Motorhome travel has helped fuel a life-changing transformation for this Arizona couple.
By John Johnston, Associate Editor
January 2020
Most people can point to specific moments that changed the trajectory of their lives. For Tim and Deborah Bateman, F492132, one such instance involved the perilous flight of a golf ball. Another was their spur-of-the-moment decision to buy a motorhome.
More about those later. First, some background about the Batemans. When they met at a party in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1979, Tim charmed Deborah with humor. They married that year, and soon they were parents of a daughter, Tara.
The couple focused on climbing the corporate ladder — Deborah in banking, Tim as a salesman who became part owner of a printing/marketing company. They worked long and hard to achieve financial success, and they enjoyed the conspicuous consumption that came with it.
“We were money-spending yuppies,” Tim said. “Pretty much anything we wanted to buy, we bought.” That included big houses, boats, and expensive cars, artwork, and watches.
“We lived a very privileged life,” Deborah added.
But while their careers thrived and their bank accounts grew, their relationship suffered. After 24 years of marriage, they divorced.
They were apart for nearly three years. Then one day while Tim and Tara were playing a round of golf, Tara was struck in the eye by a ball. Amidst concern that she might lose the eye, she requested that both parents be by her side.
“She pretty much likens it to a parent trap,” Deborah said. “She will absolutely give herself credit for getting the two of us back together.”
Tara recovered. And Tim and Deborah discovered that they still loved each other. They married for the second time on December 14, 2006.
With their careers winding down, retirement approaching, and more time to be together, they began talking about how they wanted to spend the rest of their lives. They both love travel and adventure. Tim enjoys planning trips. While driving from Minnesota to their home in Phoenix in 2016, despite having no RVing experience, they spontaneously hit on the same idea: “Let’s get a big-ass motorhome.”
BAM, as they call it, is their 2007 Country Coach. The 40-foot, diesel-powered motorhome has been a vehicle for transforming their lives.
First, it was the impetus behind their massive downsizing, a process that took several years. The Batemans sold their home in Phoenix and a condominium in Seattle, and they began purging many of their belongings.
“It becomes incredibly hard,” Tim said. “It hits your ego that you paid so much money for so many things, and if you want to change your lifestyle, you literally have to give them away.”
“I had to call my mother and say, ‘I’m getting rid of the china that you spent your life collecting,’” Deborah recalled. “Our accountant said, ‘There’s no way you can deduct all this stuff you’ve given away.’”
In the end, the Batemans found downsizing to be liberating. “We’ve gotten really good at living with less,” Deborah said. Indeed, for about six months of the year, they occupy a 1,400-square-foot condo in a Phoenix high-rise. “It’s a lock-it-and-leave-it place,” she said. “Because at this point in our lives, it’s more about collecting experiences than collecting things.”
The other six months, they travel (which includes international trips without BAM). “We believe that travel is transformational,” Deborah said. “It kind of goes with our tagline: explore, discover, grow.”
That tagline appears on the Batemans’ blog, Risk Blossoming (riskblossoming.com), which Deborah started about five years ago. A couple of years later, as readers took note of Tim’s storytelling ability and humor, he took on the role of lead writer. The blog also features photographs by Tim, who has a photojournalism degree from Arizona State University.
The blog’s name was inspired by a quote from writer Anais Nin: “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
“We were on a treadmill to make money, buy stuff, and surround ourselves with things,” Deborah said. “We decided to break out of that, change our lives, and risk blossoming.”
Everyone’s situation is different, of course. But the Batemans believe the stories they share in Risk Blossoming can have an impact on others.
“Our intention is to inspire people to dream whatever it is they want, and then to plan it and make it happen,” Deborah said. In addition to the blog, she shares life lessons through her work as a life coach, public speaker, and co-leader of international retreats for women, called Wisdom Quests.
Typically, the Batemans limit their motorhome travel to 150 to 250 miles a day. They usually spend four to six days in one spot. To date, most of their travels have been in the Pacific Northwest, because the weather suits them.
But they are branching out. This past July, they experienced the Calgary Stampede, the annual rodeo, exhibition, and festival held in Calgary, Alberta. “We fell in love with Canada,” Deborah said.
And in 2021, they are planning their first motorhome trip to the eastern United States. Their tentative itinerary will include the Masters golf tournament, the Kentucky Derby, and the Indianapolis 500.
The feedback the Batemans receive often comes from people who say something like “You guys are living my dream. This is what we want to do.”
Yes, they are living their dream. But the phrase has a ring of finality to it. It suggests the attainment of a goal, an endpoint of sorts. For Tim and Deborah, that’s not the case.
“There’s an analogy I love,” Deborah said. “Out West, where there are beautiful mountain ranges, you see a peak and you climb to the top, only to find there’s a whole new horizon and a higher peak. It’s the same with dreams. You have a dream, you plan it and live it, and all of a sudden there’s a new horizon. That’s where you can pick and choose. That’s part of our ‘explore, discover, grow’ (philosophy). It’s the journey (that’s important), not the destination.”