Here we are mid-way through November. There’s nothing monumental to report. We’re just chugging along on our baby steps to downsize, minimize, travel more, and eventually put ourselves in a position to do our RV adventure!

The. Big. Purge.

We’ve been continuing our (seemingly neverending) work on The Big Purge. I had thrown a bunch of stuff in the garage a few months ago to get rid of but hadn’t differentiated between trash, sell, pass down, or donate. Boo on me!

Note to self: if I’m moving it out of the house, figure out whether it’s trash, sell, pass down, or donate before moving it! So we’ve been working on figuring out what fits into what category.

I took a large trunk-full to donate so that’s always cathartic.

Then we started work on The Attic.

The. Attic.

Attics are funny things. Up north we never had an attic, just a basement. And it was giant so anything we didn’t feel necessitated immediate disposal, we just tossed in the basement.

In hindsight, that was not a good idea. But did we learn our lesson? Oh no, we did not.

When it came time to move, we had a toddler, I was giant pregnant, and Cody was already living in Florida while I was packing things up in Missouri. Do you think I went through the basement? Nope – threw it in boxes and it all came with us. Doh!

So now we have an attic. And most attics in Florida are tiny squares in the ceiling that you pop out, pull down a ladder (or use a regular ladder) and carry your items up, a box at a time. So you think twice before putting things in the attic because it’s difficult to get into.

But not our attic. It’s a little hobbit door that we can walk in and out of any time.

So we use it for storage. A lot of storage. In fact, when we don’t know what to do with something, our go-to answer is “just toss it in the attic.”

Every year I organize the mess and put up new shelves to make it look nice but within a few months the things we’ve tossed in just clutter the floor.

Have we learned our lesson after doing this for seven years in this house? Nope.

To be fair, when we moved into the house we only had one kid and the house seemed WAY too big for us and now it feels like a tiny home with all the clutter.

So that’s where we’re at now.

I sort of always assumed the house would burn down and we wouldn’t have to deal with the attic. But alas, it did not. And now we have to deal with it.

So we started with going after some obvious dubious inhabitants.

• A box of solo shoes. For some reason when we lose a shoe, instead of throwing its mate away, I toss it in this box in the attic in case the mate ever shows up. Have I ever found a mate? Nope. But I do it anyway because it makes me feel better than throwing away a lone shoe whose mate I might find one day.

 

 

• A box of mostly trash kids’ toys (missing pieces, mostly broken, etc.). They should have been trashed but why trash them when you can put them in the attic? So I brought them down, let the kids play with them, and when they go to bed, it will all be “cleaned up” and in the trash.

 

• And then the trophy boxes. Three large boxes of trophies! Why do we save these things? But why would we ever throw them out? Do they bring us joy? I’m not sure, but they sure made me giggle. Does that count? They spurred conversations with the kids about hard work, perseverance and the difference between dorks and jocks. Is that a reason to keep them? Maybe unless you’re preparing to live in an RV and EVERYTHING MUST GO.

So we took our boxes – mine of Mu Alpha Theta (that’s math club for all you uninitiated) trophies from competitions and his of soccer trophies dating back to when he could barely walk through high school – and displayed them on our fireplace mantle. Because it’s both hilarious and obnoxious. So if you’re in Tallahassee, stop by for a beer and gawk at our greatness. Because it’s about to be gone forever in a landfill unless I can find a trophy recycling business.

 

I’m hoping that this is the hard part. Because it’s hard. The sifting through an entire life’s worth of belongings to narrow it down to just the absolute “needs” all so you can find out if what is on the other side is all that you think it will be. On one hand, it’s so heart-wrenching and torturous, but on the other, it’s so freeing and you think that maybe the stuff was the torturous part.

Onward and upward!

RV Shopping.

Cody and I went back to the RV superstore – this time without kids! The first time we went with the kids. It was just what you would expect with four boys running around an RV lot. Chaos.

So we went on a day-date and went to educate ourselves. We got a salesperson who was in her first week of work so she had no idea which units had quad bunks (an absolute must for us) so we pretty much had to pop our heads into everything looking for bunks.

We looked at everything from 20-foot travel trailers (no way, no how could we live in this) to 43-foot fifth wheels (no way, no how could we afford this or ever park it in a campsite). We were sufficiently overwhelmed (even after all our research) so we came home and narrowed it down to two options – I call them (1) Rock and (2) Hard Place.

1. Purchase a travel trailer and pull it with a conversion/passenger van. With this option, the travel days would be more comfortable and pleasant as the kids would have more room and we wouldn’t be squished. We could store plenty of stuff needed to travel in the van and possibly even use it to work in when the other parent has the kids in the travel trailer.

BUT, we’d have to make some sacrifices in the living area. Some significant sacrifices. Mostly ceiling height (a big deal for Cody at 6′ 5″) and storage space. But also living space as the travel trailers don’t have as many slide-out (slide-outs weigh a lot and too many would put us over a van’s towing capacity).

2. Purchase a fifth wheel and pickup truck. With this option, we could find a rig with PLENTY of space. Okay, not plenty of space going from a 2,000+ square foot house, but plenty when you’re looking at tiny space living. Most of the ceilings are plenty high for Cody. There are lots of options with quad bunkhouses. Many even have 1.5 bathrooms (luxurious for travel trailers). Since we have to get a truck to tow, our towing capacity goes up so we can get a few good slide-outs to give us more living space. Fifth wheels also tend to have more under-rig storage space and word on the street is that they are easier/more stable to tow.

HOWEVER, our travel days (including day trips once we’re camped) would be miserable more difficult with SIX PEOPLE in a PICK-UP TRUCK! We would have to fit three car seats across the back and then put a 9-year-old in the front (with us). This makes me incredibly nervous as I’m a car seat and car safety nutcase. But I suppose it can be done and people do it this way.

2.5 A chase vehicle. A third option some people utilize is doing the fifth wheel/pick-up truck option but then have a family vehicle follow behind the truck and rig. For instance, Cody would drive the truck and rig, and I would follow with the kids in a mini-van. Aside from not getting to talk to or experience the sights with Cody, this gives us two engines to gas, care for, and worry about. And I really hate splitting up the family.

So that’s a pretty big decision that we’re still toying with. There are several used ones online that we’re thinking about going to look at. Also looking at potential tow vehicles – boy are trucks expensive!!

Trip Planning.

You know how planning a weekend trip can quickly become overwhelming and stressful? Finding a place to stay, making your list of “to do” activities, planning out food choices and options, and trying to make the most of your trip? Or is that just me? It might be just me, but I’m going to guess that others stress over planning too.

Well, now I’m trying to do that for a giant, year-long trip, across the entire country. Talk about overwhelmed! We’ve started this part of the project several times, only to put it down with the overwhelming options.

So now we’ve broken it into a few bite-size pieces that we can work on in small increments whenever we have time (and the motivation) to tackle this part of the process.

1. First, we’ve both been making a basic “bucket list” of places we absolutely want to experience. Places like the Grand Canyon, Acadia National Park (Maine), Glacier National Park (Montana), Banff (Canada), Oregon Coast, and basically of all Utah and Colorado.

2. Second, we’re working state by state to research other cool places we want to see if we’re able – everything from roadside attractions to fantastic state parks that may not be on all the typical “must see” lists.  This is so overwhelming. There is so much to see in this amazing country, but rather than trying to sift through it all, we’re just getting all the options down and then go from there. We’re trying to make these all user-friendly so that we can get them on the blog for others to benefit from ALL. THIS. RESEARCH. Oh, the research is going to be the death of me.

While we’re working on a list of state-by-state attractions, we also have the kids working on a state book of their own. We are going state by state with the kids, sharing books, facts, and maps with them to teach them about each state and they are aggregating that information into a book they can use on the road. Colton is in charge of writing up a few interesting paragraphs about the state. Ian works on state facts like the motto, population, state bird, etc. And Jackson is in charge of drawing and coloring the state flag. So far they’ve enjoyed learning about the state’s we’ll be visiting.

3. Third, we plan to sift through the state-by-state lists and rank those as to what appears the most interesting to our family. For instance, nearly every state has a bevy of zoos, aquariums, children’s museums, art museums, and science centers. But we have no interest or inclination to spend too much time on those, so we’ll sort through them and pick out the very best and try to aim for more unique state experiences.

4. Finally, it’s time to start to plan the actual trip. Our goal is to do enough planning to make reservations ahead of time and to give us some direction, but allow enough flexibility to stay longer, or shorten a trip, depending on how things are going. Once we have a general route, we can start plugging in day trips or detours to the route based on our reaserach.

Yes, it sounds totally OCD and not at all fun. And I love to be spontaneous and adventurous as much as the next person. But I can’t tell you how many times we’ve planned a trip without thought, only to later realize that we missed something that would have been aweosme or wanted to go somewhere and found out we couldn’t due to lack of planning.

So since this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, we want to be relaxed and adventurous and have fun, but also be educated so we can make the best choices for our family and make the most of this opportunity.

Have any tips for purging? Any advice on purchasing a rig and tow vehicle? Or places we must see on the trip? Comment below or email us! We’d love to hear from you!

As always, thanks for stopping by and happy adventuring!