RVenture Awaits

RVenture continues! Hi everyone! Well it has been awhile so I thought I better catch up with what's happening with us. Let me take you back to the beginning of the year.

In January we had a wedding in Tampa FL for our niece Cyndi. So we thought why not make it a vacation and take 3 weeks to explore in our RV, especially in the winter. Who would want to get away from MD in the winter? US!  Tom had leave to take before he retires so we jumped on the chance to take this trip in our 5th wheel.

So we headed down the road Jan. 2nd. We drove down to our daughter's home in NC to see their family. Tom was also baptizing our granddaughter Aubrey into our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Something that happens when they turn 8. It was a fun trip to see them. I had a cold but managed to survive taking lots of meds and moving on. It was a fun visit despite my cold. Enjoyed staying at the local Asheboro Yogi Bear campground. A nice place, and pretty new. Check it out if you get the chance. 

Leaving NC we headed to Summerton SC  to stay at Palmetta Shores Campground for one night.  Had a nice pull thru spot there. Nice campground by the Santee River. Lots of sand but a nice to place to stay. We would like to go back again. Met some nice people even a couple from Md across from us. They were heading north. We also met a couple next to us that was going to be there for three months, they were from Oregon and full timing. It was fun to meet them. BTW.....today was our 42nd wedding anniversary. Stopped at a Denny's for lunch. :)

As our trip continued we left SC and headed to Mayport FL. to stay on base for two days. Can I just say I loved this campground! We were right on the water and it was beautiful. We had a nice anniversary dinner at a place called "Two Dudes Seafood". Small place and so good. Another special treat for us was visiting with my 92 yr old Aunt, whom I haven't seen in many yrs. It was nice to see her and catch up.

Then the big day came for us to leave after two days and head to Ft Wilderness Campground, Disney. We were so excited. This campground is so nice and I can't wait to go back again. If you are going to do Disney this is the way to go, by staying at one of their places. My cousin Jan and his wife Ann were there too so that made it fun. Also, our good camping buddies from Md., Chris & Frank joined us there too. It was so nice and we loved Disney! Especially Disney Studio's. We did get to catch up with friends that live in FL,  we have known them for many years. So nice to see Kathy & Jeff and Marylee. Thank you for driving over to see us. :)

After our week at Disney sadly it was time to go. We then headed to Tampa. About an hr away and stayed at Tampa East camp resort. It was nice and after some initial confusion over our sight they upgraded us for free to a nicer site. A lot of full timers here for the winter. The people who work here are very kind and helpful.

It just happened that while we were there the Tampa RV show was happening too. So we knew we had to go to that since it's one the of the largest RV show's. So between seeing family we also had the chance to go.  At the show we ran into our friends Chris & Frank and Betsy & Floyd. Always fun to see them. So happy we finally got to go to this RV show and see so much and run into some of the people we follow on you-tube.

The wedding of our niece was beautiful It was fun to see family and hang out. So glad we could be here for their special day.

The time finally came for us to make our trek home. We left FL and headed to Darren GA. Stayed at Inland Harbor campground. A small campground but nice. They only take cash or checks. We stayed for a couple days and explored GA. We found a cute chapel, the smallest in the United States. Then we found a peach place and bought some fresh peach jam. Sooooo good!

Next stop was Fayetteville NC. at Lazy Acres. We had read some good & bad reviews and decided we would find out for ourselves. The lady was very nice at check in and the man leading us to our site was very kind helping us in get in straight. The next morning he came by to see how we were. No bad experience here! The the next day onto Ashland VA to stay at Americamps. One of our favorite campgrounds. Almost home!

It was quite a three week adventure. We had so much fun and enjoyed seeing family and friends along the way. We have so much to do before we head out in April. Tom retires soon and then everything becomes real. It was fun to take this trip and think about what lies ahead of us and we venture out.

Thanks for following along. Until next time. Keep smiling and enjoy "RVenture!" :)

Hi fellow readers,

I'm trying something new here with keeping a blog.   Let me introduce ourselves. We are Tom & Beth Boswell and we currently live in Southern Md. We sold our home about 15 months ago and moved into a very small apartment after downsizing and preparing for our next adventure......full time rv'ing. Tom & I have been talking about going full time for awhile now. It all started when we were out in AZ visiting Tom's cousins, Dave & Mary Greer. They had recently bought a new camper and Tom really liked it. He told me that he could see us doing this....meaning camping. I was a little scared thinking "do we really need a camper"? But as time went on, there we were looking at campers. We had a small popup a few yrs prior but we didn't go very much and then it got totaled in a car accident when someone hit us on the way to a campout. A couple years later we bought a travel trailer, a 25 ft Passport. It was small and no slides but met our needs at that time. We had some fun campouts in that one. After about a yr, we decided to upgrade to a larger travel trailer, another Passport, 32 ft with one slide. We were thrilled with the extra room. We camped many times in the larger Passport. At least once a month when the temps were nice and a few when it was cold in Nov. too. We learned many things about being RV owners over the three yrs we had a couple travel trailers. We loved being outside and always dreaded when it was time to leave after a weekend of camping. So this is when we decided to start making plans to go full time after Tom retired.

Our first Passport camper.

Our second Passport camper.

Planning to do this has had many emotions with it. Things I started thinking of were, can I give up my home and live in a small place for who knows how long? We had so much “STUFF” to get rid of that I was a little overwhelmed. I was also thinking can I be away from my grandchildren for a long amount of time? Will we be OK financially? Just so many questions. We prayed about it and we both felt like this was the right thing to do at this time in our life. Tom has worked for the govt. for many yrs and this was after 20 yrs in the Navy too. He was ready. So the planning began. We had a couple yard sales, gave things away and took a lot to the thrift shop. Our son’s family was kind enough to let us store our leftover things in his basement.

A couple years ago we planned to go to the Richmond RV show and look at campers. This is where we found our future home. We decide to buy a Keystone Alpine 39 ft 5^th wheel. It would be made for us. We were excited. It would be about 8 weeks until it was done.

Our future home. Our Keystone Alpine!

We sold our home after it was on the market for a week. We knew our RV would be ready about the time we had to move out of our home. We decided to move into our new RV at Solomon’s Recreation Center for a couple months.  Our son Travis, had just bought an apartment complex that had three units in it. They had to be fixed up and it would be ready in Aug. We would rent one of the small apartments when they were ready. We enjoyed our time at Solomon’s Rec Center camping and getting a taste of what we would be doing full time. Tom was still working and I was still driving up to my son’s home to watch our grandchildren.

We moved into our apartment Aug. 2018. Our son had a 50 amp plug installed next to the apartment so we could hook up our RV.  Life was good. So over the past 17 months we have adjusted well into our tiny apartment. (450 sf) We continued to go camping on the weekends. We had a long trip this past summer and a 3 week trip just recently. We are looking forward to the many changes that will be happening in 2020!

I have to tell you I don’t miss all that “stuff” we have. I think as I get older I look forward to the “simple life”. It’s good to declutter and really look at what you really need. We have figured out our budget and we know we will have to be thrifty but we really feel like this is what we should be doing now in our lives. It just all feels right. Everything has worked out for us as we have planned this new adventure. We are looking forward to seeing more of the United States and some of you that we haven't seen in yrs. I know there will be a time that we will have to settle down again but for now the adventure begins.  

I have so much more to tell you and as I update this post I will share our thoughts and ideas with you. I’ll try to catch up with the start of 2020. We hope you will follow along on our journey. We also have a Facebook page….RVenture Awaits. Check it out. We hope in time to have a YouTube page too. Thanks for taking the time reading our story.  

Have a great day, travel safely and keep smiling.  Life is good and RVenture Awaits!:)