What are we doing?

For the last year or so we have been talking about downsizing. We love our house but it had begun taking up more of our time than we were wanting to give. We have other things we'd rather be doing than raking leaves, pulling weeds, picking up fallen limbs, mopping floors, cleaning windows, sweeping and so on. It had gotten to the point where there was always something that needed doing to keep the yard and house looking decent. The house had become a full time job. We had already retired from full time jobs and didn't need any more.

Frank had been talking up selling everything and buying a bigger RV. Life on the road, "no worries, mate". EJ wasn't quite ready for such a drastic change. She still wants a home base to come back to. When it came right down to it, neither one of us relished the thought of getting rid of all our stuff. There are some things that we're just not done with yet. Besides, we have a perfectly good Class "B" RV that we've traveled in for as long as 7 weeks at a time and we were still weren't ready to go home. Considering what's happen to gas and diesel prices, it's a good thing we decided not to go with Plan "A" and sell everything to buy a bigger RV.

Plan "B" was to find a smaller place, that didn't require as much upkeep. We had a few requirements such as a double car garage, indoor laundry (a lot of places have them in the garage), access to a swimming pool, an adult oriented community, and a place to park the current RV. We also wanted a view of either woods or water. And after much soul searching, we decided we'd like to stay near our friends. We had moved away twice before and came back both times.

We're thinking that we want to begin traveling for 3 or 4 months at a time, so the smaller place is going to have to be pretty much self sufficient in our absence. Florida is wonderful in the winter months therefore we want to travel during the hot summer when we can go some place cooler. That means we need a place we won't have to worry about.

So the search was on. Over the years we had kept our eyes on certain neighborhoods and areas. We also found some new places to investigate. But in the end it was our good friends Ron and Dale Powell who furnished the lead on what would become our new home.