Rolling With Gypsy Rose
Share our journey with us as we experience full time rv living!
Getting From There To Here
Dale and I had been wanting to get an RV and travel for quite some time. His parents had a small class C that we borrowed on occasion, and we loved it! (this was back in the late 1980’s) We would take the kids for a weekend, or school breaks, and go to a little rv park in Orange, Texas called “Oak Leaf Trailer Park”. It had 2 lakes that we would fish in, but NO swimming! No one really knew what lurked beneath those murky waters! We would catch a small fish or two and always caught turtles. Of course we let anything we caught go, right back to where they came from. There were also woods to explore, which we did and thoroughly enjoyed, and nutria to feed. These cute things were very people friendly and the kids had a blast feeding and watching them.
Fast forward to about a year ago. With the boys both married with their own families, oldest daughter having the time of her life in heaven, and our youngest daughter wanting to move into an apartment, it looked like our dream might just have a chance to become a reality! I spent hours scouring the internet for information about different types and styles of rv’s. After I made a list of possibilities, I got Dale involved looking online with me. In looking online at the rv’s, I also researched living full time in one. I found some very knowledgeable and experienced full timers and began following their journeys. And did I learn some things! Full time rv living is different for every family! What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other.
Anyway, as we were looking online, and even visited a dealer or two, we were trying to figure out a way to afford this dream of ours! Then on Sunday, August 27, 2017, Hurricane Harvey came uninvited to Texas. We had lived in our home in Friendswood since 1993 and had never had water in our home! Not even close! We were up around 2:00 – 3:00 am and the water had just come up over the curbs. At 7:00 am we checked outside and the water had come up to the front porch. We watched the water rise until about 10:00 when daughter called the police department for a boat to take us to her best friends house, just 2 blocks from ours! (we called the police boat because I have some health and mobility problems.) The boat got there in about an hour and got us loaded. We were only allowed to bring one backpack and one other piece of “luggage”, ie. plastic bag, purse, etc. They wouldn’t even let us take our 2 small dogs with us! Dale had to flag down a boat later on that day to get him back to the house to get the dogs and a few other things. Approximately 2 weeks later we were back living in the house. It was horrible! Concrete floors, dirt and dust constantly, half walls and no doors. We did hang sheets in the doorways for a tiny bit of privacy. Probably 80% of our furniture was a loss. Just like everyone that was affected by Harvey, we lost a lot.
Ok, we’re sitting in our living room one day and Dale responded to a letter from a realtor who was interested in buying our home, AS IS! The guy came over, walked through the house and looked at the pool, and made us a really good offer! So, we found our motorhome, bought a Mini Cooper to pull behind it, and the rest they say is history!
Thanks for hanging in there and reading this long post! We’ve only been in our new home on wheels for 3 weeks but we are in love with it!! We had to really pare down on everything! Yes, there were some tears shed in the process but it really does feel good to be rid of so much “extra” stuff. Dale and I would like to say to all of you: Follow your dreams, even when others don’t understand.
Rolling With Gypsy Rose 
Nice blog! Looking forward to reading about your adventures.
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Aww! Happy three weeks traveling in Gypsy Rose! It’s a wonderful life!
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