Discovery, Preparation, & Departure

It all began one morning on a little outting to the aquarium in Rockport, TX. We were on a little reprieve from "Old Man Winter". Jan, a volunteer at the aquarium changed our lives. She was telling us about the aquarium.... and we got to talking about her travels, I found myself in tears saying I didn't want to buy another house. I yearned to travel and experience life without having to mow the lawn, shovel the sidewalk and everything else that comes with owning a home, including all the bills. In 10 minutes time, she introduced us to workamping. She shared her experiences with us and told us how to get started.

That evening we pulled up the site www.workamper.com and started reading. $42 later (the yearly membership) I started putting our resume together. By the next morning I had it published on the site, and 2 days later we had our first offer. A summer workamping experience in Schulenburg, TX at a private RV park. We looked into it, but decided we'd never survive the heat, plus, we didn't expect things to happen so fast! my gosh, we still had to sell the house, and drop the bombshell on my mom; oh, she wasn't going to be happy about this!

We graciously turned down Schulenburg, though we did drive through there on our way home, and it looks like a really pretty little town. It may have been fun, however; the following week as we were pulling out of the RV park driveway to come home, the phone rang. It was Jim from Branson Lakeside RV Park in Branson, MO. John was driving, so he handed me the phone and all he heard was: "Really", "Wow", "Oh", ..... It all sounded too good to be true. I explained that we'd have to talk it over, that we really had too much to take care of at home, but that I would get back to him.  John, "So, what did he say?????" So I told him all about it, and he said "call him back and say YES" My heart soared, "REALLY?" but, what about mom, and ....   I called, and we accepted the position!

The house was already for sale by owner as we were going to downsize, so we listed it with a realtor, and I started listing all the big stuff on Craigs List. I had a commitment to play at the Wisconsin Renaissance Faire for 4 weeks, and by the time we moved out there, all that was left was to clean the house. The one garage sale we had was a sell out in one day (that's never happened before!).

The hardest part was the downsizing - it's a lot of work!!! Do we need this, how will it fit. I've never been a pack rat, but clearing things out is just plain exhausting. The results though are wonderful! We didn't want anything left behind to drag us down or pull us back, so a storage unit was not an option. Did our family understand? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our youngest daughter did, but the oldest and my mom definitely weren't supportive of this new plan.

The "new" truck needed some work, and was supposed to be ready the 17th of June. That didn't happen, and the engine had to be torn back out on monday morning to reseal the oil pan. I have to  hand it to the folks at the dealership in Eau Claire, they put every mechanic in the shop on the job and got us on the road by early afternoon. We said our goodbyes and left Wisconsin June 20th (as planned) with our "new" 1999 F250 diesel pulling our new home, a 22' Coachman 5th wheel and headed south. We spent one night in a Walmart parking lot north of Kansas City, and pulled into Branson the afternoon of the 21st.