Five Year Anniversary on the Road! 2-15-09

Five years ago today we hit the road to begin our lives as full-time RVers, boy has it flown by; we knew it would, even during those periods when we felt like time had stood still. There were piles of snow all over the place and a storm coming in so we got ourselves out of the mountains quick! Our first week was horrendous and I will save the telling for my book….tee hee, that first week would take up a whole chapter!

In the five years we have been in 30 states and stayed in them all except for Wyoming. We have put on a little over 90,000 miles in that time and watched the price of fuel climb the whole time. Which led to many statements about diesel fuel being junk fuel, cheaper than gas, waits until we decide to hit the road to go crazy…yada, yada, yada. We have had two flats, both on the trailer due to puncture, but really no other mechanical malfunctions. The trailer needed its furnace fixed in Colorado, but that has been the only major problem…leaks fall under the nuisance heading for the most part. We have been really pleased with the truck and the trailer.

We have stayed at approximately 169 different places over the five years. In 2004 we were in California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. In 2005 we spent six months hosting in six different State Parks in Oregon and Washington and spent time in California, Nevada and Arizona.

By 2006 we were wanting to cover some country. At the beginning we were thinking we would head to the east coast and spend two years exploring over there. We left Arizona, spent time in New Mexico and from Colorado we flew to Oregon to see the girls and their families for Seth’s second birthday. Then we went through Nebraska into South Dakota where we stayed over a month, from there we had taken a day trip into Wyoming to see Devil’s Tower and then we carried on into North Dakota.

By this time we were noticing we were getting a little cranky, so we spent a week talking over everything and decided we were getting crankier the farther we were getting from the kids and with the Grandson’s being so young….which are the best years to spend with them before they get busy with school and their own lives we decided we would continue on to the east coast but we would head back before winter.

So the rest of 2006 was a whirlwind tour. From North Dakota we traveled on across the northern most states into Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and into Ohio. We spent a month in Ohio with my sister Lori and her family and then it was eastward ho. We went through Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas (through the panhandle…we felt we didn’t really need to see Texas), back through New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and back to seeing the kids in California and Oregon!

In 2007 where did we head first thing after leaving the kids in California? Well, Texas of course…Houston, so apparently we needed to see Texas after all, because Houston was waaayyyy across to the other side of that big state. We had planned on heading up to Washington for the winter, which we later learned was probably nothing we ever really want to do. So Texas it was, helping out family and then when we were done in Houston we just took our time going across the southern and western parts of Texas and enjoyed the areas we saw…we never went to the Gulf. Then we wandered through New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, California and Oregon and then decided to see Idaho and Montana.

This past year, 2008, we started out in Nevada for a few months, and then spent time in New Mexico, Utah, California and Oregon.

And here we are back in Arizona. We have spent 3 of our 5 anniversaries here in Yuma…the best place to winter over in a trailer! Last year’s anniversary was in Nevada and the one before that was in Texas.

We are ever thankful that we have been able to, as trite as this sounds, live our dream while we are together and healthy. We hit a few walls over the past five years wondering if we had made a mistake, but during our in depth analysis we always came back to the same conclusion, we would still have made this choice. We could have tweaked a few things…hind sight always being 20/20, but in the tweaking we might never have gone….so as always things always work out for the best.

This next year will be different. We have wanted to find something to do the past couple of years. For us, being retired and jus traveling has been a little boring but to work somewhere along the way tied us down too much to somewhere we weren’t sure we wanted to be for very long. Now the tied down part has been taken out of our hands for now. Our house in Fallon hasn’t sold and until it does it will be our second home. Larry has committed to working for Stockdale Incident Support out of Greenville, Ca. It is mostly seasonal and ties in with what Larry’s business was and involves traveling which we still want to do.

If I don’t want to travel to a fire incident with Larry, I’ll have the house to stay at and not worry about having to haul the trailer to where ever he’ll be. BUT, our direction can change drastically, whether due to our decisions or outside forces so who knows what I’ll be writing about a year from now! I guess you’ll just have to “stay tuned”!

I have no control how these pictures line up in the final posting and they may not fall in the order I will have listed, so hopefully you can figure out what picture is what!

1. Leaving Chester, CA.

2. San Diego (if you look close you'll see a sailing ship, a cruise ship and a battle ship)

3. Gila Cliff Dwellings, NM

4. Gulls in Atlantic Ocean, NC

5. Texas Yucca

6. Clifton, AZ

7. Lake Superior, Upper Peninsula, MI

8. Death Valley, CA

9. Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA
10. Glen Canyon, Utah

11. Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS

12. Lake Okatiibee, Meridian, MS

13. Zion NP, UT

14. Zion NP, UT

15. Hampton Plantation, SC

16. Oregon Coast

17. Vermillion Cliffs, AZ

18. Rattlesnake, NM

19. Grand Canyon, AZ

20. Mt. Rushmore through tunnel, SD

21. Fort Simcoe, WA

22. Devils Postpile, WY

23. State Capitol, Montgomery, AL

24. Butchart Gardens, Victoria, BC, Canada

25. Oak tree, Drayton Hall, Charleston, SC

26. Ferry, NC

27. Glacier NP, MT

28. Saguaro cactus, AZ

29. Fall colors, UT

30. Palm Canyon, Yuma area, AZ

31. Carlsbad Caverns, NM

Today's weather here in Yuma was overcast all day...no sunshine...boo hoo. It was a good day to be inside at the computer all day, which is what it has taken to get this post done! The high was 63 and the low was 43.

We both woke with weird feeling tummies this morning and neither of us slept very well, but Larry still did his walk and I did a slow Shred 3, but I did it. Then I put a pot of Cliff Dweller bean soup on to cook and that was pretty much it for us today. I talked with my friend Mary and daughter Andrea on the phone and after we ate our Cliff Dweller soup, which turned out great, we took a little walk. It is dark now...about 6:30 and no wind, but still cloudy...supposed to be like this for a few days...but it beats snow!