David and Brenda At The Badlands In South Dakota

David and Brenda At The Badlands In South Dakota

We, David and Brenda, have been married currently for 29 years. Currently we travel with our adopted GSD/Husky mix, Loki. No “human” children, but all our past furry kids had been rescued and traveled with us from when we started in 2008!  We met when Brenda was 19 and David was, umm, 26. Six months later David proposed and six months after that we were married. We have never looked back and we won the bet. By that I mean some family members were taking bets on how long we would last.  We are very pleased to say they all lost, but we knew they would.

David was the Director of Network Operations for the Town of Gates for 14 years. Back in 1999 he founded AVSForum.com which we later sold in October of 2011. He also founded TiVoCommunity.com in 2001, sold it in 2007 and bought it back again Jan 1, 2015. And also, along with Brenda, started Home Theater Cruise in 2002. Currently he owns and operates DBSTalk.com, TiVoCommunity.com and DBNet, LLC (consulting). We also are angel investors in Panbela Therapeutics working on a treating Pancreatic Cancer.   So working on-line needless to say was really our life and is what allows us to travel.

Brenda worked in the past as a medical secretary in the cardiac unit at Strong Hospital and handled human resources and payroll for a local home electronics store before she left it all behind in 2002, along with David leaving the Town of Gates, as our other ventures took off.  She then, and now, handles all the book keeping and accounting for our various ventures. (As well as keeping David in check.)

We have been traveling since 2008 and have been keeping track of our travels here on this blog. We really enjoy meeting many different people along the way and interacting with them both in our travels and online.  We enjoy looking back at the places that we’ve been and realize that we still have quite a ways to go to see the whole country. It’s going to take years.

We started full timing in the summer of 2013 and haven’t looked back since. People sometimes look at us strangely when we say that we live in our motor home as we no longer have a traditional “sticks and bricks” house.

That, to most people, is a foreign concept. They think either we were forced into selling our home for financial reasons or we get the, “isn’t it sad that you don’t have a home” look. We did have a home. It just happens to have wheels.

Now as of March 2022 we have purchased a home in Monterey TN.  As a result, we no longer travel full time and in our coach but we still do live in it most of the year.  We still try to help RV’s as we can, but surely from when we started, the RV industry is in a much different place. Sadly, It was actually one of the reasons we stopped living in the coach full time, well, that and health reasons. 

RVingly Yours,

David, Brenda, & Loki Bott

Hitting The Road Full Time

Hitting The Road Full Time

Little do they know that part of the reason we started full timing was a financial decision. Not in the sense that they are thinking though. We sold a 4200 sq ft house in Western New York that sat on 4 acres of land on a private drive. It had 3 home theaters, the whole house was automated, wildlife galore as we backed up to some woods and awesome neighbors. We had all that, sold it, smiling the whole way, scooped up the kitties and hit the road in our then 42 foot Tour Master motor home towing our Saturn Outlook.

People are always curious as to why we would give up such a gorgeous house that had everything we thought we ever wanted. It’s because we wanted to be practical and try to do the right thing for us, for our future.

Well, it’s simple. In our situation, our philosophy is that you could always buy another house, however you may not always be able to travel. We are lucky enough that we work online. So as long as we have internet, we can work. There’s a large number of younger RVer’s like us out there that are doing the same thing just for that reason. We’re saving a ton of money by not having a large mortgage and motor home, upkeep on 4 acres of land, upkeep on 4200 sq ft of house plus all the expenses of property taxes, gas, electric, etc. We immediately changed our residency from New York to Florida, saving us a bunch of money in personal income tax too. So we are trying to be practical for our future. We do what we need, but not overly. Do we splurge? Sure, once in awhile. However we are not ones to pay $60 for a t-shirt as that would be “Practically” insane. (to us.) So, were “practical” in what we do.

In other words, we got tired of the rat race. To beat the Joneses next door with bigger and better. When we looked around our house and actually saw all the “stuff” that we had, it was overwhelming. We wanted to, and needed to, simplify. George Carlin had a great routine that really hit home.

So to quote the popular saying, “Life is just too short” which hit home back in 2006 when David had a mini-stroke and really opened our eyes to living life.  So it was that event that lead to where we are today.  Living life simple and together, seeing new things and making new memories.  And most of all, meeting others, learning, and making new friends all along the way. We are more rich for it.

We also spend time supporting the Segs4Vets Foundation as we travel helping to mobilize our wounded warriors and give them a better life through the use of technology.  Here is a promotional video we did for them that is used for fund raisers as well as further information on the foundation. Please be so kind to see this post. CLICK HERE

So, ok, just another “about us” page that tells you a little bit about who we are.  But hey, we do also have a video to show you the kinds of things we do and post about on our blog. Hope you enjoy it.

So, this leaves us to ask you…When was the last time you got Outside Your Bubble?

Random Selfies From Around The Country