Rend Lake Illinois

We are on the road again.  Today we are headed to Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham, Alabama.  Our last two days in Rend Lake, Illinois were great.  The US Army Corps of Engineers have got it going on with their park.  The lake was gorgeous... I wish we would've had a boat!  Diggy discovered swimming and frolicked several times in the water.  The sites were large, wooded and had paved RV pads.  Jerry said the bathrooms were nice (we paid a lot of money to bring our own bathroom... I generally don't use the park facilities).  Full hookups for $22 a night.  Love it.  Two thumbs up for South Marcum Campground! 

We made a couple Walmart runs (what trip is complete without Walmart?) and found a farmer's market.  Picked up some produce there and some longhorn steaks.  We will marinate those and grill them up in the next couple days. 

Only six hours to our next stop.  The first leg of our journey was 9 hours which we decided was a bit too long.  We also arrived after dark which was not ideal.  We should be rolling in today before supper time and in the daylight hours. 

I'll try to attach some pics from the last couple days... Still haven't figured this whole thing out.  ;).

And so it begins...

We picked up our new Bighorn back in May and spent the summer traveling here and there.  Jerry officially retired May 1.  My plans for exit from the DOC have been moved up to September 2016.  At the present time - I'm planning to go back to Tech School for a semester and get a Sterilization Tech diploma.  This degree would enable me to get certified and work in hospitals sterilizing surgical instruments.  I have found many short term temp jobs (like traveling nurses) around the country that would provide a back up plan if we find ourselves lacking in the money or health insurance department down the road. 

This morning we left on our first BIG adventure.  Our end point is Davenport, Florida. Today's travels had us leaving home headed to Madison to pick up Optimus (Prime... That is the fifth wheel... He does quite a Transformation when setting up).  Optimus needed some warranty work done and had been at Camping World for the past month allegedly getting the work done.  Upon arriving... Not so much.  They did about 1/4 of the work they were supposed to.  While I walked the dog - Jerry made a scene and got called into the office.  After Jerry unloaded on the store manager enough and as my vacation clock was ticking, we loaded up, headed out and will plan to get the work done in Florida.  We are now headed for Rend Lake in Southern Illinois where we will spend the first two nights of our journey at a Corps of Engineers campground. For those who enjoy camping - look into the C.O.E. parks.  They have beautiful, big sites on water and are very inexpensive.  We have our yellow lab Dagwood (aka Diggy) joining us on the trip.  He's old and arthritic and Jerry figured he would appreciate wintering in Florida as opposed to freezing his old bones in Wisconsin.  We will continue to update our progress on our official maiden voyage. 

I have no idea what I am doing

So - as we are in the early stages of the next chapter of our new lives I have decided to dedicate a blog to all of our preparations.  What better time to do that but at 230 am when I should be sleeping. 

To get everyone caught up to speed:  From early on in our marriage we have dabbled in "camping."  Back when Allie was a baby - we bought tent camping supplies.  We did that a few times with our last "camping" trip with toddler Allie, baby Jake, Eagle River and monsoon season.  After emergency evacuation to a hotel at 3 am on our first night and two more rain drenched days, the tent and all camping supplies were lovingly placed in the nearest dumpster. 

Fast forward to the mid-2000's...we again were searching high and low for a camper.  We started looking at pop-ups but soon moved onto bigger and better things.  We bought a Jayco travel trailer that was more than sufficient.  We kept that for several years and then upgraded to a newer Dutchmen Fifth Wheel.  In the Dutchmen, we have traveled around at times and kept it parked on seasonal sites.  Jerry lived in it for 6 months last summer while working Boscobel. 

I think it was about that time that we started discussions about living in the RV and traveling full-time.  We were very surprised to learn that there are millions of people in the US who consider themselves to be "full timers."  When we initially started researching this and thinking it was a do-able plan for our future, we were figuring our "future" to be in maybe 10 years, when I (Jill) was 52 and able to collect my retirement without penalty.   After Jake was done with high school and getting on to whatever he was going to do.  After Allie was most of the way through college and had a clear direction in her life. 

So - we started researching all the aspects related to being a "full-timer."  We read articles in magazines, stories on the internet and blogs of other full-timers.  One such blog www.rv-dreams.com
was where we gathered much of our information in those early days.  Howard's website and blog was full of so much information about how to start, budgeting information and workamping (??? that will be another day) just to name a few.  Howard & Linda also host information rallies which we signed up to attend in Goshen IN back in September 2014.  That week provided so much information that our heads were swimming by the time we left.  It further intensified our desire to get going on this sooner rather than later. 

We began looking in earnest at fifth wheels that would be appropriate for full timing.  We had our list of "must haves" and our list of "really want to haves" all prepared and set off on the nearly impossible task of finding what we wanted.  We initially thought buying a slightly used rig (2-3 years old) would be more practical as the previous owner would've taken the hit on the depreciation.  However after searching nationwide - we were unable to find a rig that had the must haves.  We then decided to start looking at new fifth wheels and ordering something with all the must haves and most of the want to haves.  After bouncing between a couple manufacturers, we finally decided on the 2016 Heartland Bighorn 3760EL.   After discussing with the salesman, making our list and checking it twice - he crunched the numbers coming in $1000 less than the budget amount we had decided on.  We took that as a sign...

We had looked to "the signs" several times throughout the process.  The Department of Corrections has become an increasingly difficult place to work.  Jerry had repeatedly been denied transfer to facilities closer to home.  He last interviewed for a position where I work in Chippewa Falls.  When they held that position for over 2 months, we took that as another sign that he should just be done with it all.  We took our beloved Dutchmen over to Ted's RV Land and traded it in on our brand new Bighorn.

The Bighorn is currently being built and expected to be delivered May 15th.  Jerry's last day of work is May 1st.  I am planning to work through June, 2017 when Jake graduates from high school.  As we continue our preparations, I will record our progress here.