Summer in Northeast Texas

In this episode, we are off to Texas again, this time to remind ourselves why we try to stay away during the summer months.  As it turns out, Courtney and Alexander had a tree blow over during a storm which narrowly missed their house.   This family truly is blessed, as this tree could have easily crushed their house.  Let the chainsaw work begin!

After a week or so of Chainsaw work,  and many gallons of sweat, this tree ? was bucked up into  reasonably sized pieces small enough for  their friend Willie's tractor to haul.

We had a wonderful time swimming and visiting and Elisheva really enjoyed visiting Gramma in the camper!

We even were able to get away and visit with our friends Eric and Jennifer. We stayed at their house on the lake  for a few days and they even took us out on their boat on Cedar Creek Lake. 

During this wonderful visit, we received the amazing news that we were going to be proud grandparents once again!  Elisheva got to make the announcement at church one Saturday with her new shirt:

We were able to be there during Elisheva’s birthday,  and we all went to the Dallas Aquarium in Celebration. She REALLY loved seeing the undersea life, and we all had an excellent time there. 

This was an incredible trip to Texas, and well worth enduring the heat to make it happen. It was such a blessing to be  with family and present during some special moments in their lives. These moments are priceless and will be cherished forever.  We will be back as soon as possible for sure!

Machac Manor in Colorado

     Our next stop after Washington was Boise again to drop off  Staci's brother Justin and our nephew Kai at home.   We spent the night alongside his shop, Combat Sport Supply  

    Then we booked it on down to Colorado, as we were late for an important date!  We worked on cleaning up Machac Manor and making it presentable for the pending wedding of Crystal and Johnny there September 7th, 2024.  Crystal and Johnny and the grandkids came and helped a ton on projects.   Projects included metal skirting the North side of the cabin, and enclosing the entire porch with metal skirting, wrapping the front and replacing the cedar siding on the West side of the Manor.  Also, Owen and Johnny helped dig out the outhouse so it is refreshed for another 13 years or so!

Wow, what perfect weather we enjoyed while in Colorado at Machac Manor!  Well, most of the time anyway...we got some hail:

 It was about 70 degrees and clear most of the time we spent there, which was about a month.

Courtney and Elisheva were with us during this Manor time, and helped us with many projects, including painting the refurbished outhouse, and camouflaging our well cover/trashcan to look like a tree trunk.

After all this fun, we experienced a temporary lack of sanity and drove to Texas to deliver our daughter Courtney and Elisheva back home to Quitman where it was 95 plus degrees and HUMID every day!  

Washington state by way of Boise

Whoa, time flies and I have fallen behind on updates for you guys!   My apologies, please bear with me as I get in the habit of updating this thing....

Okay, so where did we go after Nevada? Well, we had to go to Washington to meet up with Staci's family and attend a memorial for her grandmother Lela Brown, who had passed away. 

We slowly worked our way north through Nevada toward Boise with Rose and Kameron in tow, and managed to find a really neat old farmer's hot springs on the way called the Bartine Hot Springs. According to the internet lore, an old rancher build the heart-shaped springs for his wife to take advantage of the spring on his ranch. It is long since abandoned and now is BLM land, but maintained by the BLM:

We made it to Boise just in time for our niece Ella’s graduation from Boise High School.

We then headed towards Washington for the very sad occasion of Lela’s memorial. Of course, it is always great to see family and catch up, regardless of the reason. We camped (moochdocked) in Lance’s driveway in Kent, Washington:

A good time ensued, and many great memories of Lela were revisited. Our daughter Crystal was able to come and attend as well.

The Summit Lake Crew was back together again!

Staci and I even managed to sneak away and have a nice 30th anniversary dinner together in Seattle!  I love you Staci, and sure am glad you have stuck it out with me through everything!   The seafood in Seattle was amazing, and the views from the ferry were pretty great also, especially of this lovely lady.

After a couple of weeks, it was time to head towards Colorado, but we always enjoy our time in Washington State.

Springtime in Nevada

            Well, howdy howdy from springtime Nevada!

 

Since early March, we have been “moochdocking” in Pahrump, Nevada with Staci's parents, Kameron and Rose. It has been lots of fun, with multiple Las Vegas visits, some four wheeling, and visits from both of our lovely daughters, Courtney and Crystal.  Courtney brought our beautiful granddaughter Elisheva with her, and much fun was had simply walking around the neighborhood with her

.

  Courtney even was lucky enough to have her friend Hudson come to visit, and they explored Vegas together.

             Owen and Leland, our grandsons, were here at the same time, and more than happy to entertain Elisheva too.

 

    We explored the native Indian coal ovens and did some four wheeling to get there which was pretty cool.  We also took Owen and Leland to the Big Dunes and they came back with sand in every pocket and crack.

 

    Once the kids all had to go home, we were a bit sad of course, so we all went to Vegas to celebrate Staci's upcoming birthday on March 27th.  The Bellagio flower atrium, Fremont street, and the Link ferris wheel were all enjoyed by Kameron, Rose, myself and most of all, Staci.

We even met up with a friend that we have met out here on the road, Kimberly, and some dancing broke out!

 

Crystal came and visited and brought our youngest grandson, Reign!  We gave them the 10 cent tour of the Pahrump area, then of course off to Vegas!

Overall, this extended time in Nevada has been amazing and will always be remembered fondly by both of us. 

 

Our time here is drawing to an end soon, as we just received very sad news on 4/22/2023  that Lela has passed away at the age of 95.  What an amazing lady she was, and what a legacy of life she left behind for her kids and grandkids.  She is a HUGE part of the reason we are out enjoying this lifestyle, and we loved her immensely.  We will be pointing this rig of ours towards Washington soon to pay our respects, but stay tuned for more adventures.

Well, howdy! So, now we blog!

 

Howdy!

We are Eric and Staci, and we are doing things differently. Who are we and why would you possibly want to follow along?

    Well, we are two married kids in our early 50's that have decided to sell most of our stuff, quit our normal corporate jobs, and hit the road in an RV.  Why?  What are we thinking?  Are we crazy?  These are great questions with detailed and ongoing answers, but keep reading for the high level view.

    Back when Staci and I met in the early 1990's, we talked about everything.  Life, love, our experiences growing up in totally different environments, all of the normal stuff when you meet someone and are friends.  She had a daughter from a previous relationship, and I was happily single, but we began to realize we might actually have a few things in common.

    She came from a divorced family and lived both with her dad and mom alternately.  There were totally different environments at each abode, and they moved around a lot, so she was pretty used to change and adaptation.   Her dad was in the Army, so they moved a lot early on, but ended up settling near Chicago in Joliet, IL.  After the divorce, her mom moved to Houston, where I bet Staci.  Anyway, back to her childhood.  When summer came, she made her escape.  She and her brother and cousins would spend it with her grandparents in their RV all over the country, and then to their lake house in Washington state, at Summit Lake.  

    I had a different background, coming from a married family in the suburbs of Houston, Katy Texas.  Mom and dad both worked hard, as an RN and a piping designer engineer, but somehow still found time to take us camping, and we went on some epic trips in my Dad's Dodge homemade paneled camper van conversion.   We went to California, Maine, and all states in between in that thing.  When we only had time for a weekend escape, we would head up to my grandparents' land in Roans Prairie, which is where my parents live to this day.  I also was in the Cub and Boy Scouts and was lucky enough to get to go to Philmont, NM for a 10 day hiking trip once.  

    Perhaps you are starting to see where our love of camping and being in the outdoors and away from cities came from.   Staci and I became more than friends over the course of a year, and we were married 6/5/1993.

    We never have been good at following expected normal routes totally, so after a couple years in the Katy area, we decided to move roughly halfway between our families to Denver.  Staci hated the heat of the Houston summers, and to be honest, I knew no better really, as I had been suffering through them my entire life.   After looking around the country, and visiting a friend in Colorado, we concluded that was a place we could live.  It offered Jeep trails galore, a perfect summer climate, and lots of outdoor opportunities.  She was between jobs, and I was not enjoying my current one, so we did what most rational people would do.  We decided to pack up all our stuff and move.

    This post was not intended as a full autobiography, but has already evolved into more than I intended.  Let me try to get back on task - sharing our RV journey thus far!

    So yeah, we did all the normal stuff through our twenties, got into credit card debt, bought a house, had a kid, and we went through various jobs.  Finally, I landed a corporate job that I could see a career path at, so I worked my way up through the ranks and made it into a 23 year deal.  Staci also found a good corporation and was quite successful there.  We weren't CEO's or upper management, but we made good wages for what we did.

        Sometime in the early 2000's, we discovered Dave Ramsey and his message of living debt free.  This resonated with both of us, and we decided to go for it, at least on a conceptual level.  We owned only used cars, didn't finance new and shiny things we couldn't outright pay for, and tried to be responsible with money overall.  Retirement was a lofty dream far in the future, and we both longed for that feeling of being financially free.  We saved every bit of extra money we had,  all the while investing in our retirement accounts.  We bought property in Colorado up in the mountains with cash, and still have it to this day.  

        As the internet had become a thing, eventually we found the FIRE scene...Financially Independent Retire Early.  This was great, as it was written by and populated with people that were younger than traditional retirement age that worked hard, saved every penny, invested it, and now live off the proceeds, doing what they want each day.  In other words, they chose a life of leisure versus a life of labor.  This sounded pretty amazing to us and we had to learn more.  Surely there was a catch and no way we could ever do anything like this right?

    Well, it's time to wrap this up for now, but there is much much more to come, since we started this RV journey almost 2 years ago, so we have plenty to catch up on! Our plan going forward is to update this blog regularly, and keep an ongoing journal of the adventures we encounter out here.  Please feel free to comment below to give us ideas on what you want to see more of, and hear more about.  Thank you for reading!