be responsible and accountable for their specific area… basically you either swim or sink! The management’s philosophy aligns with mine… which is in essence by allowing someone the opportunity to fail they will likely reward you…

So in 85 days I will have my last working day at my job and there will be many other lasts for us before that day. This will be our last Christmas in our house (unless we sell it soon) and we just had out last Thanksgiving. With all these “lasts” one would think that there would be a lot of sadness along with them but to the contrary I am just enjoying and relishing each and every one of them as we countdown the days to our next journey…

… only 12 more Mondays :)

So what is next for us… The Punch List!

Well now that we are back in Texas and a trip of a lifetime for us is over it is now nearing crunch time for us as we prepare to ready ourselves for the next chapter of our lives... we have LOTS to do still before we are ready to hit the road!

Since this topic had no photos associated with it I have included some photos of the ship and the towel folding that our room steward left on our bed at night while on out last cruise.

So in order to make some sense out of all the madness that will enter our lives soon I thought it best to come up with a punch list of items that need to be done before we have out “stuff” together.

1. continue to opt out of paper mailers and bills where possible
2. stop all magazine subscriptions
3. switch to Verizon from our current AT&T provider
4. determine which TV network to use (DISH vs Direct TV)
5. determine which internet solution works best for us
6. sign up for select RV clubs
7. determine a mail forwarding solution (Escapes most likely)
8. tll the house (set a closing date)
9. buy an RV (determine where it will be if we close earlier than our departure date)
10. sell all the stuff a future home buyer doesn't want
11. sell all the remaining stuff that won't fit into our RV
12. solve the insurance issue for our home on wheels (American National most likely)
13. buy a tow vehicle
14. sell both our current vehicles
15. insure the new toad
16. find a towing solution for the toad
17. learn to drive the RV
18. take a shakedown trip
19. finish any mods or repairs necessary before we leave
20. determine which maps/books we need for traveling
21. plan our first route
22. retire from our jobs :) :) :)
23. transfer our current retirement account to a vanguard account
24. say our goodbyes

Crikey! The list is HUGE and pretty ominous considering we only have about 3 1/2 months before we plan to hit the road on March 2nd, 2011... now I am not sure now that it was such a good idea to make this list as it seems a bit overwhelming…

…we had better get busy as it is almost turkey day!

Practicing retirement…

A week from today we will begin our 17 day vacation which we are looking forward too and viewing as a chance to practice retirement… Time off from the day to day trivialities of our working life.  We have been on this long road to retirement for quite some time now and we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

With the remaining time left before we retire we will still have the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. So not a lot of fulltime working days left for us, but the remaining working days I look forward to the least are the Mondays.

Mondays (for me) have always been like a butterfly flying into a headwind… you work hard all day and end up getting nowhere (or so it seems). I look forward to the days that Mondays are like a butterfly floating on the sea breezes… where one puts out little effort to explore new and exciting places.  Which butterfly are you?  Which one would you rather be?

So although we won’t be in an RV during our practice retirement we will be in a very small confined space also known as an interior cabin.  This will be a chance for us to get to know each other better : ) A chance to practice retirement…Well, in about ten days we will land in Sydney, Australia and we hope that for the two weeks after that we are two  butterflies on the sea breezes…

Life is a rush…

So here I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Ft. Worth, Texas enjoying a fine cup of the house java at the Marriott Town Place Suites.  It is early Sunday morning and once again I have time to reflect upon the activities that brought me here and how they may be different in my future lifestyle on the road to retirement.

One of the “fun jobs” I have in my current working life is that of an NCAA statistician. What that does for me is to allow me to watch football games from the press box and basketball games from near midcourt – front row. Now if you knew how much of a college sports junkie I was you would understand just how cool this is to me. And this is the single most significant thing I will miss from my working life after I retire. But the events of yesterday have allowed me to let go of even this most sacred part of my working life…

Yesterday, I was to drive from my home to Arlington, Texas to work as a statistician for the University of Arkansas vs. Texas A&M University Southwest Classic game in Dallas Cowboy’s stadium. Cool, huh!!!! Well let me tell you about that day…

It started well as my bride and I awoke and went to one of our favorite places for breakfast and hit the road well ahead of schedule. Nothing could mess up this day – right? We wanted to arrive early enough so we could attend one of two tailgates depending upon which one was closer to us… So we are nearing Dallas’s Stadium about 3.5 hours before game time which is great for tailgating.

But….. we suddenly encountered a parking lot like situation on the road leading into the area where we were to park. We could actually see the lot I had a parking pass for but it took us 45 minutes to go the 1/4 mile to the lot… compounding this was the fact that we passed by one tailgate on the way in and it looked as if it would be over a 1/2 mile hike to it and back – so we couldn’t go there… By the time we parked and got to the stadium it was evident there would be no tailgating for us…

So, up to the press box,  I worked the game, the Aggies lost… Oh well, it was expected. No problem, we will drive to our hotel in Ft. Worth and go out on the town and have fun… Well we thought the traffic coming into the stadium was bad but the exiting traffic was even worse… We get to the hotel only to find it is overbooked… they find us another one… we finally get to it about 8:30 pm and are very hungry… ask the hotel staff about where to go eat ad they direct us to a trolley that runs every 12 minutes… make that 25!!!!

So we make it downtown and learn the last trolley runs at 10:00 pm so not much time to enjoy the a dinner and some nightlife. Finally we settle on a little Italian place and order our food… 35 minutes later it arrives so we ask for it to go so we can catch the last trolley.  We get to the stop at 9:35 and hoping we haven’t missed the last run… at 9:57 we start walking back to the hotel and plan to flag a cab down when the trolley finally arrives… back to our hotel and it is nearly 10:15! We finish dinner and realize the day is shot… We really had no fun today as we were rushed in everything we tried to do with no time to enjoy it at all…

So what does the long story really mean and why am I writing about it? You see working games such as this one is the highlight of my current working life. However, when I reflect back about this event and I realize that we were rushed the whole time while just trying to have a little fun!!! So now I am better prepared to shed this vestige of my working life as well and I truly look forward to life without a rushed schedule…

… hurry up March 2011…

House update…

What is ahead for us? Well, as everyone who is trying to sell a house knows… the economy is in the crapper! The housing market in our town was never really hit  by the general slowdown in the economy… until we put our house on the market! Then there were stories about slow downs in the local economy, layoffs, less housing being built. You know when we first thought our house had been sold (which caused us to commence  much frenzied activity) we were beginning to think all the omens had aligned and we were well on our way to full timing… Then the buyers backed out at the last moment leaving us with…  well? A house! Which isn’t a real bad thing since we aren’t retiring until March, 2011… and we still need somewhere to live :)

What’s on the other side? As a result of attempting to be prepare to move out of the house in July we did a lot of departure related things and have now noticed that the days have begun to creep along slowly.  Many of the things we needed to do to leave our house have been done leaving us to only contemplate our ultimate departure. Since then, however, we are having a fairly steady stream of folks who want to view the home and even had a couple of people who seemed very interested only to ask about owner financing… Ughhhh!

What is the picture of our future? So here we are in mid-September  where I am secretly hoping the house doesn’t sell until 2011… This would allow us one last Thanksgiving and Christmas in the homestead. But, if it sold earlier we would likewise be delighted… so here we are… one of the many future full timers in limbo...

May it work out heavenly for all of us!