Day 365

Well, we made it. 365 days ago we left snowy Boise headed off to our new life in our Travel Trailer. We have learned a lot in the past year and overall had a great adventure. When Lee first suggested this lifestyle I was hesitant because I couldn’t imagine not going to work 5 days a week. My mom and dad built a strong work ethic into me and the thought of a life of total leisure was so foreign to me I pushed back for several months before I finally took the plunge. Am I happy with my decision? Yes. Definitely.

We traveled a ton of miles and tried to spend every holiday in a different city. We spent 13 major holidays in 13 cities throughout Idaho, Arizona and Nevada. We traveled in the states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah. Luckily, we were not abducted by any of the Aliens that invaded Area 51. Thank goodness that we got out of there 2 weeks before they landed! But seriously. I’ve got to say that staying in the State Parks was my favorite part of the Journey. After staying in the areas where our families live.

We got to spend some time with Miss Peggy Sue and Caz in Apache Junction, AZ. We had some great times with them and got to know them a lot better. I am so glad that she is Lee’s sister, because that makes her my sister, too! It was hard to leave them, but we had to head off to our next adventure.We spent a couple of weeks in Burley boondocking at Marsha and Keith’s house, which was really nice after being away from friends and family for so long. I love spending time just sitting and talking with Marsha. Dinky Dawg got over his fear of Max and the two of them were unstoppable!

We made a new friend in Jackpot, Theresa, that lives in Mesquite. She spent an afternoon helping us find this trailer park when we met up with her again in October. We also made a new friend in Michelle, when we lived next to her for 6 weeks in Emmett. Hard not to become friends when you see each other so much in a small trailer park!

I got to meet a bunch of Lee’s cousins, Matt, Mary, Mike and Cindy. Tina, Tammy, Bill and Steve all came by to visit us at our trailer. Saw a bunch of people we knew when we went to the LDG. It was really great to see and meet everyone.

We went all the way to northern Idaho and spent a couple of weeks with my brother, Bruce. Tried hard to convince him to pack it all up and come with us. He turns 62 on the 23rd, so he’s kind of thinking about it.

We spent 2 different weeks at the race track in Las Vegas and got to catch up with all of our Nascar friends. We even had a chance to catch up with Rebecca and Ken that we met in Mesa, while we were in Vegas.

But one of the best stops was being close to my mom for most of the summer. It was great resuming our Tuesday Bi-Mart dates. We even boondocked in front of Jerry’s house for a week.

Luckily we didn’t encounter too many problems along the way. A flat tire on the trailer heading into Jackpot in June and we sank into a sink hole in Jackpot heading back out in September. My Mom recommended that we stay away from Jackpot, as it doesn’t seem to like us anymore! Good advice, Mom.

We have landed in Beaver Dam, Arizona, which is about 8 miles from the Nevada border and 8 miles from the Utah border. It’s a quiet little town, but the RV park we are in is a busy little place. Coffee on Tuesday, Crafts on Thursday and Sunday and the girls go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Had my first taste of it this morning, and as you can tell I have survived (well at least my fingers are not too sore from the workout). I think we are really going to like it here. Tiny town, but close enough to the city that we can get just about anything we need.

My advice to any of you that are thinking of doing something like this is to Go For It! Do it before you get too old to enjoy it. People ask us how we can be retired at such a young age and our response is that we are not retired, we just aren’t working right now. We know that we can’t go forever with this type of life, but we are enjoying it as much as we can until we are forced to rejoin the working world. I can’t believe how the past year has changed us. Little things used to just set me off, but now I am much more tolerant of them. Lee and I learned early on that the most important thing is to remember that it’s “not personal” (when we snap at each other). It is just us blowing off steam. This has allowed us to quickly see past the situation and not let it fester. Believe it or not, we get along better now that we ever did when we lived in the big house. Exploring, learning and living has allowed us to just push aside petty differences. We have actually become better friends.