Our Someday Has Arrived

May 24, 2021 - After a very long and emotional day, we finally pulled into Tuckahoe State Park in Centreville, Maryland. It took us much longer than anticipated to get on the road, so we arrived in the dark (not something we usually do) and now were trying to back into the campsite. Another stress in the day. But at last, we are finally parked, settled and ready to start our journey.

I guess I should rewind a bit and provide some background on how we got here (and no I don’t mean by driving Route 50).

My name is Kimberleigh and my husband is Jonathan. We both work full-time. I’ve worked remotely for about eight years with only the need to go into the office one day a week. My husband worked remote since COVID-19 hit. During our time working from home, we both commented that we wish we could hit the road in our RV full time. We have a 2019 Tiffin Phaeton 40IH. We had used it for vacations; howver, usually no more than two weeks at a time. Sincec we are both working from home, we wanted to be on the road more. The only problem was that with my husband’s job, there was always a possibility that he would be called into work on sight.

Then, much to our surprise, my husband’s boss approached him with an opportunity to transition into a different role. He could be remote and work from anywhere he wanted. OMG, is this really happening? Could we really do this? Then the fear set in. There were no more excuses. There were still challenges, but nothing to really stop us from hitting the road.

So we decided to do test run to see if the two of us could both work remote and coexist in the RV. What would it be like with both of us on conference calls at the same time five feet apart? Would our internet support all of our video conference calls? And would the dogs be ok? Oh, I forgot to mention we have three (yes, three) Labrador Retrievers.

So we hit the road for six weeks. We learned some lessons along the way. We certainly can’t travel every week or we will burn out. Plus, working all week didn't leave any time to explore an area if we are traveling each weekend. But as we finished our six weeks and started our drive home, it hit us…we didn’t want to go home. Don’t get me wrong, we really liked our house. It was our dream house. But it was a lot of work. It was a big house for just the two of us and three dogs. We put a lot of time and energy into getting the house the way we wanted it. But for what purpose in the end? We decided not to make any decision until after we were home for at least one week.

We walked in the house and my immediate thought was that our home was so nice and comfortable. It seemed even bigger now that we had been in the motorhome for six weeks. But we will wait a week and see how we feel.

After a week we talked about it and decided that even though we both really liked our house and it was very nice, we wanted to be on the road. Given that our jobs now allowed us to be remote, why not take advantage of the situation. Instead of waiting until we are retired to do this journey, we could actually do it now while we were still making and saving money. We could do it while we were younger. Plus, if 2020 taught us anything, we never know what tomorrow will bring. So why wait?

So we called a realtor, started purging, listed the house and within one month to the day of being back from our six week test road trip, we accepted an offer on our house and were under contract. Now we had six weeks to purge to get down from an almost 5,000 square foot house with multiple cars to just enough to put into one small storage space and a 41 foot motorhome.

We had multiple yard sales (boy do I dislike yard sales) and met some great people. It’s a shame we only met them as we were leaving.

We made several trips to the local shelter for donations.

We made what felt like endless trips to the dump and transfer stations. How did we accumulate so much stuff? OMG, never again.

So that brings us back to today, May 24, 2021. The day we were completely out of the house, even though closing of the sale was not until May 26. We wanted to give ourselves wiggle room in case something in this process was delayed or went wrong. But with all of the hard work, lots of long days and lots of tears, we met our deadline. We walked through our now empty dream home one last time with both of us crying. What awesome memories we had in this home. We started our lives together in this home. Had it before we were even engaged. Had our brunch for family and friends the day after our wedding in this home. That was before we re-landscaped the entire outside and added the pool. We hosted pool parties, family get togethers, Thanksgivings with both sides of the family, played games and watched countless movies and football games in the media room. Boy did we cover a lot in just eight short years. But now it was time to say goodbye and move onto the next venture. And so we hit the road. Jon in the motorhome with what now contained all of our belongings and me in the Subaru Outback with our three dogs. We would be selling the Subaru in the next couple of days. But for now, at least one last time, it was the dog commuter car.

We left Huntingtown, Maryland in Calvert County and headed to the eastern shore to Centreville. We stayed the first two nights of our “new life” in Tuckahoe State Park near friends (old neighbors). What a beautiful state park. Probably would have been more enjoyable if we remembered to fill the fresh water tank before we backed into the spot in the dark. We had enough water to get us through 48 hours, but we would have to be conservative. Oh well, there are always going to be challenges. How you respond is what matters. Let’s just say with the heat and the emotions of leaving the house, how we responded was not pleasant the first night. But we both knew it will get better. We just needed sleep.