The decision to become full time RVers was easy for me (Debbie) but for Bill, he had many questions and concerns (his nature). BUT he never let on to me, as this really was more his dream than mine, and he was so happy I was on board! So once one of us became sick and we survived, he casually commented, “Well now I see it’s not a big deal to get sick (and well) in an RV!” It’s really not a big deal, just like living in a stix and bricks home. So then he shared how he HAD been concerned about one of us getting sick (we are both generally very healthy, just the aging process that gets in the way). TBH, I’m not sure which one of us was sick first, all I know is that today, I am sick with a sore throat and headache. Bill has had the flu and a cold over the past two weeks that ended up as acute bronchitis (he went to an urgent care since it was lingering). The point of this is, that a friend who is under-going radiation for cancer wanted me to come see her – as long as I wasn’t sick or a carrier. We were supposed to get together tomorrow – she’s about an hour away, temporarily during her treatment. She can’t get sick, so she sent me an email two days ago asking how I was and why wasn’t I sick when everyone I am around has been sick. I told her I had a good immune system, eat right, am well-rested and by God’s grace! And then, today, I woke up sick! Ouch! So I turned to my sister-in-law, who is an RN for some advice (whether I am contagious and since I’m not sneezing, coughing or running a fever, I shouldn’t be). I love what else she said, so I’m just going to quote her! “…use good hand washing techniques….there are like 7 factors to why we get sick such as: amount of bacteria/virus transmitted, route of transmission, portal of entry, host susceptibility, few more on the list. Just think about one of those listed and there are many factors to think about too. For example host susceptibility: in order for us to fight getting sick we need to be well rested, well hydrated, nourished with good food, and living in a state of peace with God and others! If one of those is not at optimal levels we find we are MORE susceptible to picking up disease. That’s why living according to Gods instruction book is so helpful, i.e. Sabbath rest, maintaining heathy relationships, etc. God really did create us ‘wonderfully and fearfully.'” So today, I am going to take it easy, rest, continue to drink water and lemonade (feels good on the sore throat), eat chicken noodle soup, and continue to nurture my relationship with my husband!
We started our journey as full timers (meaning we no longer own a home and we live in our RV exclusively) on July 8, 2014 in Buttonwood Bay, Sebring, Florida. It was about 10 miles from our soon to be sold home so it was a good location for us. We had heard from a neighbor at a previous RV resort how nice it was. Sebring has many RV resort/campgrounds so that recommendation helped us since it was also close by.
This is a beautiful resort with many amenities. All we look for is safety, full hook ups, convenient and a place to get in a one to two mile walk! This did that for us. Only two downsides was that there aren’t many RV spots and RVers are spread out and NO cable or antennae hook up for those who stay under 30 days. We were able to use our Passport America membership and only paid $21/night for 7 nights (their limit which was generous) and the other one night was $31.
We only had a week to clean out our house as it sold on June 15 with a closing date of July 15. We were out of town for Debbie’s birthday, we drove to see our grandson in Virginia while the camper was in for service. We also had another trip to visit Bill’s mom in Illinois traveling from June 26 to July 8, with our reservations made and Bill’s family counting on our visit. This gave us the one week time frame to move out. Since we had planned on selling the house, we were slowly cleaning it out, but taking our time. I guess like everyone else, we work best under pressure!
We decided we had to cut our Illinois trip short, so instead of flying back on July 8, we were able to change our rental car to deliver to Orlando instead of St. Louis. So off we went on Sunday afternoon, July 6, after a nice morning at church and lunch. On the trip home, we listed our car for sale on Craigslist and posted it on Facebook. We were prepared and had all the pictures and info as we wanted to be prepared. A friend saw it on Facebook so they wanted to see it when we got back into town! When we returned to town on Monday night, we had to plan the week carefully.
– Tuesday morning we had to drive about 45 miles to get our RV from Camping World where we had it serviced, anticipating an extended travel itinerary – so blessed as we had no idea when we picked it up, we would be transitioning to full time! We had warranty work done, max air vents put on and service the tires and wheel bearings.
– Tuesday afternoon, set up at Buttonwood Bay. As it turned out and you can see from the pictures, it is a very nice campground. Our main focus in campgrounds is for them to be convenient to whatever we are doing in the area (from walking on a beach, to hiking in the mountains to sightseeing), to be safe, have full-hook ups, and to have a nice area to take at least a two mile walk each evening. That is how we love to end each day unless we are walking on the beach or climbing a mountain! We showed the car and this wonderful couple wanted to see what else we and for sale…They ended up buying some of what we perceived as hard to sell items, so that really helped us!
– Tuesday night, we showed our car and then stayed in our house because we just had too much to do!
– Wednesday, I had a minor dental surgical procedure appointment set that I couldn’t postpone. So around that appointment, we sold the car, showed this couple what else we had for sale, pointing out the hard to sell items (which in the end, they bought) and continued to clean out the furniture which we were shipping north, which was most of it! In the meantime, I was listing things we knew our daughter and son in law didn’t need or relatives or other friends wanted to buy. Did I mention I was supposed to take it easy for two days? Oh well….
– Thursday, I woke up concerned about the incision, so off to the dentist to have him look at it. It was OK, but he needed me to come back on Monday to make sure. So we continued to prepare the furniture for shipment, sold things as people saw them, and packed boxes. The movers came at 3:00 and worked for four hours. We now had no choice, we moved into the RV for the night!
– Friday, now to prepare for our garage sale to be held on Saturday. We actually had a small row of things lined up for sale. Neighbors were having a yard sale so as we drove by, I saw fiends their with their grandson. I invited them over to show them our stuff and say goodbye. It was fun as the 10 year old grandson was a “technocrat” and went right for some small electronic things. I ended up selling him a never used mini-recorder for $1 (value around $50). I told him the first sale of the day will bring us good luck! And that opened the doors! Bill began running the garage sale as our neighbors sent people over! I stayed inside, cleaning out our clothes, etc. , but brought things out as I came across them!
– Saturday, we finished the garage sale around 2:00 and had sold nearly everything we needed to sell. Now we had to finish packing up for storage the few things we couldn’t part with and to begin to clean the house. We thought we were going to have to miss church as we had to be out of the house by 2:00 on Tuesday. We had run into our Pastor and his wife and they had hoped we would be there on Sunday. The Pastor said he had the perfect sermon for us!
– Sunday was a sad day as we attended our last church service as members. Our Pastor had us stand and thanked us for our years of service to the church. Then he gave us the perfect last sermon, from the Book of Ecclesiastes. If you recall, that was the book where the wisest man to live said in the end, all is vanity or meaningless, and in the end, to remember our Creator, to fear God and keep His commandments! After church, we went out to lunch with some dear friends, then back to the house to finish cleaning it up and out.
– Monday, we couldn’t believe we were so far behind, still so much to clean and pack and one more trip to the dentist (isn’t that how things always go?). We had planned to be done on this day, and enjoy a last meal with our family in town. But our garage was full of stuff, so we had to postpone it! We ran to a self storage business to rent a locker in the pouring down rain right at closing time. We hoped it would stop in time to bring back a load of stuff on our way home from our former home. As it turned out, we took two truck loads and it seemed our garage was still full, of things we should have sold in the garage sale but missed! So I posted on Facebook that I had more stuff to get rid of. Thankfully, a friend knew of a need for things for her mom’s church’s upcoming garage sale. So she stopped by and we filled her car up!
– Tuesday, the deadline for the walk through is 2:00 and our garage still wasn’t empty and still more to clean inside. But we did all we could until 1:00 and took a much needed lunch break and quick shower, so back to the RV. The inside was ready for the joint walk through and for us to show how to work a few unique things to the new owner, but we still had a truck load of things. We got there after they were inside and started the walk through. The closing was at 3:00! So much for a shower as it was so muggy while we finally fully packed up the truck for the trip to Virginia with fine china and a few other things we didn’t want to ship (or forgot to ship). We made it to the closing on time and we were out in 15 minutes. We had time now to go change our driver’s licenses and voter registration, pick up our mail at our mail box, meet our financial advisor and finally, dinner with the family at 5:00. The only thing we couldn’t do was change our Voter’s Registration. Not bad for a full day!
And so our new perspective is that it is all meaningless (so it was so easy to get rid of everything except some family heirlooms) and we gave more our daughter. We continue to thank God for the creation of our precious grandson. He reminds us to obey Him in all we do as we begin our new journey in life!
This has been one of the best travel weeks, in spite of the cold and wind! It started out perfect, so I guess that set the tone. We got up early Sunday morning, normally we go to church, but we headed to Cedar Point for 5 days, praising God as we traveled. Bill even called me Preacher Debbie as I did share about the Lord as we drove down the road!
We were out of the KOA, Fredericksburg in record time. The five hour drive was smooth and without incident. We were somewhat surprised at the Waterway RV Resort, as it is more of a permanent RV Resort. We were the only mobile unit.
Upon arrival, a neighbor came out to greet us and made us feel welcome. We had a lot in common, so that helped! By the time we had set up, another neighbor came over and we all had a nice chat.
It was a beautiful, warm sunny day and we wanted to see the beach. So we had dinner by 4:30 and hit Emerald Isle. There is a parking area and beach access as we pulled onto the Isle. We were surprised it seemed so busy for this time of day. As we came up on the beach, it looked fabulous, but then we actually were a bit disappointed as we began walking on it, comparing it to Myrtle Beach. There were a lot of little sharp shells and we were barefoot. But we were short sighted and maybe a little tired from our trip. Our opinion would change!
The next day, we stopped at the Cedar Point Welcome Center and picked up some brochures. We were told the best place to walk on the beach is at the southern point, and there is public parking. So off we went for a beach day. We never could have expected such a gorgeous beach! We relaxed, read and finally took a walk that turned out to be 2.45 miles! These are pictures from our time on the beach on Monday:
We walked to the tip of the southern end of the Isle and this is it!
The next day, Tuesday, was expected to be very cold, windy and rainy. So we went to tour historical Fort Macon. It was free, but they have donation boxes. Since we love history, we really enjoyed it. It is at the northern tip of Emerald Isle.
I didn’t get the best pictures as we got there just as the tour was starting. We ran past great scenery to get to the Sally Port – where the tour started. We know we need to go back and really finish visiting it as we didn’t see everything. So after our tour, we took a 1.45 mile walk on the beach. The rain held off, but it was pretty windy – or we would have walked further.
We then to meet up with my step sister’s Marine son for a tour of Camp LaJune and dinner with his family. He is also a dad to three children and two are identical twin girls. He gave us a grand tour of the base after he was off work, then off to his home to have dinner.
So while we are off sightseeing, we think of our grandson often…so thankfully, our daughter sends us pictures of him often! He’s as cute as can be! A real joy and always happy – unless he’s hungry, tired or has a dirty diaper! He does let us know when we need to tend to him!
Here he is on March 17, 2014. Proudly wearing Irish green!
The third day, March 18, we toured historic Beaufort, NC. We first visited the Beaufort Historic Site to decide the best way to learn about this unique town. We bought a combination ticket to take the trolly tour and to tour three of the six historic sites. We had time to first visit the North Carolina Maritime Museum. They have a movie about Blackbeard. We didn’t get to see the entire movie, but hoped to have time later. We then took the trolley tour which was very informative. Afterwards, we had time to go back to the museum which was around the corner. I was actually cold, so I stopped in and enjoyed a great cup of hot Mocha Cappuccino and bought Bill a fresh homemade cookie! Then I joined him. We missed the rest of the movie as it was at the same point when we first started watching it. Then back for the tour of three historic houses. We toured with another couple from Fauquier County, Virginia not far from where we lived for 10 years. Small world. We had to pick which three of six historic houses to tour, so we agreed to let our Docent pick her three favorite. It worked out well for us all. We toured the houses of two prominent citizens and then toured the jail. All had fascinating history!
On day 4 and our last day, we decided we needed to go for a hike in the Croatian National Forest as it was right next to us. We went back to the Visitor Center to get information on hiking and were given some good brochures. But little did we realize the directions to the trail heads were not clear – actually there wasn’t one nearby that had the type of hike we wanted to take. But Patsy Pond Trail was nearby and was short. We decided to check it out and had a great walk in the forest. Afterwards, we went back to the south end of Emerald Isle and took another good walk on it. We learned we could get a permit to drive our truck on it!
We left Cedar Point for Fredericksburg for more grandson time, deciding this is a place we will want to return to visit!
A scripture true to us as we travel: Philippians 4:19 “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE OF THESE ENDS (LIFE,LIBERTY,AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS) IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE A NEW GOVERNMENT― Thomas Jefferson
Examining scripture to properly interpret it. “Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman tested by trial who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15).
Follow the Tumble Lees! 