In 2011, when we moved from Severn, Maryland to Warrenton, Virginia, the plan was to stay in Warrenton for 10 years and then move on after Mike retired. The plan was for Mike to retire at the end of 2021. Since he’s older than me, I was going to keep working a while longer. At some point over the past 10 years, we started thinking about traveling around the US during Mike’s retirement. I’ve worked remotely since 2006 and knew I’d be able to work from anywhere. I just need a reliable Wifi connection or cell service to support a hot spot for Internet connectivity.
If you’d like, you can read more about the decision leading up to the acquisition, check out this post for details.
The new-to-us camper is a 2016 Entegra (make) Aspire (model), 45-foot/13.7 m (length), Class A motorhome. The purchase was far sooner than anticipated, but we figured it would give us time to practice the whole camping thing, get used to driving the behemoth, outfit it the way we wanted/needed, etc.
Did I ever mention that Mike was never a camper? LOL.
After a wonderful Thanksgiving week excursion to Smith Mountain Lake State Park (we missed our visit with Amy, TJ, and family due to COVID), we did what was needed to prepare for cold-weather storage, stowed the RV away, and really started thinking about the many what, where, and whens to be considered.
As mentioned earlier, I’d been planning on working remotely for a while after Mike retired. When I accepted my most recent job in May of 2019, I let my boss (an old friend) know she could only have me until the end of 2021. She agreed and said she needed me to give her at least two years. I didn’t think that would be a problem, so I agreed.
I underestimated how difficult it would be to work for that particular “friend.” Couple the work stressors with family health issues and you might understand why I ended up taking a mental health break early in 2020.
Things weren’t much better after I returned to work in April. With the job stressors continuing to mount, Mike and I agreed that I should call it quits sooner rather than later. We just didn’t know when.
The US housing market was pretty crazy in early 2021. There’s a housing shortage driving prices up, making it a real seller’s market. Since the proceeds from the house are a large part of our nest egg, we decided to take advantage of the situation and, in mid-March, started getting the house ready to sell. The preparation process included a significant down-sizing effort. We got rid of a lot of stuff, including all of Mike’s woodworking tools and accessories, both of our motorcycles, both of our cars, and a bunch of household stuff that was either given to family and friends or taken to the dump. (More was re-homed than trashed.)
We’d already scheduled a visit to Indiana for the last weekend in March to get the sofa in the RV replaced, so we decided that would be a great weekend to list and show the house. Of course, that meant we had to scramble to get the house ready for showing. It was a real push, but we did it. The listing went live on Thursday, we got a solid offer on Saturday, and we accepted the offer on Monday or Tuesday (March 30-31) all while still away on the sofa-replacement trip.
Of course, that meant more scrambling to get rid of the rest of the stuff we didn’t want to keep, deciding what we wanted/needed to take with us in the RV, figuring out where to store our belongings, etc. We had just six weeks from the time we got back from Indiana to the time the house was scheduled to close (sign over to the buyers). We knew it would be tight, but we were confident we could get it all done.
When Mike had moved his retirement date up to the end of April 2021, I scheduled vacation for myself during the first week of May, thinking it would be the perfect opportunity to celebrate his retirement and test the connectivity, get my equipment set up for full-time work, get Mike used to relaxing or otherwise entertaining himself while I continued to work, etc.
Then, in mid-April, my Dad got sick. I left for Pennsylvania early on Monday, April 19. Sadly, he passed away on April 23. My brother and I decided to stay in Pennsylvania through the end of the following week to get as much done as we possibly could to close-out Dad’s affairs, get his house cleaned out and ready to sell, etc.
That all meant my own preparing-to-move timeline was two weeks shorter. My “vacation” from work May 3-7 was the complete opposite of relaxing. I knew there was no way I could go back the week of May 10-14, so, after talking with HR about options for my return, I took another week off.
We were actually managed to get everything done on time. The belongings we decided to keep were packed by movers on May 11, loaded into the moving truck on May 12, then moved to North Carolina on May 13.
We also had to drive to North Carolina on May 13 to make sure everything made it to the storage facility we’d selected. Then we had to return to Warrenton for the final pre-settlement walk through and closing scheduled for May 17.
We made it. As of May 17, we no longer own our beautiful house in Warrenton, Virginia.
I ended up resigning the morning of May 18. Safe at last! That afternoon, we set off for Pennsylvania to finish taking care of Dad stuff.
On May 26, we headed south to Amy and TJ’s house to stay with the grand kids while their parents went on vacation. Then, on June 6, we left there for Ebenezer Park in South Carolina, which is where we are now. We will be here until mid-June when we head south to Florida to establish our residency, register the vehicles, etc.
I may get another job in the near future. Or I may not. I have no idea, Only time will tell. For now, I think I will just kick back, relax, and enjoy being an unemployed nomad for a while.
For now, the plan is just to live in our RV, making our way slowly around the United States until we find a place where we’d like to settle down. But plans seem to have a way of changing. LOL.
NOTE: we currently have no fixed address. If you need to reach us, you’ll have to use our cell phones or e-mail.
