Ten years ago, when we started this fulltime journey, I really thought we would eventually land in a new place and it would become our new home. The closest we have ever gotten as a couple was Los Angeles, but as you know if you have been following along that didn’t work out for a variety of reasons. When we left LA it was with the purpose (at least for me) of seriously looking for a home base and although Tucson fit the requirements for a variety of reasons we both decided that wasn’t going to be “our place”.

So, we decided to start traveling again and with the help of Starlink we would see all of those remote places we had missed because we always needed to be where there was cell service. This was an exciting plan for a variety of reasons and Lee put together a route that included Big Bend, Carlsbad, Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore and the entire Black Hills region, UP of Michigan, Everglades, and Key West. These are places that might have cell coverage but we have always been a little leery of because they were so remote and the coverage was spotty enough to make it to risky.

It was a ton of work for him, especially because I can only travel on the weekends and we can only do things on the weekends, which required a route that had short drives and either one or two weeks or more to give us weekend days to see what was in the area. Even though we can boondock, it is easier for me to work if we have electric, so he looked mainly at city/county/state parks with some services. Those places book up fast though which meant either locking in reservations in advance (reducing flexibility) or winging it (causing extra stress upon arrival). To be clear if we were retired or I wasn’t working this would be a ton easier but that has never been our situation.

Then we hit Big Bend. This was the first true test of our new travel plan and it did not go well. Turns out Starlink did not work well enough to forgo cell coverage as a backup which had Lee rethinking the whole plan. After reworking the route to accommodate the need for stable cell coverage, Lee decided it just wasn’t worth it. Not only would it be very expensive to stay in places with stable cell coverage, may of the best locations would be unavailable to us. Couple that with the fact we would only have 1-2 weekend days to explore and that left a ton of time Lee would be on his own in a place he didn’t really want to be.

So Lee came to me and said he wanted to go back to our hometown of Columbus. Lee’s parents, friends, and work opportunities are all there and he thought it made the most sense to get us through the next 7 years of me working. He found a city park that we could stay in outside of town and we would get there and then see what made sense from there.

I’ll be honest as much as I agreed with his decision, making it was still a bit of a shock. The last several years I have largely felt rudderless as we have been trying different permutations of this lifestyle. The one constant in my life has been my work, but even that has been challenging as I have been working hard to get a handle on my new job. After taking some time to digest, my main feeling was one of relief that we would be in a stable situation for a while, but I had serious reservations about Columbus.

Columbus is a great town, but we left 23 years ago and largely have not looked back. After seeing this gorgeous country, it just cannot compare when it comes to nature spaces and definitely does not have the views that I crave. On the plus side my father and my brother both live there along with solid medical care, relatives, and people I have known for a long time. I haven’t maintained the kind of relationships Lee has over the years so I don’t personally feel I can pick up where I left off with most people I know.

My other big concern is that I wasn’t my best self when I lived there. It took me moving away to really self-actualize and grow beyond the roles I was born into. I know some of you will totally get that and even though I am much older and stronger than I was in my 30’s it still gives me pause. I really feel like I have grown into my best self and this lifestyle and the things I have learned from it have been a big part of that.

We also have all of the practical concerns of how do we transition back? Do we become snow birders? Do we buy a piece of property or live in an apartment? Do we stay in the RV? Columbus is not RV friendly and there are very few places to stay. It also gets far too cold in the winter for us to live in an RV year round. I have consistently said that for me the only reason I would live in an RV fulltime is to see the beautiful places and that has not changed. But I also don’t want to make a relatively short-term decision that I will regret in the future. I have 7-10 good working years left in me and would like to use that time to pile up as much retirement money as possible. That being said I am not willing to live in a crappy situation to make that happen. Basically we will have a ton of decisions to make and I am not confident we will be on the same page when it comes to making them.

So what do we do? Well, I really think it is important that we take this one step at a time and not rush into anything. We both need to pay close attention to our feelings and figure out a way to make decisions that will work for the both of us. Like any transition in life this is a big deal, and I am not going to minimize the change in our day to day lives this will cause. I will also keep writing this blog until a transition is complete. I have always thought how we stop will be just as important as how we started and I will do my best to document that as honestly as possible.

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune