Our Story Begins . . . .

As some of you may know, Dave retired the end of March—finally! He left three days short of 34 years.

Originally, we had planned on retiring in North Carolina on some acreage. After selling our house in 2005 (our Realtor timed it perfectly!), we moved into an apartment, since we did not plan on staying in Michigan much longer. Well, we found not owning property very freeing—come and go as we please, with nothing to worry about. Then, we considered did we really want to be so far away from our kids. And—when were they really going to settle down somewhere permanent?

Christine, her husband René and our grandchildren, Rachel and Alexander, were living in San Francisco (they just moved to San Antonio, TX as René took a faculty position at the University of Texas and Christine also took a job with UT in her field of Technology Transfer), Michael and his wife Cherie live in San Diego, CA, Steven and his wife Atsuko lived in Seattle, WA (they now live in Japan), and our youngest, David, had started his Doctor of Pharmacy program at the University of Maryland. Also, with the two older boys career Navy, they could be moved anywhere, at any time.

So, Dave and I decided it wasn’t time to “settle down” in one spot. Anyway, we are too young to be old retired people in rocking chairs. Being avid campers, we thought that we might want to RV for awhile. By coincidence, we found out about a conference called “Life on Wheels” for full-time RV’ers. Little did we know where it was going to lead us! We attended in May of 2006 and again in July of 2007. We went to plenty of RV shows, including the largest in the country in Hershey, Pennsylvania. We read, and studied, and read, and studied—the outcome being the purchase of our new home—a 2008 Doubletree Mobile Suites 36TK3 and a 2008 Ford F450 6.4L Power Stoke diesel dually:

For now, we plan on leaving in April for our “shakedown” trip. We will go to Georgia for a few weeks, then to Missouri for a two-day RV driving course, on to Iowa for a rally of Suites owners, then back to Michigan the end of May. Our son, David, is having knee surgery then, and will recuperate with us at Camp Dearborn, June and part of July. At the end of July we plan to officially start our new adventure. We will be changing our ‘domicile” and address to Livingston, TX—officially becoming Texans. (Got to buy those Stetsons and boots!) But, we will be coming to Michigan once a year for doctor appointments and to visit our friends.

The following blog will be a chronicle of our travels. Hope to see you on the road!