What's your background?

[Pianodan]

I spent 20 years in the Navy steaming and repairing boilers and related machinery while on ships, taught Boiler Tech advanced training for one shore duty, trained recruits for the next, spent many years at sea, saw Vietnam, Desert Storm, and other stuff in between. Now, I've been my own boss for 12 years and I'm quitting (major piano rebuilding anyway), working part time teaching motorcycle safety and traveling with my wife as much as we can....

[LoonyBin]

Born and rasied in Long Beach, California.

Relocated to North Lake Tahoe in 1973 at the age of 27. Got introduced into the restaurant business there and have lived in San Diego, New Haven, Boston, Sarasota, Ft. Collins and now Charlotte, NC.

Finally made a change in 1987 and now doing corporate training for construction firm.

Have been camping and backpacking since early 70s and just purchased our first Pop Up a few months ago.

My plan for the past 5 years has been to buy a 5r and truck, so the PU was a way to get the DW exposed and she loves it!

[Skip- Kerrville, TX]

Well, let's see. I am Retired from the computer industry. Have a very part-time job at Cracker Barrel, mostly to keep my discount card there.

Bobbie is a retired secretary, having worked for the city of Deer Park near Houston. She has a part-time job at the hospital in town, and I volunteer at the same hospital.

[LLL]

Coloradoans
Homebase western Colorado
Approx 3/4 timers
Married 45 years
Rita- retired RN
Larey- retired small business owner
RVing since 1979
Volunteering in state and nat'l parks, campgrounds, fish hatcery and wildlife reserves

Keep on travelin'

Larey

[Riverdog]

I'm a CPA in industry working as a Corporate Controller. My wife is a retired social worker. I made the money - she made the impact!!

[GaryKD]

Guess I have been a little behind. I've been on iRV2 of over a year and not contributed to this thread. I need to get away from the other threads a bit.

I am Gary and the wife is Karen. We will be married 40 years sometime this year. Two grown kids and three grandchildren. Karen's career has been spending $s and mine had been earning them. August 31, 2004 I retired from IBM after 38+ years. For those of you that have met me, now is the time to say I don't look that old. Within three weeks, of my retirement, we got hit with two hurricanes . I told Karen I am never going to retire again.

My career started as a mechanical engineer and finished as the manager responsible for IBM's Internet revenue producing ebusiness sites outside the G8 countries (about 36 countries). That in itself is a long story. In this position I got to travel all over the planet. For the Democrats out there, I was involved in the Internet before Al Gore invented it.

We purchased our first motor coach in 1978. The goal was to have our children see all the USA before they went to college. We got it all done, except Alaska. We got the signature coach with the goal of having our grandchildren see all the USA before they go to college (is there an echo in here?). We will be working on that goal for quite a few more years.

If it's mechanical I will fix it. If it's 120 or 220 AC I will fix it. If it's 12v DC it will be all out war, before I eventually fix it. The only thing I ever destroyed was my prize 1966 Corvette coupe. It was a 12 volt problem and the car had a fire. Guess one could say I fixed that too, the fire ensure the problem I was having never happened again.

We belong to all the stuff in my signature and then some. In the winter we RV with two chapters of the Newmar Kountry Klub. It provides us a place to go 2 times a month, in Florida, in the winter. The chapter members are a great bunch of folks. We enjoy them. I hope the reverse is true. Once the weather gets warm we take a short (1 month or less) trip. For June and July it is touring with the grand kids. After school starts, we head out again for our long tour (3 months). We return to South Florida when the cold weather chases us out of the Northern states.

[RonNBama]

Me too Gary, just now saw the thread and realize I need to "get out" more often instead of hanging around on one sub-forum.

Been married to the same smart woman for 26 years. We started camping in a 3-man dome tent (about the right size for one person) back in 1983'ish. Both of us work for NASA (please, no Huggies jokes) and will meet the basic retirement criteria this year.

Started our RV experience with the purchase of a 1984 Barth Regal in late 2002. We "graduated" to a slightly larger DP in 2005. We have three grand chirrens and one on the way. Daughter's husband is military and will be relocating from HI to Pensacola in a couple of months. Son lives north of Dallas. So, we will be visiting P'cola and the TX state park at Pilot Point until such time as we decide where to move our stick-house residence. Better wait until both kids put down permanent roots cause I sure don't want to do the move-thing again.

We have two dogs and one to be adopted today. It's a hassle but the satisfaction I get from my dogs makes it worth the poop-bags and hair shedding cleanup.

As a facilities guy with NASA (cannot claim to be a rocket scientist) I too learned that most things can be fixed with a little patience. I do the basic maintenance on our Monaco but couldn't build a cabinet or install tile flooring or such if my life depended on it.

Camp-on!

[M2Kelley]

I am retired, having worked in Contracting for the Government.
My husband is still working for the Dept of Justice.. will have 35 years in Federal Service come June. We have 5 children, 8 grand kids, and 3 great grand kids. At home we have 2 toy poodles( and a cat.. that adopted us. )
Started out with a Winnibego
moved up to a 2003 Fleetwood .
and now have a 2005 Holiday Rambler
which tow a Jeep.

[samabago]

Retired since '93 from one of the national computer manufacturers. First computer had vacuum tubes. Am now trying to perfect retirement into an art form. Will golf at the drop of a tee. If you are following us as we approach an outlet mall--watch out--the brake lights will come on.

[lightkeeper]

Last business was a music store (no instruments just cassette tapes and LP albums to start with then compact discs and music accessories.)
Had fifteen good years before technology put me under. So many people - especially teenagers - downloading their music off the internet and "burning" their own copies. I was forced to call it quits. Since retirement age, I never considered trying anything else since plus open heart surgery last month (7 bypasses) puts a damper on doing much of anything except trying to recuperate.

[jodann]

My $.02 cents worth. After an initial feeling of "OMG, what have I gotten myself into?" I had 28 years of the 'bestest', most rewarding, no regrets job that I could ever imagine, that of a New York City firefighter. Have now been retired for almost 11 years & if I could do it all over again, 'Sign me up'.

Have only been into RVing for 2 years now- am on 2nd tt & 2nd tow vehicle- & am hooked. Would love to just 'ditch it all' for a time & explore the US. At this point have only travelled the east coast from Maine to Florida. "The world is my oyster!"

[Barbara S.]

Most of the people who post on here are married. I have been married - more than once, but have been single for the past 16 years. I have worked in property management most of my life and employed by my present company for almost 15 years.

I had my first RV experience 30 years ago. I progressed from (3)truck campers to a Toyota micro-mini motorhome. Got married again and bought a Kountry Aire 5th wheel. Divorce took the trailer and I bought an Allegro class A. My next purchase was a class C that a wrecker driver tore apart so I bought a new class C that I own today.

Currently I travel with my 2 Shelties plus sometimes I have assorted foster dogs from the local Sheltie rescue group. I am just a weekend camper for now. One of these days I hope to be able to travel more, but I hope somewhere to find the last love of my life to travel with me.

[bobnkathleen hartman]

Oh boy! Which one? LOL! Kathleen and I have been married for 30 years this coming December; we started camping in a tent; as soon as the first child (Meghan) was born (1979) she was camping at 6 weeks, still in the tent. Adam was born in '80, he had to wait 12 weeks to go camping. Michael was born in '84, he waited only 6 weeks. We moved to a pop-up for about three years, then back to the tent (after a hailstorm ruined the top of the pop-up); bought our first TT in 1991; then our second in 2000. Kathleen and I are a bit "unusual", we work together, and have for most of our married life! We have both worked outside the home since Michael was 4. Currently (and for the forseeable future), we are employed by a plastic thermoforming company in UT; Kathleen has been there 12 years and I have been there 10. (Yes, she got me my job!)We have our daughter and her two daughters currently living with us; they are scheduled to move out at the first of April. (Yes, There will be a party!) We both love the outdoors, love to camp, fish, boat, snowshoe, hike, ride mountain bikes, and enjoy a quiet evening at a campfire. It's real easy to find us in a campsite, we are both very proud of our American, Masonic, and Order of the Eastern Star heritage. And did I mention that the grill generally is smoking some delicous dinner? I love to cook, and we both enjoy great food, good company, and fine wines. I hope to see you down the trail sometine..stop in and say hello!

[MADDOG`]

Hi, I'm Michael.

Former USAF Vietnam Era Veteran (Never made it to Vietnam except passing through to Thailand) am now a Director for a large western electric utility and am about 3.5 years away from retirement.

Wife Cindy is a Licensed Massage Therapist. To get a massage, all I have to do is extra chores around the house, keep the household books, mow the lawn, take out the garbage and generally be available for anything else she can think of.

I'm an Oregon native, she's from Utah. We are retreads, having both been married once before. Between us we have 8 kids and 4 grandkids. Yup, we're young grandparents at ages 52 and 50 respectively.

Like most folks on here, we started out in tents but, for all the regular reasons, that didn't last long. We moved up to popups, then to a couple of travel trailers, tried the Class A motorhome thing and recently decided a 5VR made more sense.

We currently pull a 2006 Jayco Eagle 341RLQS behind a 2006 Chev 1ton Duramax Diesel crewcab pickup. We find the 5VR gives us more room to roam and having a vehicle to drive once the 5VR is staged is a definite plus.

This is a long lived, and great, thread. Let's hear from more of you out there!