Step one. Check.

After three years of talking about being able to live a traveling lifestyle, step one has been accomplished! We bought an Astrovan. We had a 1995 Yukon for the past 8 years (6 years for me). For years we looked at what we were going to pull behind the Yukon; R-pod, 5th wheel, etc. Were we going to get a class C instead, did we want a bigger RV, do we want something completely different than all of that???? The questions were endless and the options are endless....if you have the financing. J' has been working on the Internet trying to get us on point with our "dream", but it's been a little harder to make the desired amount than we planned. Recently we decided that we would start small...small means not a lot of money! haha After looking and looking and talking and talking we decided on a Chevy Astrovan. We wanted one that was All Wheel Drive or 4 WD, had good mileage, and wasn't a piece of shit ~ pretty much a good trade for the Yukon; something that would suffice for getting rid of the truck. About a month ago, J' came across a van on Craigslist. It was a 1995 champagne color AWD Chevy Astrovan. It had 58,000 miles on it. We called the lady (Linda) and we were going to go see it...but didn't know it was a 3 hour drive, so we had to nix the trip. J' put the Yukon up for sale on Ebay about the same time he saw the CL ad...he put it up for sale 3 different times. We had to keep lowering the price and changing the ad, it seemed like some people were selling the same truck just way shittier and older for more, so we finally got it down to $3000 (I think)... I actually think the winning bid would have been like $2,801 but this guy jumped in at the very last second and won the bid with $3,003.33. So on June 1, 2011 we sold the Yukon to a guy named Mike, for his son and he just loved it, they drove 4 hours one way to come pick it up!!

[caption id="attachment_1498" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Good-bye Yukon[/caption]

The same day, we turned right around and drove ourselves 3 hours and 10 minutes to Greenville, SC on the motorcycle (and we hadn't even seen it yet)! We took it for a test drive and decided that there were things to work on and fix but it would be a fair trade to the Yukon so we bought it!!! YES, WE BOUGHT IT!! I had to drive it home because I don't drive motorcycles... yet. The drive home was an adventure all by itself, let me tell ya! Since it hadn't been driven in years and when it was driven, it was driven by a teenager, this thing was all over the road. I had both hands clutching the steering wheel going down I-85 literally thinking I was going to die. It pulls to the left when you brake, and not just a little...it pulls. It started hiccuping, we stopped at a rest area and then it wouldn't stay on when you would start it back up. Once I got it to go, it would start to go, then would pull back, it was jerking me back and forth so much I didn't know how I was going to even get on the Interstate. A lot of that went on the entire ride home, but yes, I did get it home. We spent the last two (full) days cleaning it inside and out, since they were nice enough to save the last 16 years of cleaning to us. Yuck!! It is quite immaculate now though and we are ready to start this entirely new book of our lives with this new vehicle. Everything is changing around us for the better so this is OUR new start. We are so excited and I think The Van is pretty excited too!!

[caption id="attachment_1500" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The Van[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1499" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Our celebration dinner at Hardees![/caption]

PEACE