Celebrating 3 Years as Full Time RVers!

Today, June 1, 2023, we are in New Orleans celebrating 3 Years as Full Time RVers! The time has flown by because we been having so much fun. Yes. Time really does fly, when you’re having fun.

Three years ago today, we sold our house and moved into our RV that we’ve named Ladybug. We’d been advised by other full timers that it’s wise to stay at an RV park close to where our house was. So we took the advice, and stayed at the closest park we could find for 3 weeks, before truly beginning our journey.

During that time we organized everything that we had shoved into Ladybug. Literally. our stuff was everywhere we could find an inch of space. Clearly, we should have purged more before moving in! We didn’t even have a clear path to walk through the RV. And finding places for what was on the bed was our first priority, or we wouldn’t be able to sleep. It took us the better part of the first week to get organized and totally unpacked.

We hung artwork. Ordered a ton of things that we knew we’d need, from Amazon. And replaced our teeny tiny RV fridge with an almost 11 cubic foot Magic Chef. that fit the space like it was custom made. And we said our last goodbyes to all of our dear friends. That part was bittersweet, but we knew that we’d be coming back every year to visit.

Our experiences have been incredible! We have seen things that we only knew about from books. The Pacific Coast, Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, Arches National Park, Old Faithful, Tulip Festival in Oregon, falling in love with an alpaca, and seeing bison walk right along side our car at Yellowstone are just a few that flood my mind with blissful memories.

The food that I’ve cooked, and the food that we have eaten in restaurants across the country has been so amazing. This food has inspired me to write a series of eCookbooks for each of the 50 states that we have been to. Working alphabetically, Tasting Alabama: one bite at a time, is already available for download on the site! Click here to purchase.

Speaking of the cookbooks, I am working on Tasting Arkansas (Tasting Alaska and Arizona will be available soon!) and I was looking for pictures from our time there in 2006. That was the year we fell in love with RVing.

We bought our first RV in 2006, and used it to travel in Florida to art shows, where I sold my jewelry. To see a few of my handmade pieces just click here. Our son and daughter in love got married in May of that year, so we couldn’t really travel until after their wedding. But in June we took off for a 6 month RV trip that was so amazing that we came home and ALMOST started full time back then.

Looking through the photos, I was reminded that it was on that trip, that we totally fell in love with New Orleans as well.

We’d been here for a catering conference in 1991. Everything about The Big Easy was so fabulous that we knew we wanted to return. But it wasn’t until many years later that we got to do that. It was the year after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. The only RV site we could find was filled with FEMA trailers. If friends hadn’t guided us to a new park we would have only stayed a couple of nights. Thankfully, we got to move to a great spot on the outskirts of the French Quarter.

People here were so grateful to have visitors return. They hugged us like long lost relatives and thanked us for coming to their home. That alone was enough to begin a love affair that has become a long term relationship. But the food. OMG! The food is so delicious that you go to sleep dreaming of what you will eat tomorrow.

Scattered throughout this post are photos from that first RV journey that led us to the unending one we are on now. Three years and still loving every second!!!