How It All Started

 Well where do I start to tell this crazy story of how we ended up here. The only way I can think of doing it is by giving you most of the story dating back to 2017.

Halfway through 2017 I found myself starting over on my own. I bought an old run down mobile home in a mobile home park not to far from where I worked. It was a dump, but it was my dump and I was going to turn it into my little castle. With a lot of blood sweat and tears, literally.  

A couple short months later I met this amazing person and we became inseparable. The more we grew as individuals the more we grew as a couple. The amount of things we had in common was insane. We both had a love for nature, wildlife and exploring. We constantly found ourselves on some gravel back road with no idea where we were. Oh look. there is a T intersection, flip a quarter, left or right. and off we would go.

As time went on the house renovations where progressing, we had managed to completely renovate over half of the house without killing each other and staying together as a couple. It was about this time that we both figured out that we didn't like living there. We had some really odd neighbors. Everyone seemed to know our business even though we kept to ourselves. We became the talk of the park. We were constantly being watched. Have you every heard the song by Virginia to Vegas titled Lights out? well we lived it for 8 years. It was around this time that we started making our "exit plan" I was 5 years away from retirement. 30 years in at the same place and only 5 more to go.  We had several ideas from traveling fulltime in the RV to moving to a tropical island. Nothing was out of the question but we knew we didn't want to keep living in the spotlight.

Traveling full time had always been a goal of mine. Its a big world we live in, and staying in the same area seemed very routine to me. I get bored easily and need to stay busy. So we started making plans to be nomads. I had planned out the solar system we would need to power the RV off grid. And Deb started doing research on all the places we wanted to stay and things we wanted to see. Then all of the sudden THE BUG of 2019 hit. Then it seemed like traveling would be impossible. Over the years I started watching full time RVs on YouTube and I seen them all struggling with the lockdowns and no place to go. So we morphed our plans into having some land as a home base in Canada and traveling south in the winter. Well.. that went out the window as THE BUG disappeared. Higher gas prices and stricter rules, just didn't seem like a game we wanted to play.  Back to the drawing board we went... again.

By this time I'm 2 years away from retirement. Deb had always dreamed of living off grid on a homestead and producing her own food. For me, well I have had a green thumb since I was a chid and love playing in the dirt. The more we talked about it the more interested I became. We started looking at vacant land all over Canada. From Alberta to Northern Ontario to the East Coast. That was it... the plan was set in stone, an off grid homestead it was. Now just figuring out where was the next hurdle. 

Now we are 1 year out from retirement. The house is almost fully renovated and we are more determined then ever to make our goals come true. We have been telling family and friends for the last 2 years that " once I retire we are moving" and we started to downside our belongings and de clutter.  

March came around and we were almost done renovations. We kicked it into high gear and worked tirelessly on completing the house. By the end of April all of our hard work had payed off. The house was done and listed. Now just to find the right buyer, and hide from the craziness that we lived among until we could leave. A long boring 7 weeks came and went. We had been so busy getting the house done, now to sit and watch the grass grow was diving us crazy. The 8th week rolled around and our agent called. We have another showing tomorrow.... ok here we go again we thought  another showing, another person just looking. But to our surprise, 6 hours later we had a verbal offer, the next morning we had a signed offer and 5 days to finish packing and be out. So much for being bored. 

Thanks for reading part 1 of our story. Part 2 is coming soon

Ken