After raising two daughters and managing two careers, we realized we were ready to give full rein to our love of travel! We're Doug and Alison, two fifty-somethings progressing from dreaming about full-time RVing to actually living our dream. This blog will chronicle our preparation (practical and emotional!) for leaving our fixed address, our selection and purchase of an RV rig and other necessities, our transition to a traveling life, and our travels. Along the way, we will share what (and who!) has inspired us in this journey, and the stories of the places we visit and the people we meet. We will also share our real life: what works, what doesn't, what we did right, what we would have done differently if we'd known better.
We arrived in the Washington, DC area in 1996 for Doug's federal computer network defense job. It was only meant to be for a year or two! Twenty-three years later, we can look back on a wonderful community of friends, two amazing daughters, several pets (currently a part-Dachshund, but formerly hamsters and guinea pigs), Doug's continuing career in government computer systems and Alison's in bookkeeping systems, worthwhile volunteer mission trips to Belize and the mid-Atlantic U.S. - and a houseful of stuff. Paring and purging will be one of our first preparation tasks!
Doug grew up as an Army brat, moving 18 times in his first 18 years. Alison didn't move around nearly that much, but also grew up in various countries and different regions of the U.S. As a married couple, we lived in San Antonio, Germany, and Los Angeles. After all that moving, we never dreamed that we would settle in one place and raise children who come home from college to the same house we brought them home to from the hospital. We traveled with the girls as they grew up - van trips to West Virginia and Texas and Canada, volunteer mission trips in the U.S. and abroad, family vacations to Florida and Costa Rica and St. Kitts - but Virginia has been a home base for the four of us. We are fortunate that our daughters are excited for the two of us to follow our dream, but all four of us are a little apprehensive about what giving up this home base will mean.
Comments