Our Great Escape

Normal we are not…

“I want to make my life less ordinary.”  – David Miller, AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

“It’s not normal”.  This was a statement made to my wife by a skeptical family member while Reim was discussing our plans to sell our house and live in an RV fulltime for a few years (or longer).  “It’s not normal”.  When Reim told me this my response was “well, that’s the point isn’t it?”  We laughed.  “Yep”.

How we got here…

“You’re so worked up about work you never play with us or tickle us anymore.” – Ireland McCormick, 2014

I don’t think it’s necessary to rehash the loathing I have for the two years of hell when I decided to get a real job.  Ireland’s quote above summarizes it perfectly and was a significant trigger to our quest for a less ordinary life.  So, I will move on to why we decided to get the hell out of Dodge (or Houston).

We must have financial or legal trouble…

Erroneous! Erroneous! Erroneous on both counts! – Jeremy Grey “The Wedding Crashers”

First, we are not in financial distress.  In fact, we do well financially.  Second, we are not running from the law or anything else for that matter.  Although, I guess it could be argued that we are running from an ordinary (or “normal”) life.

As I mentioned in a previous post we dipped our toe in location independence, of road schooling the kids, of being free of sticks and bricks hell, and of wandering.  So, we didn’t exactly go into this blind.  It’s been a few years in the making.

Yes, our normal city life has been rewarding in many ways.  Although I met Reim, made great friends, and had a movie theater across the street city life had become disenchanting.  Frankly I came to despise it.  Twenty minutes to drive 2 miles to the bank.  Constant sounds of sirens.  Sharing a fence with five “neighbors”.  No starry nights.  I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you the whining.

There were casual “what if” conversations.  Those casual conversations turned into research and spreadsheets and deep discussions. The “what if” became “why not”.  The decision was made…We were going to lease our house and go nomadic for 12 months.  Then the discussions migrated to let’s turn our house into a long-term rental property.  Then we decided the pool was going to be a pain in the rear from a rental perspective.  Surprisingly Reim said let’s just sell the house.  I think her exact words were “It’s not my house any longer if someone else is living in it and, let’s face it, we’re not moving back to Houston anyway”.   I was super excited and exclaimed “Let’s sell the house and be nomads indefinitely!”.  We agree on two years of wandering then we will decide if it’s time to go stationary again.   If we get to the point any of us want to be less nomadic then we will rent or buy a place.

Over the past year we spent about six months in the RV and another couple of weeks traveling abroad.  We used that as an test run for making sure my work was “nomadic friendly” and that the kids schooling would stay on track.

At the end of the day what is the risk in doing this?  For us the risk of not doing this and having to live with the “what if” far outweighed any risks of doing this.  We can always buy another house, get a real job, etc.

When we were on our way to closing on the sale of our house I asked Reim if she was okay.  Her response: “Yes!  I’m bored and ready for a new adventure!”   She rocks!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain

What the kids think about all this…

“Living in an RV isn’t’ exactly convenient for a teenager.” – Luke McCormick, 2017

When we first told the kids about our plan they were excited.  Then we proceeded to explain that this was not going to be a vacation, but a new way of life.  And as part of this new way of life they would continue to be homeschooled (road schooled) and that they would only see their Tomball friends a few times a year.  The excitement dissipated.   Ireland had a hard time with the thought of leaving her “cul de sac posse” and during a father/son talk Luke stated that “living in an RV isn’t exactly convenient for a teenager” (he will turn 13 in December).  I knew the perfect tonic for this issue.  An RV trip.  Off we went for a long weekend to Bastrop State Park, new adventures had, new friends made, and neither kid wanted to return to the burbs. Oh…and we did bribe them with a visit to the RV dealership to show them the new floor plan that we were looking at.  A floor plan that would give each of them their own space.  Sold!

A few weeks before we closed on the sale of our house Luke and I were having lunch.  We were discussing the new way of life and I mentioned to him that it wasn’t a decision that Reim and I had taken lightly.  I stated that we hoped that it was the right thing for us, but there were no guarantees.  His response…“Dad, this is definitely the right thing for us!” –

No more epic trips…it’s time for an epic life.

 “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” – Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption