If everything goes as planned, we will
be out of our house and living full time in our motor home a month
from today!
After getting laid off from our jobs in
early 2013, we decided to look at it as an opportunity to retire
early and travel more. We traded in our 24 foot travel trailer for a
2001 Itasca Suncruiser 33V to allow us more room for extended trips
and get our feet wet with a motor home. After about a year and a half
with the gasser, we had a better idea of what size, features and
layout would work well for us. A year ago, we found our current 2012
Newmar Dutch Star 3734 diesel pusher at a little dealer in Texas and
started heading back north with a new found appreciation of the
comforts and livability it provides.
Last year we decided to get out of our
rut and sell the house in order to travel more without needing to
worry about things like frozen pipes, mowing the lawn and all the
other concerns that come with owning a sticks and bricks home. Not
that we didn't love our home. We bought the 49 acres in western New
York about 19 years ago, designed and built a beautiful timber frame
and have lived in it for just over 17 years. If the travel bug hadn't
bitten us, it would have been a great place to retire to.
Since deciding to sell the house, we
really haven't had time to travel much. There were some minor home
maintenance items to take care of last fall. But the bigger job was
to shed the bulk of our possessions. We really did not understand
just how much we had accumulated over the years. But with hundreds of
Craigslist sales, gifting some tools and furniture to family and
making donations to various charities, we have made some good
headway. With a major garage sale coming up, we expect to have the
house empty in time for our closing.
We intend to use this blog to keep our
family and friends up to date with our travels. I expect to upload
lots of photos of our journeys, give campground reviews and even tell
about our geocaching adventures. There might not be many posts until
we actually start traveling – we'll see.
