Les Izmore
Junior Ranger
I e-mailed Cary today and he mentioned that somebody had asked what had happened to us, and suggested that we let everyone know that we are OK.
The reason that we haven't been active on the forum lately is pretty simple. For two years we limped by with cheap cell service and limited internet access. That had two effects: First, we didn't have sufficient bandwidth to pursue our core interests online, and second, that meant we had lots of time to draft posts offline, so we could get caught up on things on the forum when we finally did have decent cell reception. It was often a hassle to do so, but at that time we had the time to burn.
The reason for the cheap cell coverage was that we retired about 8 years early. In order to pull the trigger that soon, we both agreed that for the first two years we would live a very frugal lifestyle, which we have done. Our first retirement income will begin in another three years, and it will be nearly five years before we have full retirement income. Those first two years we lived on about a third of the income that we will eventually have. We recently gave our selves a raise to about double what we were spending over the past two years (and our expenses have also dropped dramatically). One of the first things we did was to splurge and buy a Verizon unlimited phone plan, meaning our phone now works just about everywhere (we're still being frugal - my Republic Wireless phone runs off the Verizon's hot spot - it's like having an extra unlimited plan for $20 a month).
Having vastly improved internet service means that much more of my time is spent doing family history research with dozens of distant cousins who are spread all over the country. I turn that research into novel-length books that I self publish. They generally take a couple of years of research each, and I have several in various stages of completion. So I just don't have sufficient time to participate in the forum in any meaningful way. Plus I belatedly came to the conclusion that our situation is unique among the other owners that we have come to know. Our experiences are unique to our particular lifestyle, and don't really align well with the way that the majority of members use their campers.
As far as our tagteam cycling, where we had been bicycling continuously throughout the country the past three summers, I witnessed Alea having one too many close calls last fall, so we have opted to end that. We are currently figuring out what to do instead, because we enjoy staying active. While the tagteaming was fun and a great way to stay in shape, there were many stressful facets to it, not the least being that we never really knew what to expect on every new road that we traveled. We've had a few people hit us with stuff, try to intimidate us and generally be every sort of jerk imaginable. They were a very small minority of the people that we encountered, but we really don't want to seek out any more of them.
We traveled through one area last year, and had such a wonderful time that we were starting to plan a return trip. Then we met a guy who told us that, at the time we had been there, several cyclists had been run off the road intentionally, and most of them required hospitalization. That was because a group of people there had decided that cyclists don't belong on public roads, and thought it was up to them to do something about it.
Anyway, we are still full timing and having fun. We've put nearly 67,000 miles on our van in less than three years. Our camper easily has 80,000 miles on it and is doing great. We still gets lots of complements on it's construction and finish, and folks are very surprised when we tell them how much wear and tear we've put on it.
And we love telling people that we haven't vacuumed a carpet, mopped a floor, scrubbed a toilet or mowed a lawn in nearly three years. Who can't get used to that? ;-)
The reason that we haven't been active on the forum lately is pretty simple. For two years we limped by with cheap cell service and limited internet access. That had two effects: First, we didn't have sufficient bandwidth to pursue our core interests online, and second, that meant we had lots of time to draft posts offline, so we could get caught up on things on the forum when we finally did have decent cell reception. It was often a hassle to do so, but at that time we had the time to burn.
The reason for the cheap cell coverage was that we retired about 8 years early. In order to pull the trigger that soon, we both agreed that for the first two years we would live a very frugal lifestyle, which we have done. Our first retirement income will begin in another three years, and it will be nearly five years before we have full retirement income. Those first two years we lived on about a third of the income that we will eventually have. We recently gave our selves a raise to about double what we were spending over the past two years (and our expenses have also dropped dramatically). One of the first things we did was to splurge and buy a Verizon unlimited phone plan, meaning our phone now works just about everywhere (we're still being frugal - my Republic Wireless phone runs off the Verizon's hot spot - it's like having an extra unlimited plan for $20 a month).
Having vastly improved internet service means that much more of my time is spent doing family history research with dozens of distant cousins who are spread all over the country. I turn that research into novel-length books that I self publish. They generally take a couple of years of research each, and I have several in various stages of completion. So I just don't have sufficient time to participate in the forum in any meaningful way. Plus I belatedly came to the conclusion that our situation is unique among the other owners that we have come to know. Our experiences are unique to our particular lifestyle, and don't really align well with the way that the majority of members use their campers.
As far as our tagteam cycling, where we had been bicycling continuously throughout the country the past three summers, I witnessed Alea having one too many close calls last fall, so we have opted to end that. We are currently figuring out what to do instead, because we enjoy staying active. While the tagteaming was fun and a great way to stay in shape, there were many stressful facets to it, not the least being that we never really knew what to expect on every new road that we traveled. We've had a few people hit us with stuff, try to intimidate us and generally be every sort of jerk imaginable. They were a very small minority of the people that we encountered, but we really don't want to seek out any more of them.
We traveled through one area last year, and had such a wonderful time that we were starting to plan a return trip. Then we met a guy who told us that, at the time we had been there, several cyclists had been run off the road intentionally, and most of them required hospitalization. That was because a group of people there had decided that cyclists don't belong on public roads, and thought it was up to them to do something about it.
Anyway, we are still full timing and having fun. We've put nearly 67,000 miles on our van in less than three years. Our camper easily has 80,000 miles on it and is doing great. We still gets lots of complements on it's construction and finish, and folks are very surprised when we tell them how much wear and tear we've put on it.
And we love telling people that we haven't vacuumed a carpet, mopped a floor, scrubbed a toilet or mowed a lawn in nearly three years. Who can't get used to that? ;-)
