Life on the Road

We had the idea that we would set up a reasonable schedule for travelling, to keep everyone sane.  Not only have circumstances conspired to keep us from following it all the time, but we’re also always running up againts new “needs,” and it’s tought to fit them all together.

In our preparations to go on the road, we read some words of wisdom from Bill & Jan Moeller in “Full-Time Rving: A Complete Guide to Life on the Open Road.”  Some people miss the whole point of full-timing, they warned.  You don’t HAVE to rush.  It’s not about getting somewhere to do something - the “getting there” is just as important.

So we decided to set our absolute maximum travel day as four hours on the road.  Two hours in the morning, then a break of 2-3 hours over lunch (and Jewel’s nap), then another two hours’ driving.

It’s not a bad plan, all in all.  We also planned to avoid driving more than a day or two in a row.  We’d find a nice place to stop for at least a day or two in between - typically this would be a place where there are good opportunities for us to put out flyers and build our business.

So this trip plan went something like this:

We’re driving from the Beach in Playa del Rey to our storage unit in Prescott, AZ.  We used to drive it in one day in the car, but YUCK!  On our drive schedule, we could do it in two reasonable days.  Instead we set up a 3-day trek.

Today we drove from the beach to Victorville, CA.  We took our time getting on the road, and it was after 11 am when we were finally underway.  After a stop for gas and lunch (but not a long rest) in the middle, and arrived here around 3 pm.   As we often do, we’re parked in a WalMart parking lot.  Their corporate policy is that they allow RVs to park overnight - VERY handy.

Tomorrow we will probably make it to the WalMart in Kingman, AZ, and we have our reservation at the RV park in Prescott starting Wednesday night.

The big scheduling issue turns out to be making business phone calls.  People who pick up our flyers or business cards, or even visit our web site, typically want to talk to someone in person.  We have toll-free numbers with voicemail, so we accumulate a list of people that need to be called back.

The lunch break is of course the best time for us, but it doesn’t do any good to call when the people aren’t home.  And by the time we get settled for the evening and have dinner it’s often too late - especially when we are on the West Coast, and at least some of the people we need to call are on the East Coast.

Darkness and kids’ bedtimes prohibit just shifting the evening activities later.  Mostly, for now, this has meant that calls only get returned on non-driving days, which hardly seems ideal.

We’re still working on this one…