The year before we got married, “The Man” and I bought our first RV, a 2019 Prime Time Crusader 315RSK fifth-wheel camper. Just a little over 35-feet long, it had a big shower, a big fridge, and a big bed to fit the big body of “The Man”.

I moved to South Florida from the Chicagoland area shortly after my twenty-first birthday. I stayed with my grandparents for the rest of 1999, before moving into my first apartment. I met my first husband soon thereafter and we wed in 2001. Together for fifteen years we divorced in 2014.

Needing a change, I moved move north to Orlando where I met “The Man”, a disabled combat veteran, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1997. Over the next seventeen years, he served as a diesel mechanic and was deployed overseas five times.

His first deployment was to Bosnia during the late 1990’s and his second was to Korea, where he was on September 11, 2001. He was deployed to Iraq twice – the first time when Saddam Hussein was arrested and again when he was executed and Afghanistan once, when Osama bin Ladin was captured. He wasn’t involved in those events, that’s just how he remembers where he was. Eventually, he submitted himself to the Medical Evaluation Board for evaluation and separated from the Army in 2014.

Once out of the Army, he spent a few years working for the oil industry before deciding to return to his home state of Florida and enrolling in a program to study first motorcycle mechanics then also completing the marine mechanics program. While he worked his way through the programs, he submitted a re-evaluation request with the Veteran’s Administration to review his disability rating. In 2018 his rating increased from 90% to “100% permanent and totally disabled”.

Before moving to Orlando, I lived in a small South Florida beach town. I worked as a paralegal and secretary before receiving an associate degree in accounting. Using my degree, I obtained a position as the Office Administrator for the Orlando branch of one of the larger Certified Public Accounting firms in the country. “The Man” and I connected through an online dating site in early 2017 and met for the first time at a bar in Kissimmee. We hit it off right away, it wasn’t long before we were living together.

Residing just six and a half miles from Disney World, we both quickly tired of the traffic, the tourists, and the temperature. Enamored by tales of RVer’s travelling full-time in their rigs, I researched the cost of campers and site fees of campgrounds around the country. I also created a budget, since “The Man” receives a pretty decent compensation from the VA for his disability, we had a good starting point, I then calculated how much our recurring payments were and determined it was feasible for us to live and travel in an RV full-time.

With the goal of seeing the forty-eight contiguous states, we started planning our trip. Sixth months before we even had a rig, we had winter reservations at a resort in eastern California on the shores of the Colorado River, an itinerary detailing our route west, a list of places we wanted to see, and reservations at campgrounds along the way.

We spent the summer of 2019 traversing central Florida, scouring RV dealerships and “The Man” traded his pick-up in for something larger and capable of towing a camper. We researched the different types of campers – Class A, Travel Trailers & Fifth Wheels and purchased a plethora of RV related items and supplies. I have no doubt we looked at every camper for sale in central Florida.

We held a garage sale selling everything we didn’t want to put in storage and notified the landlord we would not be renewing our lease. By mid-August, I was ready to give my two-weeks’ notice and gave my boss my resignation, telling him about our plans. Initially, we intended to purchase a travel trailer but changed our minds after touring a fifth wheel.

While travel trailers are lighter weight and less expensive, fifth-wheel campers have so much more. With more storage, larger holding tanks, taller ceilings, and specifications in the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom that more suited our needs, we quickly adjusted our search.

“The Man” located a camper at a nationwide dealership outside Tampa. It had a good mix of our desired preferences, and we purchased it over Labor Day weekend. Not having a place to store it we arranged to pick it up from the dealership in mid-September.

Early in our planning we had decided to practice camping locally before leaving for California and had reservations to stay two weeks at a campground in Sanford, about forty-five minutes from our house in Kissimmee.

The day finally came, and we took possession of our new home, the Crusader, on Sepember16, 2019 and made the final preparations for our cross-country adventure. Driving our new rig to the house and we loaded it with all the supplies we had spent all summer acquiring and set out for Lake Louisa State Park.

Setting up the camper, we spent the first few days unpacking before spending our first night in the camper. On September 19^th we officially moved in, we loaded the cat and dogs into the truck and introduced them to their new home.

We spent the rest of September cleaning out the rental and transferring our remaining belongings to a storage unit. We were finally living in the camper and beginning to accustom ourselves to the vagaries of RV life.

Follow along as I tell the story of My Travels with “The Man”. Hear how two adults, two dogs, a twenty-year old cat and Bones settled into our new home and traveled the country.