Family Fun in Vegas---No Way!!

Free Vegas Attractions

First stop, once we received the tent, was Vegas, where we were meeting up with the Millers (another FOTR). I wasn't to sure there was going to be much for the kids to do in Las Vegas, but she assured me there was plenty. I always laughed when I saw the commercials advertising the city as a Family Destination, but I digress. The plan was to arrive on the same day and spend a few days seeing the sights. Almost happened as planned:)

When you plan a trip to Las Vegas, make sure you arrive at night to get the full impact of the Vegas strip. We did, and on our first trip down the strip, we were all in awe, then the kids saw what they called the best thing on the strip....the big McDonalds arch all lit up and dancing. After a constant reminder of..No kids not tonight we just had dinner... they settle for the prospect of getting a happy meal there sometime.

After 2 trips on the strip, we headed over to Lake Mead and set up camp for the next few days. That didn't last long, come noon the next day we felt like we were dieing  from heat stroke, camping in the middle of August... not the brightest idea. So we booked a hotel, called the Miller's, and greeted them at the door within 5 hours. We now begin our Vegas family fun. The first thing that surprised me was how cheap the hotels were. Little did I know about "Resort fees" doubled the cost of the room, rookie mistake:) We stayed in Circus Circus, highly recommended for families. With the casino on the ground level and a Circus midway on the second level (complete with circus acts) everyone was happy.

The next few days flew by in a blur, I never realized there was so much free stuff to do. We did inside attractions and shows during the day, and walked the strip from sundown to kid down:) I gotta say, our internal clocks got completely out of whack but our bodies didn't seem to mind.

As for must see kid things:
M&M World: Whats better than a free 3D Movie
The Fountain Show
The Volcano in front of The Mirage
Lion Habitat at MGM
Show in the Sky at the Rio
The Sirens of TI (Treasure Island. Kid Friendly but adult humor)
And The Fremont Experience
were the my kids favorites.

While at the casinos you can sign up for the member cards, and get some free cash to play with. Anywhere from 5-15 dollars. If you stick with the penny machines that could be almost a full hour on their money! and Every 6 months you can sign up again.

We ended up staying in Vegas for 5 or 6 whirlwind days and are looking forward to going back!

P.S. The Vegas experience was complete when we witnessed a streetwalker acquire a date to the night..or hour, don't know.

Theres Always Something

So with the idea implanted into my mind, I began to make plans. We'd start in Montana cross over to Washington, head down the Oregon coast, drive all the way to San Diego, up to Vegas, Salt Lake City, then back home. All the while hitting everything in between. Nows heres what really happened. First, we were postponed for almost two weeks. The water pump on the car went out, oh, such a simple thing, nada problem, we'll just replace it and be on our way. I was so wrong, we had to take everything out of the car just to get the water pump off, including the timing belt and pulley. In the meantime, our plans had changed slightly, we would head south than north, same idea, just reversed traveling. The initial water pump process took 5 days because we didn't have the proper tools. Then another 4 days to get the timing pulley and belt back on and have it timed right so the car would run. That was a challenge since neither of us had ever set timing on a car. With the help of friends and the Internet, we got the car timed properly. Within 2 days, we had the little car packed with all the essentials for what I called our big Camping Adventure. We hooked up the trailer and moved her to storage and headed out west. We drove through Montana, we drove through Idaho, We drove through Salt Lake, which was were I wanted to stop for a few days but nothing was available for us to set up camp, so we drove south to a place called Chicken Creek, where we camped for the first night. Our goal was to be in Vegas where we were meeting the Miller family

for a few days of fun.

Pioneer Beginnings:)

It's been awhile since I have been able to post anything. I know what you are thinking......busy busy busy with working Yellowstone. Well, my fellow travelers and wannabes, that couldn't be further from the truth. First let me say the the drive out here was awesome.....once we got off the highway for the last 2 hour stretch of Nebraska. Earlier in the drive, we lost the newest member of the family, Lilith our Ball Python, to the scorching dry heat of the Nebraska plains, everyone was upset. So let me say that for the most part, Nebraska is best driven at night. Once we got off the highway, we checked out Chimney Rock and Scottsbluff and spent the whole day in that corner of the country. When we finally made it to Yellowstone, we were greeted by 5 buffalo sleeping on the side of the road. We spent 3 hours driving through the park just to get to our campsite, did we see everything on that first drive?......not even close:) But I was able to give my son Marshall what he wanted for his birthday....Snow!! On June 9th there was 6 feet of snow on the sides of the mountain we were transversing as well as a heavy snow fall! He was in heaven:) We arrived at the campground, unloaded and began to unwind. I started work the next day working for as cashier for one of the gift shops. I loved it, this appeared to be a dream job, we were able to tour the park on my off days and get discounts to boot. About 3 weeks into it, I was awaken by a knock on the door from my manager and informed that I was laid off, unfortunately, with the current over all sales being in the red, and dispite cutting everyones hours to 26 a week, they had to start laying off the newest employees,(me being the first) but not to worry, when they picked back up, they would call(yeah right). You have 3 hours to be out....Ok where do we go??? With my next check a few days away, and our finances still not recovered from the 1000 hit it took to get there, we decided to temporarily boondock until we could figure something out. We ended up at a wonderful spot right on the Yellowstone river where we had our own private access to our own swim area . Talk about roughing it in style:) We stayed there for a few weeks, feeling very much like pioneers! River water for all our water needs, including laundry and cooking with only a campfire. I had the best lasagna in that fire pit! Yes it can be done, you can eat more than just hot dogs and eggs, but thats another blog:) After 2 weeks of pioneer life, I concocted our plans. We decided to store our wonderful home and truck and  head west. We loaded up the Metro with out tent, pillows, blankets, food storage, and all other necessities I could cram between the kids and headed off to a new adventure and new chapter. To Be Continued...... Next up. 5 people 1 tent 2 months

Workers Neeeded

I recently got off the phone with Yellowstone and was informed that they need more workers for the season, they had about 10 people cancel on them. I'll be starting work there on the 10th. If anyone is looking for work and want to visit Yellowstone for a few months email me. They pay 7.50 an hour for all hours worked and your campsite is either free or 50 a week depending on where they place you. As far as I know, it's only cashiering work in the gift shops, but I may be wrong and they may have other openings in the park.

Home at Last

Before

When we first got our rv, Kurt had brought up the idea of remodeling and I was completely against it. I didn't want to affect the resale value with modifications that would affect our ability to resell it. After living in it for 2 yrs. I got the itch to change things around. So far we have changed the living area, dining area kids room and some of the kitchen.

In the Living area, we removed the jack-knife couch and replaced it with 2 recliners that can be pushed together to make a love seat. The Dining room area we an easy change. After we removed the dinette, we replaced the seats with restaurant booths and kept the table. The seats are especially easy to clean and we didn't lose and storage space.

After kids room

The kids room was the most involved, most exciting, and still in progress. We started with two twin bunks and a mini dinette that converted to a twin and a small skinny dresser between the two. We tore out the dinette completely and replaced it with an entertainment center/dresser that is a foot shy of the total length of space. Prior to this the remodel, the kids were using Rubbermaid dressers with 3 drawers each. Not wanting to throw anything away, I put them in the space between the entertainment center and the wall, perfect fit! I then proceeded to dump all the kids toys in the kitchen and my lovely little ones, went through everything and separated the toys and put then in the drawers. We are just about done with the kids room, all we have left to do is build Marshalls bed on top of the entertainment center and in the spirit of recycling, the jack- knife couch will replace the bottom bunk twin!

As I sit here typing this up, I’m eyeing the kitchen cabinets. We already replaced the standard rv fridge with a residential, and will be replacing the rv oven with a standard one soon, so what makes the cabinets think they are safe! I thought this rv felt like home before, now that I have begun to really make it “our” it feels much more like home!
Written for The Families on the Road Blog Carnival. Feel free to join in every month at Families on the Road Pics will be up shortly, I'm running on VERY limited Internet:)

Fast Approaching Moving Day Prep

We'll, it's been a few months since we had to move. 5 to be exact. We are scheduled to be in southern Illinois by May 22nd, 8 hours away and 210 in gas. Not a bad trek with the added bonus being we will be spending a few months with some good friends of ours and their kids, so my kids are super excited. They are actually looking forward to getting the house ready.

So whats involved in Moving Day prep? Well a lot but really not that much if you know what I mean. Since it's been 5 months since our last move, our house is in complete "living" mode, Clothes in hampers, appliances on the counters, toys everywhere, your typical day to day house. So our first step is to completely get the house cleaned and try to keep it that way for the next 6 days:) Good luck right? 3 kids thats never going to happen:) but once it's done, it's easier to do a quick run through the night before moving day then to try and do it all the night before.

Once the house is cleaned, all the appliances get put back up. The toaster, the Crockpot, coffee pot, griddle, everything that has found it's home on the counters. After that, there really isn't much to do until the day of the move, thats when we empty all the shelves so nothing falls off, this is normally just the bathroom shelves and the one in the kids room. everything from the bathroom goes into the shower and everything in the kids room goes onto the bed. Viola! The house is done. Now the outside.

Our home

The last thing we do outside is disconnect, don't want to be without water or electric:) Prior to that, we load up all our things into the bed of the truck, blue boy, bikes, chairs, grill, and outside kids toys, leaving room for our jacks and leveling blocks. This is normally done 2 days prior, but there have been times when we had to move in less then 2 days notice! Those are fun times:)

Once all that is done, we disconnect, close the slide, hookup to the truck, and begin another chapter in our Journey through change!

The 20th Annual Suwanee River Jam!

Jerrod on the left and Lee Brice on the right

 

My friend and I went to the Suwanee River Jam where we spent 5 days listing to awesome music and hanging with Country music stars. We had no running water or electricity at our site but we didn't care. Armed with our tent and nuts and berries for food, we had a memorable time. We plan on going back next year with one of our RVs in tow.

Great Expectations

We've been on the road now for a little over 2 years. Is there anything I would have done differently? What mistakes have I made since we started full timing? What would I do if I could start all over? Honestly, my first thought is " We should of started sooner", but everything happens for a reason. We hit the road when we were meant to. So, really, what would we have do differently if we could hit the proverbial REDO button?

First, I should have never expected anything other than to have an adventure. When we started I had high hopes of moving all the time, boondocking a lot, and sightseeing. We have been on the road now for 2 years, and I have been to a hand full of states, mainly for workamping jobs which meant no sightseeing. Like I said, an adventure, but an ever changing one. We have made a lot of new friends and some really great connections and so have our kids. So no regrets there.

Second, I would have packed more of the kids toys. I never realized how much time they would actually spend inside. It maybe raining out, snowing, or just too dang hot for them and no matter how hard I try to kick them out the door, they don't want to go when the weather's like that. I envisioned that the kids would be outside all the time, so I packed mostly outside toys with only a few inside ones.

Third, I got rid of a lot of my specialty pans that I wished I would have kept and have been slowly replacing. I thought I wouldn't have the time nor the space to bake. I've learned I can't go without making Christmas cookies or cheesecakes and learned how to make the space. I love baking and don't know why I got rid of my good pans. I thought that by being on the road, my day to day routine was going to change drastically, it really hasn't. I get up a little later because there's no bus to put the kids on but thats pretty much it.

Since being on the road, I have learned to always have a backup plan, and a backup for your backup, just in case. No matter how concrete something maybe, you just never know. A job could no longer need you, you may get there and not like it, or a better offer may come along. I'm always keeping on eye on whats out there.

So all in all, if I could talk to myself 2 years ago, before I sold everything, I would tell myself: Keep your bake ware, don't give all those toys away, things may not go as you expected, expect the unexpected, and always, have a backup plan, nothing is written in stone. You never know what to expect! Some people are born to be fluid and flexible(me) and others have to learn how to just go with the flow:) Being a Gypsy Rebel helps!


This was written for The Families on The Road Blog Carnival. Wanna join? Visit http://familiesontheroad.com/carnival.html#3

                                                                     Happy Travels!!

Andersonville Largest and Deadliest Confederate POW Camp

 

 



Kurt got a 3 day paid weekend for the 4th of July holiday, whohoo! We went to Andersonville then Stone Mountain. If you've never heard of Andersonville, let me give you a brief history. It was the major Confederate Prison in the south during the Civil War, located in Macon county, it was cramped, had horrendous conditions, and a high mortality rate. The prison was only 26 acres, with a small swamp running down the middle for water, 16 ft high blockade walls and the "Dead Line", which was located 19 ft away from the stockade walls, if a prisoner crosseed the line, he was immediately shot. The prison held 50,ooo Union soldiers, with a total of 15,000 that didn't survive the prisons short run from February 1864 to April 1865 . There was a miracle that happened in Andersonville that saved many of the soldiers lives. The only water that they had was the small swampy stream that ran down the middle of the camp, this was used as their sink, toilet, and drinking water. Up stream, was where the confederate officers lived, who used the stream for the same purposes. So the union soldiers never really had any clean water. One day in August 1864, a great majority of them got together and prayed for rain, what resulted was a massive thunderstorm that produced lightning that struck the ground. When it struck, it opened up a small spring, which provided the union men with fresh water. The only thing was that the spring was just on the other side of the Dead Line and guards offered no leeway when it came to crossing the Dead Line. Prisoners fashioned sticks and rods together with a tin cup on the end in order to reach the spring. The spring was named Providence Spring and was dedicated in 1901. The plaque by the fountain reads: "The prisoner's cry of thirst rang up to heaven. God heard, and with his thunder cleft the earth and poured his sweetest waters gushing here. Erected 1901."  The first time we went there, there was no warning about drinking the water, so we drank it, and it was some of the best tasting, sweetest water we ever drank. The next time we went they had the sign erected, but being the Gypsy Rebels we are, we drank anyways, BIG mistake! It was the worst tasting water in the world. I don't know what happened to it between those 2 yrs but DON'T DRINK THE WATER!!



The fountain.



We all love Andersonville and have been back a few times since our 1st family trip. Across the street there is a cute little town full of antique shops and old style buildings. Andersonville it's self is a little bit out of the way off of 75, but well worth the trip if you enjoy Civil War sites. If you arrive around sunrise, as we did, the fields are covered in a light mist and deer can be seen grazing. It's truly a wonderful and eerie sight, you can almost hear the men and feel their suffering. The National park also offers a POW museum and a National Cemetery which were really nice. They also have a Jr Ranger Program, but we didn't know it at the time:) So I cannot tell you about it.

If you want a more detailed account of Andersonville before you go, may I suggest reading John Ransom's Andersonville Diary/Life Inside the Civil War's Most Infamous Prison.
John Ransom, Brigade Quartermaster of the Ninth Michigan Calvary, was only 20 years old when he became a prisoner of Andersonville:

"One of the best first-hand accounts to come down to us from the Civil War, uncommonly rich in the love of life...a tale of adventure, of suspense, of fierce hate and great love."

How the union soldiers slept in Andersonville

Or Just watch the movie "Andersonville"

Rainbow Springs

As I post and you continue reading, you will notice a theme, we like the outdoors. Which was one of the various reasons we decided to fulltime. On our way home from the Itchnatucknee, my husband mentioned Rainbow Springs. Now Kurt was from the Citrus County area and had been to the spring may times, I on the other, had never even heard of it, so we took a detour. Rainbow Springs has a really cool history, it was a major tourist attraction between the 30's-70's. It had offered glass bottom boat rides, a zoo, a rodeo, man made waterfalls, gardens, and a leaf shaped monorail at tree level. Due to larger attractions, like all mom and pop places, it was forced to shut down, then in the mid 90's, it became a state park that now offers tubing, swimming, camping, canoes, and a good meal. One word of caution though, if you have small kids, make sure you have a floaty for them, it's really, really deep. It's no fun trying to keep a kid above water when your trying to do the same thing. There is a small area where kids can play, but we preferred swimming together. We did walk the grounds, where you can see remnants of it's past life, the beautiful water falls are still there as well as the tropical gardens, there are portions of the zoo and monorail system still there. All in all it was a great side trip, aren't they all? We went back a few more times with our friends who also enjoyed it. Admission is pretty cheap, it was like a dollar to swim when we were there, and the scenery is well worth it.

Weekend at the Ichetucknee

Tubing down the Ichetucknee River

 

O'Leno's Swinging Bridge

If you're ever in North Florida, between Lake City and Gainesville there is a little place called The Itchetucknee. This was where we decided to spend our first available weekend. It's a gorgeous natural spring fed river thats 6 miles long and where the temp is always 72 degrees. The highlight of the river is you can tube down it. Imagine, lounging back in an intertube, relaxing, and just floating for 6 miles down a crystal clear spring fed river. Thats the Ichetucknee, with beautiful hemlocks and wetlands, the natural Florida, surrounding you and the sun shining down. Thats how Florida is meant to be enjoyed. Not in Orlando(my personal opinion) full of tourists and traffic. If you go, my advice to you is buy your own tube before you get there from Walmart or the Dollar General. You'll know when your getting close because there are tube renting vendors all over the place, with pretty much the same prices, 15 for a single rider, 25 for a double, and 35 for a triple. So be prepared with your own tube. Now you can't camp there, but just 30 mins down the road is O'Leno State Park, which is where we stayed, and it too is beautiful. The campsites are located close to the Santa Fe River and offer almost full shade. So next time your in the area, check it out. Who wouldn't enjoy a 3 hour relaxing trip down            the river? My kids sure did:)

O'Leno Campsites 

The Head Spring

Random Thought: American Dream

So, I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep when I started thinking about our life and how everything has changed in the short 11 yrs Kurt and I have been together. We started of with the need to have the American Dream, but why was that the collective dream? Why were we all instilled with the need to have the American Dream. The white picket fence, the 2 story house in the 'burbs, 2.5 kids and a dog? So I did a little research in the wee hours of the night, or early morning how ever you look at it. I found that the Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It was also a driving force for the immigrants that flooded the country in the late 1800's, for them they had probably the most basic form of the dream, the need to own ones own home and have the ability to rise above the class you were born into. So, I found a beginning to the Dream. It all started with a simple desire to have a house, there was no mention of becoming rich or having everything you could possible want, just a simple house, so to me the original Dream was simply to be able to survive without struggling.


What happened? People got greedy as they always do and when they got the house, they need to maintain or improve it. Which lead to the need for more money and more possessions, to "Keep up with the Jones". Where am I going with this? Just that the Dream for me at least has changed, I no longer what the house, dog, or the bills, if I ever REALLY wanted that, all I want now, my Dream, is a change a scenery. Being able to move at will, go where the work is, live comfortably, and be happy, as a family, is all I want now. This should be everyones dream, but I'm glad it's not, cause then workamping jobs would be scarce:) Good night, hopefully I can fall asleep now that I looked up what was on my mind. Heres a link I found: http://www.americansc.org.uk/online/American_Dream.htm

The End

Well not really the end, just the beginning, but the end of our beginning if that makes any sense. We made it back to Tampa, parked in front of moms house, and proceeded to load everything that was ours into the trailer. We spent the second night in an abandoned parking lot, where we slept a lot more comfortably. The next morning, I spent about an hour calling around to find a place to set it until we moved on. We found a cheap park called McCormick's, and once we were loaded back up, is when we found out our battery didn't hold a charge. We had to call my sister and jump the trailer to close it up. We made it to the rv park, which turns out the rv aspect of the park was more of an after thought, their main business was being a water ski and motor sports arena, which was cool to watch, but was really terrible as a park. There was nothing there to do out in the middle of no where( which was nice), but was perfect for our needs. All we need at that point was a place to get organized and settled while we scourged the Internet for traveling opportunities.

While we were getting settled, Kurt got an electrical job at the base. Life carried on as normal, then in June, we got our first volunteer position at the local State Park, Hillsborough River in fact. Which was great, during the interview, I was asked if I could do interpretive signs, "Sure" I said, "I would love to do it", I had no idea what it really was, turned out, It was my job to change all informational signs, which was fun and easy. Then got changed to cleaning bathrooms, which was just easy. Kurt continued to work while I continued to look for opportunities and a larger truck, remember we only had the 1500. I found one at the Apalachicola Nation Forest and we left in the end of August.

We made the trip with someone else towing our trailer, Kurt didn't trust the truck now that everything was loaded into it, and went to Northern Florida. We got to the park and set up shop. Kurt continued to work in Tampa and was staying down there during the week and coming home on weekends, which only went on for 2 weeks then they laid him off, which was one of the only times I was glad for the lay off. Unfortunately, by the time they laid him off, the National Forest decided they didn't want us, we were there for 1 1/2 weeks, when I was informed that they didn't think I could clean bathrooms alone, with 3 kids to watch. Which was bull, come to find out the other couple there didn't like kids. I had 3 days to vacate. So again, I began looking for a place to go and a way to tow the trailer. As we were looking at renting a uhaul to move us, we meet a great family who lived across the street. The husband was a mechanic and gave Kurt some needed advice and conformed that the truck could handle our load. We just needed to upgrade the leaf springs.

When we arrived in Campbellsville.

I found us a little campground called Parker Farms in the middle of nowhere, which was pretty much every where in that part of Florida, and loved it. We stayed for a month, replaced the leaf springs with 3500 ones and replaced the shocks, now, we have the ass end to haul of load. We got our first workamping gig with Amazon and was scheduled to start the beginning of Oct. With him out of work and his unemployment not yet approved, I had to sell my van to get the gas money to get up there. It was either that or living in Wewahitchka, Fl. So I sold the van and that day we left for Kentucky, I was scheduled to start the next day. Talk about pushing it. We were almost into Alabama when the brakes on the truck went out. Being on a tight schedule and low on cash, we stopped to get LOTS of brake fluid and continued on, it was dark and he couldn't even see to determine what was wrong. So we traveled 10 hours and 600 miles on trailer brakes and down shifting talk about white knuckling it. We arrived in Campbellsville just in time for orientation and I began working the next day. Meanwhile, Kurt got new brake lines, replaced then, and we were as good as new. This concludes the End of the Beginning. Next up, The Adventure! continues.

The ridge at the Campground.

1st Night

We arrived at the grocery store, which luckily was still open. While Kurt started setting up the trailer, I went in to see what we were going to have for dinner. Walking up and down the aisles, I took mental inventory of what we had in the trailer to work with, we had no power and no cooking equipment, remember, we just bought it, all I had was an oven to work with. I decided on tv dinners and plastic forks, with donuts, and fruit for breakfast. After checking out, I went proceeded to the back of the parking lot where we had our first meal in the new trailer, which consisted of Hungry Man dinners and Kid Cuisines. Not bad for a first meal, and prepared for bed. So, between the 5 of us we had 1 blanket and 2 pillows, on a cold night. I think I may have thought about turning on the furnace, but I was worried about it catching on fire, I have a thing about gas. I piled the kids on the jack knife couch and we all tried sleeping 5 people on it. Sometime in the middle of the night, Kurt and I moved off the couch on to the bed and chose sleep and freezing as opposed to no sleep and warmth. Thus concludes our first night in our new trailer.

 I was awaken by singing birds and sunshine, and the memory of a broken water pump. As our wonderful luck would have it we broke down across the street from an Autozone and Kurt ate and headed over to get the part. We got the part, while he spent the next 5 hours changing out the water pump, which would of been easier if he had mechanics tools as opposed to electrical tools, he basically did everything with a screwdriver and a pair of channel locks. Meanwhile, I spent 5 hours entertaining the kids. After 3 trips to the thrift store, a few toys, and a clean shirt for kurt, we were loaded up and back on the road. While we were loading up and pulling jacks, I had my first encounter with a curious onlooker. She was an employee from Winn Dixie on her break. She come up to us curious about the trailer, so we talked to her for a few, she expressed that what we were doing was something she would love to do and have always wanted to do, but wasn't able to. Money I think was her issue, she felt that she need to stay a cashier at the store, like that was the only money she could make. None the less, she envied us and what we were doing. After she left, we left, and headed make to my moms house in Tampa to load the trailer up with our stuff.

Random Thoughts: Movie shoot

As I sat there watching my 9 yr old daughter, I wondered.

I wonder if shes thinking, hoping, that she will be discovered? I know, if it was me in her position, at her age, I would be coming up with all sort of scenarios. Envisioning magically being discovered in a streak of pure luck, because thats how everything happens in a 9 year olds mind, by luck or chance, never hard work. Being asked to have a speaking role, which would ultimately lead to being discovered and untold fortune. What 9 yr old wouldn't have these thoughts. Heck, one time when I was younger, 911 had to be called because I had put my finger in the small hole of a dryer drum, thinking that would be a smart way to carry it around, and I was looking for the cameras when the fire truck arrived, I thought, for sure, I would be on Rescue 911, after multiple attempts, it had to be cut off, the dryer, not my thumb, and during the whole process, I was still looking, thinking that they were hidden somewhere. It never seams to happen as you envision it. If she is seeing fame in her future, she'll probably be having these visions until the shoot is over. It may have even planted a seed in her, where she starts to take an interest in acting, and either begins bugging me, or, if I don't act fast enough, she may begin researching for herself the roles and auditions that are out there. She is at the right age to really begin to wonder about what she wants to be when she grows up. Evan if it's just a phase, something she'll grow out of and eventually give up, at least shes having a fun experience. I am sure out of all the pases she will go through in the years to come, this will be one of the better, more positive, character building ones, and hey, it's something that I'm able to enjoy with her.

Let the Adventure Begin

Part 3
It was about midnight when we left Tampa to head to Georgia to look at the trailer. I packed what I thought we would need for the day trip. Pillows and one blanket for the kids while they slept on the way up and our tools, we always take Kurts' tools when we go anywhere, you never know what may happen. It was the beginning of March, and still a bit chilly, plus the truck didn't have heat, so I grabbed our heavy fleece blanket and we headed up. On the trip up, I had the normal concerns, what if, after driving all this way, we don't like the trailer? Or there was something terribly wrong with it that didn't show in the pics? We would have wasted our time and money and have to continue our search or scrap the whole idea. We got there at 7 in the morning, called the guy and waited in the Home Depot parking lot. We got donuts to feed the kids and let them out to play in the bed of the truck until he got there an hour later. He was at the trailer cleaning it out, let me mention that the ad said the trailer would include everything you need, coffee pot, plates, grill, ect. Turned out it didn't include any of that stuff, which was good really, I didn't want to have to deal with figuring out what to do with all the stuff since we didn't need it. Guess he figured that because he came down in the price he was going to keep everything, fine with us! He arrives, and we proceed to the trailer.

As we are following him, my first though is, how are we going to get this thing, if we buy it, out of here? We traveled down a sugar sand road, full of 90 degree turns up and downhill grades, and it had recently rained. What a nightmare, but as we pulled into the hunting park, my first thought was "Oh my God, It's huge!" We parked and everyone got out, the kids began running towards it screaming "Our New House!" I gotta admit, I thought that was great, and a good sign, and we preceded to walk through the trailer. While I inspected the interior, Kurt and the owner walked around outside, inspecting the exterior: wiring, plumbing, the hitch, all the things that didn't concern me, the interior was my domain, I had to make sure it was something we could live with/in. The interior was great, clean, do damage, the only thing that concerned me was the skylight in the shower, it looked like it had leaked, when I brought this up to him, he informed us that it had indeed leaked but he had replaced the roof. He was an electrician as well, with his own business, so Kurt and I thought he would be a pretty honest, hardworking guy, turns out he was a better businessman than a decent guy, but thats going to be a different story, lets just say, there was no new roof. So all in all we were (I was) in love with the trailer, glad we were done looking, and bought the trailer. He spent an hour showing us the ins and outs, the modifications, and how to level and pull up the jacks and spent another hour helping us hook it up to the truck. Once it was hooked up, I wish I would of brought my camera, the trailer made our poor truck dip so bad it actually V'ed, we were still within the weight it was rated for, barely. If the truck wasn't a stick shift, we would of never been able to tow it. So, first thing we noticed was we didn't have the right wiring harness, so , once we got the truck out of the sugar sand maze, at a slow and nervous pace, our first stop was Walmart. Once at Walmart, after a few returns and 2 hours later, we were on the road to head back to Tampa. As it turned out, Kurt had to completely rewire the truck to install the wiring harness, believe me, his electrical skills and knowledge have been extremely helpful in this lifestyle. I'm so grateful he has this knowledge, it has saved us thousands.

Our trip back to Tampa was pretty uneventful, until we reached Stuart. We had underestimated the amount of gas the truck would use towing a 7,000 lb trailer. 20 miles from Stuart, we were almost on E, it was 10pm and every gas station we passed was closed. We were sweating it, finally, we found an open one, when we pulled in to fill up, water started gushing from under the hood. Oh great, I thought, were in the middle of nowhere and our truck just broke down. Kurt determined it was the water pump, and after being there in front of the pump for so long that the attendant had to come out, see if everything was ok, and asked us to move, we were taking up the majority of his gas station, we drove the truck with no working water pump a mile down the road, where we found a Winn Dixie, and stopped for the night.

Mission Impossible

Part 2: The Search

We moved into moms house with very little income. Kurt had just started a new job as a part time cook while he continued to search for electrical work, and with no house to sell we had no real money to purchase our new rig right off the bat. So, we did what anyone would do, we waited until we got our income tax refund. In the meantime, I keep Sage in school, more or less to keep her out of the way during the day while I got things around. We did Dr.s appointments, got copy of shot records, changed all our addresses to moms, I tried to get everything covered. I was under the grand idea that once we left for our adventure, we wouldn't be back soon, who knew where we would be, but it wasn't going to be Tampa.

Then, by the end of January I really began the search. At first I stayed local, searching Craigslist and local dealers. We knew we wanted a bunkhouse with a slide, that was the search criteria, then to narrow it down, we ruled out RVs, because we wouldn't know how to work on one if it broke down. Looking back, we could of gone with an RV, an engine is a engine, but we didn't think like that at the time, we thought it would be a lot different and we didn't want to get into something we wouldn't be able to fix....properly. So that left us with either a travel trailer or 5th. We had a 99 Dodge Ram 1500, and was pretty sure that it could handle a small 5th, but I didn't want to spend the extra 500-700 installing a 5th hitch, so by process of elimination, I started looking for a travel trailer, with bunks, and a slide.

I searched locally, figured how hard is it going to be? Well, turns out, it was really hard to find one with both a bunk and slide, and one where the bunk wasn't just a double with a twin over it and a curtain to separate it from the rest of the house. When I did find what we were looking for, it was way out of our price range. I eventually expanded my search to the entire state of Florida, looking for the mysterious trailer under 10,000. I found a few, in places like Daytona, Miami, and Sarasota, but, once we got out to look at them, turns out the pictures gave them way too much credit. Visible water damage, bad smells, and just plain unlivable interiors made us turn away and head home, a little more discouraged each time. I was so tired of looking, we were starting to consider ones without the bunks as a "temporary" house, but just could see spending the money on something we really didn't want just to have it, only to turn around and sell it and start over, so, I continued the search. I began calling dealers, trying to see if we could work out some in house financing deal, we didn't have the credit to buy with a loan, so we had to find something in cash. I tried every angle with the dealers, such as, " You keep the trailer, and I'll pay you and have it paid off in 3 months"...... Never worked. So back to Craigslist. This continued until the end of February, when I started looking in Georgia and Alabama, didn't want to travel too far, but the more desperate I became the farther my search went. Still nothing, so, I finally decided to just start taking random shots in the dark. I created another email account specifically for this and began sending any trailer I liked, bogus offers, by bogus I mean say they we asking 10,000 for a trailer, I emailed them an offer of 5,000. It worked! I now had two trailers to choose from, a newer smaller bunk house  or an older bigger bunkhouse. After considering space and storage vs. age, we went with the larger older one, more bang for your buck. Two days later we got our refund, and that Monday, we headed out to Vidalia, Ga 7 hours north and 400 miles, to walk through, buy, and bring back our new home, no problem right? Wrong.

The Beginning

A few days ago, we celebrated 2 years on the road in our Travel Trailer. Instead of making one huge post about our beginnings, I'm going to try to break it down into 2 or 3 parts. Part one, The Beginning.

Living on the road in an rv has always been a dream of mine ever since my mom told me her and dad lived in a camper for the first year of my life. That planted the dream, until then I didn't know that such a wonderful thing was possible. To have the freedom and ability to be mobile and go where you wanted, seemed like the perfect life. I've never been a "stable" person. I was always looking for the next place to move when our leases were up. Then I met my wonderful husband in one of those random moves, married him and tried to settle down. He is the type of person who wanted the "normal" life, you know the one, where all the kids are born in the same hospital, grownup in one house, and where we retire and die, all in one place. So I put my mobile lifestyle on the back burner, or at least tried. Instead of moving every year, we moved every two years, that seemed to be my limit before I was bored out of my mind with the current house. This continued until Jan 2009.

In October 2008, we settled in to a rent to own situation for a nice house. Come December, I started getting weird "feelings" about the house, like an intuition. Something was going down in the universe that encompassed my world. We had a renter in the back house, it was 2 houses total on the property, and my employment had recently been terminated. I began looking into alternate ideas, thats when my fulltiming idea became more of a viable option, given the economic state of the U.S. So after bring the idea up to my husband again, this time supported with tons of research and homework, after a month, he gave the ok,(shortly after losing his job and the prospect of another in his field any time soon was grim). So, on the first weekend in Jan, we put everything we owned onto the lawn and opened up the house,(minus the few things we wanted to keep) and sold everything off. Loaded what we wanted in to a small 5x5 storage and took anything that didn't sell to the thrift store, and proceeded to move into my mothers house while we looked for a fulltiming set up.