CERRO GORDO - Their homes are just like many others. This summer, one has a small garden area near the house. The other has some patio plants. And the owners frequently meet at a common picnic table, where they can enjoy being outside. They've even got basement storage.

The difference, however, is that couples Bob and Joyce Barton and Jim and Sue Barton take their homes with them wherever they go.

The Barton men are brothers. "They're twins," said Joyce Barton, laughing, "only born 11 years apart."

A few years ago, a friend of Jim Barton's, Tom Hyde, sold his house, opting to live in a recreational vehicle and take to the road.

"I liked the idea," Jim Barton said.

So, about 10 years ago, Jim Barton came home from his 35-year job with Caterpillar Inc. and told his wife, "I'm retired," she said. She felt it didn't make much sense for him to be retired and able to travel while she was still employed, so she soon quit her job as well.

They sold their Decatur house, one of several they'd owned over their nearly 40 years of marriage, along with much of the home's and two-car garage's contents.

"I cried and cried," Sue Barton remembered of the weeks-long sales. "It's the memories."

Just as they changed houses, they've swapped vehicles over the years, but home now is a recreational vehicle nearly 40 feet long.

Soon following them on the road were Bob and Joyce Barton, their home also now a 40-foot vehicle. The couple, who have been married more than 50 years, had lived in Argenta for 37 years when they sold out in 11 days and were ready to be on the road.

Bob Barton called his brother, asking if there would be a spot for their RV to park nearby.

"We thought he was joking," Jim Barton said.

In neither case was exchanging their homes for recreational vehicles an even monetary trade. The list prices of their respective recreational versions are between $149,000 and $242,000, they said.

Now it's half the year in Illinois, where their roots remain, usually in Cerro Gordo at a recreational vehicle park owned by Hyde. The other half of the year they live wherever they happen to land. They've already parked for stints in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana and Texas, but it's always somewhere in the winter months where snow isn't an option.

The wives are the navigating half of each couple, they said. They use global positional system devices and rely heavily on a book, "Exit Authority," which details what's at interstate highway exits. And they've also learned that the size of the vehicle means preplanning for them.

"They don't turn on a dime," Sue Barton said. "They don't stop on a dime, either."

Both couples say they enjoy the choice of their lifestyle and have no plans to stop until they are tired of traveling.

"We're not campers," stressed Jim Barton. "We're RVers."

"RVers are the friendliest people," Bob Barton said. "They are very helpful, too."

"We've been to the best potlucks," Joyce Barton said. "They're good cooks, too."

Oh, and the basement? That's the RV owners' term for the storage area underneath the vehicle's living quarters.

amannlein@herald-review.com|421-6976