P is for Peace

Peace is freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.

To me, peace is more than just being.  Peace is a state of mind.  

I have Fibromyalgia.  Everyone's symptoms are different, but some of my symptoms include the usual pain, especially on extreme temperatures.  I am also very sensitive to noise.  I don't do well with a lot of noise, whether it's people, office settings, children's playgrounds, or even loud tv or music.  Doesn't matter what it is - I don't function well with a lot of noise.

What that meant before we became nomads is that I had to avoid a lot of places I used to enjoy going to. Eating out now meant going in off hours, like grocery shopping.  A Saturday morning at Wal-Mart?  Fuhghedaboutid.  I would run out, holding my hands over my ears, trying to prevent a panic attack.

Our nomadic lifestyle means that we can choose we go and where we stay.  We enjoy the quiet parks that are sometimes out in the middle of nowhere.  Right now, we're in the mountains of North Carolina and all I hear are the birds and the rain slowly dropping onto our roof.  This is peace for me.  Peace of sound means peace of mind for me.

​What about you?  What gives you peace of mind?

O is for  October

My favorite time in East Tennessee is October.  The shimmering heat of the summer lays waste to the cooler days and crisp evenings of fall.  

It's campfire time.  It's sit outside with a sweater time.  It's leaf peeping season.  

It's time for the bears in Cades Cove to finish eating their fill for the long winter hibernation.  It's football season.

It's time for shorter evenings.  It's time to start preparing for the winter holiday season.  It's a season of change.

What's your favorite season?
​

N is for Nomads - by choice

The definition of a nomad is:

A nomad (Greek: νομάς, nomas, plural νομάδες, nomades; meaning one roaming about for pasture, pastoral tribe) is a member of a community of people who live in different locations, moving from one place to another.

By this definition, we are members of full-time Rvers who choose to travel instead of living in one space.

Wow, this is so true.  Hubby and I are military brats and also military veterans, who are used to moving from place to place.  We lived in one place, East Tennessee for 25 years and loved our time there.  We raised a family, managed our careers, and retired there.

But the wandering bug hit us a couple of years ago and we knew that our stationary life was done.   Being disabled, it was important to my health to stay in a warm place.  The cold winters were taking their toll on me. And the humid summers weren't much easier.  Hubby had also had enough.

He managed to retire five years early, so we decided to sell everything and hit the road.  We joke that we're chasing 70 degrees, but it's somewhat true.  Physically, I do much better in a temperate climate around 70-80n degrees, as does hubby.  So, we follow the weather.  South for the winter, north for the summer.  

The joy in chasing the weather lies in the places we go.  We like to say that our plans are set in Jello (see a-z "J").  Wherever the mood hits us is where we'll go.  At first, friends and family thought we had lost our minds.  I think now, though, they love reading about our adventures.

So there you go, we're nomads.  But not in the traditional sense.  More like glamping nomads.

​Life is simply good.

M is for media - social, that is

Where would we be today without social media?  The many tools of the internet have allowed us to become bloggers, journalists, photographers, all without special training or education or a large amount of money for marketing.  

Social media allows us to chronicle our daily lives, our thoughts, our leanings and push them into the social stratosphere that has become our world.

In the beginning was Facebook.  Who knew that this simple program would become the mainstay of our lives? How we would communicate with everyone in our lives?  Want to locate an old school buddy?  Facebook is your friend.  Want to wish your best friend Happy Birthday?  Facebook is your friend.  Want to announce to the world that you're expecting?  Facebook is your friend.  Facebook has become the go-to tool for communicating outside of the workplace.  Although, most companies utilize Facebook as an integral part of their marketing plan.  

Since Facebook, many new mediums have been established.  Twitter, Instagram, just to name a couple.  The list goes on and on.

For those who want to write as a profession without working in the established workforce, there is the blogging platform.  WordPress and Blogger started the journey.  Now, there are dozens of blogging platforms available to anyone who has something to say.  I started with blogger and still use it for my personal blog.  User friendly and free.  What more could you ask for?

The next social media explosion was Pinterest.  Have a hobby?  You can spend hours on Pinterest, enjoying everything from gardening to organizing to traveling and everything in between.  It's addictive.  The term pinning it to my board has become commonplace.

Of course, I can't forget Youtube.  A video platform, it has allowed even the youngest "expert" to post how-to videos.  Need to know how to replace something.  It's on Youtube.  The entire world is on Youtube.  I confess, when I'm searching out new campgrounds, I search Youtube to look for videos.  A campground that has youtube vids will attract my attention more than one who doesn't.  With smart phones, anyone can post a video nowadays.  The popular thing on Youtube is to have your own channel with followers.  My favorite rv bloggers post videos regularly and I enjoy watching them.  Hubby watches his hosts with their vaping channels.

Of course, my favorite is the one  you're on now.  Websites.  Websites used to be challenging to say the least.  They were run by coding and could only be done by IT nerds.  Nowadays, it's easy enough to get a website template and build your own website for very little money, or even free.  Weebly is my go to for websites.  Easy to use and personalize.

So there you have social media in a small time capsule.  I wonder sometimes if we have forgotten to communicate with each other because of  the proximity of social media and I include texting in that.  Too often, I've seen people text each other - in the same room - because it was easier than opening their mouth to speak.

So, my question is, do you think social media is a godsend or a curse?  Let me know what you think.

L is for Louis, the home of our hearts

Louis is our 2008 Monaco Dynasty.  When thinking of Dynasty, I thought of the Renaissance King, hence the name Louis.

Louis was not an expected gift.  After the motor blew up on Lulu, we had trepidations about being able to trust it.  One sunny October afternoon, we were online, checking out what a nearby dealer had for sale.  Lo and behold, they had a Monaco Dynasty, the rig I had always wanted.  We went to the dealer and told Travis, our young salesman, that we were not interested in buying.  We just wanted to see if the floor plan was as great in real life as it was in pictures.  Travis took us at our word and sat silently in the captains chair while we walked through the rig.  As we walked through, we realized we were checking off one box after another on our wishlist.

Pretty soon,  we had checked off all the boxes on our wishlist.  Yep, Louis had EVERYTHING we had ever wanted in a motorhome and then some.  My pantries, washer and drier, extra bathroom, desk area convenient tv location and lots and lots of storage.  So, knowing in our practical minds, we knew we could never get this rig.  So, we casually told Travis that if he could make the sale happen under our conditions, he had a sale.  He amde it happen and we were the proud owners of this new-to-us motorhome of our dreams.  Ironically, Lulu was still in North Carolina, getting her engine rebuilt.  The dealer very kindly let us live in Louis on their lot until we were able to go get Lulu and bring her back to trade in.  What an adventurous two weeks that was!

But we firmly believe that everything happens for a reason and this was meant to happen.  If Lulu had not blown her engine, we would never have been looking at other RVs.

Below are a few pictures of our dream home.  Hope you enjoy!

K is for Kampgrounds - yes, I know it's spelled wrong, but I had to include it

Although spelled wrong, I had to include Kampgrounds in this story of our journey, because they're such an integral part of our everyday life.  So, please put your internal editor away and forgive me my trespasses.

A Kampground can make or break a trip. Kampgrounds vary from a primitive site that allows tents only with no amenities in sight all the way to the luxury resorts that have every possible amenity you can think of - hot tubs, waterfalls, spas , landscaped gardens.  And the cost of Kampgrounds can fall into those varieties.

Our travels usually take us somewhere in the middle.  We do like the natural Kampgrounds, but every once in a while we like to splurge as well.  

When we bought Louis, we knew at 43 feet, that we wouldn't be able to fit into many state parks.  That was a trade off we made.  We're also pretty adamant about having either a gravel or paved road for Louis to sit on. Getting stuck in the mud after rains isn't our idea of a good time.

Boondocking is another type of Kamping.  Boondocking can run the gamut of being in the middle of nowhere, in nature to parking at Wal-Mart.  Either way, boondocking means no hook ups - no electric or water or sewer.  That's doable for us in short spurts.  We have water tanks and we have some solar, as well as a generator, so as long as we don't have to run the air conditioner, we could boondock for a couple of days.  Just not at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is strictly overnight.

J is for Jello, as in how our plans are laid

One of the great things about our nomadic lifestyle is that we seldom have to be somewhere at a particular time. Other than planned events, such as family reunions, or doctors appointments, etc, we can make our plans in Jello, as we like to say.  Like one place better?  Stay longer.  Get to another and don't like it?  Leave and move somewhere else.

After checking out some campgrounds in New England, we've decided to cut across and spend the later part of the summer in Michigan.  Frankenmuth, Traverse City and Mackinac Island.  Then, down to Indiana to see the RV Hall of Fame.    Jello.

We don't like to be tied down to a schedule.  Sometimes, we have to.  Going to New England this summer has made it necessary for us to make solid plans ahead of time to ensure that we get our reservations where we want to be.  But we don't like being tied down.

We basically map out our travels by season.  This fall, we'll be in Tennessee.  Next winter will probably be Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.  Next summer we'll probably hit the Grand Canyon and all the other National Parks, such as Zion, Bryce, etc.  

Maybe.  So far, that's what we're thinking.  But our plans may change.  Who knows.  That's the great part of the Jello Plan.

H is for Home, as in "Home is where the heart is"

Home is where the heart is.  How many thousands of times have I heard that quote without realizing just what it meant.  

Home doesn't have to be some fancy house or cozy cottage.  Home is not a place to me.  It's a feeling I choose to have. 

​To me, home is anywhere I am with DH (See D) and my beloved furkids.  No matter where the road takes us, I'm home.

G is for Garmin, our RV GPS

When we decided to to take the plunge into fulltiming, there were several tools that we felt were absolutely necessary for us to be safe and feel secure.

One of those first tools was our Garmin GPS.  It is designed specifically for RVs and helps one avoid low bridges and other areas that an RV should not go.

We knew we had made the right choice last Spring.  In Massachusetts, Maggie, as we call her, took us on a roundabout way to our destination, one we couldn't figure out at first.  When we got to our destination, there was a covered bridge that would have forced us to turn around.  

​Some tools are absolutely necessary.  What is the one thing you can't live without?

F is for our new nomadic lifestyle - fulltiming

Fulltiming means different things to different people in the RV world.  

Some fulltimers travel the country part of the year and stay somewhere stationary for the other part of the year, whether that place is a house or a seasonal campground site.

Other fulltimers claim the title because they are no longer working and are able to travel whenever they want, although they still own their home.

Others have sold their home, but store treasured belongings in a storage shed or at the home of a loved one.

Others still work their 9-5 job, but live permanently in the RV, rather than a sticks and bricks.

And still others have sold everything they own, and packed their RV with their remaining belongings and hit the road.  Whether they stay somewhere for a day, a week, a month, or longer, when the urge hits, they hit the road for somewhere new.

We fall into the latter category.  We are nomads who lived in one place for 25 years.  Now that hubby has taken early retirement, we sold everything, packed up the RV and hit the road.  We stayed the three winter months in one place, Florida, but have discovered that that's too long for us to stay in one place.

We prefer to spend from one week to one month in a location, depending on the area.  Our sweet spot seems to be two weeks.  Enough to see the sights, do our housework and rest some.  A perfect pace for us.

​What is your definition of fulltiming?  Comment below and let us know!