mobile HOLMES

Our blog is supposed to be and will become our journal for our full time RVing, however it will be a few months before we begin our travels, so we are posting our journey to get to our goal of full timing. After my stroke in last year we knew that my income and ability to work was gone, so like many times before we had to plan a new part of our life. We had a house in Jonesboro but did not want to reside there for multiple reasons. We had been renting it out but the renters moved out. A couple of options were to rent it, sell it, or put money in it to make it large enough to fit us with Kathryn and Blayke. We decided to try to sell it, and lo and behold we got an acceptable offer within 10 days of listing it. (God does come through if you let him) Once we had a done deal on the house, we thought we would buy a cheap house for a rental property. We found one in Rector that was solid as far as structure, it just needed some non-major repairs, paint carpet etc.. As timing has it, it turned out better for us to move into it rather than rent it out and find another place to live. It was wiser financially as well. We have done 85 to 95% of the work now, most of what is left is cosmetic. I need to take a little bit here to recognize my son-in-law Larry who did most of the work. Larry has been fantastic. he not only has the skills but was willing to work his behind off to help us get this place livable. Thank you so much Larry. Here is an idea of what we have done. First of all this is a double wide mobile home built in 1987. It had been empty for over two years. The first task was to replace almost all of the siding. Larry also helped me save a few hundred dollars on the material. We replace it and the eaves and facia boards on the outside of the house painted tiled and carpeted the inside, replaced all of the light fixtures, replaced the gas stove we did not know was broken, put in a dishwasher, used dozens and dozens of tubes of caulk, said some words and had to ask forgiveness for them. only had to patch a bundles worth of shingles, but the place it taking nice shape. It is a 3 bedroom 2 bath house and we have stayed warm this winter despite the central unit being shot, the duct work underneath had been ripped out. We put a good size window unit heatpump and electric space heaters. While replacing the outside panels I saw it was insulated well. and with the caulking we did the house does really well. we have about 14 more feet of tile in the utility hallway and 1 bath room to complete and all of the flooring will be new. Then we can finsh the outside paint and the house will be ready to have a new owner.

In order to leave we have lots of "stuff" to get rid of. As I've learned this is the hardest part. We have already sold a bunch( mere pennies on the dollar) at an auction. As well as sold and continue to load up a flea market booth. Our house is the 'big ticket' item, so today we have a friend who is a handyman from our church working on some repairs to our place. It started out raining pretty hard today so I had given up on today for a work day, but the rain stopped and the sun is out so David is on the roof working now. Yay!! The sooner the repairs and upgrades are complete the sooner we get it on the market, get it sold and hit the road! I have some body repairs to do on my truck as well. nothing major. it should be only a few hundred bucks worth.

I think (according to my wife Phyllis) we will take the grandkids to the Arkansas diamond mines as a first trip for a couple of days.

January 14, 2010 OPPOSITION

Yesterday I was confronted with my first real opposition to our endeavor to RV full time. My mom looked hard at me and said she really hated that we were going to take that trip and wished we would change our minds. She wished she knew what she could say that would talk us out of it. I asked her what her main problem with it was. She looked sternly at me and said, "You have too many kids here to have to help take care of. You have one new grandbaby here and one on the way, and you have Maralyn and Alton (my in-laws) and me! Mark is not in good health and I'm afraid your old truck won't last long and break down on the road." I told her that first, the daughter that has the baby here with us is going back to Tulsa. My oldest daughter can take care of her own family just fine, and the other daughter that is pregnant will be fine as well. And we can always be here when we are needed. She then said we might be too far off to come when needed. I told her that all our kids are supportive of what we are doing. As a matter-of-fact, my in-laws are too. Well, I left there heart sick. I called my oldest daughter and told her what happened. I had already asked her when we first started this idea of rv-ing if we were being selfish. She encouraged me to go for it and that NO, she did not feel it was selfish of us. That we needed to take advantage of the opportunity that God had given us to recover from our stress, enhance our marriage, and be better parents to the 6 year old we are raising. So, once again I was asking my daughter if we were selfish in doing this. She gave me the same answer as before. This morning I realized that it is fear that is driving mom's feelings. All the concerns she mentions comes out of "WHAT IF?" fear. God impressed upon me 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind." It is interesting that is also the verse that was used in the last couple days of email devotions I receive. I view this opportunity as a blessing, or even a reward from God. An opportunity to seek him more, to minister more, and yet to be able to experience the beauty of our great nation that we are so blessed to live in. I also feel God impressing on me the scripture in Luke 9 where the Jesus asked the man to follow him, but he replied, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." Luke 9 - 59 Then He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." 60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God." 61 And another also said, "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house." 62 But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."Realizing this is not exactly the same situation, but yet I believe that our decision to RV full-time is a God-ordained opportunity. And it is our responsibility to follow His leading. If this is not a God-ordained opportunity, and we are not to take this direction, then it is our prayer that He will shut the door. But as for now, we are following it will our whole heart.

The first weekend of the new year we wanted to go somewhere, and with the bad weather we chose to stay close. We went to Memphis and took Tatianna to the Childrens Museum and the Pink Palace Museum. It just so happened that my football team, the Razorbacks were playing in the Liberty Bowl the next day, and the Childrens Museum was right next to the Stadium! So we just had to go talk to the tailgaters in the RV's and Motorhomes since we were not going to go to the game itself. Thus we made some new friends that were both Rvers and Razorback fans. It was pretty cool.... The next morning our motel's free hot breakfast was really not working well, too many people, not enough food made and not enough staff to support it. So, I recalled a Shoney's not to far away and we went to the breakfast bar there. To our suprise, While Phyllis was in line, she ran into some old friends we have known since in '80's. Michael is an evangelist that has spend nearly 40 years traveling eastern Europe, Russia and the middle east. He and his wife Jan are based out of Texas and were on there way to East Tennessee for a Revival. They had a similar experience with their motel breakfast. It was so amazing to see them in Memphis of all places. The last time we saw them was in Tulsa before we moved awayin 2004.

Now in Other news---------------

Liquidation and house preperation. We have moved a substantial amount of our 'stuff' in storage and around the house to a flea marked and have already sold a lot from there. My son-in-law and daughter came up and helped us repair a damaged floor section and we are now re-tiling the floor in the kitchen and dining room as well as replacing the ceiling lights througout the house.
I haven't discussed a lot about this house, but basically we bought it originally to be a rent house but timing worked out to make it better for us to move into it. So we have made major improvements and repairs and will have it on the market in the next 30 days, And of course the faster it sells the faster we get the RV and possibly a newer truck. But we will see what happens.

Where to go?

The most asked question that my friends ask after telling them of our plan to 'hit the road' is "where are you going to go". Well, everywhere is a good answer but while it may be true it's not a good answer. Some of the thoughts are 'North when it's summer, South when it's winter. To experience the true freedom, we will not have a tight schedule. We want to see New England in the fall, but do not want to be on the road in winter weather. We will want visit most of the
National Forests such as Yellowstone. And I am sure we will visit the Grand Canyon as well as the Redwoods in nortern California. I can say that we plan to cover the entire lower 48 states, as a bare minimum. As a sports fan, It would be pretty cool if we just happen to be in the area at the time of the NCAA Final Four in basketball or where the Super Bowl is being played. But we will just leisurely travel from one end of our country to the other a few times.

Where are some of the places you would want to go? Maybe we can see you there.

Just a couple of days before Christmas, all the shopping is done, so we are working on the details of our new life. As most of you know we are planning to go to Full time RVing. We can see ALL of America close up, Run out of gas and have flats in all of the lower 48 states, (we already have done this ins 6 or 7 of them.) but hopefully more fun and memories than problems.





About RV's





We have been educating ourselves about RV's. There's going to be the 3 of us, so we have settled on a 'bunkhouse' style RV. This means there are 2 bedrooms in the RV. One of them has bunkbeds. Since Tatianna (6 years old) will need some toys and things to take, the bunk bed setup makes the best since. The second thing we looked at is the trailer type. Either a 5th wheel, or a pull behind. The 5th wheel pulls or hauls easier and is better for backing up, but it takes up all the truck bed space. Since I have pulled pull behind trailers with buildings on them so many miles, I would rather have the storage space in the truck bed. So we are going to get a pull behind.



One we are looking strongly at is a sprinter by keystone. http://keystone-sprinter.com/ will get you to their website. Look for model 311BHS. They have a photo gallery as well as videos of their products.



I have thought about and would like to get a newer truck to pull us around but feel that since mine has plenty of power, it should last us another 2 to 3 years, so I will put off a new truck for a while. And the truck is paid for. That will help.




What to take.



First of all, we can't take it all. We have aquired all this stuff over 31 years of marriage, and when you get down to it, most of it has very little monitary value, so we are liquidating a lot of it and giving quite a bit of it to our kids. (good thing we had a bunch of kids) But there are a few essentials we will need on the road.





A small air compressor for when we wake up with 4 low tires, a good jack for changing flat tires that won't air up. A generator and spare propane bottles for when we are in the boonies without hookups, (Thus the reason for getting a pull behind trailer so I have room in the truck bed.)

I will update later as we get closer to our goal.