Praise God! One year anniversary!
Many people have dreams, we are living ours. We have longed for the opportunity to travel within the boundaries of the U.S., to travel the paths less traveled, to meet people and make new friends. On this date, April 2nd, we have been on the road for one full year. We have met many people, and made new friends.
Here is a short synopsis of how we arrived where we are:
We shopped and dreamed about the vehicle we would choose. It had to be used, because we did not want to suffer the new vehicle depreciation. It had to be of reasonable quality, because we did not want to be constantly repairing. We had experienced help in making our decision; Jody & Patty Stevens, Wayne and Linda Schickendanz to name several. And thanks to Max and Mary Lou Marks, the prior owners of the RV.
We found a 2005 Beaver Monterey by Monaco. It met all of our requirements, and we went into debt to own it. For the next 2 ½ years, we made 3 day weekend trips and occasionally a week trip. Dusty still had a demanding job. Many times we were interrupted by her work while we were traveling.
In December 2013, Dusty gave her notice to her employer. Our Mobile Condo (MC) was now parked next to our brick & mortar home. We moved into the MC in January of 2014. We used our brick & mortar home as if it were the RV clubhouse. Little by little, we sorted and arranged, fitting necessary items into the MC. By April 1st, we were ready to drive away, but Tic refused to leave on that date, so we drove away and started our dream of travel on April 2nd, 2014. Today, we celebrate the journey, the destination is not in sight.
Early in our preparation, we met Joel, Diane and Mallery, who had been traveling full-time for several years and were a wealth of helpful information. Diane’s travel blog gave us further insight on how life on the road would be.
Just prior to Dusty leaving her job, we traveled to Gillette, Wyoming to participate in a FMCA rally. FMCA stands for Family Motor Coach Association. We attended many seminars to further educate ourselves. A very worthwhile event. And we met Craig and Sharon Larson there, who were 2nd generation of motor coach families.
Yes, we were there! With about 2700 other motorhomes.
The map below is fairly close to the route we traveled in our first year. It is not completely accurate, but the application would not accept all the places we visited or traveled through.
As we begin our 2nd year, we praise God and thank him for blessing us. We pray that His blessings continue. Amen
The weather is warming up here in Arizona, so very soon we will be headed to the Northwest to visit Oregon and Washington State.
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