RV Living

RV Living

Life throws us a lot of curveballs. I’m in the middle of moving from Dallas to Florida, my third move to Florida in my life.  My first move to Florida was in 1985 for college, the second 1998 to live at the beach and again now in 2013 to restart a life with my children. It is crazy to consider in 1985 I had all my possessions in the back of my Volkswagen.  In 1998 I had a full-size U-Haul moving van pulling a car and my wife driving another car.

I wanted to start documenting our next live adventure – living in a motorhome.  For this move there are too many unknowns in our life.  However, we needed to re-unite our family: a promise I made to Haley, Marcella, and Jack four years ago when I was relentlessly pursued and force to leave Florida due to craziness. Finally, nearly four years later we are able to come back to our children.  The most difficult part of this move is we have nowhere to live.  I didn’t want to rent an apartment and have to move again in a few months.  My wife is seeking work and James will start kindergarten in the fall.  Thus, we want to be selective as to where we finally plant roots.  In addition, Florida has what is probably the worst economy in the entire country driving a healthy foreclosure market.  Thus, if we decide to buy a home I believe we can be very biased in our selection.

To make this work we have made a decision to live in our motorhome the next three to six months! This will allow LeeAnn to find a job, us to find a house, and we can focus on a good school for James. The challenge will be sharing a small space.  Our motorhome is a 32 foot class 1996 Gulfstream ConquestC with a slide.  This means we will live in about 180 ft².  This is an experiment in lifestyle challenge showing less is more.  As Americans we live excessively.  In America we see our homes as an extension of our personality, like a badge of honor upon our sleeve allowing us to brag to our friends about our success. The irony: we go to work, come home, close the garage door and never walk out on the street.  Typically we don’t know our next-door neighbor.

The RV lifestyle on the other hand is quite different as we all typically share common areas, community bathrooms, and the community laundry room.  Is it glamorous?  No, but it will be an adventure.

I may be writing in a few weeks about how difficult this journey.  Full-time living is far different than the adventures we have taken in the past.  Our RV has traveled to Colorado, Wyoming, Minnesota, and New York.  We have taken the kids to Washington DC in it.  Two summers ago I took them to Alabama for a week.  I have used it with friends to attend the Petit LeMans.  I have previously brought it to Florida and to be with Haley, Marcella, and Jack.   This past summer we drove to Texas expecting to vacation in it.  Since buying it four years ago we have had many vacations.  Now it’s not just a tool for vacation, but it’s a place to call home.