Living Simply is Very Complicated

Written by: Jeremy

Although this is the first official blog it feels like the second. We already established the background for this blog on the About Us page but now it is time to get on with the journey.

As we described, we had decided that our lives in general had gotten too complicated. Full time jobs, owning a corporation, owning two houses, owning two houses worth of “stuff”, and monthly if not weekly business travel had led us to the decision to exit the rat race.

As satisfying as it was to make the decision to sell all of our “stuff” and live simply on the road, getting there has been about as complicated as anything we have attempted in life to date. We had to sell our house (and all of the fun that goes along with that), sell our cars, sell or donate most of our junk, learn about travel trailers, buy a travel trailer, learn about diesel trucks, buy a diesel truck, learn that everything we thought we knew about our new diesel truck and travel trailer was wrong. All that while still working and establishing new mobile businesses and strategies but now from the top of a mountain miles down a steep, dirt road from the nearest town.

Also, in spite of the fact that I have never in my life driven a truck and never pulled a trailer or boat of any size, turns out, I am not naturally good at. Especially shoehorning a 32 ft 5th wheel into a back in site at a packed urban RV park. I know, I was surprised too! Luckily for me we have found that about any RV park is full of at least 10 guys that have been pulling trailers and boats their entire lives and that descend from their mobile homes like a swarm of bees looking to lend anyone some of their expertise, whether they want it or not.

RV Lesson #1: When RV park guys are helping you back in to a site, keep in mind that when they tell you to turn the wheel to the “left”, they may actually mean “right” depending on how many beers they have had and their own personal orientation to your truck when giving the instructions.

And then there is figuring out exactly what two people, two big dogs, two elderly cats, and two home based businesses, need to bring with them on an eight month camping trip. Figuring out what we needed was actually easy. Figuring out how to cut that down by ⅔ so that it will fit, that has been a little harder.

Regardless, after all of that our first big road trip is almost here! Best of all, Robin and I are also still speaking to one another!