First Stop: Savannah

In less than 6 weeks, we upgraded our truck, purchased our first RV, a 42 ft 5th wheel, I applied for my compact license, found a travel company & recruiter, applied for and accepted a job in Savannah, both of us left our full time jobs, started virtual school with kids and moved 4+ hours to GA. 

We both continued to work full time and then school started back so we had to get the kids school done after work as well. It was hectic. It was a intense. There were a lot of late nights. Had quite a few bumps in the road but when it was all said and done, everything really fell into place so well. People sometimes ask me how much time we took to plan our adventure. I tell them I couldn't have planned any less and I'm sure they don't always believe me, but its true. We were flying by the seat of our pants for all of it! 

I arrived a week before the family did and just jumped right in. My new hospital was a busy place, but I found coworkers who I love immediately & knew that travel nursing was for me. I had missed the baby factory style nursing of L&D (although I hate that term, its true, the high risk, high volume, big team is for me). I know it's not for everyone, but for me, it's what I knew and what I enjoyed doing. 

Meanwhile Robert came on Friday, hauling the RV, bringing the kids, the dog and all of our possessions he thought we would need -based on lists I left for him - and everything was literally thrown in the camper Bless him. Hindsight, we could have done it so much better, but we were just trying to get it all done. It wasn't easy to get such a big RV to our house so we only brought it over once -not to mention we didn't exactly have a free moment to spare to pack. I had packed what I could, but ultimately kids were still using a lot of what we were going to bring so Robert had to the majority of packing to do! I had tried to pack a few holiday and off season items before leaving, but when you're trying to downsize to 250sq ft and live minimally, that is quite the challenge. The fam arrived in the rain, 10 minutes before the RV park closed for the evening and we realized neither one of us had experience backing up the rig to park it. Thankfully, the host directed Robert and we somehow managed to get everything set up in the dark for our first night in the RV. We all collapsed in bed soon after and I fell asleep thankful to all be under the same roof again!

The next day, I got about 18,000 steps in just organizing all of our stuff that Robert had brought from home. We ended up meeting up with our RV neighbors, another travel nurse family whom I connected with online 2 weeks before. Suddenly we had instant friends and people to learn about full time RV lifestyle from while our kids happily played. The RV park was basically a resort and the kids seemed to disappear and play outside more and more each day, until we were having to go out and find them after dark. Robert and the kids got their virtual school routine going. I got used to a new hospital, new charting system and new job. On my off days, we felt like we were tourist or on some kind of vacation where I also worked locally. It was a bit odd at first, but I loved it!

It wasn't our first time to Savannah and our RV park was amazing so we often were content to stay put. But we also already had our list of places to visit and restaurants we knew we loved. So as wild as the whole getting from point A to B was, Savannah itself was an ideallic setting for us to learn how to be full time RVers.