How We Got Here….
We have been dreaming of living in an RV and travelling around the country with the kids for over a year now. We would spend hours on the internet, doing research, reading forums and blogs and going over and over in our heads how we could possibly make it work. We went to all of the RV dealerships in our area and spent an entire weekend at an RV expo (boy, was that fun!). With some health issues, insurance was our biggest road block. Even though we could make enough money to keep us on the road, the cost of personal health insurance was sky high and would consume the entire budget.
Well, God is good. Always. Even though we aren’t travelling around the country just yet, I feel like we are one step closer, and this is a fun step in the meantime! With a big move 1,000 miles from our home, it made the most sense to leave the house in the capable hands of our Realtor and take the plunge into an RV. Our only other option would be to rent an apartment, and I dreaded the thought of apartment living again. We also thought this would be a great “trial run” to see if we could actually live in a tiny space together.
We packed everything we could into our Yukon, tied some things onto the top, and left everything else behind – crammed into one side of the garage. Thanks to the expert packing skills of my father, we stuffed more things into that poor Yukon than I thought was possible. You know you are tight when you start worrying where you can put an extra pair of shoes that escaped a suitcase.
Travelling 13 hours straight in one day with 2 kids, an infant, and a big dog is not the most pleasant, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! Mark was wonderful, driving the whole way while I dozed and helped take care of the baby. April enjoyed taking pictures of the big cities as we drove through. She took a nice one of Knoxville.
We were excited to take pictures of the state signs as we passed them. Tennessee was easy, we just pulled onto the side of the road and took the shot.
Arkansas was another matter… the sign is on a bridge! I thought, “Hey, no problem I got this!” Little did I know, Mark’s phone camera has a slight delay. Well, there was no way we were going to enter into Arkansas without our token picture. So we crossed over the river, turned right around and crossed back over to the other side for a re-take! We had a good laugh about it and I got thoroughly teased about my picture taking abilities. It looked so pretty going over the river, I had to capture the moment.
Triumphant, at last!
We woke up refreshed and with only two hours left to go the next day. We had already purchased the RV in Arkansas, so it was waiting for us. Thanks to the awesome people at Crain RV (Thanks Andy and Phil!), we pulled in and pulled out with our brand new travel trailer a few hours later. They gave us a full tour of the RV, so we knew where everything was and how everything worked.
That first night was so exciting, but we were pretty nervous about the new RV, too. We were so worried we would break something. The drive to the campground had me holding my breath the entire time, but Mark did great! Not a single issue, and even backed into the spot on the first try. The only hiccup we had was we didn’t quite know how to undo the hitch, so we had to pull the pin on the truck and just pull away.
Matt from Crain was awesome and came out the next day and got it unhooked for us and demonstrated the correct way to do it
So, here we are! Full-timing at last, hoping to make it into a more mobile life in the future, but quite content to explore and be content with where God has us now.
