Yesterday, Ang and I celebrated our first full year as fulltimers! A full year. 12 months. 365 days... of living in a 400 square foot, diesel huffing, climate controlled, fully connected, comfortable, rolling home. A year without a house/property tax payment. A year of being liberated from a household of stuff. A year of being with the one I love, meeting the greatest people, and seeing some of this beautiful country of ours.

Visiting my granddaughter in Colorado

It has been a full year, and quite a busy one. I think a full summary would take way too much time and space, so I thought I would summarize in pictures. Click to see where the year went...

[More:]

And and I started the adventure mid-2006 when we started getting things ready by selling off the stuff, getting the house up for sale, then purchasing our 2006 Monaco Knight 40PLQ.

Once we picked up the RV, we loaded it up and headed to spend Christmas with friends Seth and Vasu in Texas. We then headed over to our new hometown - Livingston. It got cold, and I wondered with the sunshine was. Time to go to Florida.

We headed to Orlando for the Monaco national rally. Best move, ever. It was warm, and we met Damien and Michelle! We then headed over to Tampa east and met John and Derek, then met up with a group from fnsweet.com! Quite a way to get started. We also did a little discovering, and found Ft. Desoto.

February found us in Crystal River, Fl, meeting up again with Damien and Michelle. Loved the manatees and the companionship. We then headed over to Wildwood for some coach service, then over to Clermont, where we found our friends D&M again. Good time ensued, once again.

We decided to check out the other side of the state, and went over to Malabar at the beginning of March. When we were at Malabar, luck would have it that Malabar found us! It was love at first sight, and he has been a big part of us since. We also found Brian and Cat, and found we had way more in common than we ever thought!

Leaving Malabar, we head back over to the west side to Port Richey, where we meet up with Damien and Michelle and we started our exodus to the west. We had to make one last stop in sunny Florida, and made a couple of week stop in Panama City Beach.

By the end of April, we were in the Galveston area, not wanting to leave our friends to keep going west. But, it had to happen eventually, and we continued our road trip to California, making a brief stop in Santa Fe, NM, at the beginning of May.

Our first stop was the cool air of the Pacific Ocean, with Seth and some fellow work geeks. We then headed over to the new RV park - Coyote Valley RV Resort - where we ended up calling our west coast home. The end of May finally had us hooking back up with our great friends Tom and Jessica. There are "home friends", and it is always great to get back together with your "homies"

Not letting any moss grow, we headed to Colorado for Arin and Zach's wedding, stopping in Reno on the way to see Angie's family. The wedding was wonderful, and I whined about the A/C that was out the whole time. Looking back, the heat was fine. Seeing the kids made it all worthwhile.

Dustin, Misty, and Ian.

Colorado was in our rearview camera at the end of July, and we were headed back west to Oregon for the Monaco and FMCA rallies.

After the rallies, we stopped down at Crater Lake and saw our friend Darren, then we headed back to Reno where Ang left for Burning Man. While she was there, I headed back to San Jose and waited for her to join up with me again. Once she got back, we were off to the Delta to see Mike and Tina!

By the beginning of October, we were getting ready to start heading east. Ang had her eyes re-adjusted, we took care of some business stuff, and blew off going to our storage - again. But, before leaving, Tom and Jessica took us to see The Cure. It was the best way to finish up our California visit.

We had a fantastic drive across California and Arizona, and made a few great stops. We really enjoyed the desert. Taking the drive a little slower was real nice.

We hit Texas and stayed a bit at Buckhorn Lake, then off to Livingston for a bit. We hit the road again, heading for Sarasota. On the way, we found a wonderful RV park in a very unlikely location - Nature's Coast RV Resort in Steinhatchee, Florida.

The end of October saw us land at Sun N Fun in Sarasota. The stay at Sun N Fun would be the longest stay in one place all year at five weeks! We met some wonder people there, including Miles and Arlene from Canada.

At the beginning of November, TIME Magazine published an article about fulltiming, and Ang and I were mentioned! It was cool getting emails from friends that had seen it. November also brought us guests! Angie's mom came by Sun N Fun, and we had a great visit. We met up again with Damien and Michelle for a quick week. Brother Roy then joined us for Thanksgiving week. We almost didn't let him go home.

At the end of November, we traded in our trusty 2-door Jeep Wrangler on a new 4-door Wrangler. It immediately got outfitted for towing, so we could drag it with us to Ft. Desoto County Park. Me met up with Wayne and Cindy, whom we met at Coyote Valley RV, and celebrated our anniversary dinner with them in St Petersburg.

And that brings us up to Saturday, December 15th, 2007. One year after beginning.

We are looking forward to our next year, and talk all the time of the things we want to do. See more friends, spend some more time with my kids, avoid the cold, see some more of our beautiful country. It has been a great year, and we are both very happy that we went down this road. It has been one of the most incredible things we have ever done.

Thanks for reading along. I hope to make more entries in this upcoming year, but I won't promise anything. Part of this lifestyle prescribes that you don't get too worried about what is around the corner. That goes well with me

Thanks to everyone we met, and to all of our supportive friends and family, and most of all, I want to thank Ang. She is my GPS on this trip. Don't know where I would be without her.

--kev