The Honeymoon Phase

Everything is perfect. 

The motorhome is beautiful and all its surfaces are shiny. I get excited every time I realize it's ours and has everything we want. The mechanical parts all work as designed, and the electronics are easy to understand. The interior storage is sufficient, the exterior storage is huge, we have room to spare. Driving it is easy and comfortable, it almost drives itself. The dealership loves us and the upgrades, additions and inspections are on time and without incident.

Perfection

We haven't picked it up yet.

The weather is ideal. Blue skies, warm temps, and no wind. None. Windshields are no longer frozen in the morning, and the afternoons are comfortable in a t-shirt (maybe with long sleeves). All signs point to an early Spring with perfect travel conditions. A February weekend in the desert will be fabulous.

Always

Good thing we don't have historically unpredictable weather in SoCal.

One of the reasons I read blogs and forums is to learn from others who are living the fulltime life. To learn from their mistakes, and from their successes. The biggest takeaway is that there is no one right way to do this. Still, there are some consistent do's and don't's - like waiting until you get out there to buy a lot of gizmos and gadgets that you may never use. Makes perfect sense.

Necessary

Over half our Amazon Wish List items are now in the garage, purchased in the last two weeks. They look really cool.

Another helpful part of following the veterans out there is paying attention to customer service reliability. Even better than reviews on Yelp, this information is from people I have grown to trust over nearly two years. It is so smart to avoid places where these folks have had consistently bad experience.




Exceptional

We're getting our Invisabrake and Roadmaster tow kit installed at Camping World. They're across the street......they're "nice guys"......every CW can't be horrible.......

Because when you're in love and all your dreams are coming true, you want to hold on to that feeling for as long as you can. You expect perfection. Regardless of the little but, but, but in the back of your mind, and the well-meaning reminders from others, you keep dancing to the music that keeps your feet from touching the ground (Al gave me that one...).

This "phase" of our journey is So Much Fun! With the sale of the house behind us and the purchase of the rig complete, we are free to focus on the exciting stuff. Like a child with a new toy, or a teenager with their first car, or a couple newly married, we feel only the joy of having gotten what we most longed for.

Not only longed for, but worked for. There's also a feeling of reward, of crossing a finish line of sorts. In this case the finish line does not indicate an end, but rather a most wonderful beginning.

Bill still has ten more Mondays to work, and I know for him that crossing that finish line will truly mean freedom. It will be another huge milestone, but not one there is any doubt about the if or when. Like Richie's graduation on June 2, it is a date on the calendar that gets closer every sunrise.

We know there will be some bumps moving forward, there always are. We'll do our best to limit them, and get through them with as much good humor as possible. We'll do it together. But in the meantime......

The honeymoon is perfect :-)