Thursday, October 12, 2017

Hello World

New blog, new life, new (most) everything!! Follow along with us as we step off and go explore this thing we call life.

First off, who are we and what in the world are we talking about? Ok, fair questions. I’m Russ and that’s Michelle (wave hello Michelle) Hi Everybody! We are a couple who are right on the edge of retiring and jumping into our brand new RV and go exploring the great out there, wherever ‘out there’ is. Right now it is the continental United States. That will likely expand a little later on but for right now the definition is the lower 48 and possibly Alaska.

So what’s our story? Again, a fair question and I’ll address it. I (Russ) am a 55+ electrical engineer (I’m not quite that old) for an aerospace company that I’ve worked at for almost 35 years. I was born in Florida and lived about 99.9% of my life in Melbourne, Florida (or Mel-Boring as it were). Needless to say I am READY to get out of here ASAP. I have one daughter (Monster!!) who lives in Orlando that I don’t get to see nearly enough.

Hi, I’m Michelle.
I’m Michigan born and raised but have also lived in New Hampshire and Wisconsin. I’ve spent my working life in the newspaper biz. In December ’15, I took a buyout, sold my house and moved to sunny Florida.

We met at a meetup group for 50+ singles and hit it off immediately and it’s been a crazy ride ever since. We share almost the exact same dreams and desires for our lives. I thought for sure she was feeding me a line when she told me she wanted to full time RV on our first date, but turns out she wasn’t. What are the odds? Yes, he knew from the start I was a keeper.

We’ll be embarking on this journey in our shiny 80’ motorhome that has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, game room, full kitchen, swimming pool, gets 500 mpg,…..oh wait, that was in my dreams. And besides, I couldn’t drive it anyway. No, actually Edna (Every Day, New Adventure!), is a Forest River 3051S 32’ class C motorhome that we bought at a show up in Hershey Pennsylvania. We ordered it specifically from the factory with the options that we felt were what we wanted. Time will tell if we were right or not. In a later entry, we’ll tell you about those must-have options but for now know that I have excellent counterspace around the bathroom sink.

We will be towing the jeep wrangler behind it to use as our dinghy and sightseeing/grocery-getter/whatever craft. It doesn’t have a name, it’s just jeep. Now I just need to re-learn how to drive a stick. Yup, no pressure there.

Unfortunately we aren’t quite ready yet to throw off the fetters and set sail. We have a few items to take care of (wedding, retiring, setting up the new house, etc.) that need addressing and we’ll keep everyone up to date as we move along.

I guess I’ll be the one who mainly keeps up on the blog. She’s gonna proofread them (and to make sure I’m not telling any fibs) and add anything she likes. We’ll try to include as many pictures as we can so hopefully things will be in perspective. I’m in normal font, she’s in italics (she’s special).


That should be enough to get the ball rolling. Hang on. It’s going to be a blast!