Gobble Gobble! We're out of town this week, again!

Happy freaking Thanksgiving, folks! Hope your day is filled with lots of delicious eats, some football and even a family member or two that you can actually stand to be around.  :)

The wife and I are getting something done to Charlie that will enable us to camp pretty much anywhere we want once we hit the road next year. That's right, we're getting solar panels installed!

As beautiful and frugal-minded people, you might ask if I could have performed this installation myself. With some help, I probably could have. But, solar is such an integral part of our future (along with an upgraded battery system). This is what will enable us to camp for free (boondock) after we hit the road next year. It's so vitally important that, quite honestly, I don't want to leave it up to me.

I suck at stuff

I've never been a Mr. Fix-It. I can do the simple things, but a renovator...I am not! Thus, it is worth it to my wife and I to fork out the cash and have this system professionally installed by skilled and experienced folks.

And one of those services happens to be up in the Springfield, Oregon area. We live in Tucson. Last Thursday, we hitched up Charlie to our Dodge Ram and made the trek up here to Oregon - close to 1500 miles. Long drive. Long, long drive.

But, it needed to be done, and the week of Thanksgiving gave my wife enough flexibility with PTO (Personal Time Off) at her company to allow this trip to happen. The timing worked for this week.

And, we want to pay for this expense this year rather than next for tax purposes (solar tax credit, baby!).

So, that's where we are. We're spending some time with friends while in the area. We plan to be back in warm, sunny Tucson on Monday to continue our regularly scheduled programming for another month, then I retire. And this is when life gets real.

Gearing up for post-retirement

The ideas for post-retirement life are swirling around in the ol' noodle. I'm helping J$ moderate his wickedly awesome discussion forums and may get even more involved in the future. We have a new-ish Frank Financials YouTube series that we released. We also have another relatively popular YouTube channel where we talk about our Airstream and document our adventures.

Lots going on. I seem to be more busy now than I was when my full-time job consumed my life. Ideas are percolating. Things are happening. I'm volunteering for things. Getting involved. Making my mark.

It's exciting! Let's see where it takes us.

Oh, and once again, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I love you people.