Open range fifth wheel

open range, 399BHS

This is another model that we liked from the show... Cousin Dan sent show pictures, I'll post them this week!
I loved that the boys have a bathroom that opens to the outside so they can come in and out and not go all the way through the "house" they also have a TON of room on each side of their sleeping area. Lots of storage for the boys. It has the seperate dining table which is nice too.
It's an option...

On the Road schooling and laundry???

This is a link from the online RV newsletter I delight in reading each sunday morning. That is our planning day! This is a nice interview with a mom who home schools on the road. It isn't the best one I've seen but it does have an interesting perspective. I'll post more links for those who are interested in our homeschool plans.

In other news, as I am blogging, reading my RV newsletter and starting on hour THREE of laundry... I am thinking of how to organize the clothing for everyone. I am thinking each one of us will get to take seven to ten warm weather and ten cool weather outfits, store the off season ones in the "basement" of the RV. Plan two is matching tan jumpsuits with the names: Pilot, co-pilot, junior captain 1 and Junior captain 2 embroidered on the back in hunter green. Of course if we did that we'd probably only need, like four of each! It's an option...
The bigger issue is laundry! Do I want to sacrifice the 230 pounds and a couple hundred dollars to get the small stackable RV Washer/dryer? They take a lot of water (which is only an issue if we are boondocking) and can only hold a small amount of clothing. I have also heard that the dryers take forever. On the other hand, I wouldn't have to spend hours in a nasty laundry room, reading piles of old donated romance novels, use up a million quarters, haul laundry back and forth and deal with possible theft or grease stains from other peoples "ick" left in washers. (Honestly, if my clothes are going to be stained with cherry chapstick, I want to know it's MY KID'S chapstick, not some other slacker Mom's kid.
Hmm, I don't know, the more I think of it, the allure of being able to do a load while I am in my own home, teaching the boys or whatever is pretty appealing. It means loosing valuable storage space but I guess I could FILL the washer and dryer with stuff that would normally be out but put away while moving. Care to weigh in on the laundry issue?

Sundance by heartland

So this link refers to one of the top three models we are looking at. The floor plan shows the loft in the back room, which would free up a lot of floor space for school work, playing, etc. It's a nice size for an office back there if Alan starts working during the day.
I am hoping someone out there will give me some feedback on this one if they have any inside info on it. It's early in the planning stages and this is just one of three models but we liked it at the show. I really prefer a more traditional kitchen table and again, the boys room would be awesome. I post these mostly for my friends who have no RV experiance, like my sweet AJ who had a pop-up trailer in her head and STILL supported us in our trip. I love that about her! DEAR GOD! Can you imagine a year in a pop-up with my boys??? We had an awesome 20 day camping adventure this summer but that was camping!!! I don't think even two of the four of us would come home after that one! This is a good example of the "wheel estate" we are considering, somehting along these lines given that some kindly loan officer can be cajoled into giving us a loan! Maybe if I bake them some cookies???? No wait- I don't bake, I know, I'll sautee some shrimp scampi or Chicken Piccata- that oughta' do it!!

The Plan

Wow...
First Blog...

LOTS of Pressure...

There suuureeee is a lot of white space to fill... Hmmm, where to begin?

Alan says to start by telling everyone how this crazy plan began.

Hmmm...

So, we can't quite remember how or when the plan took root but we do remember it didn't take long to fully get on board. The responses when we tell people range between the eye roll with the implied, "what a flake"to an ear splitting screech followed by "I wish WE could do that!"
Early conversations centered around why it was so appealing, why wouldn't we wait for retirement, and, most importantly, if all four of us left in an RV together for a year, how many of us would come back? When we got down to it, it really felt like now or never. The boys will be in Kindergarten and third grade, no active social lives to pull them away from. They will still (hopefully) be eager to learn and try new things on the road. They will be easy for me to teach, (you know I can't do anything mathematical if it involves concepts past the fifth grade).
The logistics of how to pull it off were the first topics of daydreams. What's the point of falling in love with the idea if it could never happen? So we started to draft out ideas, look at the possibilities, weigh the pros and cons. Low and behold, a plan started to pull itself together, almost as if the RV God's were looking down and smiling at us, or, maybe it's that they are laughing at us, I guess we'll see. When the idea first starting coming up it was shortly after we had moved out of our home and into a rental. We had just lost our home and declared bankruptcy. It was a terrible time. We were devestated. It was our first home, the one we brought Aiden home from the hospital to. The place we had gotten our dogs. Each spare moment was streaked with our sweat as we worked seemingly non-stop to change it from a house to our home. It was ours, we loved it. When we had to give it up, we were crushed. We were leaving our neighbors too, who had become like family to us. We felt as though we were loosing everything all at once. We had sold a good deal of our things, we packed up our home and we moved to a home that a friend was renting.
A few months went by and we began to see what a blessing loosing the house had become. We were no longer working three jobs a piece, never seeing one another, always worried about how we would feed the kids. Now that we were once again renters, the stress had virtually disappeared and we were so much lighter for it. We sat back and started to process what had brought us to our current place. What had gone wrong, what had gone right and where we were at emotionally. It was about that time that things really started to fall into place for me. I was struck by the realization I had lived my life in fear for the vast majority of the last 30 years. I didn't want that for the boys. I didn't want their lives to be consumed by the idea that "stuff" is security, or that a house was home. I had such grief each time we moved, even from apt to apt. I wanted the boys to be stronger than that, and more flexible, less afraid. I had to begin living the ideas that I wanted them to embrace. And so the seed was planted... Maybe a crazy seed but a seed none-the-less!

It's a totally insane idea only in that it seems to go against everything we are, know and have been taught.
I mean, hey, if I dig deep and get back to my Checkloslavakian gypsy roots I am sure this will seem like second nature right?
Now, where did I put that babushka?