Getting Started Part 2

Charlottesville, Virginia
Not sure where the idea of the RV came from. Like many things in my life - the jobs, the farm.....-what I'm longing for seems to work itself out almost automatically the more good feelings and desire I have behind it. Perhaps it was my former high school beau and current good friend Jody who had had an RV that he loved. I suspect he first got me thinking about something that had never been a part of the life of anyone I'd known. But I started looking on line at sites he suggested and things he recommended. Thanks for everything Jody!!

But none of these were close enough to where I lived to even go look at them. So I began going to RV shows to see them even though new was totally out of the question. I looked at everything. Thought I wanted really small to be able to get to the kind of out of the way places I'd hoped to go. Class B? Nope - WAY too expensive. Class C? Nope didn't like the feel inside. 5th wheel was out from the start because I didn't have the money for the rig and the truck. So class A it was and I began to seriously search. I determined that with the demise and take over of many of the RV companies, I liked the Winnebago and particularly the Brave. I concentrated on finding one close to me. Nothing, nothing, nothing..........

In my holiday stocking this past year, I got a little gold Class A RV ornament and I put it on the small table under my vision board at the foot of my bed along with my National Wildlife passport book, some sea shells and other symbols of my dreams. Well you can see. For me, dreams, visions and the things that keep them in my mind have been part of how things happen in my life. The vision board is just one of those things.   (Although it looks big in the picture. It is next to a book that is 4X6".)

And then BINGO it all happened at once. On just another ordinary day of checking online RV sites for a used Winnebago Brave, I decided to google "Winnebago Brave". And among other hits, up popped a site I'd never seen before, oodle.com, and on this site there was in fact a 2004 Winnebago Brave which was 17 miles from me. WHAT?

About that same time I ran into a web site called RV Dreams. I’d been calling this RV/kayaking idea my RV Dream and so for fun I googled the phrase and up came Howard and Linda Payne and my first connection to the full timing life. I spent nearly every free second I had for the next weeks reading their story and how they made their decision and looking at the amazing detail about their life and their decision to go full time that they have put up on their website to enable us all to stop dreaming about it and get on with the doing.

And that was the push I needed. I hightailed it up the road to take a look at the Brave and she was perfect. I went back again and she was more perfect. I took trusted mechanic advisors and she was most perfect. And so, I took a deep breath drained the savings account and she was mine.

Seems pretty amazing to me that all of a sudden the RV was right there so close. All of a sudden, I ran into Howard and Linda who were amazingly having a full timing rally on the East coast about 6 hours from me just a month after I found The Brave. The synchronicity was too much and although I didn’t have a clue how I would work out the time and money thing, the first trip I took in the Brave was to the 2010 RV Dreams Rally in Longs, S.C. (picture is of her just before we left)

And the Rally was IT. Everything I learned, all the people I met and especially Howard and Linda themselves pushed me off the cliff. I became determined to live my RV/Kayak dream NOW. That was in April 2010 and on September 9th I worked my last day, retired early with less than optimal funds trusting that the how will show up just like it has in the past. So I'm movin’ on down the East Coast as of September 16, 2010.

Come along for the ride in whichever vehicle I happen to be in or on at the time. There’s me my sweet RV Dream herself Winona the Brave,  a 2002 Honda Accord toad, a 13.5’ Wilderness Cape Lookout Kayak, and a Trek 24 speed bike. We’ll be wanderin’ along takin’ it nice and easy and hope you’ll check on us often as I just follow my heart to wherever the dreams take me.

Hope you too are using your dreams to make up your visions and that you'll get on whichever road they take you to! Life is a law of attraction. Thoughts become things.