How Did We Get Here?

Corey, myself, and the kids have been on the road since January 2020 and we are just now feeling like we are getting the hang of it. But I wanted to take a small step back and talk about how we got to this place of living full time on the road in an RV. This life-style is definitely unconventional compared to societies' standards, so let's get real and talk about it. 

Before we had our kiddos, Corey served 7 years in the U.S. Navy and completed his service in 2009. When he got out, it was right as the housing recession was in full effect and jobs were harder to come by. Corey struggled to find employment during that time so between jobs here and there, he impressively decided to go back to school and not only get his bachelors degree, but his masters degree as well. While he was in school, I worked full time. During those years is when we had our kiddos, but the struggles never seemed to let up, even with all the hard work we were both putting in. We kept our heads down and pushed through.

Around 2017, Corey was volunteering at the local V.A. hospital and started applying for internal jobs with them. He landed a great job out of Reno, Nevada and things were looking up for us. It was around that time that we decided to leave our hometown and move to northern Nevada for our new life. We bought our first home, which we loved so much, I was able to go back to school and stay home with our littlest boy, and life was good. We had everything we worked so hard for, but we were still stuck in the cycle of being married to a mortgage, car payments, jobs, obligations to others, and life. This wasn't a bad thing, but our hearts were still stirring for something more; something different. At times we felt selfish and ungrateful because we had everything we thought we wanted. But our hearts still desired something different. Some adventure and some exploration.

It was around 2019 when Corey started looking at the idea of buying us a weekend camping trailer because we lived only about 45 minutes from beautiful Lake Tahoe. We figured that would satisfy our desire for some adventure. This was the beginning of life as we know it. Corey stumbled upon a YouTube channel (Keep Your Daydream) while researching tow weights for our truck at the time. He learned a lot from that particular video and he let the channel play as he worked. Corey became intrigued as the videos from this channel kept playing in the background and he soon realized that there was this awesome little family that LIVED in their travel trailer while exploring and adventuring around the country. This prompted us to go back to the beginning of their journey and we started watching it all. If you don't know who they are, they are worth following on Youtube.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we binged watched KYD and many other channels and really started researching to see if we could pull something like this off. Turns out, we could. For me, I am not naturally a risk taker so I was not on board with quitting jobs, selling our house and  everything we owned to leave our comfort zone. It took many months of power point presentations, spreadsheets, and late night conversations from Corey to convince me to take the risk. Once I said, "lets do it", we were full steam ahead. We decided that taking the risk was worth the reward and we were all in. We purchased our Grand Design 312BHTS and did a few trips up to the lake to "get to know" our new home. Soon, we started selling everything, put the house on the market, and 5 months later we let the tears flow as we said goodbye to our close friends and the house we once made into a home. That was much tougher than we thought it would be. Luckily, we have amazing friends and our friendships haven't skipped a beat since we left. We miss them dearly but they have been a solid support system for us. 

Fast forward to our first year on the road, and lets just say there is a HUGE learning curve to full-time RVing. The planning and researching never end. We thought we had a good grasp of what we were doing...until we didn't. Figuring out how to have reliable internet was a challenge, as was route planning and making sure the places we were going had the necessities we needed. And then, about 45 days into our new life full of dreams and adventures, COVID hit like a freight train and de-railed all of our plans. We were scared, confused, mad, sad, and had all the same feelings everyone else had. We had everything planned, everything set up to make it the best year possible, and then everything went sideways. Campgrounds were closing, RV parks were canceling reservations, and we didn't have a home base to go back to. We seriously thought we might have to sleep in a Walmart parking lot at one point. You might be thinking, "did they regret selling the house?". Truthfully, at times, yes. But mostly, no. As scary as it was, we came together to figure one step out at time. We took each challenge and just figured them out. Through all of that, we made the decision to sit tight for a month, re-group, make a plan and then head back out. Thats exactly what we did. What we did that first year on the road was absolutely not what we had planned, but I think it ended up better. Funny how that happens sometimes. We saw things that I truly never thought I would see in my lifetime. We visited Mount Rushmore, met family in Wyoming that we've never met before, the kids caught their first fish, we met new friends all over the country, visited several national monuments and parks, met up with cousins in Montana, played all over the Oregon beaches, and made memories that will last a lifetime. We did all of that through the unexpected chaos of 2020's pandemic. So the answer to that thought is, no. We one thousand percent don't regret selling the house for the experiences we have made this first year on the road.

We don't have any expectations for how long this adventure will last. We told ourselves that we will give it at least a year and then see if we want to keep going. Well, we are at the year and half mark on our journey at the time this blog is published and we feel like we are just starting to get the hang of this lifestyle. We don't know how long we will be blessed enough to keep going but we will take what we can get and live life our way for as long as we can. 

We don't take any of this for granted and are humbled daily that we get to call this adventure our life. We know that our lives are unconventional and a little crazy, but that's what we asked for. It's all part of the adventure. 

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