Apologies for the blog silence recently (I know it’s kept you up at night…) It turns out, blowing your life up is extremely time consuming! Even though we’d done our research beforehand and divided up the incredibly long list of tasks, it’s still taken just about every hour of every day to get to this point. And we’re still not done! We’d love a couple more days to really feel ready, but that’s time we just don’t have. So instead, we’ll hit the road with a bit of a to-do list in hand and knock things out as we go. Like I’ve said in the past, this lifestyle is going to require us to be flexible and roll with things as they come up. And it looks like there’s no time like the present to embrace that concept!!
So, how are things going? Well, I never thought I’d say this, but I think Dixie may have a bit of a crush on Barney. She really seems to love him! It sounds crazy, but when you think about it, it really is pretty great for her. Pack members are within eyesight at all times, she can be under foot every second of the day, and, best of all, because mom has to wash dishes 3 times a day and because mom no longer has a disposal or a dishwasher, Dixie gets to do “rinse cycle” after every meal! Score!
As for us, things are great, but we are really worn out. Not that we’re complaining, mind you. We could just use some more time to get our act together and some more sleep. Oh well.
The mad rush started 3 weeks back when we flew to Florida to change our residency. Since Kevin’s folks live there, we were able to get in a quick visit with them and they were kind enough to let us use their car to run around. Thanks guys!
In the course of a couple hours, we criss-crossed Clay County, Florida to declare our domicile, obtain our driver’s licenses, and register to vote. In seemingly no time at all, we were officially residents of the Sunshine State.
Since our return to Virginia, we’ve sorted, stored, sold, donated and trashed all of our possessions, quickly reducing our belongings by about 75%. In the meantime, we’ve run down an enormous checklist of things to get done, knocking items out day in and day out. We’ve canceled our various services, changed our address, obtained RV and health insurance, moved our stuff into the rig, gotten the hitch and secondary braking system installed on the car, moved the furniture we’re keeping to our friend’s house, moved our keepsakes to my brother’s home, figured out our route and booked campgrounds through the end of September.
We’ve been on a whirlwind goodbye tour, meeting up with various friends and co-workers for drinks, lunch, dinner and more drinks. If we had known people liked us this much, we would have hit them up for a lot more favors for all these years. Just kidding (not really.) We will miss our friends a lot but we’re hoping they’ll take us up on our offer to come visit us wherever we may roam. 
Meanwhile, as we’ve spent more time in the RV, Kevin has become a master problem solver/technician. He’s been getting back to his engineering roots, both to fix problems as they come up and come up with new ideas to make life easier.
He’s also adjusting to life without his ceramic smoker. He is sad. But he has new gadgets to play with and those gadgets make fire and he can cook meat on them, so I’m pretty sure he’ll be ok.
So far, Kevin has cooked up steaks, a pork roast and a pork tenderloin on the (gasp) propane grill. They were delicious.
In the meantime, we’ve broken some other tasks down along gender based stereotypes. While we will split the driving and I think it’s important for me to know how everything works, Kevin has taken on the role of Poop Tank Manager while I deal with dishes, laundry and cleaning. While I once might have bristled at the idea of “girl jobs” and “boy jobs,” when it comes to poop tanks, I am all about being the precious dainty flower that I am. Plus, women continue to get paid 70 cents on the dollar compared to men, so whatever. It’s all fair. The bottom line is: Good Luck, Kevin! Dixie and I will be inside taking selfies for Instagram while you deal with that!
So that’s the update on where we are and what we’ve been up to. In just a few hours, we’ll be pulling up our jacks and heading northwest toward Hershey, Pennsylvania. If all goes well, we’ll be stuffing our faces with chocolate by the weekend. Stay tuned!