Ten year anniversary edition......

 8:15 am - Monday - February 1st - Seal Rock, OR - 50° F, 88% humidity (??? - It has been raining all night, and is raining hard now....how can it be only 88% humidity????), wind 9 mph out of the south....it will rain all day long, and we have already reached the high of the day at 50° F.

On this date in 2011 we began our full time dream by leasing out our home, and moving our Newell into Rancho Jurupa Regional Park (near Riverside, CA) where we became camp hosts for one year.....

After years of talking we finally did it!  We are full time!

Our first full time sunset lighting up Mt. Rubidoux

Ensconced in site #215 (80' long concrete pad) for one year...we still had two cars.....a 2002 Ford T-Bird, and a 2000 Ford Expedition XLT, and needed to get rid of one car, and a lot of other stuff before the T-Bird would fit in the trailer.

.....our position as camphosts was to maintain and clean the six new park models the County of Riverside had just installed in the park.  TLE and I were still working at the time, but both of us worked from home a lot, so it was easy to combine both and get everything done.  It was a year of adjustments for us as we settled into living in 220 square feet after living in 2,000 square feet for the past 25 years.

That year passed quickly, and suddenly we found ourselves exiting Rancho Jurupa Regional Park February 1, 2012 to begin our full time travel adventure.  That first year we covered 12,445 miles crossing the USA 3 times before landing in Campbellsville, KY to work our first Peak Season at Amazon.  Up until we began our first workamping job at Amazon I had not blogged daily, but decided to begin doing so to document our Amazon experience.  Over the 11 weeks we worked at Amazon it became a habit, and I continued to do so until this day....even when I was in the hospital recovering from emergency double hernia surgery in February of 2014 I managed to post my blog using my cell phone, and again in December of 2017 when I was hospitalized with a stroke, or in May of 2019 when I was hospitalized with a heart attack.....I continued blogging daily......   

TEN YEARS!!!!!

.....over the intervening years we have changed our travel style significantly staying in one place for months at a time, and we cover few miles each year.  All that being said, since we purchased our 1982 Newell on March 1, 2008 we have put 75,000 miles on her, and by the end of this year we will probably add another 5,000 miles.

Our love for this lifestyle has never once waned, and we cannot imagine living any other way.  Intellectually we both understand that at some point this lifestyle may become untenable due to age, and/or health, and we now talk occasionally about our exit strategy, but for now we have taken the Scarlet O'Hara strategy of saying "I'll think about it tomorrow...".....

"I'll think about it tomorrow...."

.....I still remember thinking back the end of February of 2012 when we had arrived on South Padre Island (Corpus Christi) that we had been on the road for a month....something we had never done before.  Now, to think of being on the road for 10 years is almost unfathomable in one respect, but in another respect our former sticks and bricks life seems like someone else's life.  We feel like we have always lived this way.

From the time my parents took my sister and I on our first extended travel trailer trip back in the summer of 1953 my heart has longed for this lifestyle.  I am never happier than when I am behind the big Newell steering wheel moving down the road to our next new view.  As TLE and I often say, we can change our view without going through escrow.

Fast forward 10 years to our current view of Seal Rock and the Pacific Ocean.......we both think this is the best continuous view we have had.  TLE loves the ocean as she grew up in Miami, FL, and I love hearing the ocean 24/7, and waking up to that view every day.....clear, or stormy...

.....what does the future hold for us?  Another 10 years living the nomadic lifestyle?  We have no idea, but we will continue on with style enjoying each new day as it comes to its fullest no matter what view we may behold.

Creede, Colorado

Devil's Tower

Nocculula Falls, Gadsen, AL

Raymond, WA

South Padre Island

Spokane

Long Beach, WA

Goonies House

Columbia River

Multnomah Falls

Twin Falls, ID

Snake River Gorge

Flaming Gorge

Amazon friends, 2012

Cedar Key, FL

Ft. Meyers, FL

Marathon Key (Florida Keys)

Washington D.c.

Spearfish, SD

Mt. Rushmore

Glacier National Park

Cowboys Stadium

Indy 500

Kanaskis, Alberta, Cananda

Columbia Icefields near Jasper, Alberta, Canada

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!