And Away We Go...VERY SLOWLY

Thursday, August 7, 2014

All of my great new toys plus minimal amounts of clothes are mounded in our living room, which I've designated our staging area.  After poring through blogs and manuals for weeks, I noticed a few items were mentioned repeatedly by the pros.  Collapsible kitchenware like measuring cups, bowls and storage containers were chief among these.  My "kitchen" had many, many drawers and cabinets but they were very tiny ones.

RVing For Dummies recommended buying a large cutting board with rubber feet, which was a total workhorse as it doubled as extra counter space, as well as a serving piece.  

Anyway, all this stuff is still sitting in the living room at 8 AM and my early bird husband's pacing around, trying to get us motivated for packing the Sequoia.  There is ALOT of stuff.  We are finally (mostly) packed up by 9 AM and he goes ahead of the kids and me to the rental place in Sussex.  Ostensibly to take care of the paper work, but I think he's nervous and wants some time alone to get oriented without all of us looking over his shoulder.  By the time we get there, the orientation has begun and we have the good fortune to arrive at the fun part:  the toilet tutorial.  Probably many of you have never had the pleasure of standing in a 3x3 foot space with a total stranger explaining the difference between gray water and black water and the dangers of clogging the sewage system of your moving home.  You should be thankful for that.

After our tour, most of which we promptly forget, we finish packing up and get on the road.  Most of you have probably not had the pleasure of maneuvering a 32 foot behemoth over a narrow and bumpy road, either.  It wakes you up, I'll say that.  Helpful quote from fifteen year old daughter:  "Dad, they wouldn't just give an RV to anyone if it wasn't okay to drive."  Well, we don't have any statistics on that, so we just go with it.  

Our plan is to stop at a Walmart because that's what ALL the pros suggested, siting ample parking, many locations near highways, and their particular friendliness to those who drive the big rigs.  Some will even let you park overnight in a pinch, which is not something we are remotely interested in. It's bad enough I had to download the Walmart app onto my phone.  

We need to stock our fridge with the essentials:  bottled water because you can't really drink the stuff coming out of the faucet; sandwich fixings for lunch so we wouldn't have to stop again; Twizzlers because it's a road trip and that's just how we do.

It takes almost double the time to arrive at our destination.  We aren't sure why, unless Google Maps bases their estimates on the average time of a sporty little two door, and not a lumbering house on wheels.  At any rate, we pull into our first campground, Sunset View Farm in Monson, Mass just in time to view that sunset.  I throw together a dinner from our Walmart trip, which includes frozen strip steaks that are just as nasty as they sound.  A nice Bombay Sapphire martini takes care of any lingering aftertastes, however.  The kids content themselves with Oreos and we all go to bed early.