The Adventure Begins

Well it has happened. On March 11, 2017 Paula and I left Ringgold Virginia which has been our home for all but 3 years of our 25 years’ marriage to pursue a lifelong dream of ours which is to travel around the country in our new camper and see the country working along the way for as long as we are able to do so. Yes, to some this may seem a little extreme, or even crazy but none of us are guaranteed tomorrow so we chose to spend our tomorrows together doing something we both love. Sure, we would be lying if we told you we didn’t have a few butterflies but what we haven’t planned for we will figure out together along the way.

Our home for last 17 years

best view in Ringgold

Before I go too far we need to say thank you the folks at RBC and the WMU for the big surprise send off on Sunday March 5^th, which was our last Sunday at church. The day started as a normal Sunday at RBC until the worship hour at which time Pastor Duane called Paula and I up front and the WMU presented us with a very cool honor in which they purchased over a 1000 booklets to go into Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes in our honor. Most of you know for the better part of the last 15 years OCC has been a true passion of Paula’s and I have been fortunate to help her out along the way, but to have this donation made in our name by the WMU was truly awesome and to see the numbers of children that this will touch around the world is great. But RBC didn’t stop there. We had a surprise reception after church where we could greet and speak to a number of our close friends and church members. We truly saw Gods love for us through the kind words , numerous cards which contained different restaurant gift cards, generous gifts  and even a survival kit given to us by our church family at RBC. But for some reason that wasn’t enough so on Tuesday night the Eva Walton circle surprised us again with an abundance of snack food and goodies for our trip. Believe me there are not enough adjectives in the old Webster dictionary to say how humbly thankful we are for all the love and support from a People Called Ringgold.

Send Off

Abundance of snacks

Now back to the adventure. As I said we left Ringgold on March 11th after a whirlwind month in which we sold our house, most of the furniture in it, our car, correction Paula’s car and what we could or didn’t sell we took to Jimmy at the Goodwill collection center at Cain Creek or donated to the Habitat restore. (with all the tax donations, we probably will catch the eye of the IRS next year.) 

last minute adjustments

We had planned to leave at 8 am on the 11th but we didn’t get away until around 1230pm with a wonderful send off from our close friends Jack, Gayle, Jimmy, Kim, Jill, Olive, Muffin, Ellen, Lacy, and Ashley complete with signs and balloons. We were able to make it to Santee SC, but we had planned to go further until we figured out that it was spring break and Daytona Bike week and there weren’t may choices for camping any further South on 95. Thankfully we were about an hour south of the snow line from the surprise March snow storm.

On March the 12th we woke up to a cold rainy day. No big deal except this was the first time we had stayed in the camper and we were trying to figure out how to correctly close our slides and store our gear safely for the next leg. Our hands were frozen by the time we finished in the rain. Thankfully we were out of the rain after driving and hour or so south which made for a much better travel day. We arrived in Bushnell Florida at around 6 pm where we would stay for the next 3 days. The campground which on paper is our new address, was a very nice quite campground and yes believe it or not full of others who were full time RV'ers. I do believe that Paula and I were easily the youngest campers there. We spent Monday taking care of establishing our residence in Bushnell which would mean two trips to the tax collector’s office which is where DMV is located in Florida. We had to make two trips only because we forgot our passports which we needed to help expedite the process. So after about three hours with a very friendly DMV rep (I mean she was really nice) we left the DMV with brand new Florida Driver’s License, Voter registration cards, Florida Registered Vehicle and official Florida residences. Tuesday was a day spent tying up some loose ends, taking care of some vehicle maintenance. We also were able to find a few more things we HAD to bring along but now could live without, which meant another trip to yes you guessed it the local Goodwill. We also had to make our first RV repair service call as we had a leaky toilet. Thankful it was covered under warranty and was an easy fix of a stuck valve on the back of the toilet. Citrus RV repairman Cameron did a good job and was able line up a few more jobs as the other campers flocked to the repair van like bees to honey, all with their own repair needs.

Official Floridians

With our official government work behind us, on Wednesday March 12th we packed up and moved about 2 hours north west to Cedar Key Florida which is where we will remain for a little R&R mixed in with some more organization and possible downsizing until we leave for Yellowstone on April the 14.

By next week the weather will warm to high 70’s and low 80’s and will be great for some kayaking in the Gulf of Mexico.

Until next time Allen and Paula

Our New Home