Prologue

Having recently seen the new release movie RV with Robin Williams, we were determined not to repeat the same mistakes. Going fulltime in an RV without a homebase demands that we be prepared. After bringing home the pre-owned 22 foot Coachmen motorhome, I systematically tested each of the electrical, gas and water appliances. All worked great as the dealer said. Being RV neophytes, we thought it prudent to take our new home on a test voyage to see if we were bringing along everything we might need. Devils Lake was my first choice. We had been talking about taking a tent camping trip there for the last few summers. I had gone there in college with the University of Illinois rock climbing club. I had fond memories of its beauty and wonderful sheer cliffs.

So we packed up the RV and set out for a day trip around noon Tuesday, June 20th. As I pulled out of the driveway, we quickly found out which cups and drawers were not totally secured. A quick stop in front of the neighbors yard got everything restowed.

The first stop was the gas station on the corner. I still had a third of a tank but I thought best to start with a full tank to know what I am up against. The gas pump quickly spun past the $30 I usually fill the car with. It has a big tank for distance. $50 came and went, so did $60. Finally as it neared $75, it slowed and then stopped. Must be the limit of my new credit card. It can’t be much more. I put the spare card in and restarted the pump. $27 more and I was full. $102, ouch, this is not going to be an inexpensive way to see the US.

The road trip to Devils Lake was uneventful. After parking the RV in our assigned spot we hiked the East bluff trail. Devils Lake is beautiful. It is a smallish lake with granite-like cliffs on two opposite sides. The stone is a unique local variety known as Baraboo Quartzite. It is an old sandstone sedimentary rock that has been fused together because of heat and pressure. The park museum has an interesting display about the glaciers that formed the area. The cliffs and lake are rubble left from the Wisconsin Glacier that receded some 10,000 years ago. The park also contains a few Indian effigy mounds, small hills formed in the shape of animals.

After returning to camp and preparing for dinner, we find the RV water smells like rotten eggs and the park site has no water hookups. Thank god for bottled water. I read the RV manual and find that if you are not going to use the RV for an extended time, the water needs to be drained and probably disinfected before refilling. I am happy we found this out before taking off permanently. My only concern is that this seems to be a lot more like camping than I had anticipated. I had envisioned RV’ing to be closer to travelling around with my own personal hotel on wheels.

We are going through all these preparations, because we want to travel around and see the US for some 6 months straight. At least I want to do this. Although I have never RV’ed before, I imagine this as a wonderful way to see the national parks in our great country. This is not Aimee’s dream. She is being a good wife. I have always wanted to quit working full time. Although I liked working, I saw it as an interference to enjoying life and doing what I really wanted to do. So my whole working life I had a goal of accumulating enough savings so I could live full time off my stash. We always lived way below our means. Most of the time living off Aimee’s salary and saving mine. Fortunately I am not into our consumerism culture and Aimee could be persuaded to join the effort most of the time. It also helped that I learned to invest well. Because of a semi-imminent goal of living off the accumulated assets, I developed a conservative, diversified strategy that focused on regular consistent growth of the portfolio. I wanted to see the assets go up each and every month always hoping next month was the start of retirement.

Aimee was not always in full support of this goal. In fact she was downright against travelling around in a trailer. But I think I wore her down over the years when finally she relented in early 2006. After that things moved quickly. We spent the late winter packing up miscellaneous items of accumulated junk into boxes and schlepped them to a newly rented 10x15 storage unit. Our goal was to declutter the house to make it sell quickly. Both of us were amazed at how quickly we filled a large storage unit but still had a full house. We put the house up for sale; two weeks later we had a contract for sale. We both turned in our resignation at work.

There is an amazing amount of work needed prior to going mobile. The time leading up to the movers coming for our furniture was filled with more box packing, address changes, health care insurance applications, investment decisions, and did I say more packing. The packing was endless. When we finally finished donating and packing at 7pm of the last day, we were exhausted. We both turned to each other and vowed to live more simply with less possessions.