Beginning a Blog

My wife, Vicki, and I are starting this blog to mark a rather momentous decision in our lives. We have been married now for 36 years. We've been practicing medicine in one form or another for 34 of those years. We had a son and raised him to young manhood. In June he will graduate from college and, hopefully, strike out on his own in life (i.e. get off our payroll). And we are ready to move on.

After much thought (5 minutes at least) we decided that while we are still young enough to enjoy it, were going to chuck it all and become vagrants, bums, vagabonds, drifters, prodigals, tramps, shiftless transients. Yes, we've decided to become full-time RVers. To that end, we traded in our 10-year-old Bounder and purchased a shiny new 37 foot long Allegra motorhome. The most important feature of the new wheels is that it has a bath and a half. We decided that if we are going to live in a motorhome, it is critical that we be able to pee at the same time. It is also nice that it has a shower I can stand in without touching any of the walls. For years, our motorhome showers have been so claustrophobic that I have opted to walk to the campground community bathrooms to wash in the mornings during our vacations. Now, I can actually shower in the motorcoach, an unequivocal luxury.

New Wheels

When, exactly, all of this is going to take place is not entirely clear. I have to be able to sell my medical practice, and it is not clear how long that is going to take. We also need to sell our house, but the real estate agent thinks that should actually go faster than the medical office, so we're not putting it on the market just yet. Our best guess is that we will leave Redlands, CA sometime between February and July of 2013. This blog will cover our planning and preparations and, eventually, our traveling adventures.

Vicki is already unemployed, having finally parted ways with VITAS Hospice last week. I might con her into doing an entry about her trials and travails, just to take up space. The frequency of entries might be a little haphazard at first, but once we actually hit the road we will try to update about once or twice a week.

I will go-ahead and turn on blog comments but they will be heavily moderated. I would like to think that some posts might generate reasonable conversations but my Internet experience is that comment threads can attract idiots who think anonymity allows them to abandon all rules of civility. I reserve the right to remove inappropriate posts without explanation or justification. Hey, it's my blog. I'm God here.

Well, that's about as much introduction as I'm up for today. I'll be back before too long. See you all a little further on down the road.

-RR-