We take our first trip after becoming full timers.   We meet up with other Tiffin RVers at a rally in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  I was nervous about driving to an unknown area, although we had been here when our kids were little while on vacation many years ago.  This time we were by ourselves and driving a 17 ton RV and towing our car. The one thing that gave me consolation was meeting up with two people that we knew from John’s pre-retirement.  Dale worked with John and I knew his wife Ricki from work parties.  We would both be in Hot Springs at the same time.  Small world afterall.

Our town home now belonged to someone else.   Good-by long walks down the waterway with the pups.  Good-by strolling along the waterway to sit with our friends in Town Park drinking a bottle of wine while listening to whatever concert played that night.  Good-by strolling down the block to Hubble and Hudson (lovingly called H & H by the neighborhood) with our favorite glass of wine in hand to shop and taste the newest delicacy being offered for sale.  Good-by Waterway Dancing Waters Fountain and Waterway weekend movies being shown across the street.  Good-by walking down the block to catch the latest movie at Tinseltown’s 17 theaters.  Good-by sitting on our porch on cool fall nights drinking our favorite wine and watching people walk by going to dinner or the movies up the street.  Good-by to our yearly  4^th of July Celebration and bar-b-q with friends and family watching the set-to-music fireworks being shot off across the street. So many fun and relaxing things to be thankful for coming to an end. We will miss it all but now it is time to start a new chapter in our lives.

John retired and we are now completely moved out of our sticks and bricks.  We moved into our RV and piled everything into the middle to start finding places for what we thought we needed.  We were now real authentic full timers and it is the scariest day of my life.  At this point I would like to add that the term Luxury RV is an oxymoron if you are planning to live as a full timer.  Space becomes a premium and just getting your clothes, groceries, linens, dogs and dog needs, personal care items, cooking essentials and tools inside is a feat that seems impossible when downsizing from a large home into an oblong box on wheels.  My can’t-do-with-out’s included several framed handmade cross stitches from my grandmother, a hand-made pottery tray from my daughter, a beautiful hand painted art plate from my “bestie” Karen, some beautiful Waterford crystal pieces and a few small antique glassware pieces that are difficult, at best, to store safely each time we roll down the highway.  Shortly after moving in, John reached for a plate, wasn’t paying attention to the black dish sitting on top of the white plate he was reaching for and my beautiful antique amethyst candy dish shattered as it hit the tile floor.  I heard “Oh-oh” and knew I had lost something I would miss.  Sometimes I feel like storing everything and not bothering to put up pictures or put out the things that make me smile but then what’s the point of owning it if you can’t see it and enjoy it?  The silver lining?  I can shop in antique stores and look for a replacement without feeling guilty about cramming one more thing into our overstuffed box on wheels.

Left for South Dakota to become residents and register our domicile.  On the way we stopped at a casino in Oklahoma.  It was a nice RV park and the casino had a buffet with crab, shrimp and prime rib.  We ask if it was a non-smoking restaurant and were told that it was.  We took the bus to the casino, walked inside and asked where the buffet was located.  As it turned out, the buffet was located in the middle of the casino, no walls or anything separating it from the smoke of the casino.  When I asked the manager how they considered it non-smoking and how they kept the smoke out, he became flustered and gave us all sorts of excuses.  We did end up eating there and it was good but we noted that it wasn’t non-smoking for future trips.

Our trip to South Dakota was long with temperatures as high as 112.  Hot, dry, lots of burned out fields all the way.  When we arrived we stayed at a beautiful state park and were alone for the first few days.  Beautiful sunsets, quiet, peaceful and lots of places to walk and enjoy the cool weather.

We drove into town and met our postal lady.  She helped us get the license plates for the car and RV, got us registered to vote, our car insurance and found us an attorney for our wills.  All was quick and easy.  Getting our South Dakota licenses took about a half hour.  John and I have renewed on line for over a decade and our pictures were of young “us”.  We went in, signed a paper and they took our picture.  The clerk called our name and gave us our permanent plastic color driver’s license.  When John got his, he gave it back and told the lady, this isn’t me…this guy is OLD.  She actually took it back and he started laughing when she looked at him quizzically.  Yep, we were both “old”.

In preparation of selling our home and everything in it, I gave notice at work and began the task of getting rid of the last 40 years of “things” we both had collected.  All our household items that were not passed on to Josh and Liz, our children, who by the way, thought what we were doing was insane and that we wouldn’t last but three months before giving it up or killing each other.  Not to wander too much off the subject but most of our relatives and friends pretty much agreed with them.  The exception was my 100 year old mother-in-law, my dad and step mom.  Dad’s mom and dad were the Gypsies in our family and lived on the road whenever they got the chance.  When I was little, I remember them driving off towing their trailer to all parts of the country.   It was never something I pictured myself doing but it did look like a great adventure!

The difficult task of deciding what would stay and what would be sold took up all my waking hours.  John was still working so most of the job fell into my hands and the task was difficult at best and sometimes heartbreaking.

The first piece to leave was our grandfather clock.  It was the first piece of furniture that John and I purchased together.   Seeing that grandfather clock being carried out of our door after owning it and moving it from home to home for so many years brought tears to my eyes.  The lady that purchased it was thankful and overjoyed to get a grandfather clock priced far below its value.  Her joy took away some of the sting of its departure from our home.  From then on things moved steadily out the door.

Estate Sale and Garage Sale seem to mean the same for our Woodlands area neighbors and offers were made that were so low that donating would get us more than selling the items that were all in excellent condition.  That was a lucky break for our donation recipients.  Many of the really nice antiques and household items not sold for the price I was asking ended up being donated to Jesus Centers and the Montgomery County Women’s Shelter Resale Shops.

Two of the items, hand hooked silk and wool Persian rugs were reluctantly sold to a nice Italian man and his wife who had just moved back to the states from Italy.  He bargained hard with me for several days and I finally sold them at a fraction of their original cost.  His offer to cook me dinner, anytime I wanted to come by, and visit my rugs at his house was what finalized the deal.  Although it was a ploy to secure the deal, his creativity won me over and I said a tearful good-by as they too left our home.

When the day came to return to Red Bay and have repairs done, we packed up the RV, now being kept in a covered storage, and began the long drive back to the manufacturer.  Several items had made it on to our list for repairs, the top item being the roof rails.  They were to be replaced and repainted during our week stay.  Again, Wal-Mart was a gratefully accepted parking space to spend the night and we did some last minute late night shopping before continuing on our journey.

Our experience at Red Bay was much as it had been the first time.  Row upon row of Tiffin’s parked and waiting for repair in this tiny dusty town of nothing to do.  Because there were so many “snow birds” that had one year warrantee work to do, we didn’t get priority so all that was fixed was the rails and some small items and we were told that it would be another week before they could paint the rails.  The answer, totally unacceptable as we both had to get back to work the next week, forced me to ask to speak with the head honcho and was told that Bob Tiffin, the owner, was in his office.  Off I went to speak with the owner. Bob Tiffin was not the unapproachable official looking CEO that I thought I would find.  Instead, sitting in a huge partially finished office, I found a soft spoken elder gentleman that was more than happy to work out an agreeable plan to get our rails painted at whatever facility was closest to our home.  I relaxed and we chatted while he wrote up a letter stating that the work would be done no charge, under warrantee and to contact him if there were any problems.  I left, thanking whatever twist of fate caused me to fall in love with the Allegro Bus floor plan and thinking that I would rest easier knowing that the owner really did stand behind his products.

There is not much to do in Red Bay besides taking a tour of the manufacturing plant and that experience was done our first trip.  John and I were getting a bit board sitting around the waiting room so we roamed around the area and the front desk told us that the Coon Hound Cemetery was the only attraction in the Red Bay area.  If you have ever been to this part of Alabama, you’ll agree that the Coon Hound Cemetery becomes a destination when there’s nothing else for miles around. We drove up into the hills to find this attraction and the drive was beautiful.  We arrived and John snapped dozens of pictures.  The only thing I can compare it to is  Asian visitors to Waterway Square.  Each night they would be taking pictures in groups and I would offer to take all their pictures when we passed by on our nightly dog walks.  That neon lit bridge down the street from our house was in picture albums all over the world.  They took dozens of pictures as did John.

Our trip home was uneventful and we returned to our solidly-attached-to-the-ground home with more lists of things left to do before we set off on several test runs to work out any kinks.  The roof and additional items were repaired and we began to plan for our first long distance trip, a Tiffin Rally in Hot Springs Arkansas.

We had rented a storage unit to store the RV and worked out a schedule to drive the RV at least once a month, both for practice and to see what needed to be fixed.  I want to say right now that something is ALWAYS needing to be fixed on an RV, even when it sits in storage.  We bought walkie-talkies to make the task of backing up, turning and squeezing into small spaces easier, even though John had a hard time remembering to press the switch before talking and quite often I only caught bits and pieces of his directions.  Side note…our first trip in the RV, driving it home from New Jersey, gave us confirmation that it was best for me to park and John to guide and if we want to stay harmoniously living in this box, that’s the way it must be.

On one outing, as I had just had foot surgery, John did all the outside prep and I hopped on one foot to the RV and sat supervising the job.  Of course I had no idea what he was doing but I watched just in case he needed anything.  When we returned to put it in storage, I as the driver and John as the guide, began backing the RV into the space.  I followed his directions to turn the wheel tight and step on the gas.  When the 17 ton bus didn’t move, I reported back to John that I was stepping on the gas but it wasn’t moving.  John repeated for me to step on the gas harder so I did.  Nothing happened.  When John walked to the front of the bus, he noticed that I had dug the front wheels into the gravel all the way down to the sand base.  I’m not sure how I was supposed to know that the wheels had dug in as I was sitting in the driver’s seat, but the fact remained  that they were and we weren’t going to get them out.  John took a shovel and started digging but felt light headed so he came inside to rest.  When he sat down, his face was very white.  He got out again and started to dig but we couldn’t rock the bus out so we called the tow service.  The service did pull us out rather quickly and told us that many RV owners get in situations much worse than ours.  One of their regular customers lives by a ditch and has slid down into it several times.  We both smiled and secretly prayed we would not do anything that dumb.  Two days later, after going to the doctor because he still was feeling  dizzy, John was sent directly to the hospital and had blockage bad enough to warrant a stint.  That is when John decided to retire at 65 instead of 70.  Now was the time to jump in the RV and travel the USA before something else caused us to give up this adventure.

For our first trip, we left our pups Millie and KatieBug at home to be cared for by our daughter and set off for a few days in Rockport, TX for our anniversary.  The drive was comfortable and that afternoon we reached the first of what was to be an assortment of nice, not-so-nice and horrid RV parks.  The park was one of the nice ones and the weather was beautiful.  We spent the weekend relaxing and walking on the beach.  I caught the first glimpse of porpoise when we walked out on the ocean on a long pier and was just as excited to see those big fish swim by as the two young children standing a short distance away.  We were both squealing and pointing but I’m guessing I looked far stranger than those kids.  When it was time to return to The Woodlands, John got sick and the drive back home fell into my hands.  The weather had turned cold and stormy and a strong wind blew the RV back and forth over the lanes as I drove.  I was not at all happy with the responsibility of driving in inclement weather.  I made John promise me that when we retired we would never drive in inclement weather, never at night and never over 4 hours on the road.  Turned out to be a  promise that he was not able to keep on several of our future trips and you can bet that I let him know about his promise each time it was broken.

We searched and finally found what was to be our retirement home on wheels, a 2009  Tiffin Allegro Bus with four slides at a very reasonable price.  We wanted to make sure we could both live in it comfortably.  We were to find out later exactly why it was priced so reasonably.  It was located in New Jersey and, if we decided to take the plunge, the plan was to fly up and drive it back.  Neither of us stopped to consider that we had, between the two of us, only about 40 minutes total of driving time in such a large vehicle.  We made the offer, the seller accepted and we flew down to pick it up and drive it home.  We arrived at night but John had secured a RV sales and service company to completely check it out so we felt confident that it was the beautiful clean and completely checked out unit that was promised.  We spent several hours with the owners learning how to operate things and went to bed that night with our heads spinning wondering if we had made a mistake or if this was the beginning of a wonderful adventure.

The next day we began our drive home, carefully maneuvering our home on wheels down the winding roads.  When we turned onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the constant pounding of the wheels and shaking of our new home was a bit disturbing until we realized that it wasn’t our RV…it was the horrible condition of the Turnpike.  After exiting, the road turned smooth and the ride became the comfortable ride we had expected.  Our plan was to drive it to the manufacturer in Red Bay Alabama and have them check it out… just in case.  As it turned out, a very good idea.  On arrival we parked between the rows and rows of other Tiffin RV’s and waited our turn at our full hook up space.  The next morning we got the news that the roof rails (the curved area of the roof that connects the sides to the top of the RV) needed replacing, one of the explicit items I had John tell the service guy to check.

Not being one to accept stress gracefully, I burst into tears and walked into the service room to await the news of what else was wrong and when it could be fixed.  As luck would have it, there were several large dogs available in the room and since we had left our Millie and KatieBug at home, I was in desperate need of dogs to hug.  Thankfully, up came a really large BMD (family joke…we thought BMD stood for Big Mean Dog because they are rather ominous looking.  It actually stands for Burmese Mountain Dog.)  He immediately laid his huge furry head on my lap and I began petting him and feeling better.  His owner apologized for the intrusion but I thanked him and said a big furry head to pet was exactly what I needed. Our dog Millie is a Certified Therapy Dog and a Reading Education Assistance Dog, now retired, and a warm feeling came over me realizing the 9 years of voluntary service Millie gave to the elderly and special needs children probably made them feel the way I felt at this moment as I sat relaxing and petting this huge gentle fuzzy dog.

Learning that the problem was to be solved but that we had to come back in 6 months, we left Red Bay for our “sticks and bricks” (a term full-timers use to describe the homes that are not mobile).  Most of the ride home was uneventful and we gratefully thank Wal-Mart for their kindness in letting big rigs stop and spend the night (aka boon docking) in their well-lit patrolled parking lots.  As a rule, we always ask the manager before staying and, as it is sort of an unwritten rule of etiquette, we never stay more than overnight.

Several years ago, John and I tossed around the possibility of traveling the country in an RV.  In my version of the dream, I saw a large RV and a small house somewhere in the TX hills or within a few hours of our grown children, a place to keep our treasures while we were on the road.  John’s dream was slightly different…a small RV and no house until we traveled around and picked a state we both loved.  With a little give and take by both of us, and a few alligator tears shed by me, we decided upon a large motorhome and a storage unit in Conroe, TX.  It would house anything that we could not bear to part with, sell or donate to our favorite resale shops and our local church craft group. And so, the fall down the rabbit hole began.