Thursday, April 19, 2007

How We Got Into Full Time RV'ing

How we got into full timing
Let me preface this in that when we got married I told Kim I didn’t know what it would be like to be married to me, but I knew it wouldn’t be boring. She says I’ve lived up to that. When we built our 3500 square foot home in 1993 our kids were 5, 7 and 9. Kim and I agreed that when the kids were raised we would probably sell it and move into a smaller home. Over the last few years we have had opportunities to do many ministries, but have longed to be more mobile to be able to go where we’re needed. There is also a lot of the USA we haven’t seen and would like to enjoy traveling while we have the health to do it. I am 50 and Kim is 45.
It all started in the fall of 2006. September was our 25th anniversary. We decided to get some sort of camper and do some traveling. We bought an entry level motorhome and went to Colorado and North Carolina. We loved it! We began to think of how this could be the link to our mobile ministry. In researching the motorhome we had, we decided it was not designed to carry the heavy load of full time RV’ing. We looked at several manufacturers and decided the Holiday Rambler Endeavor met our needs nicely. It had a floor plan we liked, was big enough and sturdy enough to handle the rigors of full timing and was in our price range. It is considered a mid-range coach. The manufacturer and dealer were just 20 minutes from our home. When I talked to the dealer, we still weren’t sure if this is what we wanted to do. I asked how much he would need as a down payment to order it and he said $2,000.00 and if it came in and we didn’t want it, he would give us our money back. We took a step of faith.
We have a company that sells and installs security equipment and alarms. We decided to sell our home and keep the company as it would still provide us with income to travel. We spoke with our neighbor about coming on and managing the company. We told him we would be selling our home come spring. He knew of someone that had been looking for a home like ours for over a year. He called them and they came out and looked at it the same day and we had reached an agreement about 60 hours later. We didn’t even call a realtor! The motorhome came in the first of March and we had a $5,000.00 garage sale and were moved out of our home by the end of March. We had also moved our company from our shop at home to Goshen. The man we who was to manage our company came to us with an offer and wanted to purchase the day to day operations of our company and let us retain the central station monitoring accounts which would provide an income for us to travel. We sold the company and hope to begin our travels on June 1, 2007.

1 comment:

tomas41 said...

The town of Hungry Horse was indeed named after two draft horses used for logging the area when they wandered off during the severe winter of 1900. The horses, Tex and Jerry, were found a month later, all scraggly and hungry but very much alive. As visitors today drive through Hungry Horse on their way to and from Glacier National Park, there are statuesque reminders of the hungry horses.

Today the town has a population of 900 and is a small community that is likely to be overlooked as visitors make their way onward to Glacier National Park, which lies just 10 miles to the east. The town is worth a stop, either for a traveler's rest break or a place to spend the night prior to a full day in the park. Worth checking out are the several roadside stands offering various concoctions made from native huckleberries. The best are the huckleberry milk shakes that leave you wanting more. A worthy side trip is a visit to the Hungry Horse Dam. The town's post office was established in 1948, when the federal government began planning to dam the South Fork of the Flathead River. The dam was completed in 1952
HI...the web site and the horses wanted you to know the name of "Terry"....is actually "Jerry". Keep up your informative trip info.