Welcome to our Journey! We are glad you are here.
My name is April and together with Jess my wife of sixteen years we are hiking memere. We have recently become full-time explorers, a goal we have had for many years. We purchased a 2022 Wonder RL Leisure Travel Van, sold our belongings and jumped in full-time RV life with both feet. I’m confident our friends and family think we are crazy.
The years Jess and I have spent together have been a flurry of activity. When we first met. My daughter was an active eleven-year-old that played three sports. I had just scraped together enough money to purchase a local mom-and-pop diner. Jess was a fulltime RN and worked in pediatrics at the Barbra Bush Children’s Hospital an hour from our home in Maine. Between the full-time job, building a business and raising our daughter our lives were in a constant state of never having enough time. We have been “on call” for most of our time together.
We quickly realized how well we worked together, complimented each other, and we flourished. As a family we grew our small mom and pop diner into a thriving beast. We served our customers fifteen hours a day 364 days a year. Not only did we run the diner we also catered events ranging from weddings to small company lunches and operated a food truck allowing us to participate in many community events.
Eventually, this all led to us purchasing the building in which our diner was located. The building contained our business and three additional apartment units. This first building led to us purchasing three more. We renovated apartment units after our fulltime shifts at the diner and the hospital. At our peak we owned and managed nine units in four separate buildings.
The one activity that kept us connected as a family was hiking. My daughter and I had begun hiking the 4000 footers of New Hampshire, just after she was born. When Jess became part of our family, she realized she loved it as much as we did. Hiking was an escape for us from the craziness of our day to day lives. It provided us uninterrupted hours together. Much of the time was spent in silence, listening only to the sounds of the forest. These days spent hiking, although limited, gave us the strength and energy we needed to work the amount that we did.
Our daughter is also thriving. She went off to college and became a software engineer. She married her high school sweetheart and became a mom, making me a memere. Becoming a memere is the best job title I have ever had. It’s difficult to express the amount of joy a bouncing toddler can bring!
We have sold our diner, our home, most of our buildings and lots of our stuff. Jess has retired from health care. After sixteen years of life together we are no longer on-call. Our travel and activities now revolve around our family and exploring. We have chosen to Live Simple Live Happy and Follow our own path.