Anticipation

As I discussed in the post "The Plan", we had to order our 'forever rig' back in May, before the house sold.  The whole process took place over the phone and with exchanges of option sheets and engineering orders by email.  But it is not like we had done this blind, far from it.  Cyndee and I had years invested in window shopping and tire kicking before we picked a manufacturer of our dream rig.

We attended RV shows in Georgia and surrounding states with the RV Supershow in Tampa, FL being a favorite that we returned to a number of years.  We found Tampa to be the place where key people from the manufacturers were.  You could go one-on-one with them and really get a good feel for a company's approach to building a coach.  Tampa is where we met Phil Brokenicky, owner of New Horizons.  Phil is a former banker that turned manufacturer of RVs with a different business model than most in the industry.  His business was based on custom-built, made-to-order only.  He had no dealers, no middle men, no sales lot, no distributors.  Everything - manufacturing, marketing, sales, service was all done in one place, Junction City, Kansas.  A rig is not built until it is ordered.

This is Hillsboro River State Park Campground.  It is our favorite when attending the Tampa RV Supershow.

The Tampa RV Supershow is held in January.  The weather is usually pleasant, which is good to help get through the thousands of displays.

In the early years of our search we were not too crazy about the styling, especially the exterior, of New Horizons.  They were obviously built rugged and well engineered coaches, but they were just so darned "boxy" with insufficient window size and quantity.  And the interior decor looked dated the day it rolled out of the factory.

The manufacturer we were most attracted to for the first nine years of the 'the plan' (Teton Homes) unfortunately succumbed to the economic crash.  They had got themselves stretched too thin when the RV business was booming right before the crash and did not have a chance of surviving the downturn in discretionary spending that the crash brought on.  Lucky for us that as the years went by New Horizons styling caught up with the times and they made some great advancements in engineering too.

Our decision to switch to New Horizons put an extra dent in the financial part of our plan, but I think it will be well worth it.  We will start finding out in a few weeks, we should get the call to come pick it up the first of August (2012).

Regardless of placing the order, specifying options, writing custom engineering changes and securing financing over the phone there were some things that we did not feel good about doing long distance; picking colors.  Cabinet stain color, tile color, carpet color, furniture color, valances and exterior paint.

It is a long way to Junction City, KS from Johns Creek, GA.  Roughly 940 miles and almost 16 hours of driving time.  But we packed Putt-putt (Cyndee's PT Cruiser which gets double the mileage of Big Gulp (the F-550 truck)) and headed West on Memorial Day weekend.  We needed to be at the factory first thing on Friday morning so we headed out on a Wednesday.  Our first night we laid over in Paducah, KY.  Pretty nice place.

There is a park near here that is called Land Between the Lakes.  It is a strip of land between two river lakes formed by dams on the Columbia and Tennessee rivers.  The area is gorgeous and we plan to put this on our list of places to visit.

Thursday's drive had us going through St. Louis and Kansas City before finally making our destination.  We settled in at the Marriott Courtyard and got a good nights rest.  Friday found us at the factory door first thing in the morning.  We met Drew, Phil's son and New Horizons' sales manager and got down to the business of working out the last details.

Even though we were there to make final choices on options for the rig, the construction had already started.  We took a break and did a factory tour to see how these big rigs are built and actually see ours in various stages of construction.

The chassis was nearly done.  Axles were on and the slide-out hydraulic drives were in place.

This part of the tour was kind of ho-hum for Cyndee but the engineer in me was doing back-flips with excitement.  I was getting to look at every fit, every weld, every joint, it was great.  I was really impressed with all the gusseting, this thing is solid!

Another thing I really like is the suspension and brakes.  The suspension is a high-tech rubber-coupled device that is independent for each of the six wheels.  The brakes are better than anything I have ever had on a any trailer of any kind that I have towed.  They are electric/hydraulic disc brakes.  Most trailer brakes are traditional drum brakes and actuated by large, powerful magnets.  Not these.  These use an electric signal to actuate hydraulics just like your car does it (the hydraulic part).  But unlike your car, these discs are big, plenty big enough to haul down 20,000 lbs all by themselves instead of depending on the truck to do the bulk of the braking. And there are six of them.

From the chassis shop we walked into the next area where the side-walls get their insulation and laminate lay-up.  Right there in front of us stood our wall.  It was rolling in on the cart as we were entering the area.

So again I got to see all the fits and welds.  The craftsman did not seem bothered by me doing all this "inspecting", I think they were proud of their work.  I would be too, it looked great.

Next was the cabinet shop and once again there was construction of cabinetry specifically for our rig.  Remember, each rig is custom built, they do not have standard cabinetry built up just waiting for a rig to come along.  Our entertainment center has doors and drawers to our specs, the kitchen cabinetry accommodates a flip-up counter top extension in a location different than most people choose and special dimensions and plumbing must be allotted for the Fisher and Paykel drawer dishwasher.  We also designed (actually borrowed the design from another full timer) for a shoe garage.  I will post pictures of these when we pick up the rig. But for now here are some cabinets that are underway.

This is the galley counter where the sink, dishwasher and utensil drawers will be.  Everything is faced in oak.

These cabinets span the width of the rear of the coach, just above the big picture window.  They are laying on their back and if you click on the picture and enlarge it you can see where our name is written on it.  The cabinet shop was running about three jobs concurrently, each customer's name is clearly marked to keep things straight.

Here is the large cabinetry for the bedroom.  That is Cyndee standing there to the left so you can get an idea of the scale.  Up high on each side is a wardrobe, the center is the make-up table/dresser.  The notch up high is where a flip-down LCD TV will live.  And in the center bottom, between double drawers will be a cedar lined hamper.

As I write this all these should be finished and getting installed.  The chassis is long done and the sidewalls and roof are on, the rig has already made its first road trip; to Indiana to be painted and then back again to finish all the countless little details inside and out.

Just a couple, maybe three weeks to go before we get the call to come get our new home.  We are getting fidgety with anticipation but we will have to hang on a little longer.

Getting home back "home"

The day after the 4th was a lot like the day before the fourth.  Lots of folks helping with whatever needed to be done.  The carcasses of all the spent fireworks had to be cleared from the dam and decorations from all around the property had to be taken down and stored until the next independence celebration.

When the cleaning up was all done, it was a caravan of vans and trucks to the Pizza Hut where the buffet was stressed to keep up with the McFarlin clan.

There was some last minute visiting and then it was time to start rigging the camper for travel.

We had made the trip from Oklahoma to Georgia many times in the past 22 years.  This time it felt familiar and new at the same time.  Before, we have always been headed back to put the camper in storage, go to the house, unpack and start doing all the chores and maintenance that had been left undone in our abscence.  Most times it would take days to get caught up.  But this time there is no house to return to, no yard that needs mowing, no plants dieing from thirst needing rescue, no mountain of travel-laundry to be done (the camper has a washer and dryer, laundry was done as needed wherever we were).  All we had to do was hitch up and get back to our campground.  Once in our spot, leveled up and plugged in, we were ready to pick up where we left off.

Home now goes where we go, so wherever we go is home.

What a great week.

With the tire problem corrected we could now focus our attention on the matters at hand; having fun.

A big annual gathering of the McFarlins, and many extensions by marriage and their prodigies, on the 4th of July was underway.  This year was bittersweet, we were regaling in the summer celebration but grieving the loss of the man that had traditionally been the heart of the celebration.  We miss you Uncle Tommie.

I am sure he was proud to see that his family had pulled together to make the annual gathering a big hit again this year.  Aunts/uncles, sisters/brothers, grandmas/grandpas and cousins of many generations came from far and near.  From South Carolina and Georgia in the east, the mountains of New Mexico and the Coastal Planes and oil fields of Texas in the west and many places in-between they all came.

A virtual small army spent several days putting up decorations, mowing the acres of grass, acquiring the fireworks and shopping for, and preparing the tons of food.  I can't imagine how many mouths were fed this week.  But I can say that I got more than my share of the multiple cobblers that came out of the kitchen this holiday.  Uuuummmhhh, cooobbbler

Since the focus of this blog is about life as a full timer, I should probably say a little about it.  If you read the first couple of posts you may remember me saying something about a 6qt crock pot that had to go to storage because it was simply too big to fit anywhere in the rig.  Regardless, that crock pot made the trip to Oklahoma with us.  It just had to sit in the middle of the floor while we were traveling.  But once we arrived in Claremore it was put to work.  An early morning (7 am) trip to Walmart improved our chances of snagging a nice pork shoulder that was to be transformed into a tasty shredded bar-b-q pork dish.  A trip to the same Walmart the day before yielded a practically empty meat counter.  We were told that a delivery truck was due the next morning and that we needed to be there a little after 6am if we wanted to get the cut of meat we wanted.

We picked out the perfect shoulder roast and started the 24 hour transformation from hunk of meat to BBQ to die for.  Keep in mind it was breathtakingly hot and our single, 13,500 BTU air conditioner was working its heart out but not able to keep the temperature below 86° inside the rig during the day.  Cranking up a big crock pot inside was not an option.  No problem, I just whipped out a 30' extension cord from the basement, plugged it in to the power pedestal, set the crock pot on the campsite picnic table and voila - outdoor kitchen.

No worries about anybody bothering the cooker while it spent all night outside. It is a rare, really rare day that someone bothers anything that does not belong to them in a campground. Of course, depending on where you are you might have to worry about Yogi Bear scouting for a pic-a-nic basket.

That shredded pork got put down with all the other goodies made that day and folks put on the feed bag.

A tradition was to have a bag of  "little" fireworks for all the kids 10 and under.  Right on cue, out came the bags and there was a palpable change in the energy of the kids, young and old.

While the kids were enjoying their bags of sparklers, smoke bombs, army tanks and black snakes, the big kids were assembling the pyro's for the main event. 

This set-up is done on top of the dam to the pond.  Everybody gathers on the other side of the pond to watch the show, but until it gets dark the pond attracts those who desire to do a little angling.

But soon enough, the sun sets and the right amount of darkness envelopes the pond that gets the crowd calling for a show.

The Colonel's troops did not dissappoint.  They synchronized and fired off powerful and colorful fireworks continously for 40 minutes.  Wow, our little family put on a show that many towns wish they could have.

This year there was a special addition to the show.  At the end there was a lighting of "wish lanterns" in tribute to our sadly missed family member, Tommie Allen McFarlin.

It was an inspiring site to see 40 of these lanterns ascend to the tree tops and then have the winds aloft put them on an invisible conveyor belt heading north.  It was quite a sight when all were airborne and stretched out for miles as they drifted towards Kansas.

What a great week.

Consequences

Our first day on the road to Oklahoma was uneventful.  We pulled into Tom Sawyer's RV Park on the Mississippi River in the late afternoon.  After nearly ten hours of driving in the hot sun the camper was more like a walk-in oven than it was some place to sleep.

We got the electricity hooked up, turned on the air conditioner and promptly left.  It would be a few hours before the inside was habitable.  Our youngest was riding with us and he suggested we go back across the river and explore Memphis.

We had been coming this way on trips home to Texas and Oklahoma for 22 years and for one reason or another we were never able to get over to Memphis and look around.  This time we were going to make it.

Man it was hot walking around in Memphis, but interesting.  I had been there on business in the mid-80's and had a business dinner at a place called Charles Vergos Rendezvous.  It was a rib joint that was famous for its dry-rub bar-b-q ribs.  I had been telling my family about it for years but on the one occasion we had a narrow window of opportunity to go, we could not find the place.  This was well before GPS navigation systems and smart phones.

This time, on a whim I pulled out my smart phone, woke up Siri and asked her to locate the Rendezvous.  I'll be a son-of-a-gun, it was just a half block from where we were standing!  Okay, you say; "What are you waiting for?  Get on over there."  The problem is - I was standing in a TGI Fridays where we had just finished eating a full supper.  I give credit to my family, they said; "we have been trying to get to this place for 22 years, let's go".

So go we did.  No wonder we had such a hard time finding it before.  This place was down a narrow little alley, the entrance was painted flat-black and looked like it might be fixed up as a set for shooting a scene in Gotham City.

They say that the best bar-b-q only comes from dives.  I don't know who "they" are, but they are right.  We were going to just go in and have a drink and maybe an appetizer but after seeing a couple of plates of ribs go by we could not help ourselves.

We told ourselves that we would have just one rib each and then take the rest back with us for later.  Good plan, hard to execute.  Kind of like the Lays Potato Chip challenge; bet you can't eat just one.

Check out the sheepish grin on Chad as he finishes his fourth rib.

But, like the camper, there was no more room for storage.  We had to box up the rest and take it with us.  It was not planned to be, but breakfast ribs were pretty good.  Yep, we ate every one of them the next morning before hitting the road.

Our second day of travel began like the first, early, while it was still under 100°.  But it did not take long before before the temp hit the century mark.  At rest and fuel stops the tire temperatures were reading just a tad over 130°.  Not bad considering how hot it was and how heavy the rig is.

We pulled into the Claremore Expo RV Park in the mid-afternoon.  Made pretty good time.  Chad and Cyndee got out to set the wheel chocks while I made final adjustments to line up the service connections.  But instead of seeing them in my mirrors they both suddenly appeared in the passenger side window, eyes big as saucers and said; "You gotta see this" while pointing towards the trailer.

I got out an looked to find that one of the trailer tires had completely thrown its tread.  There was nothing but bladder and side-walls.  I have no idea how it was holding air pressure, but it was.

Looks like our decision to travel with more weight than we should was a little more than our Chinese-made trailer tire could handle.  Decisions do have consequences.  The other three were either Goodyear or Michelin and they did just fine. 

The folks at Claremore Tire did a great job getting me a new tire (Michelin this time) and getting it mounted, for a price.  We were all fixed up by noon on July 3.

400 Square Feet

Sure, we have camped and RV'd for years.  The confines of those spaces was not much to think about really.  But now we have to conduct our everyday life out of these confines.  Every drawer and every cabinet of the sticks and bricks that was chock-full of things that we had collected in our 34 years of marriage was going to have to be divided into "can't live without it" and "find somewhere to go with it besides us".

We thought we were doing really well in thinning out to just the must-haves but there came a point when the loads of stuff from the house we brought to the camper each night would not fit any where.  There was a little mountain growing in the floor space between the chairs and TV.

At first we just chalked it up to inefficient storing.  And sure enough, after organizing the storage space we were using and taking advantage of storage space we had never thought to use, we got it all put away.  Well, almost all.

There were a few large items like a 6qt crock pot and an upholstery and spot carpet shampooer that had to be taken to the store room.  But even after finding a place for everything, I had concerns that went beyond finding storage space in a 400 square foot condo on wheels.

After all, this is a recreational VEHICLE.  It is on wheels and it travels down the road at highway speeds.  It is hard to imagine the forces at work on your "home" as it is repeatedly exposed to 70mph wind and the g-forces of pot holes and mis-matched pavement-to-bridge jolts.  You actually have to pay attention to technical issues like, "am I too tall to go under that overpass?" or "are the tires at the right pressure for the weight of the camper today?"

Weight is now my big concern.  As weekend and vacationer campers we never worried about weight, there was so much empty space in the camper there was no way we were close to any limits.  And I actually got on a commercial truck scale a couple of times to make sure.  But now there is no empty space, everything is full to the point of bulging.
Our next trip was only a few days away.  We were making a 900 mile (one way) drive to Oklahoma for a 4th of July family gathering.  The first order of business will be to access a scale.
We started our maiden voyage as full timers on a weekend before the 4th of July, which was on a Wednesday.  There was a heat wave in progress, thousands of records for maximum temperature were being broken daily from the Gulf, to the Bread Basket to deep into the Northeast.  Temperatures in the Atlanta area were hitting 107°F.  We got an early morning start to take advantage of relatively cooler temps and made our way out to Interstate 20, towards Birmingham.
It did not take long for our first opportunity to get on a scale.  A few miles past Six Flags Over Georgia there was a Flying J with a CAT scale.  We rolled onto the scale, pressed the call button for the attendant, got our ticket number and went inside to see what the weigh ticket had to say.
You have to do some math to figure out how much you have put on board, sooo, total weight on the scale, subtract weight of the truck (I knew this from previously weighing the truck without a camper attached to it), subtract the weight of the camper when it is empty (this is a weight put on a sticker when it rolls out of the factory) and ta-dah, you have your cargo weight.  Now, take that weight and compare it to the CCC (cargo carrying capacity [also on the factory sticker] and, uh-oh.
When the math was all done, we were 1,200 lbs over the maximum carrying capacity!!  I don't remember putting any lead bricks on board.  How can clothing and household items weigh so much?  I don't know, but they do.  I guess we did much better than I thought at making efficient use of storage space.
We were not exactly in a place where we could do anything about it at the moment.  The decision was to continue our trip, take it slow and easy and make frequent stops to check tire and bearing temperatures.  I have an infra-red "gun" that will read surface temps.  It works great for a quick walk-around to check these temps.

The Plan.....

So, we want to be full timers - but how?  Well, for us that means planning, planning and more planning.  Our youngest was about 12 at the time so we built a plan around a ten-year time frame, just about enough time that both kids should be finished with college and making their own way.  Of course we had to put some financial order in our house so that the funds would be there to support an early retirement.  Professional help was sought and we got ourselves a financial planner.  Definitely one of our better moves.

We also graduated from the pop-up to a 5th wheel RV in 2003.  This is where we lost the kids, they said; "Dad, this isn't camping any more, it's a condo in the woods."  They got out the old tent and sleeping bags and went back to roughing it with their friends now that they were licensed drivers and could get themselves around.

All the planning in the world back in 2000 could not foresee the economic crash of 2008.  Even the pros at our financial planner were slow to realize how bad it was going to get and how quick it was going to happen.  We worked with them to preserve our investments but not before taking a hit.  And what ever happened to the 4-year college degree???  My oldest took nearly six!!
Here we are, as I write this, in the 12th year of our ten-year plan.  And it looks as if it will be at least another full year before we achieve all phases of the plan.  Not lamenting, that is just the way it is.

Plan details (in order):

• Build funds to support early retirement (ongoing throughout plan)
• Get two kids educated, employed and self-supporting
• Sell home
• One day after check from sale of house clears, announce retirement
• Spend one year in current 5th wheel to better understand what we need in our full time rig
• Buy full time rig after one year of full timing in our "old" rig.
• Enjoy

The upset in the economy put a huge magnifying glass on the lending institutions of this country.  Re-interpretations and severe tightening up of banking regulations made it impossible to execute the plan in the order originally devised.  These changes in the banking business required us to essentially turn the order of our plan upside down.  To be able to buy our full timing rig (unless we just paid cash for it) we would be required to have a full time job and own a home.  So instead of buying the new rig last, a year after retirement, we had to buy it now, before doing anything else.

Done!  In May of 2012 we spec'd out a New Horizons 37' 'Majestic'. 

Ours is under construction and is scheduled to be finished the first week of August 2012.  We will make the 1,200 mile trip out to Kansas to pick it up as soon as we get word from the factory.  Pretty exciting!

Back to the plan.  Now the order is:

• Build funds                           (in progress)
• Get kids on their own           (done)
• Buy full time rig                   (done)
• Sell the house                       (done)
• Work at least one more year (in progress)
• Retire                                     (at least a year away)
• Spend a year in old rig          (never gonna happen)
• Enjoy                                     (soon)

Immediately after buying the new rig we got serious about selling the house.  Three Realtors wanted nothing to do with us at the price we wanted to list the house for.  And each of them told us to prepare for 200 to 300 days on the market if we use their suggestion and start with a list price $65,000 lower than what we had in mind.  A fourth realtor said they did not care what we listed it for, go for it.  Just have a plan to lower the price every time 30 days passes without an offer or showing.

We went for it with the go for it realtor.  Fully expecting very low interest in our property at our price we were pleasantly surprised, shocked really, that we were getting two and three showings on some days.  One month to the day we listed, we had an offer on the house with a closing date one month away.  As things sometimes go, this first offer did not pan out after more than a week of haggling.  It took about 8 days to get back on the MLS active list so we lost a solid two weeks of showings.  However, sometimes things work out for the best; the first couple that looked at the house after it got back on the active list made an offer.  And their requested closing date happened to be on exactly the same day as the first offer.  This one culminated in a close, 83 days from listing to check in hand!

Whoa, we gotta get out of the house, and fast!  We thought we had months to gradually work off all the stuff in the house and move things we were keeping for the kids into storage.  What was planned for months of transition now had to be done in a week.

Truck loads and truck loads went to storage, the kids came and got all they could take for now and literally dozens of truck loads were hauled to Goodwill.  Evidently we had become somewhat pack rat-ish after being in this one house for 22 years.  Never mind the mountain of stuff we left at the curb for "recycling".

But it was done, we were out and the house was ready for the keys to be handed over at closing the next day.  The plan, after 12 years of incubation, was suddenly becoming reality.

An idea hatched.....

Since the early days of our marriage in the late 1970's we were campers. At first it was pure backpacking; weekend and vacation trips into northern New Mexico with just backpacks a tent and two Siberian Husky pack dogs. 



Then came children and we evolved to very close to home car-camping trips near where we lived in Oklahoma.  We were now bringing luxurious items with us to Corp of Engineers and State Park campgrounds like two-burner Coleman stoves, a variety of shoes and, of course, all the accouterments it takes to support toddlers.

The kids grew but we still car camped.  Now it was bicycles and air mattresses, sports equipment, boom boxes, 9" TV's with built in VHS players, folding chairs, screened cabana for the picnic table and more.  And don't forget the two Huskies.  My 1979 Bronco would be packed to the gills.

After a number of consecutive, very wet camping trips (we are talking float the air mattresses right out of the tent and down the trail) over the course of a spring and fall camping season, the four of us decided it would be nice to have a way to camp up, off the ground, water-tight and roomier than a tent.  In 1999 we upgraded our camping experience by purchasing a pop-up.  Not only did it meet the aforementioned requirements but it had an air conditioner too.  We were now ready to camp all summer long in the southern climes of Georgia and Florida.

After only a few trips in our little RV we realized that we were getting a taste of what an RV'ing lifestyle was like,,,, and we liked it!  But then, during some casual conversations with fellow campers in a campground in North Georgia we discovered that some people actually lived in their RV's, by choice.  They called themselves "full timers".  They lived in their RVs 365 days a year and did not own anything but the RV and what was in it.

We were intrigued by these people and thought how nice it was that they were able to live that lifestyle.  We did not realize on that day that an idea had taken hold of our brains and that faint and distant voices would become clearer and closer until the day came that we decided that if we laid out a plan that we too could one day be full timers.