Our New Home

Jeremy talked to his boss today and got the green light. He said he'd had a lot of time to think about it and it sounded like a lot of fun. We still have some minor details to work out, but overall he gave us a go.

So we decided to go look again at the trailer we liked. Good thing, because another very interested buyer was coming tomorrow morning. We had our list of questions and got everything answered, took some measurements, and talked about pricing. Everything worked out beautifully. I really feel like this trailer was meant for us.

More pics to come soon!

We found one we like!

We found a very nice fifth wheel only 40 minutes from our house!

True four seasons package, can be towed by a one ton truck, we think the layout will work for us, and it's a few years old but never been sold, so we'll even get a little warranty on it. We'll go look at it again tomorrow or Saturday.

We really like this one. If only we had the green light from Jeremy's boss! He was on vacation all last week and has been sick all this week, so Jeremy hasn't been able to discuss it with him.

I'm trying to be patient, I really am. But we are so excited about this idea and I'd really like to start making things happen instead of just making plans. It's hard to keep waiting!

So much stuff

I've been doing a lot of cleaning, sorting, and purging lately getting ready for the move. Even though this will be the 6th move since we got married almost 5 years ago, and we've gotten rid of things every move, it's amazing how the stuff just creeps up on us. Especially since having kids. It feels like such a waste of time to have spent so much time shopping for stuff, buying stuff, cleaning stuff, organizing stuff, storing stuff, buying more stuff to store our stuff, putting stuff away, and now throwing stuff out, selling stuff, or giving stuff away. Wouldn't it have been easier to have never had the things in the first place? Sure, many of the items have served useful purposes, like baby items. But plenty others have done nothing to make our lives happier or more joyful.

Some things are harder to let go of than others, but it feels like a breath of fresh air every time I get a load of things out of our house.

Why travel?

So, why would we want to sell our house and move into 400 square feet with two small children?

First, we love traveling. Or at least we did before we had kids. Then traveling turned into a nightmare when it interrupted sleeping schedules, and flying was both expensive and nerve-wracking because when our child is screaming, he's not just bothering us but also the other 200 people on the plane. Driving takes too long to go the places we want, like California. We've often joked that we could drive to California if we could do it an hour at a time. This way we actually could. Plus, we'd get to see so many friends and places that we'd never have the time or money to go see on individual trips.

Second, we love the idea of getting out from under our stuff. We do try to keep from accumulating too much, and often give things away or hold an occasional garage sale. And every time we move (which has been fairly frequent) we eliminate a whole other chunk of our things. But somehow, especially since having kids, it all keeps piling up anyway. I feel like I spend a lot of my time just taking care of our 'stuff'-putting things away, cleaning, etc. I read recently that the average American only uses 10% of their stuff on a regular basis. We love the idea of getting down to just that 10%, and making our lives (and our kids' lives) more about experiences than about things. Sure, it will be rough on all of us at first to not have a million toys for entertainment, but I think it will be good for us.

Third, what a great opportunity! It would allow us to really make the most of Jeremy's ability to telecommute, before we have to worry about kids' school schedules, or our church commitments, or our house, or Jeremy needing to go into the office, or any of the other things that will eventually tie us down when we settle in Ohio. It will be good for us to put down roots as our kids grow, but why not take this last chance to really get out and see the world. We figure it's go now or wait until Jeremy retires. Why wait?

The truck is getting bigger....

We've been doing a lot more research on fifth wheels, and there is a pretty short list of fifth wheels (or 5ers, as the veterans call them) that are agreed to be true four seasons rvs. These tend to be a lot better insulated, and the real distinction is that all the piping underneath is enclosed and heated to keep it freezing. Since we're pretty sure we will be in cold weather at some point (despite our best efforts) this sounds like a major plus. Not to mention the same short list is considered the best for full-timing, in that they hold up better over time, have more quality construction and materials, etc. For all these same reasons, this short list of fifth wheels tends to be pretty heavy. Like 16000+ pounds. I've seen plenty of people talking about towing them with a Dodge Ram 3500, but my sources seem to say that it's only rated to about 16500 pounds, and I'm pretty sure we'll have more than 500 pounds just of water and propane to carry around, let alone luggage.

So what do you do if you need a truck bigger than a one ton truck? Well, I've found a few options. There's the Chevy Kodiak, which can tow 30K pounds.


Or the Ford F-450, which can tow 21K pounds, more with the right options


Or the GMC Topkick, which can tow 17K pounds


We'll see. We'd like to stick with a regular one ton pickup, and it sounds like the numbers work a little differently with a fifth wheel hitch than towing a trailer straight behind.

It feels like the chicken and the egg problem. Do we buy the trailer first so we know how much truck we need? Or do we buy the truck first so we could bring the trailer home?

Dreams

It's so much fun to daydream about all the places we could go and the people we could see if we can make this RV idea a reality.

We've come up with a few different loose ideas for itineraries (trying to nail down by month at least what states we'd be driving through) and all of them have really exciting parts and frustrating parts. It's pretty much guaranteed we can't be in both Florida and California during the same winter, unless we want to have a big long driving time. So do we want to drive north (Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota) during late winter/early spring? Could be cold. Or do we want to end up driving south (Texas, Louisiana, Florida) in early summer? Could be hot. It sounded so easy to just say we'd avoid the extreme weather, but we can't really do that and also avoid a lot of driving.

Someone told me today about National Park passports for the kids.
They can collect stamps at each national park we visit. I think this sounds like a great keepsake for them, and something we could keep adding to as they grow up. It's definitely going on our list.

It's so exciting to look at a map of the US and just make dots (okay, Google maps destinations) wherever we'd like to go! I think at the end of this we'll be excited to have a house, but a little sad to give up the freedom of travel.

Still debating

Still trying to figure out how to make this rv thing work.

Jeremy's boss was a bit disappointed when Jeremy pitched the idea. The boss would love to have Jeremy out there sooner, and we really appreciate what he's done to help us explore our options out there. But really, it comes down to us not being ready to commit to a house long-term at this point. Looking at short-term options, the rv idea is the most attractive. Still, without the approval of the boss, it's a no-go.

Right now, we're experimenting with different routes and rough itineraries to figure out what our goals would be with an rv, how many places we'd go, how much driving we'd do a day, etc. We're thinking we could drive to California and back, once taking a northern route and once taking a southern route, with many stops along the way, averaging around 100-120 miles a week. That sounds great. We don't want to drive every day or it loses its appeal. Camping for a week or two in most places would give us a chance to explore and sightsee while still having time for grocery shopping and a big family outing on Saturday when Jeremy doesn't have to work. Then Sunday we'd visit a church, pack up our things, and drive for a few hours to our new 'home'.