Happy 5th Anniversary To Us!

We have been on the road for five years!!!!  Can you believe it has been five years?

This map shows all of our travel from 2012 - Present

We left our home in Missouri on April 29, 2012.  When we left, we did not know if we would be doing this full-time.  Dad had just started a new job which was 100% travel and we all went along for the adventure.

We started out in our Hurricane. It was 36'  The motor home is level, the camera is not. 

Scout is ready for our Big Adventure.

I was excited and nervous as we left our home in Missouri.

After five months on the road, we decided we didn't want to go back to our regular life.  We went home with Mom while Dad went to St. Thomas.  We sold and gave away just about everything we had and we put our house up for sale.  Five weeks later, we were back on the road.  Our house sold while we were in Houston.  We sold it fully furnished and we never went back to it.  All the paperwork was done via email.  After we sold our house, we upgraded to a diesel motor home.

This motor home was 40'.

We really liked our diesel motor home but Dad wanted a new one.  He also wanted a king-sized bed and a second bath. In 2015, we purchased our current motor home.

It is 45'.

We have traveled coast to coast a few times. We went from Baltimore to San Jose and then back again.  We didn't enjoy those long trips.  Those trips took eight days with two days off for rest.  We found that three days in a row was our limit since we drove 10-12 hours days.  We did do four days in a row once and we were all cranky.

We have been asked what has been our favorite place.  That is really hard to answer.  We have found something that we liked about each place.  We had a terrible time finding a place to stay in the Seattle area and ended up staying at a fairground in Puyallup, WA for a few months.  It was basically just a field, but there were car shows and an orchard where we allowed to take as much as we wanted. We had a great time there.  We also stayed in a fairground in Pleasanton, CA.  It was very expensive.  $2,000 a month to live in a field  and we didn't know from week to week if we would be allowed to stay. They made us move sites every 21 days.  I liked it there because they gave me dog treats a few times a day.  Lancaster, PA was one of Mom's favorites.  She enjoyed living among the Amish.  Houston and Dallas were fun with all their great restaurants.  Mom, Scout and I spent the winter in Summerdale, AL.  It was a nice area, but we missed Dad who was in Baltimore. Mom still talks about going back there for alligator.  We also stayed in Memphis, Chicago, Baltimore, Kansas City, San Diego, Streetsboro, Ohio, Denver, Indiana, Vermont, Boston, New York and many places that were just a day or two.  I think our least favorite place was Fort Lauderdale.  We stayed at a place that was full of vacant homes because they were owned by Canadians that were home for the summer.  It was a little scary walking through the RV park because it looked like a deserted subdivision. There were a few people who were living there and when they walked down the street, we would jump. The people in the office spoke French, so there was a communication problem. Mom also didn't like that it took a good two full days to get out of Florida from there.

We attended two Escapee rallies as well as an Entegra rally. We have been to 13 out of the 15 Presidential Libraries.  We came close to number 14, but our plans changed at the last minute.    It really has been a big adventure.

Exciting Announcement

We are beginning a new adventure today. It is hard to believe that it happens to fall on our anniversary.  It was not planned that way.  We are headed to our next destination.  However, things will be a little different.  Dad has taken a permanent position.  We will no longer be traveling. 😩 We are sad about the not traveling part, but things have changed with Dad's job in the past two years and he has not been happy.  This new job is a good fit for us.  We will still be traveling on vacations and Dad has a lot of vacation time.

We will still be living in the motor home.  We plan on checking out different RV resorts, so we will probably be moving around until we find a place that we really like.  The place we are moving to has a lot of resorts and the rent is reasonable.  

Okay, so where are we going?  We are moving to the Houston area.  We will not be living in Houston itself, but in a suburb.  We wanted a place that has warm winters and Houston has that.  Galveston is just 30 miles away, so we have a beach.  It is not a pretty beach, but it is a beach. There are palm trees.  Mom loves palm trees.  We are excited and happy about this move. We have stayed in Houston three times and liked it.  Mom and I no longer have to worry about being on our own during the winter months.  We will all be together.  I hated when Dad was away from us in the winter. We can now make plans more than a month in advance.  This is a good thing for us even though it is a little bittersweet.  😊

Mom and I will still be posting here, so please come back to see what happens to us on our new adventure.

Joey,

The Greyhound Who Is Starting A New Life In Houston