Travel writers Susan and Simon Veness were trying to escape the rat race when they hit the road for a year in an RV. “For the last 20 years we have been working flat-out, seven days a week, never took time off,” Susan Veness says. “We didn’t take vacations, and we were so burned out that we just needed to hit the reset button.
” The Venesses took off in their 36-foot RV – dog Ruthie and a subcompact car in tow – with a route in mind that went to Michigan, then across the country to the West Coast before swooping down across the South and back home to Apopka. “The challenge was to try and see as much of the country as we could. We really wanted to see America,” Simon Veness says.
Their mission was completed, mostly, and ended recently with a stay at Fort Wilderness at Walt Disney World. There were bumps along the way, including mechanical difficulties, a stretch of 19 days without hot water, tight mountain passes and harrowing bridges that might have contributed to high blood pressure. “We met a lot of mobile technicians in those first months,” Susan says.
After two months and another frustrating RV repair, they considered pulling the plug on the 12-month project that had been in the works for four years. “So we had to take the rig in, stay in a hotel. We spent a couple of days really just saying we’re not sure we can do this,” Susan says.
“And then we bucked up our courage and decided, yeah, we want to keep going. And then, for months, it was just.
