Menu
The first week or so fully moved into our RV was rough to say the least. We were behind schedule up until the last minute. Both when it came to finishing our home installed solar system, and with moving out of our house. Our grand embarkment started with a 48-hour grind to get everything packed into the RV, which we’d only been able to work on and keep on a friends property about an hour away, not at our actual house. (Remember when I said that diving in with full faith was our M.O.? Procrastinating and not being fully prepared is an unfortunate side effect of that, that we are working on but haven’t quite conquered yet.) It turned out that we’d overestimated how much could fit into our RV. So the last two days were spent obtaining a storage unit, and trying to piece together what sentimental things could actually make the trip with us. Of those 48 house, we slept maybe two of them. It was around 2 a.m. on September 1st, that we finally drove our fully packed Adelaide away from our empty house, to our highly anticipated first destination in our new home, and the next morning, we awoke… to a parking lot… with a lovely view of a hobby lobby storefront from our bedroom window…5 miles down the road from our rental house that we had just spent all night moving out of.
needless to say, it wasn’t exactly the first backyard we’d hoped we were going to wake up to.
we made our coffee, slightly embarrassed that we had been so ill-prepared and exhausted. it had been the most emotionally taxing 48 hours of my life. and the worst part about it- we had no one to blame but ourselves.
so we woke up in this parking lot, embarrassed, frustrated with ourselves, exhausted, scared. I laid in our bed and cried long, heaving, exhausted sobs.
Although we were tired, we were relieved the “hard part” was over and ready to finally get to the fun part – the adventure. Our trip that first day consisted of learning two valuable lessons.
A. Just because google maps says it’s the best route, does not mean that’s the route you should take. Especially if there are narrow bridges involved and your automatic step is not cooperating with your newly installed solar and wont retract. You will probably smash the step on the bridge and it will never work again. And
B. Do not drive with the house windows down or the soil from your house plants blow through the entire house coating it with a lovely brown film.
After two more nights spent in hardware store and Walmart parking lots while C.J. finished troubleshooting the solar, we finally made our way to Tahoe and found ourselves a campsite. This allowed us some much needed relaxation before making our way up to Oregon. (We had to bypass much of northern California due to the wild fires.)
It was in Oregon, 9 days into this new life, that we got hit with a rear double blowout. It happened somewhat in the middle of nowhere, on a Sunday night, when the only big tow truck available was asking 3k for a tow. We finally had to make the call to leave everything we had left in our RV on the side of the road, before safely getting us and the pets to a hotel room in Bend, Oregon for the night. Hard as that was to do, we got the tires replaced in the morning, and replaced the rest of them for good measure before making our way to a little snow park (always a great place to boondock in warm weather) in Sunriver, Oregon.
I know this all sounds like it was hell on earth, but I’m being completely honest when I say that not a single second passed where we regretted our decision. Sure, we wished we’d prepared better, but at least we were here. We’d done it, and we’d done it together. Each night, when we would make our way back to our little nest of a bed, covered with fur babies and illuminated by battery operated fairy lights, we were grinning from ear to ear with the knowledge that everything we love was right there with us in this home that we had built. We would hug our warm pups close, letting the soil-stained soles of our feet brush up against each other, (yes there was still soil all over. Don’t drive with your windows down people) and fall soundly asleep knowing full well that no matter how hard this may get, or how far out of our comfort zones we were pushed, this was exactly where we were meant to be.