We have been full-timing for over 10 weeks now. For the first two months, we stayed at an RV park a few miles from our house so that we could keep the yard looking nice while it was on the market. Honestly, I don't think we would have stayed there otherwise; it did not have many amenities and was in a fairly noisy location. The next closest RV park had more amenities (a pool!) for the same cost but was just too far away for the twice-daily trips to the house.
Adjusting to the RV lifestyle has not been without its challenges. Heavy summer thunderstorms revealed more leaks in the bedroom slide and high winds tried to rip off our awning a few times. Dealing with these issues, the lack of space compared to a house, and the stressful process of selling a house had me seriously questioning why I thought this was a good idea.
The past two weeks, however, have reminded me why we made the choice to downsize to an RV. We are camped at Catalina State Park just north of Tucson. This is a park we visited often to hike, bike, walk the dog, and go birding. I remember being envious of the folks camped here when I'd see them slowly biking up the road, obviously enjoying themselves. Well, we are those happy campers on bikes now!
We ride our bikes around the campground, to the Ranger Station to report sightings, and to go birding. We even tried looking for snakes on the road one night by bike. We can step out of our RV and be on a trail almost immediately. We can pause while washing dishes at the campground's dish-washing station and look around to see if any hawks are soaring over the cliffs. When I wake up at 4 in the morning, I can listen for owls right outside my home.
RV life will not always be like this, but we are enjoying ourselves right now. We do have to take care of minor issues like earning money at some point. This week, we'll be pulling out of here and heading to Texas to establish residency there. It is likely to be an interesting trip, full of surprises for us as newbie full-timers.
I have been thinking of features I'd like to include on this blog, such as RV and campground reviews, product reviews of items we are happy with in our RV (and perhaps Amazon sponsor links), a tour of the RV, what we're finding works well in the RV and what we're struggling with, and so on. If I can drag myself away from the great birds (and snakes! and mammals! and butterflies!) outside, I will share more with you. For now, enjoy this gopher snake we saw on the road last week.
