Homesick for Homer

All the way back in the spring of this year, we decided to try spending a summer without our lovely little Homer. After 3 full years of living full time in our RV and traveling all over the US, visiting our 40th state, and becoming first time grandparents, we decided to try something a little different this summer. It made sense at the time to drive back to Minnesota, and between staying with family and doing some family cabin caretaking, we figured we were covered with places to stay without becoming a nuisance to any one set of family. We chose to leave Homer in Florida just to avoid the hassle of moving it from location to location. (Minnesota summers are short and trying to get camping spots can be ridiculously time consuming!) It would also give us every opportunity to spend time with the grand babies and all of our family still located here. Again, we chose to try this. My one question was, by leaving Homer behind, did that also mean we had left behind our fulltime RV life? Read on and decide for yourself………

The First Month – All is good!

Having arrived in mid-May, we spent our first month with my brother and sister-in-law. We have all lived together multiple times over our 40 plus years of being together, so of all our family, this is the easiest place for us to stay without getting on each other’s every nerve. Plus, they recently purchased a home on a lake close to where our kids and grandkids are living, so bonus!

After our initial visits with the family, I got busy emptying the shed we have had full of those items I just didn’t think I could part with, when we started this journey. As I made my way through all that “stuff”, I realized once again it was not worth keeping all this “stuff”. There were a few items I kept aside to “upgrade” what we have in Homer currently, but really, it was just “stuff” we didn’t need. It’s amazing the sense of relief I felt with each truckload that once again was donated or moved to someone else’s home. I gave myself a month to get it done and of course, I finished within the 2nd week. (I may possibly be an over achiever).

Since I can’t seem to sit around, my brother and his wife had a few outside home improvement projects they wanted to complete, so I was all in on helping them, especially since we were staying at their house. I have to say, of all the things I have been missing since starting this fulltime life on the road, this is probably the biggest. I could not wait to get my hands in the dirt for some landscaping, and on a paintbrush for some outside beautification. Be careful what you ask for. If you give me a project, I may work everyone a little hard, to get it done. At the end of the month, we were all happy with the results and I felt like we had earned our keep.

We didn’t just work, there may have been some beautiful evenings cruising on the pontoon boat and watching the guys catch some fish. In addition, we did a few “babysitting” jobs for the grandkids while we were close by. I will add, we forgot a lot about having little kids. Our boys are in their 30’s, so there have been no toddlers in our lives for multiple decades. We both had forgotten how much energy is expended in trying to watch a one-year-old that is learning to run. I could work 10 hours a day on a house and be fine, but after 2 hours of watching toddlers, I needed a nap! It was like trying to pull Homer through Atlanta during rush hour. You can’t stop looking around just waiting for something to crash into you or cut you off, or just lose a tire. Wowza!

The Second and Third Month – Pretty good

The majority of our summer involved us moving up to the family cabin and being the caretakers. Mowing grass, doing some maintenance and improvement items, normal type activities. It is in the North Woods of Minnesota, so it also meant dealing with the bugs, but I’ve done that for 30+ years, so it just means lots of pants and long sleeve shirts that time of year. In my mind, I had thought this would be the same as when we did it 3 years ago.

Right after selling our sticks and bricks home in March of 2021, we stayed at the cabin for about 6 weeks waiting to get Homer out of storage. (The snow had to melt!) It seemed like our kids and other family members were always coming up to spend time with us. It was a fun and a wonderful time. Not so much this time. We definitely had those weekends, but they were much less frequent. Our kids now have kids of their own. They work full-time jobs and getting away for a weekend involves packing up half their houses just to have what they need for those little grandkids. Again, Dave and I forgot what “getting away” from home really means with little ones.

So, we are working on our cabin projects, spending sporadic time with the family and the weeks are really flying by fast. It’s mid-August and we are finished with the majority of our work and frankly, I am starting to get homesick. Homesick for my own home. I have always been a homebody which may seem weird for someone that loves to travel around fulltime in a RV, but with Homer, I am always home. It doesn’t matter where it’s parked, at the end of the day, I still crawl into my own bed, with my own limited “stuff” around me, and I am home. Even the pups were looking like they were ready to be back home.

Labor Day finally arrives, and you can bet I have the truck packed and ready to head south. We enjoy a final last weekend at the cabin with the majority of the family and then hit the road for a couple days at my brother’s and a day at Dave’s brother’s and then the freeway, south to Florida and our Homer.

Homer!

We’ve been back just under a week. The yard is set up, Homer is clean, Dave is back to golfing, and we are once again Home. This summer taught us a few things:

1 – Grandkids will wear you out!

2 – I need something to do. I’ve been asked if I am retired, and I can emphatically say “No”! So, if you know anyone looking for a hardworking, overachieving project manager, let me know.

3 – Just because you live in a RV fulltime, does not mean you are homeless. An RV can definitely be a home just like any sticks or bricks building and you can get just as homesick when you are away from it as any other “Home”.

4. And finally, once you start this fulltime life, it is really hard to go back to a sticks and bricks existence without the travel. We both missed towing Homer around this summer and experiencing all this nation has to offer and once again, we have reaffirmed our commitment to this lifestyle. We missed our traveling adventures and are already thinking about where to go next summer.

I started this post wondering if we weren’t living in our RV for a few months, did that mean we were no longer full-timers. I would say we learned we are definitively full-timers now more than ever. As wonderful as our summer was in Minnesota, there is no place like Homer and the places we can go.

See ya on the road,

Dave and Theresa