USA Today newspaper featured us in an article in the Money section on February 20, 2002. The article was about men (and couples) quitting their jobs early, how they were financially able to do it and what they are doing now. We fit the mold perfectly so USA Today wanted to interview us and make our picture. Norm retired from IBM the month he turned 54 and Linda retired (quit) at age 49 from a career in nursing.

Barbara Hagenbaugh, a USA Today financial reporter, surfed the internet looking for a couple that retired young and was living the good life after retirement. She found our website, read a few pages, and sent us an e-mail for an interview. The next day she interviewed Norm by telephone for twenty minutes. The next three days we exchanged several phone calls making arrangements for a photographer to meet us.

That Friday, Tom DiPace, a sports photographer from Boca Raton, FL, drove to our campground in Port St. Lucie, FL. He made about fifty photos of us in still and action situations. There were several inside our Dutch Star, some in our inflatable boat and four sequences of photos of us riding our bicycles. Word spread around the campground that USA Today was making pictures of us so several came to inquire (nosey) and one stranger was snapping pictures of us getting our pictures made.

We were told our article and picture would appear in Tuesday's newspaper if there was no breaking news. Well, some guy named Alan Greenspan took priority over us. Then we were notified we would be in the newspaper on Wednesday (02/20/02). Low and behold, we opened the newspaper the next day and there we were with a picture of us on our bikes with our motorhome and boat in the background. They did not get the information "exactly" right, but it was close and they did get our names spelled correctly.

A few days later we started hearing from people around the USA and even from Brazil. Gannett, the home company of USA Today, owns newspapers around the country and world. They had made our article available to their other newspapers and many printed our story and picture. USA Today did not print our website's URL, but several of their other newspapers did. Our website reached a peak of 450 visitors one day and reached nearly 2,600 for that week.

(If we can obtain a good color copy of the picture that was in the newspaper we will put it here.)

In addition to USA Today and their affiliated newspapers, in the last year our travels and our website have been featured in two German newspapers, one newspaper in Brazil, listed in RV Companion magazine, recommended by RV writer Chuck Woodbury and our budget has been used by Ron and Barb Hofmeister in their seminars.

Our website is just a hobby and we are always delighted to hear it has been beneficial to others.