So- we camped- on Lake Havasu as a family for the first time. It was
great! The kids loved swimming. Even Cheyenne went it- it wasn't
too cold! Our campsite was RIGHT next to the lake.
Me with all 4 by myself in the lake- none are proficient swimmers so I can never do this at the ocean- but in this pic I am actually on my knees and the water was so refreshing
All ready for the lake
In the background you can see the AZ side of Lake Havasu- a ferry could have brought us across for abut $2 each but we only had one night so we just stayed put.
Im standing in the lake taking this picture
Aww- sunrise at the lake- I sneaked out in the early morning to experience the tranquility solo!
But we weren't alone- see our neighbor in front of us- that is Stephen. Super nice and helpful guy. One of many full timers we are sure to meet along the way. Stephens advice: use peroxide in the gray water tank to help reduce smell when the unit hasn't been used in a while. Thanks Stephen
Sunrise on the lake. Despite the extreme heat I think lake life is MUCH more my style and have already begun modifying where we will be camping to include places that have lakes!
So this is actually a picture of one of the bunk mattresses- with a rock on it. Read below regarding "rookie" mistake.
Our truck, our camper, our little piece of Lake Havasu for 2 days
We are SUCH rookies at this though.
Rookie mistake #1: In an effort to clean and febreeze the kids mattresses I
left one outside- it flew into the lake! Luckily our neighbor saved it
and it dried up nicely overnight! Advice #1: put a rock on your mattress
when drying it outside
Rookie mistake #2: Toilet got "stuck" in flush mode and... we
didn't know how to stop it- the black water (sewer) was just filling up with
the continuous flush and we didn't know how to fix it. So unplug the
water and 2 you tube videos later Josh found a manual lever to turn ir off. Advice
#2: Get a lesson in how to use to toilet and then teach it to each toilet user
in the RV
Rookie mistake #3: Dinner time and- oh look we don't have an
oven. Seriously? We just laughed. We bought the thing and are in it
for hours before we even noticed. Luckily we don't care that much as we
were planning to bring a toaster oven anyway - and as our neighbor said
"who bakes on the road". The plus side is we have that whole
oven space as a huge storage area. Lesson #3: Check for all appliances!
Rookie mistake #4: Dinnertime and.. no propane for a gas oven?
Duh. Neighbor to the rescue again (this is what I love about RV life- so many
people willing to help and give advice. Stephen came over and helped Josh with
so many things, gave us lots of great advice as a "full timer"- and
even let us borrow some propane so we could have dinner. Then he caught
himself a catfish for his dinner!)
We did it- I can't believe it- we got an RV. It's been a little crazy as we were lined up to buy a 2004 Cougar quad bunk that was located in Chico, CA (north of SF- so about 8 hours from us). We had it inspected by a professional and checked out an identical unit closer to home to be sure it was what we wanted. We prayed for Gods guidance as it was our max budget including the gas up there and back and it needed to be in tip-top shape. The owner said it was but we felt we should have it inspected first. Turns out the owner wasn't available for the inspection guy to come out until Saturday Sept 3rd. He decided to show the unit to someone on Friday even though we had the inspection scheduled for Saturday morning. The inspection was over mid morning and - supposedly- immediately afterwards the viewer from Friday showed up with cash and gave him more than we were going to. AWWW- We were so upset- the rug was pulled from right under us- AND we were out the inspection cost we had paid. BUT- God is good. The inspection came back that the unit was not in as good of shape as was told us and most alarming was that there was a "soft spot" in the queen room on the roof. After voicing our frustrations Josh and I came to two realizations:
1. Even if the unit hadn't sold to someone else- we likely wouldn't have wanted it anyway and would have been out the inspection fee either way
2. God went before us and protected us from a long trip to come back empty handed.
So back to the drawing board. We found another RV- about an hour north. It wasn't in perfect condition but was HALF the price we were willing to spend because the guy needed it gone that day. We called- we were packing to go see it and pick it up. We figured at half the cost we could afford near any minor repair but needed to see it before fully committing. Once again the guy sold it to someone - literally an hour after we contacted him- and this time for LESS than we were committed to give him. We were frustrated BUT learned our lesson from rug pull #1 and really were just thankful for whatever it was God was protecting us from in that purchase.
Then Josh found a different bunkhouse (a double bunk house is what we were looking for- that is 4 bunk beds in the rear- one per kiddo). It was in Lake Havasu and was recently reduced- priced to sell. We spoke with the owner- a sweet Grandmother who let her kids and their kids use the unit at the lake and stored in onsite also at the lake. The thing was hardly driven. She had gotten new tires on it (a large expense we were thankful was already done). So we did what we did with the SF unit- tried to order an inspection. Turns out that the AZ side of Lake Havasu has plenty of inspectors but the CA side- is pretty much desolate. We got a few quotes from people willing to travel around the lake, or down from Las Vegas but the travel expenses were so high that we realized we could drive out there, not get it, and come back for cheaper- so that was the plan. We invited my mom to join, and my dad, my mom offered to babysit so we could go but it ended up just being us- Josh, Sarah and the kids- all of them.
Josh bought a hitch, got the truck ready and come Saturday morning (9/12) I woke the kids up before the "sky was awake" and told them we were going on an adventure! Amazingly- and if you have children you have to know how miraculous this is- EACH KID WOKE UP HAPPY- not a tear was shed. I kept the lights low, nursed the baby and put her in the carseat, gently woke my oldest and got her dressed in bed, then Charlotte (who is doing great at night due to the Dry-me alarm given to us by a nice craigslist lady), then Levi. I woke him up the gentlest and whispered about the adventure. He said "adventure" and this kid doesn't talk! So we all sat out on the curb in the early morning waiting for Daddy and the "silver bullet"
It was about a 6 hour drive (3 movies worth is what I told the kids). I had a special gift for them to open after we passed each 100 mile mark. The gifts were mainly things they already had that they'd just forgotten about.
1. Crayola Color Wonder paper and markers
2. A lacing game we "raced" to finish
3. Travel Guess Who game
4. A Jake and the Neverland Pirates figurine for Levi
We watched: How to Train your Dragon, The Incredibles and Frozen.
Once out there we met with the owners son in law who had gotten there early enough to set up the unit in our campsite. See we still don't have a generator so weren't sure how to test it- until I suggested that we just purchase a campsite for the night and have it hooked up there. $32 and we can test everything out. It was so nice to have it already pulled in, AC going, slide out, leveled and hooked up. The interior was great, a few minor cosmetic things but overall real nice. The outside was as expected with the peeling decals and awning fabric torn. We knew all that before driving out there. What we didn't know was that the roof had a few rubber sections that needed patching, a skylight that was cracked, a vent missing and that the fresh water tank was dry and in need of replacement.
In need of recaulking/ resealing
Gashes i the rubber
In need of a new rubber layer (apparently this is painted on yearly in well maintained trailers)
The newest rubber layer flaking off
Cracked skylight (means potential leaks)
Missing an entire vent cover
The largest of the rubber gashes
We also weren't confident in the refrigerator as after 2 hours it still wasn't showing any sign of chill. Nevertheless we went for it- we took the Ref risk after learning it could take up to 24 hours to cool completely and bought the RV for $3200 under our budget-!! We intend to use that to fix up the roof, water tank etc though. The kids were hungry so I brought them to a little grocery store nearby while Josh finished up the paperwork. I figured it would take the owners about an hour to empty out all of their stuff. BUT they just LEFT IT ALL. Good and bad I guess. A lot of it was trash, or old BUT it was like a treasure hunt to clean the thing out. So far we have found:
Brand new grill meant to mount on a boat
Boat propeller
A scuba propeller
2 pull behind huge blow up boat raft toys
A hoover vaccuum
A wake board
A waterski
New hubcaps for the RV
3 large papasan folding chairs
Tons of sheets, blankets etc
4 animal pillows that Savannah was hopeful they would leave!
RV "Stuff" for the toilet
Cleaning stuff
Brand new zip locks, trash bags, paper towels, cleaning supplies
Lots of pots and pans and other cookware
An expresso maker
A starbucks small carafe coffee maker
AND we aren't even done going through everything.
Josh has been diligently selling our furniture, bikes and extra stuff out of the garage so he is certain he can sell some of the above that we can't use- and this will help make up the fridge cost- if there is any.
Let me just highlight the center right photo of "the 4". Kids personalities so well displayed; Savannah- sweet, caring and affectionate, also a big protector of all the others, Levi a little ham hopeful to see himself in the photo in a moment, Charlotte our little feisty one- she is squeezing them all together, and lastly Cheyenne- who is always so easy going and along for the ride, however confusing it may be to her little mind! LOVE these peeps. No neighbors walking by to talk our full family pic so.. it is what it is!
Its been an eventful
week. Cheyenne turned 4 months. I turned 33. We gave our
landlord our 30 day notice (since we are storing everything while we are
traveling). We started packing up our apartment and… we bought the
Silver Bullet. That is what the girls and I named it- why- I really
don’t know but it immediately stuck. They also educated me that the
truck is a boy since it has blue spring shocks! Blue=boy.
We have been in the
process of the following:
1.Selling Joshs car (it only fits 5 people anyway-
and there are 6 of us now)
2.Buying a "pull" vehicle that can seat
more than 6. We were deciding between:
a.V10 Gas Excursion
b.7.3L Diesel Excursion
c.Diesel 7.3L Ford E350 Van
3.Deciding on a pull behind trailer- our top
choices
a.Toy Hauler FSAK26 Attitude
b.Cougar quad bunk with super slide
The Silver Bullet Story-
Let me just lay the $
thing out there- I am not uncomfortable at all talking about $, for some reason
our culture is. We don’t have a lot, but we have more than some and
it’s all relative to the income in certain areas and the cost of living. For
example- our rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in downtown San Clemente is
$1550/mo. Now some of you are from around here and are thinking
“what? that is an excellent price, most 2 bedrooms in downtown area, especially
with a deck and ocean view like yours are minimally $1800/mo- you have a great
deal and should never move.” I agree- we do, we have lived in this
apartment for 11 years now and have been lucky enough not to have our rent
raised much in that time HOWEVER we have 4 kids now so 2 bedrooms isn’t quite
cutting it. Others of you are from other places in the country and
your are thinking “What? $1550 for a 2 bedroom apartment? No
yard at all. You could own something here with land and a mother in
law quarters in the back for less than that in a total mortgage”. I
would again agree. The financial stuff is a sensitive subject
because it is relative to cost of living and income. I know there
are some of you that are uncomfortable with laying out your financial situation
BUT this post is meant to be more of a diary of our adventures and life with
our kids at this age and when I look back one day I want to see the numbers-
and have a record of the details, for myself. So if this bugs you- just
skip this part:
Josh got laid off in
June. When you work in the accounting field it’s not a far stretch
to see when and who will get laid off so we were completely expecting this- and
were ready. Especially me. I thought it would happen back
in March which was concerning since we had their health care coverage and
Cheyenne was due in April- but after she was here I was just counting the days
until we would get the news. I knew it would kick us into high gear
towards our trip. When he came home and told me I was THRILLED- crazy
right? It was just perfect timing though! We have been
planning this trip for a while, but just in our Toyota Sienna minivan over a 10
day period staying in hotels. Once Josh got laid off he started
looking for jobs in other states we realized we didn’t really have an official
destination and we revamped our plans to include looking for a new job and a
place to live at the same time. All that to be said- I am the only
one working. I don’t mind working, but for years my income has
mainly been our recreational budget and it suddenly became our
livelihood. Thankfully I work remotely so am bringing all my work on
the road but because of this we are being extra cautious with what we have on
hand and our budget for the large investment purchases of a tow vehicle and
trailer.
In early August we
started our vehicle hunt. Gotta get a tow-er before we can get
something to tow right? We were hunting for E350s Suburbans and
Excursions. One of the first vehicles we found was a 2003 v10
Excursion on craigslist. We actually both found it separately and emailed the owner independently. We were
pretty excited about it since it sounded very well maintained, had new tires
(huge additional cost to consider) and a lot of other great features for
towing. After a short confab we realized we had both reached out to
the guy with similar questions: how many miles, maintenance records etc. The
guy was asking $8700. Ug- we thought. The plan was to
sell Joshs car for $4500, we had in cash $1500- so the max budget we had at the
time was $6000. We knew this was a low offer for it but decided to
throw it out there. The truck was in the Victorville area. He
was thankful for our honesty and agreed to accept $6500 if we could swing that-
even able to accept payments on the last $500- swell guy. We agree
but- Joshs car just sat and sat and didn’t sell so we had to cancel the
deal.
After this we kept
looking- for something even cheaper or looking into financing options. It
was near impossible to find anything not too busted up.
We looked at a 1994 GMC
Suburban with a new 454 engine which could tow about 12,000#- the guy was
selling it for $2000 bucks. We thought this would be a great deal-
but man the inside would have needed some serious TLC, not to mention the
window seals were falling off etc. I was willing to go for it cause
this isn’t a beauty contest but Josh said it drove hard, the AC didn’t work and
it would have needed new tires. Additionally the hitch was rusted so
we just didn’t feel that was safe.
We considered a few 2002
E350 Ford passenger vans- hoping for a diesel and found one listed at $5500-
but come to find out the guy was a crook and had the odometer tampered
with. Ug again
We thought we could
“stretch” ourselves and figured it was worth a test drive for a super low
priced Diesel 7.3L Excursion 2001. The guy was in northern
California about 8 hours away but was going to be in Dana Point soon so we
waited and hoped. When we pulled into the parking lot I was thinking
“this is it”. He wanted $8700. It had 230K miles on it-
but it was a diesel. The guy was super nice but wasn’t really
willing to budge on the number. We knew that going into it- that
truck is worth much more! A few things right away that concerned
us. The trunk door didn’t lock. He said it was quoted as
a $400 fix. Ug. Now we are at $9100. Then Josh
saw that the transmission was leaking a bit- it was probably a transmission
cooler leak but we couldn’t know for sure. Could be a $100 fix OR a
$5000 fix. Ug again. Lastly I went to move the seats to
see how the functionality would be getting the kids in and out and, everything
was rusted in place. So we left, discussed it and just felt that the
total price of it all was just too high for our comfort zone.
By the end of the month
we had the money we needed to buy that first v10- but was is still
available? Would he still give us that same deal? Unlikely right?
But we asked and lo-and-behold….. the Silver Bullet is with us
today! It, ironically, had the same locking problem that the diesel
excursion had and they were quoted $500 to fix. Something told me,
and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this (Gods provision) that we could fix
it ourselves and so we went for it. We test drove, checked it out
and bought it on Sunday Aug 30th- Just in time to feel
like we made a BIG first step before giving our 30 day notice Sept 1st. $6500 cash and we got this puppy!
2003 Silver Ford
Excursion RWD v10, automatic, new yokahama tires, suspension lift, new shocks,
new tierods, new ball joints, rear axel towing air bags, trailer brake
controller, heavy duty tow package, headers, large exhaust, and a banks
powerpack cold air intack and not ONE leak! That is pretty
amazing
Sure enough we youtubed
the lock issue and found that it is a common problem with excursion back latch
door locks and that a new actuator would fix it. We ordered one for
$40 including shipping, Josh went to install it and noticed it was very dirty
so cleaned it out with WD40 and... it started working- without the
actuator. GOD IS GOOD. We were able to return the
actuator through amazon for a full refund! So thankful we didn’t
know about that fix with the diesel or we might have jumped in over our
heads.
Photo overload... Just had to post some pics of this growing girl. Such an easy going babe- I couldn't be happier with her. She is my little snuggle bug and she is already getting so big. On my 33rd birthday she turned 4 months old. Here are some pics documenting her growth. Just had to share!!
3 Days old!
Sisters and Best Friends Forever. (bottom left pic little Cheyenne tooted- can you tell by her sisters expressions?)
4 on the 4th (of July that is)- so Blessed! Levi has loving nicknamed her Baby CheyChey (sounds like ShyShy)
There are SO MANY options for how to
do this trip- here is what we looked into so far:
Option 1: Motorhome
Pros:
*It is a tow vehicle and
living quarters in one.
*The kids could play
games at the table while we drove
*We could drive at
night, potentially, while everyone slept- in their bed. (but we
wouldn’t feel real good about the safety of that so maybe that is a con- for
us)
*No “unhooking” and
“rehooking” to go from place to place.
Cons:
*Expensive and the ones
that were in our budget were unreliable.
*Every state has
different carseat laws and technically with 4 kids there is no arrangement that
would allow us to even possibly follow the California carseat laws (with rear
facing and forward facing etc). We are pretty overcautious about
carseats and the “roaming” around the RV while we drove, or even nursing the
baby on the road wasn’t something we anticipate doing).
*Carseats (even though
not legal) would be placed on the table and couch – which would mean a lot of
rearranging nightly for sleep- OR we would have to get a class C with the queen
bed ontop and it wouldn’t have the engine to pull a vehicle.
*We would have to tow
something else to do excursions in the city. The vehicle we would
tow would have been our van, but at a weight of 6,000#s it is too heavy to pull
behind and so was any other 6 passenger vehicle we would need to tow.
Bottomline:
We would have to pull a
vehicle that fits 6 people and that forces us into an motorhome that is pretty
powerful and therefore a bit more expensive than we were comfortable with.
Option 1- sadly out.
Option 2: Fifth wheel
and Truck
Pros:
*Fifth wheels are built
really well, and are generally bigger with slide outs etc.
*We could “unhook” and
go on excursions in the truck pretty easily
Cons:
*A 6 seatbelted truck
would require Savannah, as the oldest, to sit in
the middle front. She is the one the “helps”
the most with the other kids in the car.
Also one of us (Josh or I) almost always sit in the back with the baby
in the van- to soothe her or just keep Levi from dropping his hot wheels car on
her head. 3 little kids together in the
back sounded like disaster to me.
*A 6 seatbelted truck
would require me to always sit in the front- I like to sit in the back with the
kids and help them with snacks, entertain the baby etc- and we are going to do
school on the road- which we have already started with all the traveling to see
this and pick up that. I need to be able to sit with the kids and
share a computer screen.
*A 6 seatbelted truck
means NO room for anything else- no stroller, cooler, barely room for games by
our feet, no room for blankets, toys, and no space to change a baby quickly or
use our car potty (yes we have a port-a-potty in our van for whomever is potty
training at the time- its from IKEA and has been a LIFESAVE for us even before
the whole plan to travel the country so we are bringing that for sure)
*5th wheels
are heavy and therefore require a heavy duty truck- diesel is what we would
want for that purpose and a 7.3L (not a 6.0L) is what is most reliable. Actually
Josh really wanted the Cummins engine with Allison Transmission BUT all of the
above are not cheap.
Bottom line: Diesel
trucks aren’t cheap, trucks wont be comfortable for our big family, 5th wheels
are a bit more costly…. Option 2 –out.
(we didn’t even consider
the pop up tent option- but I guess that could be inserted here)
Option 3: Large 6
–or-more passenger vehicle and pull behind trailer
Pros:
*Tow vehicle similar in
functionality to our mini-van.
*Ability to “unhook” and
go out into town- with all the kids!
*Pull behind trailers
are reasonably priced.
Cons:
*We wouldn’t be able to
take advantage of the “house” while driving.
*It requires, according
to google, the most skill to drive
*Not as beefy as a fifth
wheel
Option
3 for the win! Now for more decisions related to it- what truck and
what trailer? We went back and forth over a Ford Excursion or E350
and equally looked for both. We were hoping for a diesel but were
willing to take a v10 after learning that the trailers we were considering were
within the tow capacity.
