Hello from the 'belly-button' of Illinois (look at the state map and you'll figure out where we are at!)

My husband and I have actually been following Linda and Howard's travels online for a long time now but have been 'lurking' in the background until recently.

I am a totally stress-out 60-hour a week IT director.  My husband, a wonderful remodeler and handyman, retired permanently last year due to health (Crohn's disease).  He's 54, I'm 49 (for about 4 more weeks!) 

Our oldest son is now in his second year of law school at Northern Illinois University.  Our youngest son plays football for Eastern Illinois University (Tony Romo's alma mater).  This means we are now in our second year of having an 'empty nest'.

Ken and I have a plan to ease in to our 'freedom'.  I have finally come to a point in my 30year career that I feel that I can start a gradual cutback on the time and pressure without being fearful of the consequences.  The reality is, the worst that could happen is that I lose my position and all that means is my plan just moves forward faster, albeit with a bit smaller bankroll.  For the next 3 years until the youngest completes college/football, our intent is to do lots of long weekends, a couple 2-week longer trips each year and maybe a week at Christmas....oh, then of course, there's all the tailgating!!  Hopefully I can get my employer to allow me to work more on the road over time since I already have many of my employees in Germany and have implemented a lot of virtual team technologies and work practices so my physical location has little to do with how I do my job.

In 18 months, our oldest son hopes to come back to his hometown, practice law and coach basketball. At that point we'll have someone to take over our 'home base' and not have to sell the home we designed ourselves, and that is the only home our sons have every known.  Again, I'm hoping to be able to adjust my hours even more after that so that we can start spending even more time on the road. 

Over time we intend to become 'extended timers' with our son taking over the house and us spending less and less time here. 

Of course, any number of things can cause adjustments in that plan but we're pretty flexible.

We have two dogs, Ditka and Sox (that's what happens when Illinois sports fanatics get to give you a name!!!).  They are Shiba Inu's.  They look just like little red foxes.  You'll see them in our avatar --- looking longingly out the door, ready to hit the road!

It was actually information I picked up from this site that helped us move more seriously into considering RVing.  Linda and Howard were teaching at 'Life on Wheels' Conference in Des Moines.  We decided this was a chance to learn more about the lifestyle that had for so long been our dream and could give us a more objective education before we got started.  This was an awesome experience and we'll do more of these conferences if for no other reason than to meet so many wonderful open fun-loving people in one place.  That conference hooked us.  We wanted to be part of what these people had.  We began to begin our search of a rig in earnest after that.

While originally looking at 5er's, we've decided that with 3 more years of football (and who knows after), we wanted something that would work well for tailgating as well...so we're now looking at Motorhomes.  We are overwhelmed at this point.  One minute we are in 7 year old gas motorhomes that would be ok for a start and the next we are in a new DP.  Some tell us to go olad and used to start out so we don't have all the lost depreciation if we decide we don't like RVing after we get into it.  Other's tell us that we need to get the closest to everything we want longterm that we can afford so that we don't have to consider trading up for some time to come. 

Our favorite part of travelling is meeting so many friendly and interesting people.  Walking a campground with the dogs, stopping to talk and laugh, and share stories... sharing a campfire and a bottle of wine with hubby, dogs and friends, waking without an alarm but to the sounds of the forest...I'm there...I can't wait!

I am a systems analyst by traded so I hope my incessent and sometimes very 'blonde' questions will not go overboard. 

Thanks Howard and Linda for this site and your ongoing inspiration.  Maybe if we get off our duffs and buy a MH and toad, we'll see you in Idaho this year.

Namaste!

C