Welcome!

Jill's Journal: If only I had a penny for each time someone asked if we had a blog! We finally decided it was time to go public. I’ve been keeping an occasional journal of our preparations to travel with the intention of sharing it with our girls someday. (Because surely someday they’ll wonder what possessed us to pack them into an RV and hit the road). Since my typing skills are stronger than my handwriting skills, it seemed a natural to make it a blog and that way my parents could track our travels as well. And now it’s morphed into something a little bigger…we’ve decided to also share it with our friends and family.

If you’re just joining us, the brief version is this: we’ve sold our house (closing in a matter of hours!), have bought a fifth wheel, and plan to travel North America for the next three years. We have a loose itinerary that includes 49 states and parts of Canada. Rob telecommutes already and can work from anywhere, so we realize this makes us incredibly blessed and very, very lucky. Our three girls are young with our oldest just finishing kindergarten tomorrow, so I’m going to try my hand at homeschooling for a few years. We can’t think of a better education for them (and for us!) than seeing the country firsthand.

As people have learned about the adventure that awaits us, we realized how many either long for this type of opportunity or think we’re completely off our rocker. Either way, it’s clear many people are very curious. We thought this blog would be a way we could take everyone along for the ride.

Both Rob and I will post. His entries (like the one immediately below) are labeled with an “R.” Mine will always begin with “Jill’s Journal.”

It will take another week or so for us to completely wrap up things here in Lexington, Kentucky, and then we’ll be on our way. So, stay turned and join us on our journey if you’d like. And welcome!

Second Garage Sale in the Books

Jill's Journal: Another garage sale; another success. What a great feeling! This time it was very spontaneous with zero preparation. My parents were here visiting and were up for the adventure, so we had lots of help (Kristi and Adam were back for round two as well) and lots of fun on an unseasonably warm day. We had less traffic and sold fewer things, but bigger things. I parted with my china, Rob parted with a ton of old electronics, and we all said a happy goodbye to various and sundry other items. We netted a lovely $457. Once again, this was just stuff we weren’t using anyway…fantastic!

I’m told there is a season for garage sales here and we are definitely outside of that. With winter fast approaching, it’ll be spring before we get to have another. Darn…just as I was getting the hang of it!

They Know!

Jill's Journal: My parents came from California to Kentucky to visit us last week and other than enjoying their visit, my focus was in telling them about our RV plans. Truth be told, I was terrified! Here I am a responsible, grown woman with kids of my own, and I was afraid to tell my parents for fear of their disapproval. Crazy, right?

Turns out I needn’t have worried. To my great and wonderful surprise, they took the news FABULOUSLY. Astoundingly well. Kristi thought my presentation helped: I told them how we never dreamed we’d leave Kentucky, but we’ve learned the only way to be competitive in the Thoroughbred industry here as breeders is to have far deeper pockets than we do. I told them we want a farm again someday, but we can see the benefits of a regional market as opposed to the top Kentucky market. I told them how our trip to the Central Coast of California last year opened our eyes to the realization that we could possibly live somewhere else. I reminded them how Rob already telecommutes and can work from anywhere. And I told them how places like Montana were considerations as a future home, but we very well might still stick with Kentucky – we honestly don’t know what the future holds. They’ve been hoping we’d move back West since we headed East 12 years ago and got very excited at all the above…

And then I told them that we had thought it would be so neat to “live” in various places for a few weeks at a time, kind of as a trial or test of future hometowns for us. I said that idea had morphed even farther and melded with our desire to travel the country. And then I broke the big news: we’d finally arrived at a plan of buying an RV and spending the next few years traveling before settling down again.

I waited for any sign of disapproval, but there was none. NONE! They took it amazingly well. In fact, to my great surprise, they were extremely positive about it! They were surprised at the plan as it is out of the conventional world they’re accustomed to, but they almost thought it was kind of neat and said it’s the kind of thing we need to do now while we can. You could have knocked me over with a feather at their reaction! It made me very, very happy and I don’t think I will ever underestimate them again. :-)

My parents' fabulous response surprised me so pleasantly that the next morning I worried if perhaps the margaritas and bourbon consumed during our “talk” had impacted their judgment. I asked them about it again just to make sure and the reaction stayed the same. It was like Christmas in July for me! As a few days passed, they thought of new questions to ask and had fun little realizations like wondering what would happen to my marvelous Dyson vacuum during our downsizing. (Side note: My Mom wants to volunteer to babysit it!!)

They took it so great!! I love my parents.

Next hurdles: telling Rob’s Mom and his employers. Yikes.

Parent Considerations

Jill's Journal: By this point, some of our closest friends know of our RV plans. Some undoubtedly think we’re crazy and some think we’re cool, but we’re not ready to spill the beans to the world just yet, or more accurately, to our parents. Here we are, in our mid-30s, adults in every sense of the word, and we’re afraid to tell our parents! We don’t know how they’ll react, but we suspect they’re going to meet the news with skepticism and concern. Our suspicion is that Rob’s Mom will most likely worry about how it affects her, as she moved here to Kentucky nearly nine years ago to be near us, and my Mom and Dad will most likely worry about how it will affect the well-being of their grandkids.

Regardless, this is a little more complex than a move to a new state and we don’t think either of the parental units are going to be pleased with us. Maybe they’ll surprise us. We hope they do.

Either way, it’s a conversation we’re not looking forward to having. We’ve thought long and hard about the best time to tell them and we’ve sort of given ourselves a deadline of Christmas. The trip is still a year and a half away at this point – no sense in telling them too soon and letting them stew over it for an extra year. Christmastime is plenty of time in advance and will give them six months to adjust to the news. I’d really like to just wait and spring it on them about a week before we leave so we don’t have to hear about it any longer than we have to!! Too bad that’s probably not the best course of action.