Introduction and Background

Hello,
   Steve and Terry decided to retire early and live the dream of living in a RV and traveling the country.  To give you a little background on us, we were both in the US Navy and that is where we met.  We actually met in the Navy school back in 1981, but didn't get together until 1995 while stationed together in Guam.  We then got married in Oct of 1996.  Terry already had two children; a boy (Justin) and a girl (Jennifer) the oldest of the two.  In 1999 another boy popped out (Michael).
   Both of us got out of the Navy before our retirement date.  I got out because they wouldn't send me to Denver to be with Terry (Before we were married) and Terry got out because they wouldn't keep her at Denver.  To this day we don't regret the decision to get out early.  We also became Government IT Contractors in Denver and continued to do that job for over 20 years.
   During that time, we did a lot of camping in the mountains.  We first bought a Tent trailer (after tenting it for a while) but then traded that in the next year for a motorhome.  In fact we bought a Jeep Wrangler first and said when we pay that off, we will get a motorhome.  And that is what we did.
   In 2003 we bought a used 1995 35 foot Fleetwood Southwind with no slides in it.  That motorhome took us to Michigan, the grand canyon, Yellowstone, Mt.  Rushmore, Moab UT, Oklahoma, and other places I am sure I forgot about.

  In 2010 we decided to upgrade to a motorhome with more room, so we got a 2005 38 foot Coachman Sportcoach Diesel Pusher.  That motorhome became our little money pit.  It seems every time I started it, it cost me $500 because something broke. But it never left us stranded, like the other motorhome did.  We hit a lot of different sites with that to include Glacier National park.

   When we decided we were going to retire and travel the country, we decided to go with a 5th wheel trailer than a motorhome.  People asked why we switched and here are some of the reasons why:

• wanted only one motor to deal with instead of two (motorhome and tow vehicle)
• it seems the dash air conditioner doesn't work very well on motorhomes so you have to run the main AC which means you have to run the generator. (at least in the two motorhomes I had)
• when in a rain storm, the wipers on a motorhome don't work every well either. (at least in the two motorhomes I had)
• in a 5th wheel I think we have more space than in a motorhome and my best guess is it's cheaper to have a new 5th wheel and truck compared to a motorhome of the same quality plus you still need a tow vehicle...at least I would.
• another biggie is when you do have issues with a motorhome, most of the time you have to take it to an RV dealer where I think in a 5th wheel you can have a mobile RV repairman come to you....I guess you can do that with a motorhome for some things too.

   Well those are the main reason that went through my head.  So off to the RV shows and dealerships looking for a 5th wheel that we can live with (literally).  

   The hard part was deciding on the size of the RV.  Do we go with Big (40+ feet) or smaller and lose out on storage but able to get into more campgrounds like state and national parks.   So after looking and looking, we pretty much decided on the Grand Design Solitude 310GK.  It's a 35 foot with 3 slides and large water tanks (we plan on boondocking a lot too).  Before we found the RV we wanted, we knew we needed a truck to pull whatever we decided to get.  So my wife said lets get a dually. it will be more stable.  I was hesitant because this would be my daily driver to work, but I went to the dark side and did it.  I am happy too, it's like driving a sports car but way bigger.  So what did we get?  It's a 2018 Chevy Silverado 3500 High country with the Duramax of course.  What I don't like is the speed limiter in it.  94 miles per hour is the max.  I hit that limit many times passing someone when the speed limit was 80. (I like getting around people as fast as possible.).

   OK, so back to the RV story.  In January 2018, we decided to go to Quartzsite, AZ for the big RV show, but the week before we were to leave to go to AZ, we went to the RV show in Denver and took another look.   We left the show with a new RV...or the order of one.  We went to AZ anyway and found out there was no deals to be had...at least not with stuff from booths and we didn't see too many RVs for sale either.  So we are happy we did what we did.   

   My wife decided she was going to retire (quit) the beginning of Feb of 2018 and I said "Hey, I don't want to work anymore either! so I followed her on the same day and quit too.  At that point we started to downsize from our house to a 5th wheel.  After many trips to Goodwill, we were able to get rid of most stuff we collected over the years and forgot we had.  Most of our furniture went to or is going to family.  My wife's friend was in need of a place to stay so he ended up buying our house.

   So now the wheels are in motion.  We emptied the house and still didn't have a trailer.  So we moved into the motorhome and when the 5th wheel comes in, we will move everything to it and trade the motorhome in for it.  

   Now you are caught up.  The next blog will be our adventures from each camping spot...I hope.