What To Expect From This Blog

Hello and welcome!

This is the first post in our new blog. I felt it relevant to provide an outline of what you may expect to see here. Before I do that however, I should provide an introduction to myself and my wife Tonya as well as some background on how and why we came to the radical decision to become full time RV'ers. The use of the descriptive word "radical" will be more fully explained later.

About Us.

Hi, I am Scott. It is nice to meet any and all who have come here without knowing us in our personal life. Once again, Welcome. I am 51 years old, a Veteran who served (thankfully) only during peace-time. I served 3 years in the U.S. Army. While I would love to say that my military experience was only and always positive, that would be dishonest. It was not. However, I would not trade that experience for anything as it helped me discover just what I was made of.

I was (am) one of those "hard-headed" people. You know the type, always having to learn things the hard way. I left the formal public education system at the age of 14 and began work. To say that I was a "troubled teen" may be somewhat of an understatement, but I was not nearly as troubled as some I've met in my later life. I enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of 17 and was a "grunt." I enlisted during the Iranian Hostage Crisis and was very lucky not to have to engage in combat. This is not a blog about my military so I'll leave it there. After my service I returned home to go back to work. I've never fully come to grips with what I want to be when I grow up, so I'll just give a short rundown of some of the work I've engaged in.

• Gas station attendant / oil changes & tune ups.
• Factory worker - several different manufactures
• Building Maintenance for a nursing home
• Grill Cook / Restaurant Manager
• Concrete Forms Construction worker
• Framing Construction worker
• Owned a Roofing & Siding Company
• Offset Pressman / press operator
• Typographer / Layout & Design
• Owner - Small Commercial Printing & Publishing Company
• Worked for a Homeless Shelter for Teens
• Residential Service Worker for a Large Mental Health Organization at a group home
• Children's Case Manager - for same Mental Health Organization

Obviously, I've worked in a variety of fields. I've always had a "can do" attitude and have always been able to learn what I needed to learn to become a valuable worker for any company. However, the one challenge I've always had is conformity. I've always tried to be true to myself. I have said from a young age that I would not be a slave to a paycheck. For most of my life, for better or worse, I've exhibited that in my life.

While I owned the Printing & Publishing Company, I got bored after about 10 years (and the market changing due to everyone having their own personal computers), and decided to attend college (I had obtained my G.E.D. in 1987). I enrolled at Central Maine Community College in the Liberal Arts Program. After a very fearful start, being very afraid that I was not "smart" enough to do well in college I ended my first semester with grades that placed me on the honor roll. With this sense of mastery I continued on and graduated with honors and proceeded on to a 4 year degree program. I attended the University of Southern Maine where I obtained my BA in Psychology in 2010. I began work in the Social Services Field in 2008 when I closed my printing & publishing company.

As many of you may know, there is not a lot of money to be made working in Social Services. However, I enjoyed the work a great deal. I was able to maintain a very high level of independence while doing this work and for me, that works well. To say that the job has a very high level of burnout would be an understatement. In December 2013 I had a Stent placed in my heart due to cardiac issues that had arisen. I had also suffered a heart attack when I was 32 years old. Upon returning to work, and enduring an extremely hard winter in Maine where we were burning upwards of 10 gallons of heating oil per day at a cost of 3.59 per gallon, we were informed that the agency I worked for (which will remain nameless), was cutting benefits and not moving forward with a salary increase which it had promised. That was the straw for me! I simply said "enough." I gave my resignation the day after the announcement was made about cutting benefits, worked out my notice and have not looked back. I miss the actual work of helping people, but do not miss the limitations placed on social service workers who are attempting to help families and children get the services they need, due to State legislatures cutting budgets all the time.

I had jokingly said to my wife Tonya, "why don’t we buy an RV and live out on the road." I never imagined that my wife who has always played the game of life within the prescribed rules would run with this idea. But she did! Shortly after I stopped work, she simply came home one day and presented me with an idea: She would give notice, stop work, take her retirement money now, and we'd buy an RV and start our new life.

Tonya

Tonya just turned 49 years old. While she's had fewer jobs than Scott, she's worked retail, factory,  and secretarial work, as well as waitress and chamber-maid. She has worked her last job (at the same Social Services Agency as Scott) for 19 years as an administrative assistant.Once Scott started college at Central Maine Community College, Tonya decided that she would further her career chances if she also obtained a degree. She attended half time while still working full time. She graduated with her Associates Degree in Business Administration -Accounting focused with a perfect 4.0 G.P.A. (Read that again - a PERFECT G.P.A. of 4.0 - Man I married one smart woman)!

US

We've been married for 23 years. This is Tonya's 2nd marriage and Scott's 3rd. Together we have 1 child who is 21, Tonya has 2 children, 1 of each, her son is 30 and her daughter 27. Scott has a 29 year old son in Maryland. We've also been blessed with 5 grandchildren. We are not going to write about our kids here beyond what has been said. They have a right to their privacy and I would never want to infringe on that.

Life for us has never been what we could call easy. Some of this may be self-imposed. With the "slave to no paycheck" attitude making money has always been somewhat challenging. But there is more to life than financial security.

Scott has wanted to get out of Maine for years. However, due to the constraints of raising a family with children and step children it simply was not a possibility. What caused us to have the shift in consciousness that brought us to the decision to go out on the road full time, was the reality that there is NO financial security that comes with having a job today. When the agency we both worked for cut a benefit that would provide 40% of our pay if one was out on short term disability, like Scott was in December for the Cardiac Surgery - our thoughts shifted from feeling that we had security to the understanding that we didn't. Well, if we don't have security while we both have jobs, we could have that same Insecurity if we lived out on the road. How is it any different? But what we would gain by being out on the road is priceless! We could get out of the cold and snow, which we both despise. We could see the many great places in this country that we'd like to see. And we could probably do it for less money that it takes to try and stay in Maine, living in a very old and drafty house that consumes 10 gallons of heating oil per day. I know, I know, why not fix the house so it would be more efficient? That is easier said than done when you spend all summer paying off the heating oil bill from the previous winter!

We are both skilled semi-professional musicians. We've been performing the local clubs in Maine together for years. That is a skill set we can certainly use on the road to help support ourselves. We've also found many web-sites where they list jobs at campgrounds where you work 20 or so hours a week to pay for your RV site.

So, this blog is to document and chronicle our experience. We have received so many comments from friends and family regarding their wish to be doing this and asking if they can "follow" us on Social Media sites such as Facebook. But some of our family do not use Facebook as they feel it is unsafe - so this blog is a different way that they can still share in some of the Nation's beauty and awe that we will experience as we go along.

Note from Tonya: As Scott said, life hasn't been easy. For me, this change is about priorities. But maybe it always has been. When the kids were small, they were the priority. Now that they are grown, it's time to shift our focus to us. Life is too short. Time to see the country, meet new friends, enjoy each other and experience life.

There is one more traveler we should mention: Our 14 year old cat, Tails, will be joining us on our grand adventure. You may see pictures of him included here from time to time. See you along the way...