Retire to Ecuador? Why not!

We've had a great time with friends, enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner here in FL. We all ate too much, watched some good TV and just chatted about everything and nothing. We don't do Black Friday shopping but I needed to pick up a prescription at the local Walmart and wanted to try to get the new Garth Brooks CD/DVD set, "Blame It All On My Roots". We also needed to visit a bank and the post office. So around 1 pm on Friday we headed out...well, I guess here in "seniorland" everyone was napping because there were no crowds. We got all our errands done and back to the house without a hitch. Oh yeah, got my Garth set - they had plenty. (Stu is happily ripping them to his computer now.) Now we're getting ready to head out on our cruise tomorrow. We won't be checking in so things will be quiet until a week from Sun/Mon. On our return, we then travel to the east coast to visit family for a few days before renting a large SUV and heading to

Well, we are finally on the road...moving towards our goal of living in Ecuador. The day was busy with winterizing the RV and general clean-up of the rig. We wanted to leave everything clean and shiny inside but also had to leave it with all the slides pulled in. No major hassles, just time... The truck is loaded to the gills - all the footlockers are in the back, protected from the elements with a tarp. The back seat has all the regular luggage and the a few bags filled with last minute items. No seeing out the back window! We finally pulled out of our driveway a little after three PM when a couple miles down the road I remembered that I hadn't cleaned out some of the food stuff in cabinets. Gulp....well, better than being in Georgia or Florida when I remembered. So we quickly turned around, opened the slides enough to get to the cabinets and pulled out the crackers, nuts, sugar, peanut butter and rice mix. Most went to our neighbors who were also the recipients of everythin

...but not sure where everything is. LOL! We had to pack for 1) the drive to FL & staying with friends until Sunday, 2) our 7 day cruise and 3) 3 days of visiting family before 4) we fly to EC. The only thing either of us is sure of is having our cruise stuff packed and at the ready. Needless to say, once we get to the last 3 days, we'll be doing some unpacking/repacking to square things away. Are we excited? Absolutely - both for the cruise and the move. But to be perfectly honest, I'm most excited about getting my new iPad Mini on Wednesday when we arrive at our friend's house. WOOT! So the truck is loaded to the gills, the refrigerator is empty and tomorrow we'll do our final things - last minute cleaning and checking for missed items, putting out mouse bait and winterizing the RV. We'll move our Freightliner truck under the pavilion with the RV, close our gate and head south. Good thing, they're forecasting sleet and snow later tomorrow! In other n

Our To Do lists are shrinking...we've seen a local attorney and gotten our wills updated, filled out and had our  Five Wishes  notarized (Don't know what that is? You should, everyone should!) All the vehicles are ready to store, insurance has been notified, etc, etc, etc.... We're 90% packed, down to Stu's getting the last of his clothes out (after the last load of laundry). Coming to Ecuador will be 5 Sterilite footlockers, large bag with Stu's scuba gear, two large suitcases, two carry-ons and us. Phew! In addition, we have two additional bags with cruise gear which we hope to move into one of the trunks when we get back from our cruise. We got news that our mattresses were delivered, nice to be able to make friends and work from a distance. We've looked at a couple other sales but nothing has really clicked. The good thing is we're not in any rush. We have a completely furnished apartment until Jan 12th. That gives us a month to get the rest of wha

Things are moving along and I'm trying to NOT PANIC! We have ONE WEEK to get everything done and start our trek southward. I keep thinking of things to add to our To Do Lists and yet not much is coming off. Hopefully that will change in the next couple of days. One major hurdle is done...we picked up our Pensioner Visas Friday at the Ecuadorian Consulate in Atlanta. It was painless...walked in, filled out our information forms, handed over our passports, documentation letters, photos and cash. About 90 minutes of wait time and we were done! What a pleasant experience and the staff in the Atlanta office were wonderful to work with. Kudos to Maite Duran and her staff for doing such a great job of facilitation for us. When we arrive in Ecuador we still have to register the Visas and then we can apply for our cedulas, sort of a National ID card. The cedula will allow me to qualify for 50% fares on the buses and local airlines as well as get some of the taxes I pay rebated. Not ba

It's been a busy week as we both plow through our To Do lists. For once, they seem to be shrinking rather than growing. We've pinned down the router we need, made an appointment with a local attorney to get our wills redone here in Tennessee, arranged for a shipping company so we can order small items and have them shipped to us in Ecuador and much, much more. Every day I watch Gringo Tree and Gringo Post for buys on furniture and appliances. We lucked into two queen mattresses, one is a month old, the other is eight months old. We got them both for less than we had budgeted for one! Stu's vest from Scottevest arrived and it fits him perfectly! He also got the storage box for his Go Pro Hero camera and the HDMI cables we'll need to hook up our new router and Roku 3 box. A lot of folks have told us that they have recently used the Sterilite foot lockers like we bought so we are now thinking about going back to that plan, and carrying the fold-up rolling du

Our friend Len Charnoff spends his days taking photos and making videos. This is a nice overview of Cuenca that I wanted to share for those that are interested.

Actually, I think we are doing both! We are slowly trimming our To Do lists as we prepare for our move. Of course we keep coming up with new things that we think we need to get/bring with us. Hubby dug out our old 22" TV and decided to bring it in his carry-on. We ordered HDMI cables from Amazon (great prices) as well as a carry bag for his Go Pro camera (scuba diving). He took his gear in for a checkup and when he went to pick it up, I went along for a Five Guys dinner fix (yum). We're both working through paperwork, moving everything possible to e-statements in an attempt to limit our mail. We're making an appointment with a local lawyer this week, getting our wills redone in Tennessee. Next week we hope to make the trek to Atlanta to pick up our Visas as well as visit my youngest and her family. I got my new  Travelon anti-theft purse  today. I'm not a large purse person so was happy to find this smaller bag. I can fit all my basic toiletries including clip-on s