Fulltiming... The Beginning

In our last post I tried to explain all the steps necessary to take our journey On The Road. This process was complicated, time consuming and filled with excitement, apprehension, fear, joy, frustration and dreaming. Well now... we're there...now what???

As many of you know, I was very committed to my volunteer work with the Boy Scouts. As we were tossing around the idea of going fulltime, one of my major areas of concerns was my commitment to BSA. I had many ongoing commitments, many committees that I either led or was involved with, many leadership roles, so just walking away was not an option. I was not going to leave any of my responsibilities in a lurch. So once we decided to go fulltime I started on my exit strategy, finding people to replace me in the many roles I played. Any good leader knows that one of the fundamental characteristics is to find and train your replacement and I had been practicing this over the years so it was just a matter of transitioning them in and me out. Sounds simple and in several instances it was, BUT the Boy Scouts is a complex organization and in many cases you just can't say that a person of your choice is to be your replacement, where you are working under another person or committee the decision has to come from the chair and/or committee. In these instances I made recommendations and explanations of why I was choosing a specific person and in many cases the approving body chose my recommended person...but not all...it's complicated. So the few instances where a different person was chosen I tried to work with the new person to transition the job, this of course took more time as they typically were not involved to the level my protege would have been.
One role that I had was leading the Aerial Sports venues at the BSA Jamboree in Beckley WV. I had been working on this project for close to three years and the event was scheduled for July 2013 and I would have to be onsite for three weeks. I was not about to walk away from this so our travel plans were to evolve around this last commitment for BSA.

Planning before the transition...

Our original plan was to stay close to Atlanta/North Georgia for May and June, then travel to WV and set Ruth up in a campground close to the Jamboree while I was onsite. Then we planned to travel to New England for the Summer and Fall before heading to Florida for the winter.

Well, while planning, Ruth visited her doctor for an ongoing health issue, as were explaining our new lifestyle and travel plans he threw a BIG challenge to us!! He wanted Ruth close so he could monitor her progress, he wanted us to be able to get back to Atlanta quickly if he felt she needed to see him. So.... change of plans!!!

Around this same time we get a call from a campground in North Carolina asking us to work there for 3 months, from August through October. We discussed this and decided to take the job.

So now a plan was beginning to take shape. We had already planned on staying close for May and June, now we would continue to stay close for July then head to Cherokee, NC in August.

Magic time...

We had made several weekend trips in the new coach before leaving the house in Bogart but it was now time to go... May 23, 2013... We load up the few remaining things in the house, load the cats in the car, lock the door to the house...look at each other, smile, shrug...we're off...we are now fulltime RV'ers...no looking back!!!

Next up...the early days of 2013