Background–How we got to FULL-Time Rving
The IDEA is Born:
Late 2014 or early 2015, Barry asked me what I thought of the idea of traveling for extended time in a motorhome. I loved the idea. Growing up I traveled most summers with my parents. They had an RV most of their life.
Our first visit to an RV sales lot came with sticker shock.
MOTORHOME SEARCH
We started looking at Class C motorhomes (the kind with the overhang bunk above the driver and passenger area). But once a seasoned salesman joined us and we told him we wanted to travel for several months at a time or possible end up full time, he said we needed to look at Class A’s instead due to the room and storage that they have. I panicked thinking I’d never be able to drive one of those. Bob told us they were easier to drive than a Class C due to the incredible visibility they have. So we moved over and started looking at the Tiffin Allegro – gas powered motorhome. We liked the floor plan, but would not go any further till we knew we BOTH could drive one. We really weren’t ready to buy for a year or so anyway. We scheduled a time to test drive one.
The brief 15-20 min test drive went fine, but we really didn’t like the noise and the brakes in the gas Allegro. We went home knowing we could drive a Class A, but more research was needed. After considerable research and time from the initial sticker shock we decided we’d look at a diesel pusher. Well, Bob wouldn’t let us test drive a diesel Tiffin till we were ready to buy it. So we continued our online research and went to a local RV shows. Soon we discovered NEWMAR and the Comfort Drive feature. We had to travel to Fife, WA to see one in person. The salesman took us out immediately for an incredible hour long test drive. This was it! I knew the Newmar was the brand. What a difference –salesman and product! However, we still were not ready to make the purchase.
Our timeline did change a bit when we decided to retire a bit sooner. We were also planning to live full time in the motorhome thanks to various YouTube RVers, but especially RV Love and The Wynns. April 2016 we purchased our 2015 Newmar Ventana, Model 3636. LOVE it!!! We named our coach “Vinny Ventana”. This would allow us spring and summer 2016 to get used to driving, parking, and checking things out for any needed warrantee work.
TOAD:
Originally we were going to tow my Ford C-Max Energi Plug-in, but soon Barry suggested a Jeep Wrangler may be a better choice since we may want to explore and be on roads not suitable for the C-Max. I had to agree. We soon had an appointment with Torklift Central in Kent to get Vinny and the Jeep set up with Roadmaster towing equipment and AirForce One braking system. (NOT cheap, but worth it!)
GETTING READY:
Boeing offered Barry an early retirement option which was too good to pass up. That allowed us to also take a 2017 two-month “test run” summer trip. We took Vinny and the Jeep to southern Ca. OMG–we loved it! We can do this! We really can live in this small space together. LOL The trip spurred me to start immediately going through things to pair down drastically. I started by going through ALL my clothes. We donated almost 400 pounds of clothing, shoes, and coats to a mission in Seattle. That’s almost embarrassing to have that much above and beyond our need for the year. We would have more in the spring.
Luckily, while I taught middle school math for my last year, Barry was able to work daily at home to get us ready to start our retirement RV journey. He spent endless hours converting pictures and videos to digital versions. It was cool to “relive” some moments from many of my home videos. (We did not actually sit down and watch each tape from beginning to end, but instead caught enough while doing other things, and stopped occasionally to watch certain sections.) Barry got to see Abby and Ricard grow up, as well as “meet” my parents. We even came across a VHS cassette than was the updated format years ago that my dad and brother made of various old reel-to-reel movies. That was very special. Now it is digitalized!
We went through all the “stuff” we had stored in our full basement. Barry put item after item on “Offer Up” and “Let Go”. “Offer Up” really worked well for us along with “Facebook – Marketplace”.
SOLD HOUSE + CHANGE OF DOMICILE – April 2018
The day we flew to Sioux Falls to complete our change of domicile, our house went on the market. We had 8 offers within 36 hours and accepted a great offer that also allowed us to stay in the house till the end of June, so I could finish the school year. We had already set up our mail forwarding service with Dakota Post, so it was a smooth and easy process to get our SD drivers licenses, register to vote and transfer the motorhome and Jeep to SD plates. Due to the reasonableness of vanity plates we chose personalized plates for both vehicles. Those we had to wait to get in the mail. (Yes, you can register the vehicles without having them there in person with you.) Having a new SD drivers license and a contract on our house, the dream of RVing full time just became very real! Exciting! Scary! We had so much more to do before June 26! It was pretty overwhelming, but thank goodness Barry had been at it since September. Now, however, it was full speed ahead!
We worked feverishly April-June. As the last week or so approached we were both exhausted, and just wanted everything gone.
EMOTIONS:
Making decisions to get rid of some things were a bit difficult for me. I did take pictures of sentimental things. There were some evenings when I was just exhausted from teaching and having to make decisions about various belongings, that I’d just tear up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go through with our plan to live full time in our motorhome. We had recently remodeled our entire home and had really nice furniture and accessories. I truly loved our house that was our home. We put our heart and soul into selecting everything. It was hard to sell things for a fraction of what we paid just 5 years prior. We considered getting a storage unit, since we figure we will want a SMALL place someday when we tire of full time RV living/traveling, but after doing the math we decided NO way! We did not want to pay for things one or two more times. Plus we’d have to figure out how to get those items to that new, but undetermined place/state, etc. Those items may not even “fit” a different place.
One of the hardest things for me to figure out what to do with were all the Hummels (collectable figurines) that had been my mom’s and grandmother’s. There were A LOT of them!! I was happy that my daughter happened to be home and wanted the entire nativity set and quite a few other pieces. I selected about 11 that were always my favorites. The rest I took to an antique dealer. She was open and honest with me. People just don’t collect things anymore. She actually took all I had! She paid me “better than a garage sale”. I was feeling such guilt and obligation to keep them. But now I could hear my dad saying from heaven, “Just get rid of them!” (He loved his RVs and to travel. I’m sure he was beaming with joy seeing us prepare for this adventure.) As I drove home with the cash, I was surprised by the sense of weightlessness. Freedom. I had no idea the burden the Hummels had become. The weight on my shoulders was totally lifted. Abby and I each have the ones we have always liked. I was now more motivated to amp up getting rid of everything we didn’t need for the motorhome! My favorites are carefully bubble-wrapped and in a Costco container at my mother-in-law’s house.
I had a collection of life-like baby dolls. I knew I couldn’t keep all 9. The first one I sold was the Ashton Drake -Baby Emily. I put her out at our first weekend moving sale. When the lady who bought her walked around holding her like a baby, I knew she was being “adopted” by the right person. But when she walked away to leave, I actually teared up and started to cry. I felt so silly, but couldn’t help it. My best friend, Elona, was there at the time. She said she thought it was just the trigger for all the built-up stress that I was too busy to even realize I had. We’ll go with that. 🙂
Vinny gets a bath before becoming our home on the road in the next day! 
We are officially ready to be Movin’ On! 
Leaving the neighborhood
Full bathroom closet use: Coats, hanging shoe organizer for shoes and extra set of bath towels. 
Nancy’s hanging closet with a shelf on the bottom to get more shirts in. 
Dinnerware cabinet. I wanted real china to use regularly. NOT plastic or paper for daily use. 
Paper plates, napkins, etc for quick clean-up/travel days. 
Pull out drawer above the kitchen sink. We added two tension rods to prevent accidents. 
Sharp knives, scissors and scale drawer. 
Cooking utensils + 
Mixing bowls, etc. 
Dinette storage #1. #2 holds my food processor 
Under the bed storage – FULL.
Looking back:
I tended to make little piles of things and then move on to something else. I should have labeled what those piles were, because Barry would come along later and consolidate them for me. Luckily, throughout the 9 months we talked frequently to ensure we were still on the same page. This was especially important when I had an evening or two where I would just tear up from the stress. Barry was concerned that I may be having second thoughts. I reassured him that was not the case. I was just tired. We agreed though that if either of us changed our mind about being able to really make this drastic change we would revamp the plan. There were days when we simply were overwhelmed, but neither of us ever wanted to stop with our goal.
Now that we have been on the road for a full year, we have NOT had a single day that we’ve regretted our decision for this lifestyle! It was so worth it! Living simpler is amazing. I love the lack of clutter in our life! Every few months on the road we to go through things and purge what we really aren’t using.