Our First Ever RV Rally

We arrived at Gillette, WY for the Family Motor Coach Association rally, on Wed, June 19^th. We attended several motorhome-related educational seminars, perused a huge RV vendor display area, took in several large new motorhome displays, and attended a Buckingham’s concert. You know, they had huge hits in the late-60s and now they’re in their 60s. It was interesting to learn the group is from Chicago. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We met a nice couple at our newcomer’s orientation, from Miami Beach, retired from the restaurant business, and like us, living in their motorhome. Peter and Sandy were a lot of fun and we're sure our paths will cross again.

The weather didn’t cooperate though. We had pouring down rain all day Thursday and Friday, and our RV lot quickly became a mud pit. We decided to leave a day early because of the weather and headed south on Saturday.

We overnighted in Cheyenne, Colorado City (south of Pueblo), Amarillo, and San Angelo, on our way to Lakeway (Austin), Texas. We spent 4 days here with Julie’s mom and sister to scatter her Dad’s ashes, after his passing last September.

We’re heading out tomorrow, on our way to Virginia for a family reunion on July 18-23. We’ll drive through Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ontario-Canada, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, finally reaching Luray, in the Shenandoah Valley on July 18th. Enjoy your July 4^th holiday!

Driving in a big Circle

On Sun, June 2^nd, while in Sioux Falls, we went to our first BBQ Festival. There were contestants there from all over the U.S.  

 

After lunch, we drove to Falls Park (Sioux Falls’ namesake) and spent some time enjoying the park and a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

 

 

 

We left Sioux Falls, SD on Monday, June 3^rd and headed to Forest City, Iowa to have a few things repaired on the motorhome at the local Winnebago-Itasca dealership. It poured down rain on the trip and for the two days we spent in Forest City. We then headed to Denison, where Steve was born and raised. We spent two nights at Yellow Smoke Park, just outside of Denison. The weather was sunny for our visit.

We wanted to stay at a state park west of Sioux Falls through the weekend, but the campground was full. So we headed back to the Sioux Falls KOA met a weekend of torrential rainfall.

On Sunday afternoon we headed to Lake Vermillion Recreation Area and enjoyed 3 nights there. Almost all of the campers had left by the time we got there.

 

 

 

On Wed, June 12^th, we headed across SD for Badlands National Park. We stopped in Mitchell, SD to see the Corn Palace. It hadn’t changed a lot from the last time I’d seen it as a kid.

We explored the Badlands on Thursday and took a side trip into Wall to visit Wall Drug.

 

 

We head to Spearfish, SD for three nights and stayed at a beautiful city park where we enjoyed the big cottonwood shade trees, bicycle paths, and a stream through the park.

 

We took day trips to visit Deadwood and Sturgis one day and Rapid City, Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park the next day.

 

 

We’re heading to Gillette, WY next for a week to attend the Family Motor Coach Association rally. We’re looking forward to it. There’ll be educational seminars, vendor product displays, new motorhome displays, and over 2,000 motorhomes, with nearly 5,000 of our closest friends.

It’s starting to sink in now with us that we’re living in our motorhome full-time, and not just on another trip. It’s been a lot of fun so far.

Loosened Our Load - June 1, 2013

We bought our 2008 Itasca Meridian in January 2012 and put over 22,000 miles on it the first year. We enjoyed the traveling in the motorhome (MH) so much that, in September 2012, we decided to try “full-timing” and live in the MH. Our plan to FT included selling our house and all the furniture and move into the MH in the spring of 2013. We began cleaning out closets getting rid of stuff to prepare to put our house on the market. After 36 trips to Goodwill, Salvation Army, DAV and ARC in 2012, we were making good headway.

We took a month-long trip to Florida in January, returning to Colorado in early-February, asking ourselves “why come home so soon”? We continued clearing out closets and selling furniture, and by mid-April, were ready to put the house on the market. It went on the market on April 18^th as we left town for a trip to Austin, TX. We got an offer on April 20th within hours of its first and only showing. We were stunned it went so quickly, but after de-cluttering and many little home projects, it really was “move-in ready”.

We returned home from Austin and began selling our remaining furniture on Craig’s List in earnest and made many more trips to Goodwill. We rented a small storage unit to store our family photo albums, some framed pictures, china, pots & pans, and a few other items we wanted to keep. We (and our cat Shasta) moved out of the house (2,600 square feet) and into our MH (300 SF) on Sunday, May 19^th and closed the sale and handed over the keys on May 20^th.



Old home

 

We realize that this was a huge step, but we wanted to be “liberated” from our stuff and live a simpler lifestyle, seeing all the things we only passed by on those infrequent vacations. Now it is time to enjoy the country where every night we can sleep in a comfortable bed, eat food from the local farmer’s market, and return to our home on wheels. No we’re not “homeless”---we’re “houseless”.

New Home

 

We left Colorado Springs in our rear view mirror on Tuesday, May 27th and traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where we established our new “domicile”. On Friday we went and got our SD driver's licenses, registered to vote, and re-plated our GMC Yukon. We’re using a mail forwarding service here in Sioux Falls as our new mailing address. We're staying through the weekend and head to Forest City, Iowa on Monday.