I like fresh starts. While I’m not into the whole, “new year, new you,” a new year feels refreshing. A blank page to continue our journey, building from where we’ve come.
And let me tell you, 2024 started with a bang and we are here for it! And somehow it is already February…
Where have we been? Where are we now?
Let’s catch up!
Recap
We left home in mid-December with our RV loaded up, headed for Florida. We spent four weeks camping at various Florida state and county parks, and one week on Anna Maria Island over the week of Christmas with his family.
Now we’re home. We have a Winter Weather Advisory for freezing rain, and it’s 37 degrees. To say we regret our decision to leave Florida is quite the understatement.
What prompted our five-week trip to Florida? We started with two simple goals: attend the Tampa RV SuperShow for the first time, and find warmer, sunnier weather for a month or so. Seasonal affective disorder is real, y’all.
From there things just snow-balled over the course of 2023. It’s funny how one thing can build on the next, if you let it.
The general series of events went like this…
First, his family decided to go to Florida again over Christmas. Perfect!
We found a week’s worth of availability at one of our bucket list campgrounds in Ft. DeSoto right before Christmas. Take the RV down to Florida in December!? Yes! Stay into January…?!
Later in 2023 we discovered Camp FI SE had extra tickets to attend the first weekend in January. Plus we could stay in our RV onsite with our dog, and hang out with our FI friends! Done, sign us up. We’ve wanted to check out a Camp FI anyway.
Then we had to bridge the gap between Camp FI and the the RV show in mid-January. Which *only* happens to be the peak camping season in FL. Always up for a challenge, I worked my magic and patched together camping reservations to get us to the RV show. Persistence, y’all.
Throw in a RV Gear & Far organized content creator meetup the week of the RV show. Why not meet more creators?
And then the grand finale, the RV show, where we got to see tons of awesome RVs and meet up with some Instagram friends in person. How could this get better?!?!
Now we’re home, and reeling from all the momentum and energy we feel after this incredible time away.
Momentum We Never Expected
Why was this particular trip so energizing? This trip was a roller coaster of steep highs and lows. Despite the lows, these five weeks created more momentum than we expected to propel us forward in 2024.
Lows
The lows were quite low, though.
He had to push through some major discomfort regarding his job while we were on the road. While he took the week off for Christmas, Camp FI and the RV show, otherwise he pretty much worked as usual. Unfortunately unavoidable, significant, urgent work issues came up. There was a brief window of time where we both thought we might have to abort mission and drive home.
Throw in a tiny space, me having to take phone calls in our bathroom (lol), and not always the driest weather… It was touch and go at times.
Still, we persevered.
I had my own struggles. Right before we left for Florida my doctor put me in an orthotic boot to help treat some ongoing foot pain I’ve experienced. This was the last thing I wanted to hear! If you’ve ever had to pack (especially an RV) and travel, staying off your feet isn’t the most feasible. Plus, then I had to deal with trying to stay off my feet while we were in incredible places (as well as incredibly wet and muddy places). Luckily we found some dog parks for Ziggy, and got to put our e-bikes to use (ortho approved!) along the way.
The best and hardest part of RV life is unexpected challenges. We paid for dry camping (no electric, water, sewer hookups) for the Tampa RV show in an overflow field back in October ($50/night, so not free). We were up for the dry-camping challenge and purchased a generator just for this trip.
Literally the Sunday before the RV show we were notified the location we were set to stay in was a mess due to abnormally wet ground, due to abnormally wet weather. Basically they cautioned if we had to get pulled out by a tow truck it would be at our own expense, and they weren’t liable for any damage or dangerous situations created by the wet ground.
Wow! Okay…. They did offer the option to cancel our reservation and get a full refund as long as we did so in the next 48 hours. So we were under a time crunch.
I had a *mild* freak out. Where were we going to find a spot to camp, in the Tampa area, during one of the busiest weeks so we could still go to the RV show?!
We thought about booking a hotel using travel points and putting the RV back into storage (since we already paid for a month at a storage unit near Anna Maria Island). But that would be a huge hassle. I looked at campground availability and could only find spots for over $100/night that were 45+ minutes away from the RV show. No go.
Maybe it just wasn’t our year to make it?
He 100% saved the day though by finding a spot for 3-nights in someone’s backyard on Hipcamp. Bonus, we even had water and electric hookups! Meaning, we were way more comfortable than we would have been dry camping at the RV show. We did have to drive ~20 minutes to get to the show, but hey, that was a mild tradeoff giving the situation we were in. He saved the day, and were able to accomplish our original goal: attending the Tampa RV Supershow.
This trip highlighted an area I need to work on: Life can’t always feel like standing at the top of the mountain.
What do I mean by this? Life is full of highs and lows.
Anytime things got tough during our trip, serious negative self-talk and doubts popped up.
We’re pushing too hard. Maybe this is too much too fast. Maybe it’s too soon to be away this long.
Yet I realize it is unreasonable to expect life to always feel like you just summited a mountain. Reaching peaks requires work, which includes advances and setbacks along the way. If you don’t have the highs and the lows, you cannot reach the peak.
And anyway, after summiting a peak, achieving career success, finding your partner, etc. the journey isn’t over. You still have to climb down, do the work, invest in your relationship, etc.
Anyway, expect a future blog post unpacking this.
Highs
While I can isolate the lows to single, specific incidents, when I think about the highs I immediately zoom out.
There wasn’t one particular “best part” about the trip. It was the combination of intentional planning and executing one heck of an adventure, with the focus being things we truly love, trying new things, and getting clarity around our short and long term goals.
In short, we used our RV as our adventure mobile to:
- experiment with our longest RV trip yet
- spend time together in nature
- spend time with family
- try new things, like paddleboarding for the first time (I fell in trying to stand up, but so fun!)
- deepen our connections in the Financial Independence community
- meet new people in the content creator space
- meet people in the RV community
- gain more clarity for our next RV (more to come on that!)
Seriously, this trip had it all. While we had some really tough moments, we agreed generally things just felt right and that we were moving forward towards our goals.
What was the secret sauce? Honestly I think it comes down to planning this trip with intention, building on what we’ve learned from past experiments, and pushing ourselves and the bar that can keep us stuck.
So now What?
We’ve got some amazing momentum built to kick off 2024, and we can’t wait to share more as it unfolds throughout the year. Complete with highs and lows.
Recently I shared exciting news regarding a new endeavor I’m working on as a result of The Fioneers Design A Life You Love Program I just completed. You may notice I scale back to every other week blog posts as a result of this new project. My hope though is the blog content is still useful, high quality, and thought provoking.
I want to share more with you about his experience speaking to his boss about scaling back and working remotely in his leadership position, and how that continues to play out.
We are working towards up-sizing our RV and tow vehicle set up. Unbelievably exciting!
Travel plans?! You know it! I’m currently working on planning an RV trip west as we speak.
Buckle up, we’re just getting started. And, we’re glad you are here!
Sounds like quite a trip! Welcome home! For the lows, I’m sorry about his job issues on the trip. Maybe this will nudge him closer to quitting! 🙂
I also tried paddleboarding the last couple of years and it’s a lot of fun! I learned that it’s surprisingly easy (and fast) to paddleboard while sitting down, but I have a difficult time standing and not falling into the water.
Ironically I’m glad we ran into some issues related to his job while we were away. While it wasn’t fun in the moment, it was a healthy exercise for him (and his colleagues) and demonstrated we DID NOT have to rush home as the initial reaction indicated. He worked through it in real time, which is important for confidence building for future trips.
I’ve wanted to try paddle boarding FOR-EV-ER! I was so excited when I realized we could try it (free!) at our rental home. I enjoyed it very much and found it relaxing but also a good workout. I stayed on the knees 99% of the time. I love being on the water in general… I was able to stand successfully in a protected canal without falling, but didn’t have the confidence to try paddling while standing. I tried to stand in shallow, clear water out on the ocean, but unfortunately quickly fell in right in front of a big group of people on the beach. I felt like a big doofus, but I was laughing once I got over the shock of the cold water. Needless to say it was a cold paddle back to the house. Don’t know until you try!
So happy to read this recap! I’m glad you both look back on the whole trip as a success, even with the highs and lows, because as you mentioned, they are part of life! Love the comment about realizing not every moment can be like we’re at the top of a mountain…so true!
I’m excited to hear about how things shape up in 2024…so looking forward to hearing more about your new project, as well as unpacking his job stuff. As someone who is still working the 9-5, I’m super curious to hear about what that was like, as we think about hitting the road some day on a bus and whether I want to work on the road or not.
Thanks Mrs. Dink for tuning in! We are SO excited about what’s coming in 2024. I’ll be sharing more about my new project, and hope to share more about the beginning of his career transition. I’m actually curious what he’ll say now that he’s had time to process.