Just Hanging Out

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Just Hanging Out

Here we are still hanging out in Zephyrhills; so different from what we thought we would be doing in our first year of full time RV life. We started this journey to travel and see the country. Since our plan was to go slowly, we anticipated staying in each place for a period of time. 5 months in one place is more than we expected but overall it is still good and we are enjoying living in our small home on wheels. Since it is getting warmer and the sun can be brutal midday, we moved sites to get a little shade.

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Twiddling My Thumbs!

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Twiddling My Thumbs!

Twiddling my thumbs! Yeah, you are right, too hard to do when you are short on thumbs! I told Deb I would write a blog. When your life is in a holding pattern, finding topics is not so easy. We have been spending a considerable amount of time together. Trying to “social distance” ourselves from others, to protect both ourselves and them.

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2020 Planning

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2020 Planning

We have now been in Zephyrhills for a month and it has started to feel like home and less like we are tourists. To be honest, we haven’t been touring much at all the last 3 weeks. First I was down with a head cold, then when I was getting better, Tim came down with it. For him, it has now lingered for over 2 weeks and his cough was not getting better. We finally decided to contact his doctor and he is now on antibiotics. I am hoping that does the trick and he will be feeling better very soon.

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Our winter home - reflections on the decision to stay in one place for a few months

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Our winter home - reflections on the decision to stay in one place for a few months

As I sit here in our RV home watching the sunrise in sunny Florida, I found myself thinking about staying in one place for 3 months.  Why did we decide to do this instead of continually moving to see new places?  You know how much I like exploring and seeing new areas so would think that stopping for 3 months would not be in our plans.  Believe it or not, I am looking forward to having roots and being one location for awhile. 

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First Christmas on the Road

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First Christmas on the Road

We left Alabama on December 14, 2019 and headed to Florida, our winter destination for our first year in the RV. For the holidays, we decided to stay near my Aunt and Uncle who live in Inverness. It is nice to have family to visit for the holidays since we are far from home. We selected a campground closer to the coast in Homosassa, FL so we could be near the Springs for easy manatee viewing when we weren’t visiting family. Since it was over a 6 hour drive from Gulf Shores to Homosassa, we decided to stay a few nights in Tallahassee to break up the trip. We have discovered that we do not like driving more than 3-4 hours at a time on travel days so this was a perfect distance for us.

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Vacation Mode

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Vacation Mode

Are we in vacation mode too much?  Tim says that I am and need to change what we are doing while traveling or we will spend our money too fast. I don’t really think that I am on vacation. For me, this is our new lifestyle and we now have the opportunity to see new things daily.  We started this journey to be able to explore and see our wonderful country. Hence our name, Exploring Tomorrow’s. 

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Great Place for a Fall Visit

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Great Place for a Fall Visit

We are so glad that we decided to spend 2 weeks in Pigeon Forge, TN. The extra time here has allowed us plenty of time to explore The Great Smoky Mountains National Park as well as the surrounding area. The best part is that we don’t have to rush to see everything in a few days as well as be able to stay indoors on the cooler rainy days. The temperatures have been very variable with frost on one morning and sunshine and warmth on another.

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Exploring our first national park

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Exploring our first national park

Our next stop brought us to Pigeon Forge, TN to visit The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We are staying 2 weeks in this area with plans to drive through the park well as do some hiking. I am very glad that we decided to drive up the mountain to Clingman’s Dome on our first full day. It was a beautiful warm sunny day for driving through the mountain roads to see the views and the fall colors.

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To Plan or Not to Plan

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To Plan or Not to Plan

Campgrounds in Pennsylvania typically close mid to late October and most are not busy after the middle of the month. So we thought traveling from mid October through November would be easy to find places to stay. Wrong! I had to call multiple campgrounds to find one with availability at our first stop in Kentucky. My assumption was that it was because it was early October and later in the month it would be easier to find places to stay. Wrong again!

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Visiting the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

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Visiting the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

After our delay in PA for repairs, we were finally on the road for our adventure. We headed directly for Kentucky so we could have some time with our daughter, Kim, while she was on vacation. We got to Frankfurt, Kentucky on our second day around lunchtime, which gave us time to get set up and still meet Kim to start touring the area. Our goal was to spend a week touring the Bourbon Trail and Frankfort, Kentucky’s state capital.

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Patience, patience, patience

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Patience, patience, patience

I heard that flexibility and patience are key to this lifestyle. Over the past few weeks, Tim and I definitely had a lesson in these skills. About a month ago, we had issues with our slide rooms; they would come in but not go back out. We also had an issue with the black tank; opening and closing it was difficult. Then the pull on the black tank broke totally. Tim was trying to lubricate it and the pull handle came completely off. Repairs were needed before we could leave.

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Enjoying Western Pennsylvania

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Enjoying Western Pennsylvania

Over the past two months, we were busy working at the campground getting the RV ready to be our home and organizing our stuff for storage at our daughter’s house. In between that and me working during the week, we found some time to have fun and enjoy the Pennsylvania countryside. I thought I would share some of our favorites places with you today.

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Top 3 Downsizing tips

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Top 3 Downsizing tips

Spring is here so that means summer is just around the corner. That hit Tim and I pretty hard and I wouldn’t be lying if I said, panic set in. We looked around and realized that we still have a great deal to do in order to be ready to RV full time. So for the past two weeks, we have really focused on downsizing. Each of us approaches the process very differently. Today, I am going to share some tips based on my process.

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Emotions, emotions, emotions

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Emotions, emotions, emotions

As we prepare, there are days that we are excited and filled with anticipation for an exciting future. Then reality hits and we are anxious and stressed about the amount of work that still needs to be done. And then there is fear; fear that we haven’t saved enough money to retire early; fear about learning to drive the rig; and fear of the unknown.

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Downsizing process

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Downsizing process

Tim and I started planning for our retirement about 5 years ago. We spent quite a bit of time researching the lifestyle, types of RVs and trailers, budgets, and places to visit but very little time on what to do with our stuff. I guess we thought that part would be easy and we would have plenty of time to do it. Now that we are only a few months away from living in our RV, I can honestly say that we still have way too much stuff.

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