3. 2016 Decisions and a 2017 Solar Eclipse!

In February of 2016, John began to suspect that his job as an auto insurance adjuster may be "downsized" due to the new "Quick Photo Claims". He said that if he was let go, that we could buy a bigger farm and raise hay to sell. I thought of a bigger mortgage, most likely a longer commute to town, having to move, all on top of the fact that I was already stretched to my limit teaching ESL at the middle and high school. I had always let John follow his dreams before, but I just couldn't agree to this: I was physically and mentally done in. "I just can't do that", I told him. "Well, what do YOU want to do?" I looked out the window at the snow: "I just want to be somewhere warm". He thought for a few seconds and replied, "On a boat?" "Yes!" I said. I thought he was joking.

By June, he was looking at our financial situation, and how much we should be able to sell our farm for.  "Honey, come check my figures.  I think we can retire now!"  He was right! (Thank you Dave Ramsey for writing The Total Money Makeover! If we had known about this in our early 20s, we could have retired even earlier. Click here to buy a copy). I was ecstatic!

We started seriously planning from that moment on. By the summer of 2017, John had accepted the severance package from his job (he’d been right: they let 10,000 go out of 20,000 employees nation-wide), we bought a 30' travel trailer, and I had conceded to work one more year while he got the house and farm ready to sell. Our girls married and moved away. 

August 2017: I just have to throw this one in, because it's honestly one of the most incredible things we’ve ever experienced.  On August 21 we saw a solar eclipse in its totality!

We camped with our friends the Farrings by Arch Rock near Galena, Oregon. They had brought the book Someone Is Eating the Sun for their little girls. It was fun to watch the moon "eat into" the sun. I was surprised that even when there was a tiny bit of the sun left, there was still more light than a full moon. Then, everything changed with the totality! We could take our special glasses off, and the sky was an amazing deep, deep blue!! You could even see a few stars.  It was beautiful! It also got noticeably colder, and the birds were quiet. I never expected the totality to make such a difference. As the sun began to peek through, it made the "wedding ring" effect. Now I know why people travel from miles away to experience this.  Those two minutes of totality were completely breathtaking.

Some tips we learned about buying an RV are in the next blog, “4. Buying our RV”

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4. Buying Our RV

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2. August 2013