Life on the Road

Someone recently emailed me and said they were enjoying the blog, but wondered how we had gotten on the road in the first place, and over all just “what our story was.”

:)  It was nice to know that someone cares! 

Anyhow, let me try to give you enough to understand the situation, without it turning into drudgery like home movies.  It’s all very interesting to ME, after all…

Wolf and I were married on Leap Day 2004.  We moved to the small town of Williams, AZ (near the Grand Canyon) and opened a little shop to sell his handcrafted furniture, as well as sell some home decor and gift stuff to complement it (and get customers who didn’t need furniture!).

Well, Williams proved to be a challenging place, and the business and political climate (local issues) proved very hostile to new people and new businesses.  After two years there we had burned through our savings and were ready to call it quits.

We put our house on the market, and our searching finally turned up a home business opportunity that sounded like a good fit (see our Team Blitz website). 

It took most of a year to sell the house.  Since cold calling isn’t our style, we got our business going by working online and by spending a couple of days each week driving in different directions to get to civilization and put our flyers.  By the time the house sold (end of January, 2007), we were ready to go!

We put our “stuff” in storage and bought an RV (It’s amazing how little of the contents of a 3,200 square foot house and oversized garage you can fit into a 200 square foot trailer). 

It’s a 2001 Springdale by Keystone travel trailer, with bunk beds in the back for the kids (Nick is 12 and Jewel is 2).  We also have two cats travelling with us, the “old ladies” Squeaker (about 16) and Loki (13).

Our intention is to travel the country doing some sightseeing, some educational trips, visiting our spread-out families, and working our business (everyone in the country has teeth, right?).

Does that about cover the “Who are they and what are they doing?” bit?  Please let me know if you still have any burning questions…

We have been on the road for about four months now. When we were first getting ready to sell the house and buy an RV, I got news that my father had throat cancer and would need to have treatment. Everyone said there was a high success rate in treating this type of cancer and other than the side effects, my father should recover fine. So, everyone has been very optomistic during this whole thing and he finished his treatments and was on his way to recovery.

I visited with him a couple weeks ago. He was looking about the same and mentioned that the doctors thought he was a couple weeks behind on recovery. Yesterday I got a call from my brother. He said he had some bad news. My dad has now been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. The doctors don’t give him twelve months at this point.

What do I do now? Our business has no providers in the area he lives. We have other obligations like Nick visiting his father in California. We are working our way through these things, but it’s that situation where I know I have a limited amount of time to say and do the things I need to. Now, after a lifetime, I’m not really ready to let my dad go. I love him and I pray for him. It’s all in God’s hands.

Please, help us pray for my dad. His name is Tom and he is a Christian, a deacon at his church. His wife is Wanda. I know she could use your prayers also. And there is also me, Tiffany, and the kids, Nick and Jewel, who need your prayers.

Praise God in all things.

Lots of folks say they were born in the wrong decade or in the wrong century; I guess I’m no exception. I can work in computer networks and fiber optics with the best of them, but I love working with wood. I’ve spent the last few years making rustic furniture, among other things. I keep getting the idea that I could have lived a hundred years ago or more. I could work the land and make furniture up in the mountains here in Kentucky.

Yea, we’re here in Kentucky at Land Between The Lakes ($15 per year per adult for a backcountry camping permit, wow). We went to the Homeplace yesterday and had a great time. The Homeplace is a working 1850s farm. Yea, I could do that…

Not long ago we were in an old antebellum home for the Pilgrimage in Columbus, Mississippi. One of the tour guides made an observation about Tiffany and me. She noted that women, including my wife, were interested in the families and home history, while the guys - that would be me - were always looking at the workmanship in the old homes. I kept looking at door knobs and window sills.

Back to the Homeplace…

There were farm animals running around and they had a couple of cabins and I loved the barn/workshop. There was a wonderful old style work bench with manual clamps.

I wish they had been working the day I was there, but the fields needed tending…

They had devised an ingenious way to automatically close doors behind you. A chain was attached to the wall and the door. A heavy weight suspended between the ends pulled the chain down and closed the door.

Then there was the wood lathe. I really, really want the wood lathe. It was a powered by a foot pedal. A leather strap went from the pedal and wrapped around a shaft and connected to a tensioner at the top.

I felt like I was home again. I was ready to put the kids to work in the field and start working in the barn.

It would be great to find a little piece of land, park the RV and start on my own “homeplace.” How about it, anyone else out there looking for the simpler (hard work) life?

Praise God in all things … even when you don’t agree. His plan is greater than ours.

Well, yesterday we were in Arizona, no, wait … we were in New Mexico, ummm, no, I think it was Texas, or maybe Oklahoma. Now I remember, we were in Arkansas last night. And Oklahoma the night before that, and Texas the night before that, and New Mexico the night before that, and yes, Arizona the night before that. Tonight we are sleeping in misery … Missouri.

Let me explain … No, that would take too long. Let me sum up our travels.

We left Arizona on Monday. We were told to get out of town by high noon. (The campground checkout time was noon.) We drove east to Flagstaff to run some errands and ate at Cracker Barrel (second best Cracker Barrel we have eaten at in the U.S.) Onward to a nondescript place called Restarea. (A Rest Area just west of Winslow, AZ.) Nobody slept much because of the truck noise. We decided not to park in Restarea any more.

Day two’s travel took us to the east side of Albuquerque. We stopped at a WalMart there and enjoyed an evening meal at Boston Market and a better night’s sleep.

The third day we hauled ourselves to Amarillo, TX. We found free parking for overnighters at the Big Texan steak house. Great food … not so great parking. The lot fills up with truckers, soooo …

OK, on day four we pushed on through Oklahoma City to Shawnee, OK. We pulled off to eat at Cracker Barrel (average food, the worst are in Kingman, AZ and Tupelo, MS) and settle into our friendly neighborhood WalMart. Not too bad of a night.

Then, rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, on into Arkansas and we turned north. We found a little RV park northeast of Springdale where we finally had hookups and restrooms with showers.

Tonight, and I hope the next couple nights, we are hooked up in front of my mother’s place. We can spend a little time cleaning up us and the RV.

So, fulltiming in the RV is a challenge, but we are slowly adjusting. You just need to adjust your focus to go a bit farther ahead in your schedule. If you are fulltiming, your house is right behind you. We are hoping that any traveling can be done in short day lunges. You can always stop and stay a couple days if you like the area. We still push ourselves a bit when we are driving and trying to get to our final destination at a scheduled hour. We just need to relax and let the road take us.

If God is your co-pilot, … switch seats!

Bleaaahhh… This part stinks. Traveling out of one state, across two more, and into a fourth, crossing into two time zones, all in the space of three days… Double Bleaaahhh… Still, there is some good.

If you are ever in Amarillo, TX…wait, strike that… if you are ever within a hundred miles of Amarillo, TX stop at the Big Texan Steak Ranch. They have such good, no, great, no, amazing, no, (insert best descriptor you have ever heard here) that I can’t think of a word that even comes close to describing it, food.

If you like Ranch dressing at all, you must try theirs. I was in ecstacy! I had it with everything! I had ordered a Cheeseburger, side salad, and it came with rolls. I had it on the salad and fell in love. Mmmmmm… I put it on my burger, on the rolls, and bought a jar of it to take home. Double Mmmmmm…

My mama got prime rib and said that the only prime rib that might have ever been better was at Lawry’s in Beverly Hills. Triple Mmmmm… Papa got a steak and said it was the second best he had ever eaten. Coming from him, that was an extreme compliment. Quadruple Mmmm…

And afterwards, they have (insert same as above) fudge and a really, really, really, really, really, really, cool shooting gallery and slot machine setup. They slot machines are only for fun you don’t get money if you win, but it’s still fun.

We were parked behind them in their free lot for RV’s and trucks. It rained so hard that night I thought we would be flooded and be mired in mud. In the morning being alive and not mired we ate at their breakfast buffet. The stuff sitting in the bins wasn’t fabulous, but their fresh made omlettes and waffles were fabulous.

We are in Oklahoma and I am zzzuffering from jet lag zzo I better go to Zzzzz…

A lot of people have been asking me questions about our RV, so I thought some background information might be helpful.

I don’t claim to be an expert, as we’re just learning all the terminology ourselves!  And if this seems really basic and silly to you, please feel free to skip over it, or add to it…

Essentially, it’s called an RV if you can sleep, use the restroom, and cook in it - all while being mobile.

A “mobile home,” although called a “trailer” (as in “trailer park”) is actually a whole different animal - although you do tow it to a place, it is meant to be used in a stationary fashion.  Aside from the “trailer trash” stereotype, there are regular folks using them, too, and to be p.c. they prefer “manufactured housing.” 

There are three basic types of RVs: 

  Travel Trailer = a trailer that you pull with a ball hitch behind your truck. This is what we have now.

  5th Wheel = also a trailer, but pulls with that “big rig” sort of hitch that’s mounted in the bed of your pickup.

  Motorhome = a “one piece” unit that has the driving vehicle and the living space in one. Some are the big “tour bus” style (they call those “Class A”)…

 …and some are smaller and look more like trucks with a camper built on and a bunk over the cab (”Class C”).

The main advantages of a travel trailer are that it typically costs less than the other types, and that you can (potentially) tow it with your existing vehicle.

5th Wheels offer a lot more space, including headroom, due to the way they are designed to come up over the pickup bed.  They also offer much more storage than a travel trailer, with exterior compartments that go underneath in the unused space.  If you have more than two people, you have to consider how comfy it will be for everyone driving in the pickup cab.

Motorhomes, as you might imagine, are HUGE gas hogs.  It would be awfully nice, though, to be in the back taking a nap, or letting the kids watch a movie, while we were driving down the road!  Clearly you’d want to tow a vehicle along with you to use around town, and unlike our travel trailer setup, you must unhitch the towed vehicle to back your motorhome into a spot.

Did you know that “toad” is actually the correct term for a “towed” vehicle in the RV community?  Ribbit!

So far we’re thinking 5th Wheel for the next one…  and a nice, big super cab truck!

Hello again!

You may not know, but we’ve been working in our storage units trying to downsize from 2 10×15 units into 1. Didn’t work. We got a much cheaper (no a/c) 10×10 unit in additon to the 1 10×15 unit we were keeping. Two words: Head Ache.

Their policy was we had to have a round lock on our unit. We were planning to use the one off the 10×15 we were vacating. But, since it took 3 days to move, 2 of those 3 days we were locked out and had to go to the office to get them to unlock it. Heh…

Then, every time we opened our new unit the alarm went off. The storage people had said they had put our new unit on our alarm-deactivating card, but no. Double Heh… Anyhow, yesterday we finally managed to finish it, and now I basically have a free day.

Among the things I am doing today are: writing this, doing laundry (pretty fun because I can just sit there and play on the gaming laptop while I watch it), playing Xbox (more on that later), and schoolwork.

I really like playing Xbox for a variety of reasons. One, it’s entertainment. Two, the controller setup is really nice. Three, those “Ooohhh… NOW I get it” moments. I got one of those today, beating a level I previously thought was impossible. Gotta love it.

I am also really good at chess, though I don’t get to play much. I came in second in my last (and first and only) tournament, behind a kid who was then moved up to the “advanced” class. He beat me, but no one else could.

We also like to watch movies, but in an RV space is an issue. The answer:

Blockbuster Total Access

They ship movies right to wherever we stay, and we ship them back and get more. Also we can return them to a Blockbuster store, get a free movie there and get the next one on our online list shipped. But wait, there’s more! Once a month we get a free movie or (even better) game rental. Awesome!

But there are dishes to be done, schoolbooks to be read, and games to be played. Bye! Talk to ya later!

A recent post on Crystal’s Biblical Womanhood blog got me thinking again about the skyrocketing price of gas, and what we do about it.

Here in Prescott, Arizona, gas is running just over the $3/gallon mark.  We were glad to come back out of California where the average cost was over $3.50 - and we saw places there that were charging over $4!

There are a lot of great tips that we’re all familiar with for stretching your tank of gas:

• Walk, bike or otherwise don’t drive.  Public transportation is also available in some places.
• Combine trips, find the most efficient route
• Make sure your car is in good shape: oil changes, tune ups, properly inflated tires, etc.

But the one that’s had the most dramatic impact on our gas budget (and we do drive A LOT running aorund all over the country) is one that I seldom hear mentioned, and it seems like I never see it being followed.

I most recently read it again in one of my favorite columns, The Daily Cheapskate, from Mary Hunt of Debt Proof Living:

Slow down. Gas mileage decreases rapidly above 60 miles per hour. If you drive 70 mph instead of 55 mph, experts say you could be burning up 17 percent of your fuel just to get there a few minutes sooner. In fact, each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is equal to paying an additional 10 cents per gallon of gas.

With the speed limit at 75 on the Interstate, that’s 15 mph over 60 - so we’re paying an extra $0.30 a gallon?!  We were just desperate enough to try it, and the results were amazing. 

To drive the round trip from our then-home in Williams, Arizona, down here to Prescott and back took almost a whole tank of gas when we drove the speed limits (65 on the rural highway, 75 on the Interstate) (we already didn’t speed, but that’s another post…).  When we slowed down to 60 max, we could make the round-trip on half a tank!

The results aren’t always that drastic, naturally, but it was really a wake-up call for us.  At $50 or so a tank in my Tahoe, I prefer to stretch it as much as possible — and getting somewhere a few minutes later just isn’t that crucial, anyway.

We save gas - and money, we stress less, we’re safer on the road…  Sounds like a pretty good deal on a number of different fronts. 

While traveling on the road there are those little mishaps from time to time. We had a time a few weeks ago when we were driving cross-country.

At the eastern Oklahoma state line we had a flat tire. Actually, this was a classic “blow out”. The tire exploded and the only thing left was a thin ring of rubber on the rim. As rubber shards were launched into the air, the sewage valve was busted and needed to be replaced. I think we were lucky that that was the only thing we lost. We found a shop further down the road and scheduled a stop for the following afternoon.

Needless to say, we had lost time because of the blow out and then stopping for new tires (replacing the other 3). Now we had to make up time. We stopped in at Motley RV Service in Oklahoma City about 2pm. We figured a short stop for repairs and on the road again. We try to keep a short drive schedule, but being behind, we were pushing on a little longer.

The service manager came in and told us the parts were in stock and the total job would cost about $250. But, they had some other things to finish in the shop and our repairs would be done by 5pm. 5 PM … I can’t loose that much time … They were in no mood to put me ahead on the schedule, but he assured me they would get to it by 5pm because that was what time they closed.

Aargh!

OK … just give me the parts. The total for two valves (black water and grey water) and a new cap for the line was $50. So, quickly doing the math in my head I figured out that they were going to charge $200 for labor. Wow that’s a lot. But it must be a tough job. The service manager asked, “Do you know anything about RV repair?” To which I said, “I think I can figure it out, I’m pretty good at turning a screw.” I finally convinced him to sell me the parts and let me go.

We stopped in Texas for the night and the storm was getting worse. In the freezing rain I got out the few tools I had with me and went to work on the valve. (Remember that the motley crew at Motley RV - who knew what they were doing - were going to charge me $200 to do the work, in their shop, with the right tools, in the warmth, out of the rain.)

After 10 minutes of work the job was done. *** $200 ***

So, if you can turn a screw, just buy the parts. They charge enough markup at that without having to pay those outrageous labor charges. At least shop around for the best deal. It’ll probably be worth your time and effort.

Let go and let God.

Hello there! I’m Nick, age 12, homeschool student and full-time RVer.

I like the RV setup, and my room specifically. There are 3 bunks, 2 on the back wall, 1 on the side. The lowest one on the back wall is reserved for Jewel, my 2 year old sister, though it feels like she’ll never be there. I am glad of that… more room for me! I have the next highest bunk, the one on the side.

It is extra comfy because we took the mattress off the top bunk to turn it into storage and we put it on my bed in addition to a TemperPedic pad. Aaahh… There is also an air conditioner vent that blows right on me when I sit up. Double Aaahh…

It’s good that it’s comfy because I spend a lot of time there; doing homeschool work and playing computer and Xbox and Xbox 360. I just beat Halo 2 on easy and am eagerly awaiting getting Halo 3 for Xbox 360.

I really like it here in Point of Rocks RV park, partially because of being hooked up, but specifically here there is a lot of great rock climbing around. I go out by myself a lot on some really hard parts but it is also fun to do easy stuff with Mama and Jewel.

Aaanyway… got lots of work to do… we just did laundry and I gotta put clean sheets on the bed… Mama wants the computer… gotta go now, bye!