So this is something Shahin and I have been talking about for years. And it’s been a few months since I said to him one night in bed, “ Well, we should just go ahead and do it.” And he said, “Really?!”

It has ended up taking longer than expected , partially by choice and partially by circumstance, and a lot of things didn’t go exactly the way we planned, but with a little patience, perseverance, and mutual reassurance, we somehow managed to rearrange our lives to fit into a 40 foot Bluebird Wanderlodge. Our plan is to travel the 49 states we can drive to over the coming year.

But let’s back up.

In the beginning, once we made the decision to get on the road, we each jumped right into researching the parts of the adventure that interested us most. Shahin immediately started looking at RVs and researching the different types and features that we might choose. I started making a list of sights, parks, and routes, state by state, that we might want to see. While we may have been putting the cart in front of the horse a little bit, it did help increase our enthusiasm and commitment to the idea. This helped carry us through some of the more tedious and difficult parts of the transition.

A little over a month ago, I quit my job as a labor and delivery nurse at Stanford. Shahin has made arrangements to continue working at his current job, but part-time and remotely. Lots of people suggested that I do travel nursing, but most travel assignments are about 13 weeks long and we didn’t want to stay in one place that long. So I have been looking for some type of work that I can do remotely, but I don’t mind not working, if I can get away with it 😉

In the meantime, we knew we still had to downsize, even though we had drastically downsized three years ago when we moved from a three thousand square foot house to an apartment less than four hundred square feet. We still had two storage units full of stuff under the assumption that we would move back into a house, but after three years We could hardly remember what was in there!  So we got a bunch of family and friends to come over on a Saturday and help us empty our storage.

It only took 11 people, 6 vehicles, and 5 hours to empty our storage unit! We couldn’t have done it ourselves in a million years!

Thank you from the bottom of our 😘❤️💕💗

Well, at least we got one storage unit empty! The other unit still had some antique furniture and other sentimental items I still couldn’t bear to part with. My son has agreed to store the furniture at his house and that will allow us to move the rest to a much smaller space.

In our apartment, I Marie Kando’d the heck out of my closet, kitchen, and other possessions. I’ve been selling things on Facebook marketplace and donating tons of stuff for the past few months.

Eventually, we decided on the model of RV that we wanted-a Bluebird Wanderlodge. We hunted online until we found the right one. But it happened to be in Florida! And the owner was out of the country! So we had to wait a couple months for him to return before we could make an offer contingent on a mechanical inspection and our final approval once we could get down there to see it.

Finally, the big day came and we left Oakland airport for Orlando.

Then we drove to Ocala, Florida where we checked into a hotel for the night. The next morning, the gentleman who owned the coach picked us up to go to his property to see it. Now, Joe is an older southern gentleman, and he and his wife Margot could not have been more gracious to us.

We immediately fell in love with “The Bird”. It was everything we thought it would be! Joe and Margot took us out to lunch that day to celebrate!

The next morning, I went to the bank to get a cashiers check for the purchase price, and later that day, we did the deal!

We are now the proud owners of a 1991 Bluebird Wanderlodge 40WB!