Preparation continues.
What are we preparing for, you might wonder?
We are packing, painting, and cleaning in preparation for selling our house and moving into an RV to travel fulltime.
It all started back in June of 2005, when John was informed that his company was being bought and he'd be without a job within 5 years. Having spent over 20 years with the company, this news came as quite a shock. The day of the announcement was the day before we were flying to Oregon on vacation.
John had enjoyed living in the Portland area in a previous "life" and wanted to explore living there again. I had always thought it would be great to live in the Northwest, with its lush green hills, beautiful ocean, and progressive politics. I had grown up in the wild green hills of the Northeast and very much missed them, having endured the oppressive heat, featureless flat terrain, and conservative bible belt politics of north Texas since 1978.
We spent our Oregon vacation researching available properties in various areas of Oregon, becoming progressively alarmed and disallusioned by the prices and house conditions we encountered. Eventually we opted to visit the coast, where we discovered a great little well-maintained neighborhood near the beach. To our delight there remained a reasonably priced half acre wooded lot with a creek running along the back and undeveloped hills beyond. So on our last day of vacation we contracted to purchase our little bit of the Northwest to retire on.
