For the last few weeks, The Hot Contractor and I have been watching gas prices rise, listening to some economists we follow predict that gas will reach $5/ gallon in the next few months, and crunching the numbers on our trip budget. It didn't all add up.
We decided to buy a travel trailer and a diesel truck which we can convert to veggie oil, and sell our motor home. I know, sad to say goodbye to her. After remodeling her, birthing my son in her, and enjoying her cute coziness, it is hard. But we will be ok. ;-)
So last weekend we got a travel trailer and moved into it. And this week we decided on a truck to buy, and are currently in Bakersfield, CA (AKA "the armpit" of California), picking up our new truck. The new travel trailer is not so cute, but it "has good bones" (as my Hot Contractor likes to say), and we are loving the layout (like the dining room table we can all sit down at). We may paint it and fix up a little at some point, but there's no time to do it now.
The Hot Contractor has been researching biodiesel conversion, and learning a ton. We're super excited about using vegetable oil from restaurants to fuel our vehicle.
This plan should allow us to not be held back by the rising fuel costs, and to have a little more play, and a lot less work while on the road. We always like that!
And for an added bonus, this truck holds all five of us (plus our dog Sugar), and will be a great work truck for The Hot Contractor once we get to our destination. We know someone who traveled the country in a converted motor home for months, and spent less than $200 on fuel. I think the fuel cost savings we are going to experience will be amazing.
Our current plan is to leave Santa Cruz in four weeks, go back to Oroville and pack up our belongings for a week, then head out. We will head to Idaho for a couple weeks, after visiting some friends in Southern California.
Can't wait!
Showing posts with label Rving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rving. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Update On Our Plans
Since it's been more than two months since I posted about out adventure, I figured it was time for an update.
We decided mid-September to move into the RV pre-baby, rather than try to do it with a newborn. The thought of packing up and moving while pregnant was also a little daunting, but I think it was the better option of the two. Considering this has been my easiest pregnancy so far, I was feeling up for it.
So, we began the remodel. First, The Hot Contractor rebuilt the area over the cab. It was all dry rotted, and he even found three ant colonies living under the loft bed! He rebuilt it, and now it's water proofed.
Then he tackled the dry rot in the other areas of the RV. He ended up replacing/rebuilding almost all the other walls, as he kept discovering more dry rot with each removal. It took a little longer than we planned. Once all the walls were done, he repainted them (and the cabinets). We chucked the gold cabinet hardware, and put on our oil rubbed bronze ones. I plan to do a before and after post, and I don't have my "before" pics handy right now, but here's a little sneak peek of the "after".
We also decided to paint the fridge and the gold laced mirror cabinet doors with chalkboard paint. They're super fun! The kids draw on the fridge whenever they have an artistic itch, and we use the freezer part for our grocery list. We've been using the other three (previously gold-laced ones) for our to-do list. Here's a sneak peek.
You'll notice our family shrine here too. :-)
Here's how the bedroom turned out.
The Hot Contractor and I both sewed new curtains. He did most of it, as he worries I might destroy them. Again, justified worry.
Without going into too much detail, we became very stressed as the Mad-Rush-to-Finish-Before-Thanksgiving arrived. We loaded up Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and hit the road! Somehow we made it. It was probably those days working from 7am-11pm for the two weeks prior. Ugh. It was hard, but it's over.
I left Oroville before The Hot Contractor because he had more things to load, and I needed to get to Sacramento to buy our refurbished washer/dryer before they closed. The Princess and I were in the RV, towing The Hot Contractor's work trailer loaded with all his tools. Unbeknownst to us, the ball on the hitch was a little too high, and every time I touched the breaks, I would skid. Sometimes not even stop. It was the scariest drive of my life! We made it (miraculously) to Sacramento 15 minutes before they closed. I told The Hot Contractor how scared I was driving. I thought the brakes had gone out, but he checked everything he could think of, and found nothing wrong with the brakes. He had the thought about the ball on the hitch being too high, and the weight of his trailer lifting the back tires on the RV when I braked. He lowered the ball, and it fixed the problem. I love that he's so knowledgeable, and that he can figure out stuff like this! I felt so safe and protected by him, knowing he wouldn't let us get on the road again until he was sure it was safe. We ended up spending the night in Sacramento, parked in the driveway of the RV salvage place. We left early Thanksgiving morning, and made it to Santa Cruz only a couple hours after we told my in-laws we would be there. I was full of gratitude. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
We decided mid-September to move into the RV pre-baby, rather than try to do it with a newborn. The thought of packing up and moving while pregnant was also a little daunting, but I think it was the better option of the two. Considering this has been my easiest pregnancy so far, I was feeling up for it.
So, we began the remodel. First, The Hot Contractor rebuilt the area over the cab. It was all dry rotted, and he even found three ant colonies living under the loft bed! He rebuilt it, and now it's water proofed.
Then he tackled the dry rot in the other areas of the RV. He ended up replacing/rebuilding almost all the other walls, as he kept discovering more dry rot with each removal. It took a little longer than we planned. Once all the walls were done, he repainted them (and the cabinets). We chucked the gold cabinet hardware, and put on our oil rubbed bronze ones. I plan to do a before and after post, and I don't have my "before" pics handy right now, but here's a little sneak peek of the "after".
We also decided to paint the fridge and the gold laced mirror cabinet doors with chalkboard paint. They're super fun! The kids draw on the fridge whenever they have an artistic itch, and we use the freezer part for our grocery list. We've been using the other three (previously gold-laced ones) for our to-do list. Here's a sneak peek.
You'll notice our family shrine here too. :-)
Here's how the bedroom turned out.
The Hot Contractor and I both sewed new curtains. He did most of it, as he worries I might destroy them. Again, justified worry.
Without going into too much detail, we became very stressed as the Mad-Rush-to-Finish-Before-Thanksgiving arrived. We loaded up Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and hit the road! Somehow we made it. It was probably those days working from 7am-11pm for the two weeks prior. Ugh. It was hard, but it's over.
I left Oroville before The Hot Contractor because he had more things to load, and I needed to get to Sacramento to buy our refurbished washer/dryer before they closed. The Princess and I were in the RV, towing The Hot Contractor's work trailer loaded with all his tools. Unbeknownst to us, the ball on the hitch was a little too high, and every time I touched the breaks, I would skid. Sometimes not even stop. It was the scariest drive of my life! We made it (miraculously) to Sacramento 15 minutes before they closed. I told The Hot Contractor how scared I was driving. I thought the brakes had gone out, but he checked everything he could think of, and found nothing wrong with the brakes. He had the thought about the ball on the hitch being too high, and the weight of his trailer lifting the back tires on the RV when I braked. He lowered the ball, and it fixed the problem. I love that he's so knowledgeable, and that he can figure out stuff like this! I felt so safe and protected by him, knowing he wouldn't let us get on the road again until he was sure it was safe. We ended up spending the night in Sacramento, parked in the driveway of the RV salvage place. We left early Thanksgiving morning, and made it to Santa Cruz only a couple hours after we told my in-laws we would be there. I was full of gratitude. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Here She Is!
The beauty.
Notice the duct tape on the loft over the cab. That was what our friends did to stop it from leaking last winter.
And here's my kids enjoying some sibling time on the front step. I thought it was precious that they just sat down together, and put their arms around each other. The Princess was asking Little Brother, "So, how was your day?" Precious.
Notice the duct tape on the loft over the cab. That was what our friends did to stop it from leaking last winter.
And here's my kids enjoying some sibling time on the front step. I thought it was precious that they just sat down together, and put their arms around each other. The Princess was asking Little Brother, "So, how was your day?" Precious.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Hittin' the Road!
So, it's been a long time since I've blogged. What's new? But, I have a great reason to blog right now. I'm super duper excited about this adventure we're about to embark on. We're moving into an RV, and are going to explore the great U-S of A!
Here's how it all transpired:
We've wanted to leave California for a long time now, but for various reasons just haven't. Partly because we haven't known where we want to go. This summer, we took a family vacation to New Hampshire to check it out. We've done some research, and New Hampshire is rated as the "freest" state, and home of The Free State Project. Our little Libertarian hearts are longing for some of that freedom, so we've been mulling it over. It would be a big move, but we've got some adventure left in these spirits, so why not? We're planning on this being our final destination after our adventure, but we're also open to having our minds changed by our adventure.
A few weeks ago, some friends of ours gave us an RV that they no longer needed. Our other friends had given it to them. And some friends of theirs had given it to them. So, we're the latest recipients of this love, and are so grateful for this huge blessing! Traveling the country with our kids has always been a dream of ours. We've always said we wanted to do it for a year while homeschooling them, but since they're not quite school aged yet, that probably just means we'll have to do it again someday.
Since I'm currently with child (did I neglect to mention that here?), we are trying to figure out the timing of our move into the mansion. We're not sure if we should bust tail and get in there before the baby is born, or wait until a few months after he comes to move in. All just details, but stuff we're working through right now. The Hot Contractor has been getting more work in the Bay Area than he has here (which is pretty much none), so we're considering just movin' in and going down there for a while this Fall/Winter, and "practicing" living in it. I think it will be fun.
The cool part is that we took it camping last weekend (can I just pause here to tell you what glorious Camping Sleep this pregnant Mama had in that thing? Seriously. Camping Sleep and Pregnancy just don't go together well in my experience). While camping, we discovered all these things that are broken/need fixing on it. Like how the generator doesn't work, and the hydraulic system is broken, so we aren't able to level it. And how if it's not level, the fridge and freezer don't work. And how the water pump leaks, so whenever we use it (which is whenever we want to turn on water), it leaks a lot of our water, and we end up with an empty water tank in about a day. And the window coverings that don't exist. It might sound like I'm complaining, but really, these quirks excite me! Know why? Because we get to make it our own while we fix it! Woo-hoo!!!
When we first got it, the front door wouldn't close, so The Hot Contractor rebuilt the door. It took a few days, but it was well worth having some privacy when we went camping last weekend. We also decided to tear up the carpet, and put down laminate floors. We found some really fun stuff at Home Depot, and since it's a sprawling mansion of 29 feet, it cost us about $200 in flooring to replace it all. I also got a carpet remnant (shag, of course) at a carpet store for $35. We're going to cut it to size, and have a nice cushy carpet runner under our tootsies. Ahhh....how homey does that sound???
We're going to repaint the cabinets and walls eventually, and replace the oh-so-retro (but not in a good way) cabinet hardware with some cute oil-rubbed bronze knobs I got cheap on eBay. I'm going for a vintage country look. We bought some upholstery fabric, and are making cute curtains for the lodge (The Hot Contractor is doing that too. He's just a better seamstress than I am, and has a hard time letting me sew important things...because he's a little afraid I'll mess them up. Justifiably). A few of them ended up shorter than we wanted (width-wise), so I have an idea of adding some fun fringe or tassel fringe to the edges to extend them out a bit. I'm still looking for the prefect fringe, so let me know if you see any. ;-)
Another idea I had....since storage is an issue when you're living with five people in a 29-footer, I'm collecting vintage hooks to put on the walls all over the RV. Whenever I think of this, I imagine cute little hooks decorating spacious feet of wall space.
And then I go in there.
And I realize there aren't very many places to hang hooks because there is very little wall space. Even though I will be spatially challenged, I'm determined to succeed with my vintage hook decorating idea. I think it will be functional, yet cute. And that's what I'm going for.
One aspect of our adventure that is really challenging is laundry. If we're living in this thing full-time, I really don't want to be dragging three kids to a laundry mat every other day just to keep up on my laundry. I use cloth diapers, cloth napkins, cloth towels (instead of paper towels), and even more "cloth" stuff that I won't mention here. Some things I'm willing to give up, but some things I'm not (like cloth diapers), so I must find a way to do laundry in this RV. If I don't do one to two loads a day, I'm behind, and that's only with two kids! We came across this machine that washes and dries your clothes all at once, and is about 2'x2'x3'. We think we have a place for it in the RV (we'll lose one of our nice Lazy-Boy type chairs, but I think it will be worth it....especially since we'll add a counter top to it so we expand our kitchen counter space). It's about a $1,200 unit, and a little out of our budget for this "Design on a Dime" endeavor, but I called around to RV salvage places, and found a used/refurbished one for $600. Cool, huh? It's down in Sacramento, so we'll go check it out the next time we go that way. Maybe y'all should start calling me Frugal Mama, because I'm SO feeling it right now.
There's a lot of dry rot we're discovering, so The Hot Contractor is planning on tearing all of that out and replacing it. There's a little teensy bit of me that is afraid of what we will discover, but it's all a part of the adventure, eh? And again, we get to make it our own!!
There's the update. I think I need to start an RV blog. RVMama? What do you think? I definitely need to find some way to document our adventures. For now, Homesteadmama will have to suffice.
Here's how it all transpired:
We've wanted to leave California for a long time now, but for various reasons just haven't. Partly because we haven't known where we want to go. This summer, we took a family vacation to New Hampshire to check it out. We've done some research, and New Hampshire is rated as the "freest" state, and home of The Free State Project. Our little Libertarian hearts are longing for some of that freedom, so we've been mulling it over. It would be a big move, but we've got some adventure left in these spirits, so why not? We're planning on this being our final destination after our adventure, but we're also open to having our minds changed by our adventure.
A few weeks ago, some friends of ours gave us an RV that they no longer needed. Our other friends had given it to them. And some friends of theirs had given it to them. So, we're the latest recipients of this love, and are so grateful for this huge blessing! Traveling the country with our kids has always been a dream of ours. We've always said we wanted to do it for a year while homeschooling them, but since they're not quite school aged yet, that probably just means we'll have to do it again someday.
Since I'm currently with child (did I neglect to mention that here?), we are trying to figure out the timing of our move into the mansion. We're not sure if we should bust tail and get in there before the baby is born, or wait until a few months after he comes to move in. All just details, but stuff we're working through right now. The Hot Contractor has been getting more work in the Bay Area than he has here (which is pretty much none), so we're considering just movin' in and going down there for a while this Fall/Winter, and "practicing" living in it. I think it will be fun.
The cool part is that we took it camping last weekend (can I just pause here to tell you what glorious Camping Sleep this pregnant Mama had in that thing? Seriously. Camping Sleep and Pregnancy just don't go together well in my experience). While camping, we discovered all these things that are broken/need fixing on it. Like how the generator doesn't work, and the hydraulic system is broken, so we aren't able to level it. And how if it's not level, the fridge and freezer don't work. And how the water pump leaks, so whenever we use it (which is whenever we want to turn on water), it leaks a lot of our water, and we end up with an empty water tank in about a day. And the window coverings that don't exist. It might sound like I'm complaining, but really, these quirks excite me! Know why? Because we get to make it our own while we fix it! Woo-hoo!!!
When we first got it, the front door wouldn't close, so The Hot Contractor rebuilt the door. It took a few days, but it was well worth having some privacy when we went camping last weekend. We also decided to tear up the carpet, and put down laminate floors. We found some really fun stuff at Home Depot, and since it's a sprawling mansion of 29 feet, it cost us about $200 in flooring to replace it all. I also got a carpet remnant (shag, of course) at a carpet store for $35. We're going to cut it to size, and have a nice cushy carpet runner under our tootsies. Ahhh....how homey does that sound???
We're going to repaint the cabinets and walls eventually, and replace the oh-so-retro (but not in a good way) cabinet hardware with some cute oil-rubbed bronze knobs I got cheap on eBay. I'm going for a vintage country look. We bought some upholstery fabric, and are making cute curtains for the lodge (The Hot Contractor is doing that too. He's just a better seamstress than I am, and has a hard time letting me sew important things...because he's a little afraid I'll mess them up. Justifiably). A few of them ended up shorter than we wanted (width-wise), so I have an idea of adding some fun fringe or tassel fringe to the edges to extend them out a bit. I'm still looking for the prefect fringe, so let me know if you see any. ;-)
Another idea I had....since storage is an issue when you're living with five people in a 29-footer, I'm collecting vintage hooks to put on the walls all over the RV. Whenever I think of this, I imagine cute little hooks decorating spacious feet of wall space.
And then I go in there.
And I realize there aren't very many places to hang hooks because there is very little wall space. Even though I will be spatially challenged, I'm determined to succeed with my vintage hook decorating idea. I think it will be functional, yet cute. And that's what I'm going for.
One aspect of our adventure that is really challenging is laundry. If we're living in this thing full-time, I really don't want to be dragging three kids to a laundry mat every other day just to keep up on my laundry. I use cloth diapers, cloth napkins, cloth towels (instead of paper towels), and even more "cloth" stuff that I won't mention here. Some things I'm willing to give up, but some things I'm not (like cloth diapers), so I must find a way to do laundry in this RV. If I don't do one to two loads a day, I'm behind, and that's only with two kids! We came across this machine that washes and dries your clothes all at once, and is about 2'x2'x3'. We think we have a place for it in the RV (we'll lose one of our nice Lazy-Boy type chairs, but I think it will be worth it....especially since we'll add a counter top to it so we expand our kitchen counter space). It's about a $1,200 unit, and a little out of our budget for this "Design on a Dime" endeavor, but I called around to RV salvage places, and found a used/refurbished one for $600. Cool, huh? It's down in Sacramento, so we'll go check it out the next time we go that way. Maybe y'all should start calling me Frugal Mama, because I'm SO feeling it right now.
There's a lot of dry rot we're discovering, so The Hot Contractor is planning on tearing all of that out and replacing it. There's a little teensy bit of me that is afraid of what we will discover, but it's all a part of the adventure, eh? And again, we get to make it our own!!
There's the update. I think I need to start an RV blog. RVMama? What do you think? I definitely need to find some way to document our adventures. For now, Homesteadmama will have to suffice.
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