One Month Down

Most of you know by now that we have sold our home in Plano and bought a Class A RV (MUCH bigger than the camper in earlier posts!).  We are now officially full-time RVers and celebrated our one month anniversary yesterday.  It has been a great month, full of learning and cooler August temperatures that make this Texas girl giddy.   It has been a month of firsts, following a summer of lasts as we closed out our home of 23 years.  We will leave that for a future blog topic on how transition from your home of 23 years and 2300 square feet to a 37 foot RV.  Today, let us celebrate completing our first month on the road and give you an update.

We left Dallas on August 11 and spent our first official night in Lubbock at the Pheasant Ridge Winery.  For the cost of a delightful wine tasting, we were able to park among the grapevines and enjoy a beautiful Lubbock sunset.

Local wineries and distilleries are on the list

Not a bad way start –  (that heavy sigh of relief you hear is from from Barry to hear me say that!) We then made our way up through New Mexico to Fort Collins, CO where we spent two weeks at a extremely clean and well-maintained KOA.  We had a delightful spot with a berm behind us and a paved patio, complete with wrought-iron furniture.  It appears Barry, worried about me, had specifically asked for one of their best spots to keep me from bolting from this adventure in the first week. (notice a trend with Barry?)

Those first weeks in an RV are organizing and reorganizing items as we tried to fit all our things into the various compartments of the RV, then remember where it is.  With storage inside and under the RV, the first step was to determine what we needed daily access and what might less handy.  The biggest questions came in the kitchen where you have a lot of larger items with not very large cabinets.    Enter creativity as instant pots fit in ottomans and large pots move under the bed. Wine glasses (very important) are wrapped in personal sleeves and stored in a box to keep glass save in a moving vehicle.

Not surprising, we had brought more than we could store.  Luckily, the reason we headed to Colorado first was to move the boys into their new college homes.  The boys lucked out as many items that didn’t make the transition to the RV made their way into their new homes.  Jason’s apartment is particularly well equipped with our everyday plateware and silverware from the house as ceramic plates are too thick and cumbersome for this lifestyle!   He was most happy to receive our slow cooker and has made great use of it already.

After two weeks Fort Collins with Jason, we spent two weeks outside of Denver helping Drew.  Not only did this give us a great opportunity to spend time with the boys, but we also got to enjoy their college towns in a different way with the longer stay.   I have to agree that they both picked well in going to school in CO.  The weather was amazing as the high was usually at most in the 80s and when we were in Denver area, specifically the camp in Golden,  the mornings were often in low 50s!  Heaven for me!  And both Fort Collins and Denver have a lot of great spots to eat, drink and enjoy.   Drew even took me to a concert at the gorgeous Red Rocks.   We will do some blogs on those in the future too.

Now we are in Kansas City, MO enroute to Jackson, MS for a family wedding at the end of the month.   There is certainly something to be said for not worrying about what to pack as you have your whole house with you!

This was just a quick update as I get back into the swing of blogging about our adventures.  The transition has been smoother than I thought in many ways -I really didn’t think I would adjust to cooking in such a small place as easily or be able to sleep well in the RV.  But it has also thrown my daily routine into a tizzy.  And while I likely needed a shakeup of my routine and habits, I am ready to regain some consistency, including regular blogging and social media to stay in touch with all of you.

Take care!