The Beginning Of Where Are We Now

January 27th will mark the last day of work for me. I am retiring from Corporate IT work. We've been working toward this for some time. Last year we bought our lovely new fifth wheel trailer and an older truck to tow it with. Shortly thereafter we sold our primary residence of 15 years. I had hoped to stay with my employer through a transition from our very old web platform to the new one we've been working on all of 2016. Alas some changed priorities and delays have moved the schedule out to Q3 2017. My husband has waited for me to be finished with the old platform since 2013. I'd say he's waited long enough. Our winter here in the Pacific North West has been brutal on us. Trailer living is meant to be done is warm climates not multiple weeks of night temps in the teens. We haven't been able to stay connected to city water for all of that time. So, its time to close this chapter and move on to warmer weather!

RIght now we live in my mom's pasture. Our neighbors are her two horses. I call them BH and LH for big horse and little horse. It is very private here. Our main complaint are the dogs, oh the dogs! This neighborhood consists of 5 acre estates. Most of the residents leave for work early in the morning and then it begins. From 5am on, all morning the dogs bark like mad, feeding each others frenzy. At RV parks there are quiet hours and dogs are NOT allowed to bark from 5am on each day. We will be glad to move on to RV park living for that benefit alone!

We have no sewer hookup so we bought a 35 gallon Thetford toter and hubby installed a 1/2 ton crane from Harbor Freight in the back of our truck. After hooking up every 10th day to go dump (18 or so miles round trip) we needed an alternative solution. I believe that our toter setup will serve us well.

We own a Thousand Trails Nationwide membership which allows us to stay in a park up to 21 days before we are required to move. As a backup we also bought a Resort Parks International membership that allows us to stay up to 14 days in a park for a small fee. The Thousand Trails membership has no nightly fee. We do also plan to stay at National Parks and BLM lands. I have budgeted our monthly rent at $200. If we stay in the Thousand Trails system that costs us $47/month.

After my last day of work, we will have to sell our 2 extra vehicles, do final prep of our mobile home and get our taxes done. I estimate we will begin our journey around the end of February.