Getting ready to go

The weather this past week has been absolutely perfect with temps in the mid 80's and plenty of sunshine. We decided to take advantage of it and do what we love, ride our motorcycle!

Friday evening we picked the bike up from our friend Grumpy's shop. We had new tires installed and the oil and filter changed. We rode to Brownburg to meet up with Runions for dinner. On the way there Ron and Sandy Mendenhall called to see what we were up to and we invited them to join us.We all had a nice dinner at The Pit Stop Barbecue and we all made plans to meet in the morning for another ride.

Saturday morning we headed out early and all met at Flapjacks restaurant for breakfast before heading North. Our destination was Greentown Indiana and the Howard County Fairgrounds. Our state GWRRA staff were hosting a get together for everyone. We made the ride in about 1 1/2 hours and got there just in time to line up for lunch :-). I guess we ride to eat and eat to ride! :-)

They served vegetable soup and PB&J sandwiches. The entrance fee was canned goods for a food bank. We made our donation and enjoyed sharing lunch with our friends.

The trees are sporting their fall colors and the ride home was beautiful. We made it back to the 5th wheel shortly after 5pm, days like this are the reason we love to ride so much.

Sunday was a work day for us :-(. There are several things I wanted to get done to the 5th wheel before we head out onto the open road. The first item was giving the entire rig a bath! We hauled out all the stuff we would need and headed up the ladder to the roof. Washing the roof is never a fun job but has to be done. We use a car wash style brush and non-citrus dish soap. When we attended the Montana Rally a few years ago one of the seminars was from the makers of the rubber roof material and this is what they recommended. They told us if you use a citrus smelling soap it attracts squirrels and they will actually chew on your roof!

The roof took us a little over an hour to wash and then we started on the sides. I washed while Rudee rinsed and we were able to knock it out pretty quick. The whole rig took us about 3 hours not counting a lunch break and an occasional sneak peak at the Colts game.

Sunday evening all the grandkids came over and Rudee made us all a spaghetti dinner. We are both gonna miss seeing our kids and grandkids whenever we want :-( Next Sunday is going to be rough when we say goodbye to them for several months.

I still have several more things on my "honey do" list before we pull out Thursday. I guess I'll be a busy guy on my first full week of retirement :-). I'll keep you posted.

ready ... set ... JUMP

I remember it very well, it was early in 2005 when I first envisioned living in an RV full time and traveling. The more I read about the lifestyle the more I was hooked. I kept it to myself for quite awhile before introducing the idea to Rudee.

She was open to the idea and we started planning. We both knew it would be several years before we could even think of hooking up and pulling out, but we dreamed of that day. A plan was hatched to achieved our goal and we put it in motion. Bills had to eliminated as well as purchases made always keeping our end goal in mind.

In December of 2006 we purchased our full time rig, a new 2007 Keystone Montana. I actually had tears in my eyes when we picked it up. This was "our" rig, our magic carpet ride to reach our dreams.

We kept "working the plan" and I'm sure some of our friends and family thought we were nuts. I followed others blogs that were already full timing and the fire inside me kept burning.

2008 was the year for the house. We painted and pruned and cleaned up. The house was going on the market ....... "work the plan".

December 28th our realtor planted his sign in the yard. We didn't expect anything real fast, figuring it would be summer time at least before we would move. Wrong!

Deal was signed and we moved into our 5th wheel in March of 2009 and started this blog.

We have lived here at the KOA since that time but I never really felt like a full time RVer. We still were tied to our jobs 5 days a week. We took our vacations and did some week end camping trips but nothing had really changed, just our address but we were "working the plan".

Rudee's company offered subsidized health care insurance in their retirement package and Rudee would qualify for it in March of 2015 so we made the decision to extend the plan a couple of years. I would retire in December 2014 and her day would be her birthday, March 7 2015.

May of 2011 we got the proverbial "curve ball" thrown at us and Rudee was laid off from her job. We changed "the plan" again bit this was the first forced change. I don't like forced changes but you have to roll with the punches.

The plan was for me to work until December 31st and then retire and try to find a work camp job. Well friends, I didn't make it :-). Plans change.

Thursday I told my boss that I was retiring as soon as possible and yesterday was my last day at work! Wow that went quick!

Lately the stress at work has gotten unbearable. I was a miserable grumpy man and I hated that. I'm sure Rudee and our friends and family didn't like it much either :-)

So today is my first day of being a houseless, unemployed, happy full time RVer!!

The journey to this point has been 6 1/2 long years but WE MADE IT!

We are staying here at the KOA for a few more days before moving to White River Campground in Cicero Indiana. They are having a Halloween week end and our kids and grand kids are all coming to trick or treat. We are then pulling out and heading South towards Florida where we need to take care of some business with our rental property.

The plan is to be in Texas by mid-November where we are going to be gate guards in the south Texas oil fields for the winter.

We have to be back in Indiana the first of April to start our work camping gig at the KOA in Terre Haute.

So there you have it friends, big time changes are happening here. We would like to have a little more in our savings, my 401k is only a 200.5k LOL, it would be nice of our pensions were a little bigger and our 5th wheel was completely paid off but it is what is and we are "working the plan"! I'll keep you posted.

Folding the house in

This past week was cold and wet, yuck. Work was ....... well .... work, double yuck. Enough about that! :-)

Friday we packed up the Circus Wagon and headed for Charlarose Campground which is a whopping 10 miles away. I waited until I got off work Friday to load the bike up and of course work sent me running all over the state so I didn't get home until late.

Rudee had been busy though and had everything ready to go. All I had to do was pop the bike onto the back of the semi and hook on the 5er.

We were meeting Rob and Jany at the campground. They were spending their first week end in their "new to them" Raptor Toyhauler.

They were already there and finishing setting up when we pulled in. We had adjoining pull through sites and were able to face each other so our awnings formed a nice covered sitting area.

We got set up pretty quickly and, after unloading the bike, we rode to a small restaurant nearby for supper.

Once we got back to the 5er's we joined Rob and Jany at their place for a game of Spinners which is like Domino's but has wild pieces.

Jany even served apple cake for dessert .......... ummmmmm good!

Saturday morning we got a slow start since the temps had dropped into the 30's, yikes!! I'm not ready for cold weather yet!!

Rob said his hot water heater was only working on gas so we decided to replace the electric element to see if we could get it to work on 110v. This meant a trip to the local RV shop :-).

There is a small dealership not far from the campground so we all bundled up and headed out on the bikes.

The shop was open but this place had sure seen better days. The showroom was dark, dingy and smelled like cat pee. Nasty!

They did have the parts so and we grabbed what we needed and got the heck outta there!

We made a quick grocery run while we were out and then headed back to the campground for some RV maintenance.

I had the special socket needed to replace the element from when I did ours last year. I got out the tools and we got to work draining the water heater and removing the old one. Thankfully everything went pretty well and we got it swapped out and new anode rod installed as well. We filled the tank and I switched it on ........ nothing happened..... that's good though because nothing is supposed to happen :-)

We had to wait for 30 minutes or so before the water heated up enough to determine that the electric element was working like it should. Mission accomplished!

Saturday evening we built a campfire and I cooked us all a "Hobo dinner" over the fire. Rudee had put them together. Rudee and Jany had hamburger, potatoes and carrots in theirs while Rob and I had Smoked Sausage, peppers, onions, potatoes and carrots in ours. They turned out great!

After supper we went to BINGO held by the campground in their shelter house. Our son Matthew joined us and he won a game! Got $4 for his effort. :-)

Sunday we spent the morning being lazy. I did start another fire to use up the rest of the firewood we brought. Our daughter Amanda stopped by and dropped off the 3 grand kids. She was going to a tupperware party and Ryan was working.

I already had the bike loaded when they got there and they all helped us pack up for the trip back to the KOA.

I was outside with our youngest, Olivia, when Rudee started bring the slides in. She looked at me and asked " What are they doing in there Papaw?" I told he I didn't know and asked her if she knew what all that noise was? She said "I think they are folding the house in"!

This cracked me up and we all had a big laugh about it. :-)

The kids loved riding in Papaw's big truck on the trip back to Crawfordsville and helped us get the 5er set back up in our site.

Sunday evening Rudee picked up some Chinese take out and Amanda and Ryan joined us for dinner. We had a nice evening spending time with our kids and grand kids.

Back to work again on Monday but stay tuned for a major announcement :-). I can't let the cat out of the burlap right now but should be able to by the end of week so check back and I'll keep you posted!