We had completed our RV caravan to the Canadian Maritime Provinces and were finalizing our plans to travel to Florida for the winter when we got a call from Stoneridge at the Park in Tacoma, WA. Several years ago, we put our names on a waiting list to rent a unit in this 55 plus community. The call was to advise us that a unit was available for us with a move-in date of November 1^st. This was the first vacancy they had had in the last ten months for the type of unit we wanted. We would  have preferred to go to Florida this winter and move to Washington next spring or summer but there were no guarantees that a unit would be available at that time, so we went for it.

We had originally planned to do the Canadian RV Caravan in 2020 and move into a residence in 2021, but COVID changed all of that. We thought we would have the opportunity for one last trip to Key West this year, but that isn’t going to happen. After eleven years of traveling fulltime in our RV, we will have a stationary home in November.

This news started a flurry of activity. We had to consolidate what household goods we still had and ship them to Washington, plan a route to Washington, and cancel our plans for Florida. I don’t know about Pat, but for me it was an emotional whiplash. I had all these things I planned to do in Central Florida and Key West, as well as people we planned to see. In one phone call, that was changed.

After some research, we determined it would be less expensive to get a “pod” positioned in Bad Axe, MI (where most of our stuff was stored). When I was in the National Guard, assisting units in deploying in Air Force aircraft, I would tape a rectangle on the floor the size of a cargo pallet so the unit personnel could plan their loads to fit on the pallets. Pat remembered me doing this and taped out an area the size of the interior of the container we were getting. A simple system that still works!

As we gathered our stuff, we realized that we had more than we remembered. We called U-Pack and asked if we would be charged if we ordered a second Relo-Cube but didn’t use it? They said “No,” and we ordered the second. As you can see from the picture, we had overreacted and didn’t need the second one.

This container will be shipped to Tacoma, stored until we are ready to move in, and then delivered to our new house.

We are looking forward to this new chapter in our lives, and plan to continue traveling, just not as fulltime RVers. We hope that many of the new friends we have made across the country will come to visit us in the great Pacific Northwest.