Live and Travel on Minimum Wage

We can already hear the responses to our title.....

"No way"!

"You've got to be kidding".

"Ha Ha...dream on".

But, if your response is.....

"How"?

Then read on. We are doing it. We are coming up to our one year anniversary of travel and leaving behind those stressful careers and horrendous commutes. We are living just about debt free. We've traveled through 17 states along our journey. Are we frugal? Absolutely! Do we get to see and do what we want, whenever we want to? Again, absolutely! Are we retired? Nope, not even close. We have about 15 years (or more) to go before retirement. There are many retirees out on the road, but we're also seeing quite a few "youngsters" out here too. Did we go out and buy a brand new RV? No way. Our 26' travel trailer is 10 years old, yet it is in wonderful shape. We pull it with our 2004 Dodge Durango.

The jobs that we take (when we want to) are mostly minimum wage. Some jobs pay a little more than that. Some include a campsite with all the amenities, electric, water, sewer, WiFi and maybe even cable TV. So we work for a few months, then take a few months off. We have seen so many places in such a short amount of time. And the journey has only just begun.

We've received so many emails asking us questions about our lifestyle. We've thought about writing a book, but we are just having too much fun traveling in our RV! Maybe we will write a book down the road...who knows. But what we'd like to do now is share with you two of the travel and RV resources that we have used to get us to this point in our lives. These resources are in e-book format. To write, or blog about these e-books would take a very long time. We will just include a quick summary concerning each particular resource.

First, and deservedly so, is a wonderful e-book written by Jason and Kelly Odom. This is the e-book that helped us "look outside the box". Here it is:
Vanabode™ - how to happily camp, travel and live forever on $20 a day

Next: Well, we are traveling in a RV. With no experience with one whatsoever, we did purchase a couple of books from RV expert Mark Polk. We are so glad that we did! Here is a list of several books/ DVDs:
RV Education 101

If you haven't traveled along with us and are new to this blog, then follow us from the beginning at: CraigNKarin.blogspot.com

There you can see how it all began, check out some great photos and read about some funny situations that we've found ourselves in.

We'd like to thank everyone that reads along. For those of you that would love to "get your wheels on the road", then come on! And if you truly want to know "how"......then check out those e-books.

On Da Road!

(Craig/Karin) Well, we finally made it! And we're just gonna say it now....it wasn't easy :) Let's back up to several days ago. Our furniture guy rescheduled on us a few times as well as our mechanic. But we did get those knocked out last Saturday. Here's another thing: our trash day is on Fridays. We put all of it out on Friday, but come Sunday (our scheduled day of departure), we had another 15 bags!! What do we do with this? The renters will be moving in on the 1st and we didn't want to leave it for them! So Craig heard a trash truck across the street and took off....flailing his arms like a madman! He offered the driver a quick $20 if he'd come and get our bags. And just a few minutes later, the remaining trash was gone.

Going through the house and choosing what to take and what to sell or give away was very hard. Squeezing everything from our 2400 sqft home and garage into a 200 sqft trailer was tough. We had heard from seasoned RVers that this would be the hardest part of our journey. They were right! But we got it done. The house was unloaded and Craig made Karin quit cleaning. His suggestion was let the Property Manager take charge of any loose ends or dust bunnies. Whew!

Our journey began on Monday March 29, 2010 at 1:30pm, a day later than planned. At our first stop to get gas we checked the trailer to find Smokey our cat with eyes bulging out like he had seen a ghost. Princess our other cat was located beneath about twenty blankets. We knew it would take time for them to get used to it so we calmed them down and moved forward.

Our first stop for the night was Lamar, Colorado. We stayed at a small RV stop right off the highway with few parking spaces. It was good for practicing setup. We saw a beautiful sunset and a full moon rising. Sleeping was tough next to a highway full of truck traffic but we made it.

We headed out the next morning with tremendous winds across the Oklahoma panhandle and into Texas. Craig's experience driving a nuclear submarine came in handy :) Being a novice at pulling a trailer, he was quickly educated in trailer road handling in severe winds. We passed many huge wind farms, a benefit for the world getting greener.

A small town in Dumas, Texas offered us a free site next to their city park. Free electricity was included which was great. However, road construction near the entrance created some severe ruts in the driveway. We scraped the tow bar on the way in. So when we left, Craig figured out how to drive carefully. We left with no more scrapes. Even our cats remained sleeping and relaxed. No more buggy eyes. Dumas was a cattle town, with a busy main street.

With the winds just as gusty the next day we left for Lake Meridith. Lake Meridith is located about an hour north of Amarillo, Texas. This was our first "boondock", with no services at all. When we arrived we found a beautiful lake with hardly anyone camping there. Although it is beautiful, it seems like the water was at one time 30 feet higher or more. We camped on a cliff overlooking the lake and again enjoyed a wonderful sunset. While cooking burgers on the grill Craig heard a strange buzzing noise. Walking into the noise we found a "humming bush". We discovered the humming bush was loaded with a fresh crop of mosquitoes!! We immediately stopped our investigation preferring to keep our distance from these pesky blood suckers. After that we finished our burgers, enjoyed seeing stars and constellations without city light glare. We enjoyed a quiet night and our most restful sleep.

Our next stop will be in Aubrey Texas, just north of Dallas. We will visit Scott Brown and his family. Scott and Craig worked together at a skating rink in Tucson, Arizona, over thirty years ago and will be meeting for the first time since then. We will share the details of this reunion in our next post. See you then.

Karin's Last Day

(Craig)
Yes, today is Karin's last day at work! So, she slept in and called work to let them know that she'd be late. How funny!
Karin has been with Charles Schwab for many years. But the three hours of daily commute has been a drain on her. When we initially began to look at workamping, I could see in her eyes that she was thinking that this may be her "out". Yes, she may be the "Prom Queen from Frugal, Minnesota", but hey, being frugal isn't a bad word. Some people associate the word "frugal" with "cheap". I may have been one of those people at one time. But now I associate "frugal" with "smart".
So as I go back to work this evening, Karin's fellow employees will be throwing her a party to say goodbye. Karin has one of those never-ending smiles :) I'm sure that she will be missed.
Me? My last day at work is Monday. No party for me....I've only been there for maybe 2 months. That's ok......my boss must like me. He gave me a neon Bud Lite Lime sign the other day. What will I do with that?
Other news. Furniture guy is coming to look at and price our furniture on Friday. We'll see how that goes. I now have transferred all relevant files, pictures, etc. from this desktop computer to our new laptop. Karin is also going to keep her Apple. So this desktop will be on sale as soon as I clean it up.
My son Josh is coming up for the weekend. He has a four day pass. That means that his deployment to Iraq is very near. No specific dates yet. We both appreciate your emails and comments that thank him for his service and wish him well.
We plan to be in Dallas, Texas on Thursday, April 1st. That is set in stone. We want to be ready to leave by the 21st of March. Our actual journey is looking at starting on the 28th/29th. On the way to Dallas, we will have a couple of stops. We have three legs on this trip. Denver to Dallas, Dallas to Minnesota and Minnesota to West Virginia. Many stops in-between. And yes...there are going to be more pics popping up very soon!
We chose and signed up for our roadside assistance plan this week. We decided on CoachNet. We just found many more positive comments about them. We also joined Passport America. PA is a membership club that offers 50% off at associated campgrounds. And, we have purchased Microsoft Streets and Trips software. We tried several programs, and were happy with this one. It works great to plan out trip..each leg, each stop, and what is there to see between point A and B. We also have a GPS unit to use.
With those of our friends that are local, we are planning to see you before we go! I will let you know as soon as we have a couple of dates setup.

Coming Together Well

(KARIN) Last night we sailed through the last huge stumbling block that could keep us from our travel dreams. Finally we decided to rent rather than sell our house. Whew! We will cover the mortgage and make a small profit that we were not expecting. And we do not have to put any money into the house. We are good to go! Lee Jennings, from Properties Plus sat with us at the kitchen table telling property management tales. We heard the best, a landlord living overseas for seven years and living off his rental property income. We heard the worst, a squatter that was hard to evict. He eased our minds and gave us the tools to become absentee landlords.

We have met the best people so far on this venture. After years of working in the gritty, watch your back world of Wall Street, I am delighted. We have met so many people who want to enjoy life and get along. We are so looking forward to this trip. Our next step is to check out great bicycle trails along the route. Any one have bicycle trip stories to share?

The First Blog Entry: What the hell are we doing??

(Craig's Entry) Karin and I met on August 1st, 2008. There was an outdoor street fair in Louisville, Colorado. The band "Firefall" had just finished playing. I was standing on a corner, just minding my own business :) She smiled, and I smiled back! And from that moment, we have not looked back. It's been a wonderful adventure!
And now we begin the next chapter. Last October, Karin and I flew to visit her Father in Minnesota. From there, our flight took us to my parents in North Carolina. On the flight back to Denver, I mentioned to her how fun it would have been to have traveled via RV instead of flying. She agreed. Then, we wondered how to see the country without draining our bank account. Lacking an answer, we put the RV thought on the "back burner" for awhile.
On the 16th of January, the RV Show came to Denver. We went, we saw, and we met many happy people that just love their RV's. We picked up many brochures and magazines. We saw quite the price range for RV's: popup trailers new from $6K up to these luxurious motorhomes that the price could actually reach $1 million! With the amount of time that we spend outdoors, we both agreed that we could start small with a towed travel trailer. But how do we finance such a road trip?
Well, the next day, I start reading a magazine that I brought home from the show. I found a word in the back of the magazine that I've never heard of before.
"Workamper".
What?? So I go to the website associated with this word: www.workamper.com. Wow....another door just opened.
What is a workamper? "Workampers are adventuresome individuals, couples and families who have chosen a wonderful lifestyle that combines ANY kind of part-time or full-time work with RV camping. If you work as an employee, operate a business, or donate your time as a volunteer, AND you sleep in an RV (or on-site housing), you are a Workamper!" The answer to our question! How to go on the road, see the country, do the things that we love to do AND not spend every dime that we have.

We both love the outdoors! Kayaking / rafting (our favorites), biking, hiking and more. So here we go!

We bought a truck and a trailer. We have found a seasonal job in West Virginia. We will be running a general store and reservations for a campground. Our plans are to be on the road sometime in April. Our jobs in West Virginia begin on May 10th, and run thru Sept 7th. We are planning to leave Colorado sometime in April. Head east and stop to see Karin's family in Minnesota. After completing the job in West Virginia, we will begin to head South, hopefully already having a gig lined up for the winter months. After one year, we'll evaluate and see where we stand on workamping. We'll probably stop in North Carolina to see my parents.

We will be putting a blogsite together soon. I have enjoyed being in touch with everyone thru FaceBook. We will still be on FB, but with the blog, you can check out our trip and what's going on with it.

We will always check to see, as we pass through various states, who may be nearby that we can stop to see. We'd really love to see you :)

We will do our best to update this as much as possible.