In April, Mark and I started talking about maybe selling our home due to a number of small factors affecting our lifestyle. When we designed and built our home and finally moved in in 2018 it was with the purest intention of making it our "Forever Home!" We never, ever thought that we would leave. Well, times change, people change and the pandemic gave us new perspectives on life. We have always shared the belief that nothing ever has to be forever, even though that had been our plan with this wonderful home.
The biggest factor in this decision was Mark's desire to retire at age 65 (October of this year.) Our original plan had been for him to convert to 20 hours per week until age 70 but we both decided that it was time to start full retirement and do the things we've been putting off while we are still healthy and "young!"
So... why not sell the house, give away and sell many of our belongs, store the rest and take off in our RV for a number of months?!? No reason we could think of!
We talked to our financial advisor, met with our realtor and created a plan. The rest is history, as they say.
We closed escrow on Monday, 11/15 and are staying about 2 miles from the home we just sold. We are at Flying Flags RV Resort in Buellton until tomorrow, 11/19. We will visit friends and family in this next week and then share Thanksgiving with family in the Bay Area. After that, we head north into Oregon and Washington until it's time to return to California for Christmas with all of our kids and grandkids in Mission Viejo.
After Christmas, we think we will probably return to the northern Oregon / southern Washington area to experience winter where we are most likely to consider looking for our next home. In March we return to the Santa Ynez Valley for a week and then begin our 12 day Italy adventure with a local tour group. After we return from Italy, we will probably stay in California until after Easter and then... we will begin our big cross-country adventure! Mark has the goal of visiting every national park in the contiguous 48 - I think that's a wonderful idea.
If you want to follow along with us on this journey (or even just peek in from time to time), click "follow" or bookmark this page. We hope that you will leave us comments and words of encouragement. If you see that we are traveling your way, let us know. We would love to meet up with friends and family along the way.
Thank you for your interest in our adventure! Big Hugs, Robin (and Mark)
We hope you enjoy this tour of our tiny home...
