Ron had some experience driving Greyhound-style buses as a part time job while he was in college and also did some RVing with his first wife, Nan, in the early seventies.
I didn't know it at the time, but he's been 'lobbying' me for this trip for some time now. A couple years before his planned retirement, we started going to RV shows just for fun. Yeah, right.
We saw just about every size, shape and company that makes them over time and finally decided on a size, make and model that would make sense for us. Around the same time, we sold the small commuter house we were living in and moved to a large modern house in Wilton Manors with the intent of only staying there a couple of years. While living there, we continued to hone in on our dream RV. Ron retired January of 2015 and it was time for a full press court to make "our" RV dreams a reality.
We put together a plan with target dates, started downsizing, decided on the car we would tow and in January 2016, ordered a brand new Class A Thor Motor Coach.
Ron made friends with a representative from Thor and we were able to customize (to a point) our new home. The rep even went down to the factory floor and took pictures of our coach while on the assembly line.
I didn't know it at the time, but he's been 'lobbying' me for this trip for some time now. A couple years before his planned retirement, we started going to RV shows just for fun. Yeah, right.
We saw just about every size, shape and company that makes them over time and finally decided on a size, make and model that would make sense for us. Around the same time, we sold the small commuter house we were living in and moved to a large modern house in Wilton Manors with the intent of only staying there a couple of years. While living there, we continued to hone in on our dream RV. Ron retired January of 2015 and it was time for a full press court to make "our" RV dreams a reality.
We put together a plan with target dates, started downsizing, decided on the car we would tow and in January 2016, ordered a brand new Class A Thor Motor Coach.
Ron made friends with a representative from Thor and we were able to customize (to a point) our new home. The rep even went down to the factory floor and took pictures of our coach while on the assembly line.
We took delivery in early April and planned several shake-down trips to test and learn all the systems and get acclimated to our soon-to-be new reality.
Our first trip was a splurge and a treat. Late April we spent a week in the Keys staying at one of the nicest and most popular RV resorts in the country, Bluewater Key Resort, at mile marker 14 on the overseas highway.
We did have some warranty issues and after serveral trips back to our dealer in Fort Myers, we were all systems go, confident and ready to hit the road. Originally, our departure date was August 1, but as we were making plane, hotel and car rental reservations for a late July Family reunion in Virginia, it occurred to us just to back up our date three weeks and take our new home.
So after purging a lot of unnecessary 'baggage', we packed most of our worldly belongings into a POD and a fraction into our new Challenger and hit the road.
We realize what a ballsy move this is, specially at our age. And leaving Family and friends is unnerving as well as being 'untethered' as full time RVers. But, while we still have relatively good health and the energy to do it, we're heading out to have an epic adventure across the country. Along the way we hope to visit many of you, our Family and friends.
This blog post is being written after having been on the road for seven weeks. Creating this website took a lot longer than anticipated due to circumstances beyond our control and we're playing catch up. Also, blogging (well) isn't as easy as one might think and we hope to get better at it over time.
It's our goal to have and provide a written record of our trip and hope our 'audience' enjoys following along. We also hope you will interact by commenting on our blog posts, suggesting places to go and making time to visit with us when we are near your neck of the woods.
We do have a rough idea and time schedule for our journey but we're told it's best to stay as flexible as possible (shit happens!). You'll find information about some of our stops that require advance reservations and planning on the 'Future Plans' page and the 'Travel Map' details where we've been to date. You can also watch 'Ian' give a video tour of a Coach almost exactly like ours.
So, get caught up on our travels to date and we look forward to staying in touch via this blog.
Mike & Ron
"Home is where we park it!"
So after purging a lot of unnecessary 'baggage', we packed most of our worldly belongings into a POD and a fraction into our new Challenger and hit the road.
We realize what a ballsy move this is, specially at our age. And leaving Family and friends is unnerving as well as being 'untethered' as full time RVers. But, while we still have relatively good health and the energy to do it, we're heading out to have an epic adventure across the country. Along the way we hope to visit many of you, our Family and friends.
This blog post is being written after having been on the road for seven weeks. Creating this website took a lot longer than anticipated due to circumstances beyond our control and we're playing catch up. Also, blogging (well) isn't as easy as one might think and we hope to get better at it over time.
It's our goal to have and provide a written record of our trip and hope our 'audience' enjoys following along. We also hope you will interact by commenting on our blog posts, suggesting places to go and making time to visit with us when we are near your neck of the woods.
We do have a rough idea and time schedule for our journey but we're told it's best to stay as flexible as possible (shit happens!). You'll find information about some of our stops that require advance reservations and planning on the 'Future Plans' page and the 'Travel Map' details where we've been to date. You can also watch 'Ian' give a video tour of a Coach almost exactly like ours.
So, get caught up on our travels to date and we look forward to staying in touch via this blog.
Mike & Ron
"Home is where we park it!"