Another Chapter

It’s been a minute, and a lot has changed but a lot has stayed the same.

A couple of months ago I was visiting someone in Virginia, near Harper’s Ferry. We decided to hike on the Appalachian Trail a few times while there, and on one of those trips, we hiked into Harper’s Ferry. A cute little town that caters to through-hikers and tourists alike. Not really related to my story, but it is a great place to visit.

Here’s a look into my typical thought process that no one asked for, and no one wants, but here we are. Kind of like constant squirrel moments that I sometimes act on.

While hiking I started talking about how I had spent a lot of time in the past trying to figure out a way to take time enough time off work to through-hike the trail. It wasn’t intended to happen for a while as I have kids and pets and responsibilities, but it was a fun thought exercise. I started trying to think how to do it again, (I can’t afford to), then thought about working while hiking (not even a possibility, it would take years and the internet isn’t even available on a lot of the trail).

Then I thought it would be fun to stay in different towns along the trail, hiking on weekends, and working during the week. Sounds super appealing and there are sites that cater to people who stay in a place a month or two and then move on, they supply apartments with everything included and short terms. I looked into it, holy crap it’s expensive. Like a pretty big mortgage expensive.

By now my mind was no longer on through-hiking the Appalachian Trail, it was on to traveling the country and staying in each place long enough to explore the area. I have a blog devoted to touristing in Florida (thetouristlifestyle.com) and I had talked about staying in popular towns in Florida long enough to see more sites in the past. So no huge jump. But although I am lucky enough to have a remote job that would allow me the flexibility of working from anywhere with good internet I still kept hitting walls as to how to do it.

But wait. How about I buy a travel trailer and live in it for a year? My adult sons could watch the house and dogs and cats and bunnies (the dogs love the kids more anyways) and I recently sold my car, so a trailer would just replace that payment. My other half has a van that we’ve been working on building in for the past year, he could use it as an office during the day and I could work in the trailer so we could each work in peace.

Sound good? I thought so too so I went and bought a trailer when I got back from Virginia. We got a Thousand Trail subscription, started booking places, and added the final touches to the van (air conditioning). My oldest son’s lease ended in December, so he moved in and we moved out of the house and into the RV on January first. I’m writing this at a picnic table in an RV resort in Crystal River, Florida. We decided to stay in Florida for a couple of months before slowly heading up to Maine. There are a bunch of places around here I’ve been wanting to explore, so here we go.