MEET JEFF
Hi! I’m Jeff Wildrick, and on July 1 I retired from full-time work after 35 years as a Presbyterian pastor. I’ve loved my career, and now I’m ready to begin a new adventure.
All my life I’ve loved to travel, see new places, and experience new cultures, new foods, and new ideas! Some of my favorite destinations have been Turkey, Greece, Israel, France, England, Holland, Colombia, and Costa Rica! Oh, and did I mention California, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, Missouri, Arizona, and Pennsylvania?
I’m the author of The Complete Guide to Renting an RV, and if you click the link you can see it on Amazon!
A late bloomer, I met my one-and-only wife, Kathy, when I was 39 years old. I quickly discovered that travel is much more fun with someone you love! Since then we adopted three children (siblings from Colombia) who are now young adults and ready to begin lives (more or less) on their own.
When I’m not working or blogging I enjoy RVing, camping, fishing, scuba diving, cooking, reading, and sometimes golfing. So, you’re likely to hear a lot about those things here! And, I’m just getting into video editing, so check out our Miles and Smiles Vlog (Video-Blog) on YouTube.
MEET KATHY
Hello. I’m Kathleen Hayes Wildrick, though most people call me Kathy. That happened in a new school in 7th grade, when I was too shy to correct my teachers when they automatically shortened my named on their roster from Kathleen to Kathy.
I grew up in northeast Pennsylvania, then moved to Philadelphia a few years after college to take my first editing job with a radical Christian magazine called The Other Side. I loved it and went on to work for 30-plus years as an editor of magazines, books, and a devotional guide. After we adopted our three older (7, 7, and 5) children from Colombia, life took a huge turn, and I eventually stopped editing in order to focus on raising teens and be mom’s taxi service.
Life as a mother of three energetic children and a pastor’s wife didn’t leave me much time to pursue my own interests. I enjoy bird-watching, swimming, bicycling, traveling (of course), speaking Spanish whenever possible (we have many Hispanics in our church and surrounding communities), and caring for our three dogs and one cat.
Actually, I love animals. I used to foster rescued dogs and cats and find them good homes. I can probably still recall most of them by name—but I’ll spare you those details. Fostering came to a halt when we adopted our third dog, a loving, good-natured, and lap-dog-to-the-max Chihuahua named Oliver (Olie). We also have a beautiful, smart little rescue dog named Mitzi, who’s part Lhasa Apso and part Silky Terrier, and Tucker, a beautiful Golden Retriever. Small, medium, and large! In addition, we are down to one cat whose chose us 12 years ago, a calico named Cali. She’s sweet, though outnumbered in our household . . .
Lord willing, these pets will all go to our small lake house as well as RVing with us! It seems crazy, but we could never leave one of these family members behind! We’ll see how it goes and have lots to learn about traveling with pets.
As an extrovert, friends and relationships are very important to me. I’m wondering how RVing will affect my need to keep in touch with family and friends. Thank God for cell phones, texting, Facebook, and Messenger, but it’s not the same as actually being together. I would love to get back into freelance editing while on the road—easier said than done.
With the Tiny House movement and Minimalism in mind, I’m eager to “live simply so that others may simply live,” and to spend less time taking care of all our stuff.
Let us know in the comments what you’d like to hear more about and we’ll try to put up some posts soon.