April 2010 to September 2010

Once again, it has been a while since I posted anything on this Blog.

Since April, we have been through many exciting Spring & Summer activities.

We got out in the motorhome, Harry Hurricane, early in May to Holland State Park. Holland State Park has a Beach campground on Lake Michigan. We were anxious for a warm Spring. However, we were hit with 45 MPH winds and being sand blasted. It was cold, wet, and windy.

We ended up going home after one night;the weather was nicer on the home side of the state.

Our next excursion started the Wednesday before Memorial Day. We set out for a couple of weeks. We had the holiday weekend at a campground near Frankenmuth. It was a fantastic sunny hot weekend. The campground had a small lake for swimming, and the campground was full. We had Heather's family with us. We had a lot of fun swimming and hanging out at this campground.

After the holiday weekend, Chad, Heather, and the grand-kids went home, and Carolina and I started making our way toward a five day stay at Ludington State Park. I had been trying to get a reservation at Ludington State Park for three years. I was happy the weather was pretty good.

We had a couple days before the scheduled check-in at the state park. On the way, we saw River Ridge RV Resort. A Luxury RV Resort on the spectacular all-sports backwater of the Hardy Dam. In Stanwood, Michigan just 40 minutes North of Grand Rapids.

River Ridge RV Resort is a very nice resort style campground. The campground had just emptied out from the holiday weekend. We were able to stay at the nicest spot over looking the resort, pool, and waterfront view.
http://www.michcampgrounds.com/riverridgervresort/index.php

We stayed at River Ridge RV Resort for a couple days and got our SeaGate inflatable kayak setup and put to use. We kayaked for miles around the backwater of Hardy Dam.

We had a couple great days at this resort before heading further north to Ludington State Park.

Ludington Lighthouse in town.

Ludington State Park was fantastic camping. We had some wet rainy days, but were able to go out on forested trails that kept me mostly dry. Beautiful trails through forested areas, forested sand dunes all the way to the finest beachfront in the world along Lake Michigan and Big Sable LighthouseBig Sable Lighthouse

After five great days camping at Ludington State Park, we headed down to Grand Haven State Park. Grand Haven State Park is another fantastic Lake Michigan Beach Campground.

We were able to stay 3 days on the beach in Grand Haven State Park. I was quite nice early spring weather; it actually felt like summer.

It was in the mid 80's. The campground was full of young teen campers who had just graduated high school and were soaking up the Sun.

I had to work those 3 days. So, I sat in the motorhome each day with my laptop and a cell phone, and worked while parked at the beach. I had all of the comforts of a home, and an office. It was a bit strange having to sit and work while it was so nice outside, but I had to remind myself that it was no different than sitting in an office wishing I was out in the new spring/summer weather.

After our time in Grand Haven, we drove to Eaton Rapids, where my sister lives. She has 18 acres and a place to hook-up the motorhome.

So, we went there and hooked up. I worked the day, then helped my sister prepare for her son's high school graduation party. Will, my brother-in-law, had been smoking Pork to use for BBQ'ed Pulled Pork sandwiches. It turned out wonderful. The Saturday, June 12th, they had the party, and we hung ouot and had a great time. The next morning, Carolina and I headed for home and to get the motorhome cleaned out, back in storage, and to prepare for work the upcoming Monday.

We had left home on May 26th and di not get back home until June 13th. It had been a nice extended excursion and it was nice having the ability to work on the road.

Since early February, I have been traveling for work to Des Moines, Iowa; Denver, Colorado; and Las Vegas, Nevada.
The picture below is some of my co-workers. We were all out to dinner after a long day working at the Crocker Building in downtown Des Moines.

Out the hotel window in Denver, Colorado

My little brother's 48th birthday party.

Flying over Nevada and part of the Grand Canyon in Arizona

Walking around the Vegas Strip one night after working all day.

Above the Clouds on my way home from Des Moines one week.

January 16th to March 27th 2010

Well, it has been a while since my last post. It has been quite busy. I have been enjoying working the new job for the past three months. It has been 100% travel and that gets a bit tiresome. I thought it might be 50%; meaning traveling every other week. However, it has been every week.

I had a few weeks in Raliegh, NC and Chicago, IL. I really enjoyed being in downtown Chicago. I love the Blue Line and mass transit system. Chicago is an amazing big city just buzzing with life. I would like to bring Carolina out and hang out in the downtown area.

Most of my travels since the first month have been to downtown Des Moines. It is probably the biggest city in Iowa. I had never been off of I-80 when driving through Iowa. The downtown area has all of the building connected by skywalks. That makes it much easier to get around on foot while the weather was minus four degrees.

Flying in and out of airports gets to be tough at times. Once already, I was at the airport early and didn't want to sit at the gate waiting to board, so I went down the hall to grab a bite to eat. I had pulled out my laptop and worked for a bit. When I got up and walked to my gate for departure, I noticed that no one was around. I said to the American Airlines employee, "hey, I am supposed to be getting on a flight to Detroit from this gate". He responded casually saying that the flight had already departed. Being in a small airport, it was the last flight leaving anywhere that night. I asked him how could I have missed the flight, it was not scheduled to depart for twenty minutes. He said that everyone has to be on the plane twenty minutes before departure and they had just closed the gate.

My plane was sitting there, but I could not get on it. I was so damn upset, and mostly with myself. It was 9pm at night, and I was tired and ready to sleep on a plane while I flew home. I would be stuck there in Des Moines for the enitire weekend. I was 600 miles from home and I wanted my weekend at home.

So, I rented a car, and drank a small red bottle of Energy Drink. I drove 600 miles in less than eight hours. By 5am, I was turning in the car at the rental return in Detroit. Carolina picked me up. I got home and settled down for a conference call at 8am on a Friday morning. After the call I fell asleep and was a zombie the rest of the day. I vowed that I will NEVER miss boarding a flight again.

I have settled into the new role. I am learning a lot. I have learned that it is not what I know but who I know at this company. I am on one of their largest client projects, and my company has put the best of the best on the project team. So, I have a great opportunity to learn and be successful.

On the home front, Carolina has been working her Mary Kay business. However, the first quarter of the year, the goals we set have not been met. I think Carolina is ready for a regular W2 job. However, we both want her to have some autonomy that will allow her to take off in our RV for weeks at a time. With my role, as long as I am near an airport and have a cell signal, I can work anywhere.

We still have to get our arms around eating for life. Carolina is working out and eating right every day that I am gone. I have been eating far too heavy and drinking a bit much while on the road. Typically, at the end of a work day, the project team meets back at the hotel and we have a drink and go somewhere to eat. Being that the client pays for our meals, it seems like we eat at some pretty nice places. I just need to cut back and use the hotel's gym more often.

Anyways, we are a work in progress; as Carolina says to me.

I will have to start journalizing more often and start posting some pictures soon. All is well in our world and we are blessed to live the life we live.

December 19, 2009 through January 15, 2010

Well, we had a great Christmas holiday season with family and friends. However, we did not put up a tree or any holiday decorations. Things seemed quite busy just getting settled in to being home and no longer being on the road.

On Christmas Eve, I got an email from one of the area vice presidents that I had interviewed with that he would contact me in the next couple of weeks to discuss the offer process. So, that was a nice Christmas present knowing I would have a job offer in the new year.

We went to a New Years Eve party at the Barrister House. Heather and Chad went to the party with us. We had a great time ringing in the new year. We have been enjoying our time at home the first couple of weeks of January.

Financially, things will be a bit tight for 2010. I got my Job Offer. My new job starts on January 25th; I am very excited because it is the job I had hoped to find. I may have to do quite a bit of travel, but will work remotely when not on the road traveling. This gives us the option to be anywhere in the country, as long as I am near an airport and have internet and a cell phone signal. Of course, if they give me a customer to support in the Detroit area, they might not appreciate me sitting out in the desert in Palm Springs flying each week to Detroit. We shall see how it all works out; I know I am recharged and ready to work after this six months off, and an almost four month sabbatical on the road in our RV.

I have already booked a couple State Parks for this summer. One is just a weekend in Holland State Park, and the other is five days at Ludington State Park. It is very competitive trying to reserve sites for the summer. People reserve sites at these Michigan State Parks the second (literally) they become available.

Anyway, our house is in order, our cars are cleaned, shiny, and maintained. We are ready to work and have a busy set of goals to achieve in 2010. Financial goals are a given; we have to pay down on some of the debt we accumulated in November and December. However, Carolina will be working her Mary Kay Cosmetics business full time now. We have drafted a revised business plan that sets aggressive goals for each quarter of the year for her to have solid targets to meet. I believe that I will only be able to count on my income for paying the monthly expenses until she can build her volumes up to something significant. This will make things a little tight but manageable.

I have had quite a bit of time each day to sit back and reflect on our journey, our future, and our objectives that we had originally set out to achieve during our sabbatical. Many of the 'Sabbatical objective' were NOT met.

Originally, the goal was to take off in the RV into the middle of nowhere. We were going to eat our own healthy whole food, get in good physical shape, and write about it. I wanted to take some time to do some writing for a book. A book that would have healthy easy cooking on the road type of recipes and a workout routine for on the road. Typically, in an RV you cannot carry a set of weights. However, with our own body weight, a person can get a good workout. Yoga is a great stretching routine that works out the body. However, also there are push ups and sit ups routines, like the "100 Pushups" workout plan.

Again, about five years ago, Carolina and I followed the "Body for Life" and "Eating for Life" programs written by Bill Philips. Both of us lost considerable body fat and we were both in better physical condition than most of our grown children. It is very unfortunate that we 'lost our way' and over the past five years we have added solid belly and back fat onto our bodies. Niether of us seem to have the same discipline to do it again. Yet, it is a lifestyle choice that we know we have to make for life. After all, eating good healthy food is very enjoyable and feels good. It feels way better than high fat, high sugar foods feel.

The goal is to eat the right foods, in the right amounts, at the right times each day, and to add daily exercise. That is the reason we had named this blog "Our Recipe for Life". This is because we wanted it to be an introduction to our book. It morphed into a travel blog because we ended up vacationing and partying the entire 109 days on the road. I have to admit that it was a very FUN and LONG Vacation. I will never forget it.

We left our full time jobs that provided us a household income well above $150,000 annually for $0 annually and most people would call us crazy. We had Faith and a Power of Intention.

Through the Power of Intention, we have new jobs and a recharged life ahead of us to look forward to being actively embraced in Life.

Next steps are to grow our careers, and get physically healthy. I am ready.