Because I didn't start this blOg at the beginning of our journey I'm going to have to backstory many of you (bet you didn't know backstory was a verb, huh?). Much has happened in the past twelve months (gee, has it only been that long?), and it's been difficult to keep all the people in my life caught up on all the facets of what's going on. In hindsight, if we'd known then what we know now, we might have done many things differently, but I personally think things were done the way they were for a reason. But you know what they say about hindsight...if it weren't for hindsight we wouldn't have any sight at all.
Be that as it may, in Sept. last year my Social Security Disability was finally approved after a seven year fight. At that point I told Bob that he could start thinking about retirement if he wanted to, because I knew he'd been unhappy with a lot of things that were going on at work for quite some time. I knew how much he loved what he did, though, so I didn't expect him to take me seriously quite as soon as he did. He'd often said he couldn't believe they paid him to go to work on computers every day, but that was before many machinations had taken place in the hierarchy, including downsizing, etc. So we began to brainstorm what retirement might look like for us. For an ADD (adult Attention Deficit Disorder(ed) like Bob, retirement couldn't just be sitting around in a lawn chair somewhere.
At some point I indicated that my fall-back position if anything were to ever happen to him was to buy an RV & live in it full-time, traveling around the U.S., visiting family & friends, following the sun. Because he'd always pooh-poohed RVs on principle I expected him to discard the idea out of hand, but he gave it serious consideration. The more he thought about it and the more we talked about it, the more it seemed like a great idea to both of us. So I started doing my research, reading all the books I could get from the Seattle & King County libraries on RV living. Looking back his was probably one of our first mistakes, even though it was he way we'd always approached projects before. Because Bob didn't learn the INS and outs from the beginning, he didn't know what to expect from the outset. I read & took notes & gave him information, which with his ADD he didn't fully pay attention to or absorb, I now believe. Even the books I chose for him to read were barely skimmed because he's just not a self-help book reader. If it doesn't grab his interest he can't get excited about reading about it.
But one thing I did read & share with him that we took to heart was to try out the lifestyle before buying. So again I did some research, found an 37' RV to rent for 10 days and off we went to Pacific Beach, WA with our three dogs (we still had Brandi at that time). It rained 9 out of the ten days we were there, stormed really, and we had a glorious time. We made friends whom we still keep in contact with on Facebook, we enjoyed being together despite the close quarters (we always have enjoyed each others company 24/7, so that helps immensely), and driving the coach was no problem, especially for me since I'd been a Teamster in a former life.
I guess that's enough for one days blogging. I'll pick up the rest of this, hopefully tomorrow.
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