Hello there! First of all, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to visit our blog. Allow me to introduce us: my name is Mike, and for most of the last 6 years or so, my wife Tina and I have lived the most wonderful life imaginable (at least for us). As you might have gathered, we are also know as “Living Sans Borders” in YouTube and social media. Look us up there to see what we’re up to ‘real time’. So, how did we get here from where we were 7 years ago? I’ve heard it said that nothing is relevant without context, so I feel it’s important to go back to 2011 to provide adequate context so that you can maybe, kind of understand how we got ‘here’ from ‘there’. So buckle in, here we go.

For the purposes of this article, I need to fill you in on a little family history. As I mentioned previously, the year was 2011 and things were going pretty well. I was working as an I.T. Technician at a local Credit Union. Tina was working as a secretary at our church. We had the house, the small piece of land, our kids were in school, and things were generally going in a good direction.

At that time, we were living in a small town in Northeast Texas, very close to the town I was raised in. My grandparents and my parents, as well as both my brother and sister and their families, all lived within a 10-minute drive of our home. I think you’d agree (at least I hope you do) that life is generally better when you’re living near family.

The family was all doing well,… mostly. My grandfather had dementia and was in a nearby nursing home where he could be protected from himself, mostly. Don’t get me wrong, he certainly wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself generally, but the disease had certainly made him … shall we say, unpredictable? Nonetheless, he was located within our 10-minute circle. Apart from that, everything was great.

My mother had been employed by the local school district and had retired in 2009. She had always dreamed of traveling and seeing more of this big, beautiful world. Unfortunately, my father’s job wouldn’t allow them the freedom to be away for long periods of time yet. He was an elected official in our county for approximately 20 years and was currently in the middle of his last term. Her plan was to ‘hit the road’ as soon as Dad retired. They already had the RV, so it was just a matter of a little more time. Unfortunately, as is often true in life, things don’t always go as we expect them to.

It was my mom. She had been very responsible regarding her health in her adult life. She wasn’t prone to excessive alcohol consumption. She had given up smoking many years prior. She tried to cook and eat healthily. She walked about 5 miles several days a week on most weeks. Unfortunately, Leukemia doesn’t care what you have done or are doing to keep yourself healthy.

After it was detected, the prognosis was very positive. She was given a 70% chance of complete remission. We all liked the sound of that, and for just under a year, everything seemed to be going well. We don’t really know for sure what all contributed to the final outcome. It was possibly the chemotherapy she was undergoing, or perhaps the fall she took in the shower while she was in the hospital undergoing her treatment, or a combination of those two things and possibly many others. We’ll never know. Regardless of the factors involved, on September 11th, 2012, my beautiful mother was taken away from us.

I’ll let my wife, Tina, tell you her version of the story, but this is what happened as I remember it. Suffice it to say that our current situation wasn’t one that I would have expected to choose earlier in my life. Tina has always been the adventurous one. I had been the one who likes predictability and security (whatever that is!). As a matter of fact, I recall (prior to our decision to abandon all ‘security’ and wander into the unknown), Tina had suggested that we sell our home and buy a travel trailer. I immediately shot that idea down with no hesitation. I informed her that my parents had owned travel trailers and RVs all my life and that is not something that I was interested in. “Those things are money pits!” I insisted. “Besides,” I said, “If I want to go camping, we can camp in tents. If we want the conveniences of home, we can stay at home.” But still, in the back of my mind, I’m still recalling my mother’s desire to travel and experience life in a way that hadn’t been available to her.

Please don’t misunderstand me. It’s not that I didn’t want to travel. Far from it! As a matter of fact, travel is something I had always wanted to do. To the extent that when I was a much younger man, I had joined the United States Air Force, seduced by the promise of adventure and seeing this wonderful planet (specifically Europe, in my case). So I did that. I joined the Air Force, that is. The ‘Europe’ thing is still on the list. Unfortunately, the U.S.A.F.’s idea of ‘travel’ and mine differed significantly. I said ‘Europe’, they said, ‘Japan’. So, my first duty assignment was to Misawa, Japan (which I enjoyed greatly, I might add). After that, I wanted the southeastern continental United States to be somewhat near childhood family and friends; the Air Force said, “Mountain Home, Idaho”. There are places in the U.S.A. where I would like to be that are farther from Northeast Texas than southern Idaho, but not many. As it turns out, I met and married my beautiful wife of 34 years there because I didn’t get what I wanted. Consequently, most of our children were primarily raised in Idaho, and for 3 out of 4 of them, northern Idaho is currently what they call ‘home’. In the end, if I had everything to do over, there are many choices that I would change, but these are not them. The ones I would change are the ones where I took the reins and rushed blindly into the land of selfishness. Those are the ones I regret.

I guess you could say that I had become disillusioned with the ‘American dream’. I had come to a place where I realized that the idea of ‘success’ that I had been sold (and I bought into) as a younger man was not something that held any appeal for me anymore. And when I asked myself, “What do I want?”, it was at this point that I remembered my dear mother’s dream that was never realized, and I really do want to travel and see more of the beauty of this planet. Those things were still attainable for me. There wasn’t anything keeping me from pursuing this, but that may not be the case tomorrow. Many people wait until they ‘retire’ to enjoy the things they really want to do. I realized that none of us are promised tomorrow, and if there is something that I want to do, and it is something that can and should be done, then it should be done now. Tomorrow is completely unpredictable and unknown. It took me about 5 years after the death of my mother and the realization of what she missed out on before I came to the moment of clarity that allowed me to separate myself from all the things that I’d been told that I ‘should’ want and to embrace the scary thing that I ‘DO’ want. When that finally happened for me, then Tina and I were on the same page.

And there is where this wonderful adventure began. We purchased a 30-foot bumper pull that we thought would work for us, but found out on its maiden voyage that this isn’t how we want to do it. So, we found the right rig for us and traded in our bumper-pull for our 24-foot Phoenix Cruiser, and although it’s not perfect, it’s been great for us ever since. And that is where this story begins…..