The whole family was participating in the rat race. But we were a multi-generational home. To accommodate everyone, we up-sized our house. Enlarged our footprint, and had to live bigger. This included more time for maintenance, cleaning, repairs, cleaning, and just taking care of the time sucks.
We thought the pool would be a great addition. But that took money to upkeep, it was only usable part of the year. We used more time keeping it up than actually using it.
The yard was great, but that required mowing, or paying someone else to mow. So this took time and money.
All these little things that are “normal” just seemed to take away from the time in the day to see the world, travel, learn, explore, and quality family time.
We finally decided to do what we though right for our immediate family system. Parents were all healthy and had moved out on their own. The oldest child had moved out. So now was the time for us.
Sonya and I had traveled significantly throughout childhood.
When Sonya was a child, she road tripped with her family all over the US, to include out west, and up to Alaska. She has checked off all 50 states, and 9 different countries to this day.
When BJ was a child, he hiked/camped with his dad. Along with road trips in the South East. I have 30+ states, and 3 countries.
When we got together, we day tripped a lot to different Florida cities, from Tampa, to Daytona, St Augustine, to Key West.
One year-2016, we packed up our youngest, only 5 at the time, loaded up a tent, a cooler, and some clothing and headed north. This road trip took us up the eastern seaboard all the way to Quebec Canada.
The trip was a huge success! We saw many of the “not destination” things that were interesting and historical, along with food. On that trip there were only a couple hotels, but a few friends to couch surf with. All in all we consider this a “trip of a lifetime.”
That trip reignited the want to travel.
Here’s the timeline. We tent camped for a while. Found an easier way to do it, a Wolf Pup tow behind camper. A glorified tent (with bathroom) on wheels. This was small enough to be pulled by a Jeep Cherokee, and big enough to sleep, cook, and entertain.
We outgrew this when our son reached about 4′ tall. He could no longer sleep on the dinette table sleeping area. It got sold, I wonder how that lil trailer is doing?
We then got back in a tent, but not nearly enough thanks to the heat and bugs in Florida.
We got a boat, loads of fun! How does this fit? Well, we camped ON the boat in Hontoon Island near Blue Springs, Fl.
Come 2019, before the great lock down of COVID, we discussed going full-time in a Camper. Many hours researching, looking, shopping, we settled on a 5th wheel bunk house.
2021: Purchased the camper, sold the house…It was go time.
From then, we have moved around Florida into areas we had visited, but never had enough time in. We have lived in the Keys. We have lived on a river. We have lived near the springs. We have lived near the beach a few times. In horse country, in the country, near the retirement areas, and we have yet to get to all the places we want to see in our home state.
Outside of Florida, we have RV’d into Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas. We will adventure farther out every time we get a chance.
This adventure is for us to see this state, and country we live in, along with looking at places we may want to settle down at in the future.
Follow, like, and share and follow along with our adventure. We may not be doing everything correctly, but we are doing it…