A belated Happy New Year to our friends, family, and loyal readers, old and new, from Mitch and Val in SoCal!
We’ve been quietly enjoying the region of Palm Springs, California, since October, and plan to stay a while. Most of our activity has been on our facebook page. But I haven’t forgotten about my blog, and I don’t intend to stop writing about all those adventures, even if it’s weeks or months after the fact. We’ve had a lot going on, had a wonderful holiday with lots of friends and family, and I’ve been too preoccupied to blog. But we have too many pictures and adventures *not* to write about them!
But for now…
It’s long overdue, but finally, here’s our YouTube channel brand video debut for RVLuckyOrWhat. Thanks to Mitch’s son Greg for putting it together as a project in his film class at the University of Utah!!! We LOVE it!!! It’s a gift we’ll always cherish! What a great way to sum up our almost 2.5 years of full-time RV adventures on the road.
By Valerie Coffey
One of the best things about this life roaming the US in an RV is visiting friends and family around the country. All the new people Mitch and I meet are a huge bonus. What’s hard about this life, however, is that you miss a sense of community. You miss your friends from home, you miss going to their events and seeing your neighbors around, and seeing people you know when you’re out.
So it means so much when you meet someone with so much in common, and then you come to find out you’ll be in the same place again down the road. So it was with Marc and Julie Bennett of RV Love.

Mitch, Val, Julie and Marc in the Denver area in June, celebrating our two-year “nomadiversaries.”
Ah, the beauty of the interwebs! We “met” Marc and Julie Bennett of RV Love through Instagram, the social media app that lets you share inspiring pictures. Then, on a walk around the Garden of the Gods RV Park in Colorado Springs one June evening, Mitch and I noticed their Allegro bus rig and little MINI Cooper convertible displaying their logo, “Live. Love. Travel. RV Love.” And I immediately recognized their brand. I looked them up, sent them a message and we met for social hour around their campfire.
Whereas most full-time RVers are retired, Marc and Julie are full-time RVers who are working age, like us. Marc grew up in Colorado, while Julie grew up in Sydney, Australia. Also like us, they sold their sticks & bricks home to expand their horizons and see the USA in a motorhome. Marc works full-time as Operations Manager for a nutritional supplement company, and Julie is a lifestyle coach. In the sharing of their journey via their blog and social media platforms, they’ve become a social media sensation with a following of thousands and over half a million views on their YouTube channel!
We had a lot of fun hanging out with the Bennetts during our time in Colorado Springs. We were all scheduled to be at Cherry Creek State Park in Aurora, Colorado, at the same time about a week later, so we made plans to meet them again down the road. We went to TAG restaurant in Denver with them to celebrate their two-year “nomadiversary” – just a few weeks before ours!
Julie and I bonded easily like two long-lost girlfriends, even though she looks like she could be my much-younger daughter. I’m a jolly giant at 5’10” and she’s a spritely elf at 4’8”! And we had a laugh when we found out that I went to high school in Sparks, Nevada, with Marc’s boss, Bert Wegner! I have stories about parties at Bert’s house back in the day. What’s even funnier is that Bert is my Friend on Facebook; Bert noticed the picture of the four of us together (Marc, Julie, Mitch and I) and he did a double take because he thought Marc was Mitch. A few people have commented on the resemblance of Marc and Mitch – they could be brothers!
I asked Marc and Julie some questions about their life on the road, and their answers make a great story. Read on to see why we love RV Love:
By Valerie Coffey

You can’t see it, but I’m sporting a huge smile here and bursting with excitement to see my first mountain goat! And such a beautiful one at sunset on the spectacular Highline Trail in Glacier National Park in Montana!
What does a year-plus of full-time traveling by RV around the US get you? 10,000 pictures and video totaling 60 GB of files!
Granted, we have two of us taking pictures — a LOT of pictures — using mostly a Samsung Galaxy S5 cell phone and a Canon EOS D60, occasionally a GoPro Hero4, and various other DSLR cameras.
And we are solidly amateurs dabbling in photography. But here on Google+ is a sampling of 31 photos that are my personal favorites from our amazing year, representing every region of the country, every month of our travels, and boatloads of smiles.
Click on the Google+ box below.
https://plus.google.com/107839670759502214880/posts/VfSRGDAAtK2
Here is a full list of our blog posts, in chronological order from the beginning. Enjoy!
Aug. 20, 2014 Hello, World! It’s the Mitch and Val Roadshow Tour!
The problems we encountered upon taking delivery of the Love Shack in Florida and driving her home, and the beginning of the adventure. It’s gettin’ real!
Aug. 26, 2014 Feeling “High in Utah” and Coming “Home to Nevada
Our first stop on the “tour,”Park City, Utah, is high in elevation and a cute place to shop and eat.
Oooh yes. I can relate to this article. Yes, yes, yes.
As a freelancer, I always have a clean house before I absolutely must write. From my years in publishing, I confirm it was a common joke that the editor-in-chief’s “desk” or magazine editorial opener would have a deadline every month that was on the calendar, but the column wouldn’t appear until five minutes before the issue was sent to the printer. 🙂
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Next post:
Our Experience Comparing Music and Arts FestivalsRead all About Us: Runnin’ Down the Dream
A huge portion of my “writing process” is procrastinating. If I have something really big due, I basically have to build in time to put it off. I clean, I organize, I work on other stuff that isn’t as pressing. Then, finally, when I absolutely must, and/or when I have run out of all other things to do, I write.
This is bizarre behavior. But it is not uncommon among writers.
Megan McArdle wrote a piece for The Atlantic showing how common this is among professional writers. Though she theorizes that it’s a fear of failure that drives us to procrastinate, which doesn’t totally ring true to me. That’s never really been a thing for me. I have plenty of hangups, but that’s just not one of them. In fact, my 20s are a testament to my willingness to wallow in failure.
I don’t think there’s a concrete explanation beyond…
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A new post from RVLuckyorWhat!
This collection is in response to the photo challenge, “Wall.”
Here’s a fun collection of photos of a variety of interesting…
we’ve seen in our seven months of travels in our 45-foot motorhome around the US!
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Next post:
Austin is a Gas!
All About Us: Runnin’ Down the Dream