Our dog, Lyla, has been having belly issues for about a month so we had to delay our trip to get the RV from Jen’s dad’s house. The specialized internal medicine vet treated her for a spectrum of GI issues and didn’t come up with a definitive diagnosis except to say it may be doggy Crohn’s disease. If her symptoms come back we need to do more tests but, for now, she seems to be feeling better and we got the go ahead to take her on the flight to Virginia. The inaugural trip on the RV wouldn’t be the same without the puppies! So now we have lots of preparations to get underway!
The first thing we had to do with the RV was name her! There were a few contenders floating around, Jen’s favorite being The Nautilus, but we finally settled on The Beast. I am looking forward to saying “We need to feed The Beast!” every time we get gas. Jen found this awesome decal on Etsy to go with the name (pictured below). They are going to customize it for us so that it says “The Beast” to the left of the monster eyes. The decal is going on the bottom of the right door. We are ordering and having it sent to Virginia so that we can put it in place for our inaugural trip!
So the plan to get the RV to Tacoma is to fly their with our suitcases stuffed with all our cross country essentials to Virginia. If the TSA decides to check our luggage, they are going to find pots, pan, spices, misc dog supplies, etc. etc. etc. Basically, everything but the kitchen sink because that’s in the RV already. We’ll fly there in about 3 weeks. The plan is to drive across the middle of the country which adds about 2 hours to our drive but will keep us in slightly warmer weather. Also, it allows us to stop at an exhibit of original Calvin and Hobbes cartoons being displayed at Ohio State University!
There are a few things we bought for our first trip to make life on road easier. The first item is something called a thermal cooker, which is similar to a slow cooker. Instead of a ceramic insert there is a metal pot inside. You pull out the metal pot and place it on a heat source. From there you can sautee and/or sear whatever you need, fill with water or broth, bring to a boil and cover. After that you just remove it from the heat and put it back in the insulated container and you are good to go! The food keeps cooking and it will be ready in about 8 hours with no additional heat source or electricity necessary! It’s also super portable, so you can take it with you to the beach or a picnic. This all sounds a bit magical and I intend to do a more in depth review of this at a later date once I test it out. So more on that later.
We also needed to figure out a solution for blankets that would be warm but not take up too much room. We wanted something that will be easy to store in the daytime because we don’t have a dedicated bed. The best solution seems to be sleeping bags. They are designed to be used for sleeping outside in 20 degree weather so they are nice and warm and cozy. Additionally, they have removable sheet inside so that you don’t have to wash the whole sleeping bag, just the sheets. Anything to save on laundry while we’re on the road! We bought two so that we can layer them when it’s really cold and use one each when it isn’t cold. I always say that separate blankets have been one of the secrets to our happy marriage.
For the initial trip across the country we are budgeting 9 days. That allows us to only have to drive 6 hours a day and have 2 extra days just in case. We are going to be using this trip to see what works and what doesn’t. Test out the kitchen and see if we bought the right appliances and basically use anything that moves, twists, switches, or converts. This way when we go to leave officially we can feel confident that we have everything we need!
Home Sweet Motorhome 