The Journey Begins

Well we have begun our journey. We started off by traveling to southern Maine to spend some time with family and say our farewell's for the several months that we will be away. It is admittedly an adjustment to be staying one night here, and one night there. We don't end up setting up the whole of our living area because we know that it will all have to be taken down the following day. We are continuing to work out the logistics of life on the road. But we felt this would all be good practice for when we are actually out there doing it. Plus it gives us a chance to get the feel for what we need to be doing and the most efficient way to do it.

We are currently in Stafford Connecticut where we are visiting with friends and family. We will be here until Monday morning. We have the good fortune of having friends here who have let us park on their property for a few days. Unfortunately, they have to work on Saturday. They are both career soldiers in the U.S. Army and this was a drill weekend for them. We thank them not only for their hospitality in hosting us for a few days, but we also thank them for their selfless service to our country for so many years.

Some of you may wonder why we don’t tend to use the names of our friends and family that we visit, or why we don't share pictures of them. We may share that information as time goes on, but will only do so when we've specifically asked permission to share such details on social media. We feel that we have a responsibility to protect and respect the privacy of our friends and family. Not everyone feels comfortable with having personal information out there where just anyone can read it. Add to this the fact that some clever souls are able to get at location information in pictures, either for curiosity's sake or for more evil purposes - we want to do everything that we can to protect this information

So what we've learned so far in our journey.

It will always take you longer in an RV to reach your destination than you first anticipate.

The gas mileage is never as much as you had hoped it would be.

You CAN NOT back up while the car is on the tow dolly.

People do not want to be behind you when you are driving an RV.

We will continue to learn more and more as time goes on. We will also eventually post pictures of our adventures. That is more likely to start when we are visiting our Nation's National Parks and State Parks rather than when we boon docking on the lawns of our friends homes.

One important fact we have learned (this may pertain to only me however), I cannot sleep if the rig is parked with the rear lower than the front. Whenever we've done this I always wake up with severe acid reflux. So we have learned that if we can't be completely level, we need to have the rear of the rig higher up. I have also learned that it is much more difficult for me to write due to not having an "office" and that I really dislike the keyboard on laptops. But I think I may have found my work-around. I am using a Bluetooth keyboard that I bought to use with the Ipad I used to own. This seems to be working much better for me. The problem with the laptop keyboard is the mouse pad keeps getting in my way - although, as I typed that last sentence I found the control key to turn it off. Either way, its just one of those things that is an adjustment to this new lifestyle. I will adapt with time.

So we will remain in Connecticut for the next few days, then we move on down the road further south. Our grandchildren had it right a few days ago when they said we were "hibernating!" I really do have some smart Grandkids! We expect to arrive in Maryland on Monday September 29th. We are hoping to get a site at one of the National Parks there for our stay. Hopefully that will allow us to take some pictures for our next blog post. The visit in Maryland will be for about a week. I am excited to get so spend some time with my oldest son. We haven't seen him since last December and it will be great to spend some time with him.

Well… I suppose that concludes this post. Hey, how about that, this is probably the shortest post I've done yet! Not to worry I am sure as time goes on the posts will get longer again. I've never been accused of not having something to say! Until next time…

Soaring Eagle

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Our New Home!

I fought with myself about writing and posting a blog today. I want to be sure that those who lost their lives 13 years ago today, on 9/11/01, are remembered and that America Remembers the tragedy which occurred on that day. On September 11, 2001 we lost much more than the lives that were taken as a direct result of planes hitting the Twin Towers, The Pentagon, and that field in Pennsylvania, we lost many of our Freedom's. Many lives were changed forever on that fateful day.

In some ways, I guess our decision to become Full Time RV'ers is tied to that event. The massive loss of life that day caused many people to come to the realization that we may not have a tomorrow. Tonya and I have worked to try and make a better, more comfortable life, for whatever reason, it just has not worked out that way. Our paychecks just don't seem to keep up with the rising prices of everything. More than that though, I've felt more fearful since 9/11/01. Not fearful of the Terrorists (whether foreign or domestic, depending on your beliefs about who was truly behind the attacks that day), but fearful of the Liberties and Freedom that was lost that day. Fearful of our own Government who are circumventing personal freedoms in the name of protecting us.

I've grown tired of working and paying so many high taxes. Taxes that are used to fund other countries. Wasteful spending of my hard earned money to help countries who will in turn probably hate us. So the attacks of 9/11/01 certainly play into our decision to make this life change. It is with the highest respect for the victims of that fateful day and their families that we've decided to take back the control in our lives and go on the road to experience freedom.

It has been a very busy past few weeks. We've purchased our Motorhome. We've made the necessary upgrades that fit our needs and we've done it right at our budgeted amount. We've tested all the systems and are very happy that everything seems to be in good working order. We've packed it with most of what is coming with us belongings including clothing and music and PA equipment. The most difficult part of all of this is fighting the desire to just leave now! I've always had trouble with waiting. This is no different. I am in a hurry to begin our new life. It’s a good thing that I have Tonya to reel me back in.

I am not going to bore you with the details of upgrades we made, but perhaps some pictures are in order.

Our New Home - A 1985 Fleetwood Arrow on a Chevy Van 30 Frame. It has a Newer Chevy 350 Engine with about 25,000 miles on it. It has 6 New Tires with great tread.

Here is a side view. The previous owner states that he got about 13 miles per gallon with this. She is 23 feet long, which is tight but will allow us maneuverability to get into and out of tight spots.

This is a sign that a Great Friend made for our new home. He and his other half came to our last show when we performed at the Smilin' Moose in South Paris Maine. On the back side he had others who were present sign it with special messages for us. Such a beautiful sign with lots of love and thoughtfulness.

Tonya has put some personal touches in so we feel more like it is "home."

More personal touches, this is only appropriate to our new lifestyle. A gift from our Niece who is studying photography in college. This picture was given to us like 2 years ago… Hmm maybe she knew something that we didn’t.

As I've said, it is small inside. This is our sleeping quarters. It is a good thing Tonya and I have had such a wonderful marriage for the past 23 years and we know how well we get along.

We had to do some repair over the bunk area. We decided to close off the window as we are only using this area for storage of our PA system and music equipment. We put in new Wainscoting as we both like the way it looks.

Our Dining area. Where it will only be the two of us most of the time, we are going to put our Color Laser Printer on the floor under the table. We'll be able to sit at the ends of the booth without kicking it, and it is a good safe place for it to ride. The Color Laser Printer will allow us to do some desktop publishing while traveling plus it will provide us a method to create our own "press packs" for getting Gigs to play music and make a living.

That Cabinet was re-purposed. It had been in our home and we had this big empty space. Tonya is such an intelligent woman! She saw that space and knew that cabinet would fit perfectly. She went and bought some spray paint to spruce it up and here it is all installed.

A pic from the Dining area toward the back of the home. Shows the kitchen, bathroom and sleeping quarters.

And finally, a pic from the bedroom toward the front of the RV. For such an old rig this thing is really in good shape. We are feeling a little apprehensive about how small it is, but we feel this is the best way to get started. We can make this work for a year or two and see what our options are at that time.

I can tell you that as we get closer to our departure date, we are both chomping at the bit to get rolling down the road. There have been some cool nights but we've been very comfortable sleeping in the RV. We've got lots of blankets on our bed (Tonya likes to be toasty warm while she sleeps).

We've been sleeping in the RV since last Sunday (9/7/14). We now have most of our belongings that are coming with us in the RV with the exception of my office. We plan to have my office belongings out here by Sunday night (9/14/14). That will give us 17 days to "live" in the RV completely independent of the house. That will test our systems and give us an idea of how frequently we will need to empty holding tanks, refill fresh water, and how long our house battery's will carry us. Additionally it will help us to understand how much fuel to expect to burn with the Generator.

My next blog post is most likely to take place once we've begun our Journey. It will be kind of slow going at first. We will be traveling down the Eastern States. We plan a stop in Connecticut, Then Maryland, a couple stops in Florida with maybe an overnight in New Orleans before heading to our final winter destination of Coldspring Texas.

Soaring Eagle

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