July 4, 2010 INDEPENDENCE DAY! (Summerville, SC)

Today is the first day of our blog because today is the first day of our great adventure! This is the  first day of our adult lives that we no longer have any employment obligations of any description. We've had our jobs and a couple of small businesses but now we're ready to get on with a whole new life style.  I’m thinking that I’m going to write, henceforth known as blogging, as if I’m standing somewhere talking to you or maybe talking to myself. I don’t know all of you and I don’t know what you know about us or camping. My point is that I will try to not rattle on about mindless details, but if we were standing face to face I probably would do just that!

And now for the introductions, drum roll please, we are Duane and Debbie Rowe. We are both 57 and both retired from prison management jobs. Debbie also had a pet setting business and I had a landscaping business. But now we are done (have I mentioned that?) and we have transitioned to become full timers. We currently live in South Carolina but have already become residents of South Dakota. Our plan is to live, travel, relax, enjoy our dogs and work camp in our camper until there is some great reason to stop.

We began camping with a couple of pop ups but then bought our first fifth wheel about 11 years ago. For years we have talked about the idea of full timing. Let me mention right now that Debbie is the research queen. She leaves no stone unturned! So we started to imagine this life style and Debbie bought books. I remember one of the first was something like “First You Quit Your Job.” But time passes and we didn’t quit our jobs but we did eventually retire from our full time jobs. But we still had our little businesses. This past January and February we camped in our 30 foot Sunnybrook, primarily in central Florida, and came home determined to take the big leap. So in 4 months we completely “upset the apple cart.” We rented our home and sold everything keeping only those things that will fit in our camper and a 4 x 4 climate controlled storage unit. We bought a new camper and have given up our businesses. The four months have been quite overwhelming at times. We had to keep reminding ourselves that we were doing all this by choice.

Our home is a 2011, 3400 RL Montana which means it is just shy of 38 feet long with 4 slide outs. It has great storage space, an ample kitchen with side by side frig and 2 ac units. We went to Indiana to purchase the camper (compliments of Debbie’s research) and got a great deal at Tiara RV Sales.

We have 2 dogs. Bo is about 7. He is part Pomeranian; maybe part Pekingese and clearly a splash of the devil. We recently had to have one of his eyes removed due to a cancerous tumor that revealed itself as Glaucoma. That’s my best veterinarian description. He now looks a little spooky but he’s still quite full of himself. Our other dog is also about 7 and he is an American Eskimo Dog. His name is Laska. You know…Eskimo, Alaska…Laska… you get the picture. He is pure white and is nearly perfect! Both came from rescue organizations so we don’t know their exact birth dates. We’ve had Bo since he was a pup but Laska was about five when we got him. I’ll not bore you further with how great they are and blah, blah, blah.

Bo

Laska

We moved into our camper about 18 days ago. We’ve stayed in the area because we needed to finish getting the house ready for the renters, wrap up the businesses and tie up dozens of loose ends. We’ll depart in about a week and our first stop will be as volunteers at The Cradle of Forestry in Brevard, NC. We’ll be there until around 7 Nov. Then we’ll winter at various state parks in Florida concluding with another volunteer position during March and April 2011 at the Marjorie Rawlings Historic State Park in the Gainesville area. From there we’re heading west.

This concludes my first effort. Debbie reviewed it and cried so I guess I did alright.

We’ll keep you posted!

Duane