Last Updated on October 25, 2024 by Chris and Lindsay
(October 14, 2024)
I must start this newsletter with a big announcement—our Class C motorhome is for sale! I’ll get into some of the details below as I reflect on why we’re choosing to part with our beloved “Pavement Princess” and its impact on everything we are doing and plan to do in the next few years.
However, Lindsay and I are keenly aware that you might be following along on our wander due to watching our Remodel Tour on YouTube. Nearly half a million people combined watched this tour or our Remodel Timelapse Video, and we’ve received thousands of comments, emails and messages from viewers about how our remodeled motorhome is THE BEST that they have seen on the whole YouTube platform!
That is not to boast about the remodel or the video’s reach. And it certainly isn’t to say that we are RV remodeling experts!
Rather, it is to say that these videos, more than any others, might have attracted you to our website and inclined you to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
So, if this applies to you… maybe we’ll hand you the keys to our beautiful home on the road soon!
More on that shortly.
Since I was 25, I have been obsessed with the concept of change. Although I’ve not been formally diagnosed with OCD, if you know me, you know that I prefer strict control over the things in my life that I feel I should control and I like everything to be super-neat, tidy and in some kind of spreadsheet as often as applicable!
What do I feel I should control?
Pretty much everything!
This means that I have had a challenging adulthood in learning to accept that I am not in control of much of my life. I’m sure you’re familiar with the “Serenity Prayer.” If not, it goes like this:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I knew of that prayer long before recognizing that I had a problem accepting change. In fact, at twenty-five years of age, at a point in life when medical experts claim that the male human brain has finally connected all of its synapses and can be considered fully developed, I stumbled into a tattoo shop on the west side of Jacksonville. I had the tattoo artist begin a multi-phase tattoo of what I have come to affectionately call my “Change Arm.”
First, he tattooed the text “ Time Changes,” with an incredibly accurate recreation of the famous Salvador Dali painting, “Persistence of Memory,” featuring the melting clocks. Then, imprinted horizontally along my forearm, I added the words “Remember to Change…” To accompany this section, we took a mashup of Shel Silverstein’s book, “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.”
I won’t begin to unpack whatever inspired Dali to paint the melting clocks that made up that famous painting. I’m confident it was a mixture of hallucinogenics and alcohol and likely a long lack of sleep.
But Silverstein’s story, which usually is far less read than his other more famous ones like “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and “The Giving Tree” (which, unrelatedly, I have tattooed on my left side), tells the tale of how a wedge-shaped being was in search of its missing piece. Long story short – because you should read it or watch the video of Shel reading it himself – the Missing Piece realized that to have comfort with its own existence, it must submit itself to the concept of change.
By flopping over itself time after time, The Missing Piece begins to wear off the sharp edges of its wedge-like shape. With enough flopping around, the wedge is smoothed out into a round shape where Silverstein, with profound wisdom, reveals that one does not need someone else to find happiness or to feel complete. Rather, one must simply learn to change.
The first time I read that book, I nearly cried. As confusing as life can be for a young adult trying to figure out his identity, realizing that God created each of us uniquely and intentionally with our own sharp edges to wear down over time was quite troubling.
I realized then, in all of the years before, I had spent a lot of my life trying to find or fit into someone else’s image when all along, life was just waiting for me to begin the gradual process of flopping my way into my God-given identity.
I have veered off on a tangent, it seems, because I already confessed that I have an obsession with change. This is ironic because, if you know me, I actually quite despise change. This, of course, adds to more irony that life on the road is naturally constant change and nearly no two days are ever the same!
So why obsess over change? Why not video games, college football or beer – the kinds of things most men find themselves preoccupied with?
First, I was never good at video games as I was the one all my friends invited over to beat up on because they knew all of the secret codes and such. Second, NIL and the transfer portal have ruined any resemblance of college football and turned it into a semi-professional sport. And third, I have given up on drinking, whereby I always preferred bourbon over beer any day of the week.
But change?
We love our motorhome. When Lindsay and I first discussed selling it and moving into a new rig, I pushed for change. We have a unique business opportunity that we cannot legally discuss yet but are eager to share, for which the motorhome is not adequately suited.
One day at work this summer, I let myself flip through some RV ads and skim through some YouTube videos, and I was eager to make the move.
Then I came home from work. The awning was out. The LED awning lights illuminated our small camping table, Lindsay’s three plants hanging from the awning, and the two zero-gravity chairs we use to complete our front door setup.
Lindsay was sitting in one of these chairs, the dogs at her side, and when I walked through the door to shower and join her, the unique feeling of “home” hit me.
We had created a home out of the motorhome. Over eight months, Lindsay and I had touched every inch of that camper and crafted the most beautiful and homey camper on the internet, so they say. How could we let go of that?
Time changes… remember to change…
I changed my mind that night and considered every way we could change things to accommodate the business opportunity within the confines of this motorhome.
It just didn’t fit.
Some edges needed to be flopped over. And over. And over…
But since we cannot literally flop over the motorhome (for what good would that be anyway?!), the incessant cry for change sang out in my heart and became evident in my mind.
Lindsay and I agreed, without saying a word, that our journey back to Florida at the end of our time working in Custer State Park would be our last in our beloved Pavement Princess.
When we pulled into my parents’ driveway last week, I remembered the first time we did so in the motorhome, before she had a name or we had even given any thought to her transformation. The bitter mixed with the sweet, leaving neither joy nor sadness in realizing this was the last time we would do so.
I don’t ask for change. It just happens. This is part of my obsession. When surfing, you try to scan the horizon for a little bump on the water far enough away to begin to position yourself. As the bump approaches and makes contact with the ground, the swell rises up into a wave and with enough force in paddling you claw and claw and claw at the water until you feel the wave has “caught” you.
It’s a unique feeling that words can’t describe, like when the wind hits the sails for the first time and you feel your sailboat moving gently across the water with no motor. Just before you feel the wind catch you, the water ripples and dances with the invisible force approaching you.
When the wind or wave catches you, there is a brief moment of joy, an addictive state, where whatever effort was put into the moment is rewarded with the propulsion forward by forces beyond your control.
Then, you begin to direct yourself up, into, and through the wave or tack and jibe yourself across the open sea, maneuvering yourself forward at the insistence of the wave or wind.
This feeling is life.
You’ve been there before, whether you’ve ever surfed or sailed, in some situation where you catch a glimpse of what is to be and you can only do your best to prepare for the force of whatever it may be when it arrives. The joyful nine months leading to the birth of a child, or those sullen days before the passing of a loved one. The anticipation of meeting “the one” among billions of others and the work put in to receive a bountiful reward at harvest.
We have seen the wind dancing on the sea, the tiny bump on the ocean growing closer and closer, and our minds and hearts are full of excitement for all that the future holds for us in this new season of life that is approaching.
But with that anticipation comes the need to embrace all that change will bring. This is to say, we hope one day soon we will hand over the keys to our beloved Pavement Princess to someone else who has eagerly been awaiting the approaching wind and wave in their own life.
If this is you, we will be pleased to share our joy when the wind hits the sails for us both and you begin a new adventure in one direction while we begin ours in another.
I did not want to make this a blatant advertisement for our motorhome. Nothing in my heart or mind makes such a transition possible without first exploring it with words.
If you are interested in purchasing our motorhome and setting up your own course for a new adventure, you can read up on everything we have done and what we are asking for in our offer on this page. We’re asking $22,500 OBO for a motorhome that still has plenty of years, miles and adventures ahead for her next owner.
There, you’ll find links to the tour videos and all of the information about how we transformed a twenty-five-year-old drab motorhome into a boho-inspired home on the road.
Although we are selling the motorhome in Jacksonville, Florida, we are willing to transport it to you if arranged. And, of course, everything in the offer is negotiable.
Time changes… yet as stubborn as I am, I have always remembered to change with it. If you find yourself as stubborn as me, insisting that life operates according to your own set of conditions and rules, I encourage you now to take a step back and look at who you are and from where you have come.
We all have a story to tell, one that either begins or ends on the waves or wind, and we’re all headed toward a beautiful ending one day. Lindsay and I hope that we can continue to inspire, inform, or otherwise encourage you to pursue an Abundant Life wherever you are and however you can… even if that means coming to terms with change sometimes.
With a heart full of hope and love,
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