Monday October 5th 2020

Today marks five years living in my RV home on my Rambling Road Trip. On this day in 2015 I took delivery of my motorhome in Sherman Mississippi. I moved in with the limited supplies I drove to Mississippi with from my home in New Hampshire and haven’t departed for more than a few weeks since then. My first journey was the return trip to New Hampshire to transfer more necessities to the RV and work on preparing my sticks and bricks house for sale. I didn’t put the house on the market and sell it until August of 2016, so the RV became my only home in September of 2016.

In the five years I’ve lived in my RV home, I’ve traveled almost 40 thousand miles in the RV with another 50 thousand in the SUV once I’ve parked the motorhome. I’ve stayed in 32 of the 50 states for at least a few nights and done some touring. By no means have I seen more than a small percentage of the sights in each of those states. I anticipate many return trips in the years to come. I’ve also passed through another five states in my travels (West Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Illinois). I also spent several days in 2017 driving around Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Overall I’ve touched 38 states on my Rambling Road Trip.

Florida, Nevada, Arizona and Massachusetts have hosted the most nights on my travels. Florida is my state of domicile and my primary winter location. Nevada and Arizona have also been escapes from the harsh temperatures of the north. Most of my stay in Massachusetts was while I prepared my house for travel and to visit friends and relatives. They are likely to remain the states with the most nights visited. In the original grand scheme of things, the mid west and the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains were supposed to get the focus of this year and next. The pandemic changed this years plans and next year I will probably stay in the east. Once travel without extra worry becomes easier, I’ll get to those states and Alaska eventually. Hawaii is out. The motorhome doesn’t float.

The motorhome has held up well, but there are a lot of things I have to address this winter. The CO/Propane detector is the most recent addition to the list. It’s five year expiration alarms were the first reminder of the anniversary of my purchase. I’ll work on the easy ones this winter and find a mobile RV technician or service center to take care of the others.