When we lived in England we had a static caravan (mobile home) in Swarland, Northumberland that we would go to each weekend and holidays from early Spring until the park shut for the season in mid Autumn. We loved going there as it was such a switch off from regular home and work life, there were no commitments, no to do lists, just time together as a family, hiking, bike riding, going to the beach.
We left England in October 2007 to begin a new chapter in New Jersey, USA and lived there for 15 years.
The house was set in a beautiful rural setting with lots of trees and a lot of grass! Initially we did not miss our quiet weekends at the caravan and enjoyed working around the property but after 15 years, the kids long ago left home, we had enough of spending all our time on the house and garden maintenance and wanted to see the country we lived in.
Since Covid John had been working exclusively at home which opened new doors, we did not have to be in New Jersey for his job he could work anywhere as long as he had internet. We experimented by renting an AirBnB for two months in November and December 2021 in Palm Coast Florida and loved the free time we had, plus the warm Winter weather made it so nice to be able to go outside for a walk or bike ride without freezing.
We began to discuss the possibilty of selling the house and continuing to do longer term rentals around the country as a way to explore and see new places but we would need furnished properties and places that allowed our dog Morgan so that would have limited our choices. We had discussed lots of times the idea of buying an RV every time we drove on the I95 to visit our kids and see them passing us. At some point the decision was made, we would do the last planned renovations to the house in 2022 and sell it in Spring 2023 around the time of our daughter's wedding.
They say God laughs when you make a plan, maybe that's why we have never been big long term planners. The housing market that was going crazy with prices soaring and properties selling within days was predicted to be ending soon. Having been at the wrong end of the property market each time we have bought and sold homes we did not want that happening again so pushed our timeline up to late Summer 2022.
On John's 60th birthday we bought an RV. Since Covid RV sales like the housing market had been crazy and we were so happy to find an RV we liked and would suit our new life. Then a similar search began for a truck. There was a world wide shortage of components and trucks were very hard to get but John tracked one down.
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| GMC Sierra 3500 HD Denali 2022 Dually |
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| Jayco Pinnacle 36SSWS 2020 |
This Youtube has a walk through of our model RV if you would like to see what our new home is like.
After an awful lot of work and me falling off a ladder and breaking my sternum in June which slowed progress for a few weeks we sold the house, had a big garage sale, gave away a lot of stuff to charity or on Facebook Marketplace and packed a big mobile storage unit and RV. The unit will remain at the storage facility in New Jersey until we decide where we want it then it can be transported to us.
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| The storage pod arrived and was inspected by Morgan. |
John's years of training packing family suitcases and cars to go on road trips or to take daughter to college in Florida helped a lot with figuring out how to pack a lot of stuff into a 16'x7'x7' box. He claimed packing the car for the college trip was worse!
Time to go!
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