Are We Lost Yet?

So, when is the last time you got lost?  Of course I get lost all the time, Doug not so much.  He has this uncanny sense about direction.  You know, the kind of guy that goes someplace ONCE and remembers 10 years later how to get there?  But for me, if I don't concentrate on all of the visuals (turn by the tree with the gnarly bark and No Trespassing sign, look for the crazy mint colored house and go left...) I'll be lost every time.  Even if I've been there 10 times.  But after a few pot holes, speed bumps, and detours, we've decided getting lost might just be a good thing.

After waiting over two years to sell our house, while Doug commuted over 2 hours for 2 1/2 years, along with trying to sell a business for 2 years, and move two kids to new locations, we decided that perhaps having a stationary house is overrated.  Our thoughts strayed into the realm that perhaps being tied down spending almost all of our lives working hard to maintain and pay for a dwelling that will merely cause us even more agony trying to sell is merely a burden keeping us from living on the street, which is what is something I pondered at my 56th showing of the house.  Maybe we need to take a little sabbatical from "normal life" as we know it for a recharge, explore a few "roads less travelled", and take a little installment in our retirement. And thus, it was only natural that we started thinking about the possibilities of alternative housing, mobile living, box living, living in dumpster, sleeping in a van down by the river, or other alternative ways to cash it all in...for a bit at least. To assuage the feelings of being tied down we began to consider what some of the gray hair folks (who we now call "our people") have known for the last 5 decades. Gotta go mobile! 

Maybe we don't really NEED a house, maybe we need to get a little lost in America for a while. Remember the film from 1985 with Albert Brooks and Monica Mcgowan Johnson, where they both quit their jobs and decide to travel the country in a Winnebago?  Yep, that's what we are doing.  Except it 'aint a Winnebago.

Meet Max, Mindful Max.  He's a Chevy Duramax Diesel and he told us he'll take us gallantly for a mind shift. What's with the mind bit? Max told us (kinda like the way Cinderella's Birkenstock fit) that he was the man for the job and would instill a little bit of perspective adjustment for us along the road. His specialty is simplicity, a self-sustained dwelling that is mindful unto itself. He's mindful of every bit of energy we need to live. He's a mindful RV willing to help us expand our horizons, to cultivate paying attention from the inside out by embracing the present moment, and becoming more aware of how our thoughts and emotions influence our perspective and reactions. What the hey? I thought he just needed diesel fuel.

After packing up the house into three storage sheds, me quitting my job, moving one daughter to a new apartment and move the other daughter (and one rambunctious cat) to our lovely friends Tim & Amy Teelin's house, we trekked out to St. Cloud, MN to purchase Max, our new home. We headed out to give this mobile living a trial run at Lake Lenwood in West Bend, WI while Doug finished up at his job at the end of September 2014.  Cute little lake, cute little town, and close enough to Milwaukee that Doug could commute to work in about half an hour.  

To help us get the hang of things, my brother Steve and sister-in-law Peri sent me the RV bible for my birthday. Thanks again for the primer S&P!!! 

We headed back to the Dells/Baraboo area to prep for travel and say our goodbyes and then on October 1st we headed for the open road planning to travel about 600 miles, or try to overnight someplace around Sandusky, OH by nightfall.  Our next two nights we would be "dry camping" or "boon docking" (ok, don't be impressed, learning the RV jargon is like learning to turn on the faucet) in the Walmart parking lot.  

Heading out October 1st

Thanks WannaBee for Prepping Area!

Camping with the truckers!  Activities include: diesel engine wake up calls, calisthenics at the in-house McDonalds (bench pressing the McPatrons), trail rides in the shopping carts, and playing find the shopper not wearing pajamas. 

Heading into Cleveland wondering...is it fog, smog, sfog, alien dust? Glad we're just passing through.

Yeah! Made it to Amishland...just a buggy ride from one border to the other along Lake Erie.