In the world of full-time RVers, it's common to celebrate one's nomadiversary - the annual anniversary of your time as full-time RVers. It was Tuesday July 31st, 2018 that we moved out of our apartment in the Bay Area of California and moved into our Outdoors RV 21RBS as our new full-time home.
So last Saturday was our 3-year nomadiversary!
Each year on our nomadiversary we like to take the time to reflect back on what's happened and changed in the last year. This time last year we were boondocking with our friends Brian & Leigh from Campendium on their property in Washington.
It wasn't long afterwards that we began our long journey to the east coast.
We spent a little time in New York, before traveling up to New Hampshire where we had fun exploring the stunning fall colors in various parts of the state.
But winter was coming. In November we moved the RV to a wonderful campground in Vermont which would be our home for the winter - and much longer as it turned out. This would be our first winter in extreme cold, so we tried to share as much as we could about what we learned.
As the snow set in we enjoyed skiing (me) and snowboarding (Diana) at Killington and Sugar Bush ski resorts. Everything was going great, and we fell in love with Vermont so much that we decided to start seriously shopping for property.
And then disaster struck. We saw water dripping from our ceiling and on further investigation discovered that our RV roof had been ruined by water damage and was full of mold. We had no choice but to abandon our RV and move into a hotel.
We spent a month living in a hotel, waiting for the weather to improve enough that we could get the RV out of its winter camping spot. By early March we were ready to make the journey, and so in just 2 weeks we drove all the way to Oregon to get a new roof installed on our RV.
Throughout the roof-replacement endeavor our property search had also been continuing. We had identified a property we liked, visited it with our realtor, and while we were out of state we put in an offer. Unfortunately, despite a hopeful response from the seller, our offer was ultimately rejected in late March.
But we weren't back to square one - the experience had taught us a lot about what we wanted, and how to navigate the property purchasing experience most effectively. Undeterred by the rejection we were straight back in, and within a couple of months we were the new owners of a 40 acre property on which we plan to build our dream home!
The past couple of months has been a whirlwind of activity. Behind the scenes we have been working with our engineer, architects, town and state officials, utility companies and consultants to begin working on our dream home. Meanwhile we've been busy ourselves doing what we can on the land as we wait for various permits to come through, using our new tractor to help get things done!
Most recently we've been clearing trees and brush where we can, chipping the slash and spreading it on our trails.
Wow, what a busy year! It was a little over a year ago that we first seriously started considering buying property. We were in Boise, ID, and had recently completed the remodel of our RV.
We visited a few open houses in the area, not with any serious intent to buy, but just to get a feel for what was out there. We could never have guessed what the following year would have brought!
Even though we've been a lot more stationary during our 3rd year in the RV than previous years, we still very much consider ourselves to be full-time RVers. Although building our house is the priority for us, we're still planning on getting out and having some more adventures - not just in New England, but hopefully further afield too!
But there's one thing missing. Celebrating with friends.
In 2019 we were with friends in Washington, and in 2018 we sat around a campfire with a group of friends in Leadville, CO and shared stories from the road.
This year it's just us, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate. I think this weekend we'll head out for a nice meal and think about what our next year in the RV might have in store for us.
