Going Gypsy
Authors: David and Veronica James
Baby Boomerdom at its Best
As a blogger, I get to meet the best and brightest, other bloggers who have created themselves over by seeing through their own creative lens! At the 2015 AARP Convention and Expo this year, I met bloggers Veronica and David James, empty nesters (gypsynester.com) who had just published a memoir. And what a memoir it is. So I had to grab a copy out of their hands and review it because it is that good!
As they send their last child off to college, Veronica and David choose to renew their marriage and their life together and to become wandering gypsies. They sell their house in St. Croix, quit their jobs, buy rental property as a backup and go onto eBay and buy a used RV for $3,200. They have decided to make the RV their home as they drive around the country from one coast to another visiting relatives and friends and stopping wherever they desire when they desire. David, a successful musician and Veronica, a web designer and fantastic house person and mom, have to reroute and transform their lives into roving adventurers. As they peak and ebb into the roads they travel on, they share their journey. Veronica faces a deep grief in pushing her last child out of the nest and onto college; and David feels the loss in his bones. As they push their new RV onto the roads across America, they teach us their life lessons as parents as they pursue an entirely new type of adventure: growing up themselves in an entirely new context.
Hysterical, charming, witty, and honest to the bones
Going Gypsy is a fast and furious read into the mores and highways of America and a marriage that just keeps getting better! David pushes his pedal to the metal as he zooms across the intrigue of the fifty states he has visited, while Veronica demands some brake time to enjoy the unique food in the places they stop (silk worms, guinea pig, bull testicles, hot quahogs, deep fried cheeseburgers, poutine).
As they vroom across America in the old RV that they name BAMF I thought of Rocinante, Don Quijote’s horse in the novel Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes. Rocinante is awkward, past his prime, and engaged in a task beyond his capacities, and yet he gets where he needs to go; the James BAMF-mobile RV does the same.
Virally engaging
Going Gypsy, penned by this fascinating couple, is a travelogue of coming to terms with a new life, facing fears they didn’t know they had, and steering BAMF into the outer corners of campsites and Walmart parking lots, as they face the last frontier of Baby Boomers! At the end of the book I wanted to BE them! And I hear that they are penning a sequel – and I want to be first on the list to read it!
Review by Broad “A”
We received a copy of this title for our book review. All opinions are our own
Review by Broad “A”
We received a copy of this title for our book review. All opinions are our own
Going Gypsy: One Couple’s Adventure from Empty Nest to No Nest at All
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