First stop: Sanger, TX.

We have been a little quiet here lately. The flu hit our house hard and pretty much the entire month of January at least one of us, and most of the time more than one of us, was sick. Boo to that! We have not had the flu in several years so it came as a bit of a surprise but we are all, fingers crossed, on the mend. Last weekend we were so tired of being inside we took a little drive up to an area where there were several potential RV parks we wanted to take a look at as possible spots for our first several months living stationary and we found “The One”, lol.
So, a few things we were looking for in an RV park: 1.) Dog and kid friendly-I have been a little surprised at the number of RV parks that are NOT kid friendly. In fact, from the research I have done so far it seems like there are more pet friendly parks then there are kid friendly parks, lol. I suppose that this life style has, up until recently, been mostly for retirees who would rather not have to deal with crazy kids running around which I totally understand. It will be interesting to see as we begin our travels how it varies depending on the area of the country we are going to. I for one consider a truly kid friendly park to be one where they don’t charge you an arm and a leg on top of the monthly rates to stay at the park. 2.) Under $600/month all in-this wasn’t too hard to find here in North Texas since we live in a fairly wallet friendly area of the country. I do expect to spend a lot more as we begin traveling. 3.) A Location with access to the house and work for Steve- the whole purpose of living stationary for the first few months of RV living is so that we can get our house sold and so that we can work out all the kinks of life in an RV in a location that won’t be too overwhelming for us. We wanted to find a spot that wasn’t completely across town so that as we are getting our sticks and bricks all set for sale, we don’t have to drive two hours back and forth every time we need to be at the house. We also wanted to be in a location which would allow Steve to go and come for work as needed. He mostly works from home now and we expect to continue this as much as possible but we are also fully aware that moving from a 2,000 sq. ft. + house to a 350 + sq. ft. RV will come with some adjustments and “shrinking” pains so to speak. We want this stationary time to give us the opportunities to work out all the kinks that I’m sure will come along with downsizing. We will be close enough to our current area to not have to switch everything around right away. This time period will also allow us the chance to get prepared to buy our truck for towing the RV so we are hoping to take advantage of the summer months to sell our house at a good price. This will help us prepare for our next step of becoming more mobile.
So, in doing my research for possible RV parks I was looking for a location within an hours drive of our current area, less then $600/month rent, and a family friendly environment. We found the perfect park on our little drive last weekend and, even better, it is in a country like setting with an alpaca farm! The kids are super excited about that. The name of the park is Wagon Master RV park.They were so friendly and we were able to drive/walk around the park to get a feel for it. The alpacas were out in their pens and we were even able to go say hi to them too which the kids were elated about. I had about 5 different RV parks we wanted to go visit but after seeing this one, we knew this was the one for us. We’ve put our deposit down and now we just need to buy the RV! We are shooting for April 6th. That is when they had a spot open and we didn’t want to chance loosing the spot so we are hoping that we are able to get our RV shipped there as soon as we buy it.
I can’t believe how close we are to making this leap! We have begun in earnest to declutter and give away some of our things we will no longer need. I have a feeling this is going to take several rounds but we’ve already made several trips to our local charity for drop offs and it feels so good to be decluttering. It is amazing the amount of things you accumulate that you hardly use at all! I think as humans we just tend to fill up whatever space we have without realizing it. I think the hardest thing has been helping the kids wrap their minds around the downsizing concept but I’m hoping that it will be a smooth transition since we will have a little while to fully move into the RV before we will need to have everything out of the house before putting it on the market. Here’s to smooth transitions!