Mike and I were eating dinner one summer night in 2016, we were in the thralls of our first year of marriage (married September 2015) and we were trying to figure out what was next for us. The year had been a bit of a bust:
our fellow apartment dwellers activities were encroaching on our lives, loud and weed-sodden parties in the upstairs apartment.
one of our cats had fallen 6 flights out of our apartment and survived, but her medical bills were astronomical, along with the emotional stress of her fall. (She totally bounced back and probably forgot she had a fall - she's cute but a bit stupid.)
and issues at both our jobs had become extra stressful.
On top of that:
- Mike had lived in the area all his life and I had lived here for nearly 10 years (growing up in a military family, moving every 3 or 4 years, you get use to moving around)
Needless to say, we needed a change.
While watching an episode of House Hunters, we saw a family of nine moved to a small town in Italy because the parents had loved the country when they honeymooned there. As we watched, we realized - if they can move their family with seven young children to a foreign country, what is stopping us?
So we researched living abroad, but we soon realized we would want to tour the country more than just live in one town there. And considering we had cats, how would we transport them as we traveled?
Obviously too many variables to consider living abroad (at least for us - some would say we're too practical for our own good). I had remembered a few years back Mike mentioned traveling the country in an RV upon retirement. With neither of our jobs being ones we could "retire" from, we thought, "Why not now?" The more we thought about the idea, the more excited we became - traveling the United States in an RV how novel!
We soon recognized that we would not be "reinventing the wheel" in matters of our plan, but all that made us feel better about our decision.
We did a ton more research, weighed the pros and cons, and prepared ourselves for informing our families. With butterflies in our stomachs, we told our parents, siblings, and friends - and wouldn't you know it - they were thrilled for us! Each one of them remarked, "What a great idea! This is the best time to do it!"
That's all we needed to hear to start our journey.