We Brought Her Home A Year Ago! It Has Been The Weirdest Year Ever…
An idea began to take shape a couple of years ago. After lots of successful, as well as failed attempts to find the perfect place to live, we thought we had finally settled. All of the ideas of moving across country or even to another country seemed to have finally been laid to rest.
We had both brought to the marriage, this same pattern, of wanting to live in every place we had ever visited. Literally, for decades, we tried to connect employment & housing & natural beauty. After raising kids and caring for aging parents, we just felt frustrated and decided to settle….down.
We do love this little home on the lake we purchased and it seemed a perfect place to eventually retire. The plan was to renovate the adorable 30 year old home. While watching YouTube for ideas, it kept suggesting RV Renovation videos. Or maybe it was a universal “bait and switch”. Or maybe we just noticed it more than someone else might.
We had owned RVs before and we’re tried and true DIY’ers, so it didn’t take much to tantalize us with amazing facelifts to older RVs. The thought became, “well if we don’t spend too much money on the home renovation, we could pick up a camper and still take some cool vacations! ”
Oh, That Darn YouTube! It didn’t let up. Just kept showing us all these people who were not retired, yet, were living full time in RVs, many had been renovated. The idea took root. Suddenly, we didn’t care about fixing up our house anymore. Nope! Nada! Leave it as it is! We’re gonna get ourselves an RV….. and maybe LIVE IN IT! We even gave each other the same book for Christmas!
Of course, everyone thought it was a crazy idea. Close family and friends took it personal, as if we were doing this to them. Our response was always, “its just an idea. We have no clue how we can do this or even what kind of RV we would want to live in or can even afford.” But we went window shopping. Wow! There are some really cool RVs on the market.
Decisions of what was the right fit were being made in our minds. Nothing was rushed into. We wanted an RV with space or, at least, storage. Huge trailers required huge expensive trucks to pull them. If there was a breakdown to the truck, we would be stranded. We realized we wanted to travel with 2 vehicles. A motor home and a tow vehicle (Toad). We also decided a diesel pusher was what we wanted, although, that still seems like Jamie’s way of being a trucker. Then we found Rosie!
She was named for her color and after the sled in Citizen Kane, Rosebud. We spent the first few months traveling locally to learn our likes and dislikes before the renovation. What kind of camping did we prefer? Dry camping? Fancy RV Resorts? National Parks?
Renovations started, while at the same time, we had to figure out what were the costs of a nomadic life. Would we sell our house? Rent it out? The biggest cost and still, unsolved, issue became Healthcare. The costs of Health Insurance are enormous in the United States. Add to that the costs of actually getting sick, or just having a bad fall while hiking out in the wilderness. In fact, healthcare became the number one hurdle and sticking point for being able to leave our sticks and bricks life behind.
How will we make a living? Jamie operates an insurance agency and can do it remotely. But Linda would be leaving her job to do this. Should we do YouTube? She actually earned her college degree in Video Production back in the day. So we launched our brand, Roaming With Rosie in Fall 2019. It’s been a blast! Although, a long way from making any money, it’s allowed us to met so many amazing people we now call friends in the YouTube RV Community. This really is a family that supports each other.
But then the pandemic caused by COVID-19 hit. The world as we all knew it has changed. It’s surreal. The stock market has all but collapsed. Millions are unemployed. Full time RVers were stranded with no where to go (that seems to have resolved for most now). It’s hard to make any kind of plans for the near future in this crazy time. But it is in our nature to keep looking forward. Focus on the positive wherever we find it.
And suddenly, we realized that we have owned Rosie for a year. Time continues to march forward. The renovation in progress is a daily reality. Especially, now that there is plenty of free time to do that work. Roaming With Rosie, the brand, is steadily growing as we learn new technology and methods that work best for us.
While we have been working on this huge project, the world is in chaos, and out of our control. We accept it. To the best of our ability we try to let that go. Instead, we focus on what we are doing instead. We paused to think about how far we’ve come in a year. So much progress has happened for us and someday soon we will get back up to speed. So today we make time to celebrate that progress. And yell it to the winds. AND WE CELEBRATE OUR FIRST YEAR ANNIVERSARY WITH ROSEBUD! WE ARE SO HAPPY YOU ARE IN OUR LIVES! WE DREAM…… WE FOCUS ON THE OPEN ROADS AND BEING NOMADS!
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Congratulations Linda and Jamie ❣️You’ve come a long way with Rosie in just one year🎉 May your Roaming Dreams come true … hope to see you back in the boutique before too long and before you hit the road for real💕
Judy
Thank you! Maybe we can bring you along on a hike to be our photographer!
I really enjoyed reading this entire introduction to Rosie! I had no idea you were even doing this! May you have a blast in all your travels, adding up to a delightful retirement!
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