RETIRING THIS MONTH!

Hello, my name is Viola Cook(Vi) and have been married to Craig for almost 23 yrs.,we have 4 children and 9 grandchildren, we live in Bay City Michigan and about two years ago Craig asked me "so what are our plans when we retire?", I said "lets sell everything, buy a motorhome and work and live full time in it and see the world!" he almost fell out of his recliner, he said "I can't believe you just said that, because that is what I have always wanted to do, but would never ask you to give up our home to travel!" I first heard about people actually doing this when a co-worker was getting ready to retire and said him and his wife were selling their home and buying a motorhome and traveling, they were going to work for their sites and see the world!  I couldn't get that out of my mind, so I started checking full-timing on the internet and bought several books on it, and the more I read on it and how we could do this the more I wanted it. A year and a half  ago we bought a 36' 1997 used Dolphin motorhome and went to Virginia for our first trip to see our daughter and loved it. We had a house fire about a year ago and had to live in our motorhome for 6 months in a long term campground while our house was being rebuilt, we met so many full-timers there and seen how happy and carefree they were, got some good advice and put the plan in action! At first we were going to sell the house but thought we'd try it for a year and hopefully by then the housing market will come back and we'd get more for our home. Craig has been retired on SSI for 3 years and I retire June 26th this year, we got our first camphosting position in Mission Texas! We will be going on a limited budget, but by working for our site we can do this, we have a housesitter for our home that is going to pay all the expenses, so that puts more money in our pockets! I have explained to our children and grandchildren about our plans, told them we will be gone for 6 months in the winter but will be back in the summer to spend time with them, we love Michigan and don't mind the summers here, but for health reasons and the pure fact that we hate cold and snow we have to go! We will find a camphosting job in Michigan for the summer and out west for the winters!

 So come along and join us as we prepare to live our dream, watch as we get the motorhome ready, what we plan on packing and what we plan on leaving, etc.! We have already had a big rummage sale, donated a lot to Goodwill, gave things to our children and grandchildren, working on getting our bills in order, we are completely portable with cell phones, satellite tv and verizon internet!

So follow us on our next leg of our journey!