As I write this post, I sit on my couch for the very last time waiting for someone on Craigslist to come get it. For the past few weeks we’ve been doing nothing but going through stuff, getting rid of stuff, and tying up loose ends. Our place is looking empty and a mess at the same time.
I feel like I have been putting out fires every other minute for days now. First we found out that we probably can’t get solar panels on our RV like we were planning. The solar panels are about what we thought they would cost but the labor to install them is about 5 times more than we thought because we have such a compact RV and they would have to take apart some of the vehicle to run the wires. This is a huge problem because we were planning on using solar to be able to stay wherever we wanted and not have to plug in at campsites which is both costly and annoying. I especially don’t want to have to adhere to check out times on a daily basis. Since we have to put solar on the back burner at least for the time being, we decided to get a battery that charges quicker called AGM. We are also going to pick up a portable solar panel that we can set up outside in the sun to help us supplement our power in lieu of mounted panels.
Then my mom got a new job, which is great, but she has to move and we had been storing the stuff we decided to keep at my parent’s house. We weren’t sure when they were actually going to end up moving so we decided the easiest thing would be to take everything and put it in a storage unit. Unfortunately, this was not on the approved list of activities for the day. In the end the four of us (Jen, my dad, my mom, and myself) all tackled it together and it took us about 2 1/2 hours. Teamwork! Below is a pic of the RV dressed as a moving van.
After that our car got hit and ended up incurring probably about $3,000 in damages (my best guess). Now we have to get that fixed before we leave so we can send it to my father-in-law in one piece. I’m sure that process will go quickly and easily and everyone involved will understand we are in a time crunch. At least that has been my experience with insurance companies in the past, as I am sure you would agree.
After all these crises, we were looking for something to cheer us up again so we decided to head over the the Rainbow center which is a local group dedicated to everything LGBT. We had a spare computer that was too old to be worth selling but not old enough to be useless. It was a Mac (they last forever) and had a pretty large screen so I hope they get good use out of it. They gave us a little tour while we were there and told us about all the great programs they offer and how they have expanded over the past year. I enjoyed the visit and it was a good break from the grind over the past few weeks.
Slowly but surely (but slowly) everything is coming together. There have been a few things like the solar problem that we are still trying to find a way to work around but I am confident that we will figure something out (even though I have no clue what that something is right now).
During one of our rare breaks Jen and I were watching a movie about a man that was building a tiny house call “Tiny: A Story About Living Small”. There was a quote in that movie that really hit home with us and described perfectly how we are both feeling about this RV trip at this very moment. “There is a point in every project where the excitement of the original idea wears off and your left with a lot to do.” Jen and I heard this line and looked at each other with recognition in our eyes. I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to describe how I feel right now. So if you ask me if I’m excited and I say that I am but I look like I want to crawl back into bed, I promise you I am actually excited but I just can’t show it right now.
Home Sweet Motorhome 