My one reservation with all this downsizing, selling the house and heading out in an RV was that we didn’t own an RV yet . I had this vision of us destitute, no home, no belongings and in dire straights! Sleeping on a park bench, or worse!

We had been searching all avenues for an RV, but as we were looking for an older model that we could buy outright, as soon as they came on the market, they were gone, or they were out in California (there are not too many good used RV’s for sale in North Carolina), or there was something majorly wrong with them.

Then, by chance, one day, when I was angry with Linsley because he had refused to go look at an RV which was 5 hours drive away in Virginia, I started looking at Craigslist, even though I had sworn I wouldn’t look until he apologized! Well, there was an ad which had been placed by the son of a couple who were selling their RV. We had almost been burned before with a scenario like this, so I was very dubious, but thought what harm can a phone call do? So, courage in hand, I made the call and got voicemail! I was ground to a screaming HALT! I left a message, not expecting to actually hear back from a real person, I was sure it was going to be a scam.

Half an hour later, our phone rang and it was from the same number I had called. On the other end of the line was Ada, a wonderfully lovely lady, who confirmed that her son had placed the ad for her and her husband because they were not tech savvy! We had a lovely chat and she told me about their RV, which they had bought brand new and loved so much. From the pictures that were posted, you could tell that this RV had been loved over the years. The great surprise for us, was that it had a new engine and transmission and many other new parts in recent years.

We arranged to drive the 3.5 hours to see it, we also made sure to take the money with us because if it was as good as we thought, we intended to buy it. Sure enough, this beauty was everything that Ada and her lovely husband, Billy, had told us it was, and we were very happy to buy this well loved RV. She is a Four Winds Hurricane, 1996, but the inside looks almost like it did when it was brand new. No wear, no stains, just lovely! The only thing that we need to do to it, is to replace or add our names on the outside where Ada and Billy’s names appear.

We weren’t able to take it with us the day we saw it, because it was a Sunday and we couldn’t find a notary public to take care of the title transfer, so we agreed to come back the following weekend. We put a good deposit on it and left for home.

The following week, we headed back down to Ada and Billy’s home to seal the deal and have the title transferred over to us and we drove home in our new home, this beauty!

I will always be very grateful to Ada and Billy for taking such great care of her, and we will stay in touch with them and keep them updated on our travels and adventures. We couldn’t have hoped to find a better RV or such a lovely couple to buy it from. Thank goodness Ada and Billy didn’t suffer any great damage from Hurricane Dorian that just passed them by.

Since we bought her, our RV has been great, I cleaned her from top to bottom (more because I am anal about that) and she is now packed up with all our belongings, ready for us to hit the road as soon as the estate sale is completed. Our neighbors have been wondering what we are doing, having the house prettied up and then an RV arriving on the front, so we talked to them and explained what we are doing, and to our surprise, none of them thought we were crazy!

Some friends sent a big sticker for the side of the RV, (we must find a name for her!) and we stuck it on her this Saturday. It looks great and Linsley was very happy with the fact that the colors matched perfectly with the original stripes on the RV.

Everything is coming together now and although neither one of us has any regrets about our decision, we are nervous/anxious/scared/freaking out because it is all very imminent now. We will be moved into the RV in 6 days from now, and then all our belongings will be sold, and we will be officially full timers! Very exciting, but also pretty scary!

Although we paired everything down to bare essentials, the RV is packed to the gills, and we figure that along the way, we will realize that there are things that really aren’t essentials once we get used to living free of material possessions, and when that happens, we will have a second pairing down and unload some of the things we now feel are essential. The one thing that our two eldest sons asked us to keep for them….. their childhood teddy bears! So they are just a couple of things that will always be carried with us, at least until they visit and take them. They both live overseas, so that won’t be any time in the next few months.

When we move into the RV next week, we will be staying on the driveway for a few days, then we will move to the campground around the corner from our house at the lake, and this will be our first real test of all the systems and our first real taste of what life on the road will be like. If you weren’t already aware, this will be Linsley and my first time in an RV, we have been camping (or more like glamping) for a few years, but this will be our first experience with RVing. We are anxious to work out how everything works and get used to all the systems on it. Fortunately, Billy gave us all the original books and manuals on everything, so we have a big advantage there.

My next post will be from the lake, I may even post a picture of Linsley emptying the waste tanks for the first time! (That should be hysterical!) He is absolutely dreading it! LOL