An uplifting story of retiring in an RV

By Chuck Woodbury
FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER
Two weeks ago I wrote about my struggle with successfully retiring. As much as I try, I can’t seem to do it. In my essay I wrote about how I had concluded that a person cannot simply retire. There’s more to it:

“The thing about retiring is that you cannot JUST RETIRE. You have to RETIRE TO something — hopefully something you have always wanted to do but never had time. For many people, that’s RVing. For those who do not replace their work with something they love, retirement is just a pit stop on their journey to their final frontier.”

Readers responded

I asked readers to write me with their thoughts about retirement. Several dozen responded, most with very interesting tales to tell. I can’t post them here in one issue, but what I can do is post them over time. Here is what Greg Surratt wrote. I find it inspiring how he and his wife, Jo Ann, pursued their RVing dreams despite many setbacks.

Never giving up

Dear Chuck,
When I decided to join the Navy, I had been sitting behind the wheel of a big rig for 10 years. I needed to get in shape so boot camp wouldn’t kill me with the physical fitness requirements. Jo Ann and I had a small Prowler camper and went out into the Southern California desert where I could get out and exercise every morning. That was a great three months. We enjoyed it and agreed that RV life would be a long-term goal for retirement.

We sold the Prowler to a shipmate and bought my parents’ 1989 Hitchhiker. I would save up leave time and take two or three weeks off at a time. We always went somewhere. We enjoyed bird-watching and Jo Ann developed an interest in genealogy. We spent a lot of time in bird sanctuaries and graveyards. Those interests continued well into retirement, years later.

Just prior to 20 years in the Navy, we traded the Hitchhiker for a newer model, and upgraded the truck to prepare for retirement at 20 years. But the Navy kept offering me interesting new billets and advancements that required additional time commitments. I stayed an extra 5 years and the boost in retirement pay made the difference between finding a job after retiring from the Navy, or just flat out retiring.

I had a heart attack while I was still on active duty and couldn’t pass the sea duty screening for assignment to a ship, so it was time to retire. When people asked what my plans were, I had an answer: “I spent ten years racing coast to coast in a big rig, never stopping to see this great country. I spent 25 years seeing the world in Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club. And now, in retirement, we are going to see what this great country has to offer, still on Uncle Sam’s dime.”

We sold the house and everything in it and moved into the RV a few months before I retired. There was a long discussion about putting everything in storage, but finally agreed that when the time came, we could replace everything for less money than to pay storage fees for an unknown number of years. We had room in the RV for the important memories.  I had a shadow box built to commemorate my career and there was a spot on the wall to hang it. We digitized old family photos. Birthday presents that held sentimental value are in cabinets and we pull them out and talk about old times in the evenings.

A few days after I retired, my dear wife said, “I have things to do and you are in my way, go outside and find something to occupy your time.” I started going out every morning and cleaning the truck and trailer, fixing small things that needed attention, or just going for a walk. That was our “alone time” for many years.

The road gets suddenly rocky

Two years later, we had gone out to South Dakota and were coming back across the northern route to New England to visit family. We decided to stop on the way back to Virginia at the Hershey RV show. Then disaster. Jo Ann was having trouble breathing and I had to find a show employee with a golf cart to take her back to the truck. We made a quick trip back to Virginia Beach and her doctor. He diagnosed a heart attack and told me either I take her directly to the hospital, or he would call an ambulance.

Seventeen days later, she was able to come home after a triple bypass. She was still having trouble breathing and was diagnosed with COPD and placed on oxygen. We talked about selling the RV and getting an apartment, but she still wanted to live our life-long dream as long as possible.

Over the next ten years, we went back out west several times, and then on a trip to see Mount Rushmore, we got as far as Wall, South Dakota, and she couldn’t get enough oxygen due to the higher altitude, so we turned around and headed for lower ground. Her pulmonary doctor recommended we stay at elevations below 1000 feet. We spent the following years traveling along the coast between Virginia Beach in the summer and Lakeland, Florida, in the winter.

Ten years after the first heart attack, she had another one. They discovered her breathing problems were because one of the bypasses from the first heart attack ten years earlier had not developed properly and was still closed off. Driven by her health conditions, we traded the truck and fifth wheel for a motorhome — no stairs to climb to get to the bedroom and bathroom. A big battery bank and generator with auto-start when the power went out so her oxygen concentrator would keep running. With three air conditioners we could control the environment based on her needs for cooler air to breathe. After another two years, we ended up in South Carolina, where her children could help me take care of her.

Then one day, she bent down to straighten her oxygen hose and couldn’t stand up. She had two surgeries to correct six compressed discs in her back. They didn’t go well and she lived in excruciating pain for the next two years. She passed away in her sleep last week after 42 years of marriage, 25 years as a Navy wife and 16 years roaming this great country living our life-long dream.

The lesson from this adventure

Enjoy your retirement as early as you can while you can. DEVELOP AN EXIT PLAN. Re-evaluate that plan on a regular basis. Consider your needs and conditions. It can be hard to say, “Let’s give it up.” We pushed the limit until it was too late. I couldn’t leave her alone to go find a place to live. She couldn’t help shop for furniture she would be comfortable with.  We considered assisted living and nursing home facilities where she could live in drug-induced comfort, but ruled them out because we had control of our environment to keep her comfortable.

Greg Surratt
Retired Member of the U.S. Navy’s 1% Club!

FROM CHUCK:
Thank you, Greg. What an inspiring (and well-told story)! My goodness, what a wonderful and inspiring life you enjoyed with Jo Ann. Also, I must not forget, thank you for your service to our country.

Read last week’s retirement essay.

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If you have a story about your journey to your retirement, please email me at chuck (at) RVtravel.com with your story. We’d love to include it in a future article.

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