For the world to see

Believe it or not, I'm a very private person. I know, I know: I have a blog. A blog on which I have posted about my belly flab twice in one week.

But truly, I'm selective about what I share with people.

That's why things like this story from my local newspaper horrify me.

A semi hit a trailer/pick-up on the shoulder of a freeway today. That's awful enough, of course (thankfully it sounds like only minor injuries), and things like this are why I'm so passionate about vehicle/passenger safety.

But what makes it more terrible is that the entire contents of that trailer wound up spread all over a freeway. That sucks if you're vacationing, but it sucks if that's your home.

I have wondered about that. What if our fifth wheel is destroyed on the road? Everything would just be hanging out there for everyone to see. Not that I really have anything to hide. But it breaks my heart to think of my kids' stuffed animals lying in a ditch or family photos fluttering down the highway without us.

I suppose it's not much different than the risk anyone takes in having their home uprooted by a tornado...although we'll be subject to that, too, now that I think about it.

Great.

Anyway.

This is an excellent example of why I prefer a fifth wheel/trailer and pickup combo to a motorhome. That trailer is DESTROYED. The truck? Yeah, that's totalled, too, but if you look through the photo gallery you'll see that it was the bed that took the brunt of the crash. The driver suffered minor injuries (it doesn't sound like anyone else was in the truck). I'd hate to think of what would have happened had that been a motorhome instead.

Hoops!

A few days ago I wrote about my, uh, flabby tummy, and how I needed to buy new shirts. Someone left a comment about how I should look into hooping--as in hula hooping--as a way to deal with my midsection. (Thanks, Julie!) She mentioned that another mom-on-the-road hoops all the time and has a blog about it (both about hooping and living on the road). Julie didn't say which blog it is, but I'm pretty sure I know the one she's talking about. I had seen that blogger mention hooping before but never gave it much thought until Julie brought it up.

Then I realized: My gosh! What a fantastic way to exercise on the road (or anywhere, for that matter). A hula hoop is relatively light, it's flat, it's something the kids can do with me, and I can probably even convince myself it's not really exercise.

So I looked into it. Turns out that the cheap-o hoops from Toys R Us aren't a good choice. It's better to have something wider and with more heft. I found some tutorials on how to make your own hoop. It actually looked pretty easy. You just need some irrigation tubing and electrical tape, both of which my husband probably has lying around (if he hasn't already bequeathed them to the neighbors). But Steve is at work and I'm impatient, so I checked craigslist to see if anyone local had some hoops for sale.

Lo and behold, there were several listings, including a woman in my city selling adult and kid hoops. Perfect! I dropped her an email and she was free to meet at a park this afternoon so I could try them out.

I looked like a complete dork at first, but after she gave me some pointers (move your hips side-to-side, NOT in a circle!) I actually started to get the hang of it. So Elias and I walked away the owners of new hula hoops.

As an aside, for a long time a friend of mine has been updating her Facebook statuses with mentions of hooping. I always thought she was talking about basketball, but now I'm not so sure. (Becky, if you're reading this: Which is it?)

Charting the Course

After I dropped Elias off at camp this morning, Anna and I went to AAA to get some maps for our trip. Yes, Google Maps is an invaluable program, but sometimes you just need a physical map to spread out in front of you.

Anna was fascinated by the Texas Tour Book and "read" it all the way home, stopping only long enough to take off her shoes.



By the way, we have altered our road trip plans a bit. Or a lot. Instead of going all the way to Cincinnati, we're only going as far as southeastern Texas. After realizing how far away Cincinnati is, we decided to cut a few days off the trip by having the trailer delivered to a company in Texas that can put the hitch on the Canyonero, so we'll meet it there.

For the record, I did realize how far Cincinnati is from California. I've made the road trip to and from Ohio at least four times, but never with two little kids. Factoring in potty breaks, meals at tables (or at least not in car seats), playtime, decent bedtimes for all of us, plus the stuff we actually need to do, our whole trip was going to take two weeks. Not going to Ohio cuts out at least four days, by our calculations.

Un-Purging

I bought some shirts yesterday. I'm not supposed to be buying anything these days, but I had a predicament.

See, a while back when I whittled down my wardrobe, I found some clothes that had been packed away since I grew out of them when I was pregnant with Anna. I decided to keep a few of them but I neglected to try them on, which I should have, because they're too short now.

Some of you might be reacting the way my husband did: "What, having a baby made you taller?"

No. But it did make me flabbier. Whereas once I might not have minded my tummy peeking through when I lift my arms, I do now.

Steve suggested maybe I could do some exercises to help with that.

I suggested it would be a lot easier if I bought some new shirts and he kept his mouth shut.

So that's what we did. I will, of course, get rid of an equal amount of existing shirts so I can keep everything balanced. And maybe I'll do a few sit-ups someday.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I thought the blog could use a little sprucing-up, so return visitors will notice a new design today. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? Give me suggestions. (Realize, though, that I'm html-illiterate, so I have to work within the confines of making slight modifications to existing templates.)

Moving Backwards

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a big stickler for vehicle safety. I'd say that passenger safety is even more important now that we'll be on the road a lot, but honestly, the frequency and duration of trips make little difference.

If parents did only one thing to increase their children's safety in the car, I would hope for them to keep their kids rear-facing as long as possible. This is a brief but excellent video demonstrating the enhanced safety of riding backwards.

Anna is almost 16 months old and will remain rear-facing for at least another two years. She's getting close to outgrowing her current seat (my much-beloved Combi Coccoro), so we'll get a new seat for her soon. Most likely it will be a Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL, which rear-faces to 45 pounds.

Pretty soon it will be rare to find convertible car seats that don't rear-face to at least 40 pounds. Might as well take advantage of that extra time and keep the kiddo facing backwards!

We're moving to Texas!

...in a way.

A few posts back I wrote about how California requires a Class A license to pull trailers with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating over 15,500 pounds. We pretty much resigned ourselves to Steve having to get his permit, borrow a fifth wheel and a person with a Class A license, and take what is essentially a Commercial Driver's License test.

Then my mom suggested that we establish residency in Texas.

Now, this wasn't a completely off-the-wall idea (though she is prone to those, too) because our plan all along was to establish residency in Texas once we hit the road in March. The reasons for this are mainly two-fold:

1. No state income tax. I'm not going to lie: That's a big concern, especially coming from tax-crazed California.

2. No homeschooling requirements. Other than actually teaching your kid, you don't need to do anything else. No paperwork to file, no registering with a school district, no testing, no attendance records, etc.

There is a full-time RV organization called Escapees, which is located in Texas. They have a mail service that will receive, sort, and re-send your mail to the destination(s) of your choice. For this, you are given a Texas address that you can also use to obtain a driver's license, register to vote, etc.

We hadn't really considered getting our Texas residency early, mainly because we hadn't really considered that we'd be going through Texas anytime soon. But since we're going to Ohio anyway, it wasn't a bad idea.

Then a snag arose: We have two cars (the Canyonero and a Honda Pilot), but would only have the truck with us. That would leave us in the legally tenuous position of having Texas drivers licenses, but a car registered in California, which could also raise problems with insurance.

We thought about having Steve get his Texas license while I keep my California one, but once we sell the house I wouldn't really have an address other than our mailing address in Texas, which again brought up issues with the Pilot.

Then I did some research, including making a phone call to the agency that handles vehicle registration in the county we'd be "moving" to. A human being answered the phone and immediately transferred me to another human being who answered my questions. She said there's no need to have the car with us to register it. They just waive the inspection requirement until we bring the car into the state. Problem solved!

Or so we thought.

See, we were under the impression that Texas doesn't have special requirements for towing fifth wheels. But upon doing more research, I learned that there is a Class A requirement if the combined GVWR of your truck and trailer is more than 26,001 pounds. The Class A test in Texas seems much easier than in California, but still requires a written test, plus driving and maneuverability exercises.

So Steve checked the GVWR of the Canyonero...and it is 10,500 lbs. The astute mathematicians among you will realize that 10,500 + 15,500 = 26,000 pounds: ONE POUND under the minimum that would trigger the need for a Class A.

I called the Texas equivalent of the DMV and was again greeted by an actual human. He confirmed that as long as we were under 26,001 pounds, we could tow with a regular license.

We still have a few things to look into (like finding out if our health insurance will be valid if we have a Texas address), but at this point it looks like we'll be turning into Texans relatively soon.

Zen

A surprising number of people have told me that I've inspired them to declutter their homes. (Feels good, doesn't it?)

I just stumbled upon a great blog post that someone on another full-time RV site had linked to. It's about decluttering your life, zen-style. Even though I'm already in the process of doing so, I had some "a-ha moments" while reading it.

It's a quick, enlightening read, so if you're at all interested, check it out: http://zenhabits.net/simplify-love-your-stuff/

Out of the mouths of babes

Elias isn't exactly the most intuitive kid on earth, yet not five minutes after I wrote the last post, he came up to me with a forlorn little face. "Mom, I'm sad about getting rid of the house," he said.

"I know, Sweetie, I am too," I told him. "You and Anna have grown up here. But you know what?"

I saw a lightbulb go off in his head. His reply? "We'll get to grow even more in the trailer!"

True enough, son.

I'm glad his answer pleased him so much because it was a lot better than anything I would have come up with.

Reality Sets In

Our house is officially on the market. There's a sign in our yard. There's a listing realtor.com. There's an open house tomorrow. There's no turning back now.

Our realtor came over the other day so we could sign the papers. The moment she arrived at the door, the skies spewed forth a torrent of rain and cacophony of thunder. Thunderstorms are extremely rare in Southern California and absolutely unheard of in July. A superstitious person might have considered that an omen.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm totally superstitious, and I did take it as an omen, but as a good one. We all thought the storm was pretty cool. If I needed any reassurance, when it had passed a lovely little rainbow appeared over the house.

(Sorry I didn't get a better shot. My camera has about 50 different scenery categories to choose from, but "rainbow at dusk" isn't one of them.)

Getting the house on the market allows us to cross off a huge item on our to-do list, but it's also the most emotional step we've taken.

I have moved a lot in my life. Not counting dorm rooms, I have called 13 different abodes home. Although I abhor the actual process of moving (packing, cleaning, loading, cleaning, unloading, unpacking, cleaning), I love being in new places. I'm always a little sad to leave an old dwelling, but mostly excited to get a new one.

It's different this time, though. I'm excited about our journey, of course, but leaving means more now. It's not just about me this time; it's about us. This is our first house, together, as a family. Elias was six weeks old when we bought it. This is the home Anna came home to after she was born. We had intentions of possibly staying here forever.

At the same time, I have never been one to plan too far ahead because life never works out exactly as you expected, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

In the long run, I don't think this is a decision we'll regret having made. Even so, it's hard to say good-bye.

American Girl Goes Camping

No, not me. A doll.

For some reason I have received the American Girl catalog for several years. As the mother of a boy who deplores all things girly, I used to flip through the catalogs wistfully, sigh, and throw them away.

A few days after Anna was born I received another American Girl catalog in the mail and devoured it with glee. I finally had a reason to look!

As usual, I skimmed over the "modern" dolls at the front of the catalog. I have no use for those. The history geek in me expressed interest only in the "historical" dolls. Imagine my dismay when I saw that the doll I had always wanted to get for my hypothetical daughter had been discontinued just a few months prior (Samantha, from the turn of the last century). A newcomer, Kit, from the Great Depression looked promising. I just needed to sit back and wait for my daughter to age about seven years.

Another American Girl catalog arrived today. I almost threw it into the recycling without looking at it since the historical dolls really don't change that much and since Anna is still only 15 months old. Steve was washing the kitchen floor, though, so I couldn't get to the recycling bin. I sat down and for once a modern doll--their "Girl of the Year"--caught my attention.

Her name is Lanie. She's cute. Blonde. Has the same inexplicable buck teeth as all the other American Girls. Likes nature. Has a pet bunny. And...

...she has her very own camper!

It has a shower, a pull-down bed, a sleeping bag, play food, and stickers so you can decorate the interior and exterior!

I decided that I had to get it for Anna. I could put it away for a year or two or eight until she was old enough.

Then I saw that it costs $295 and weighs 43 pounds, and I decided it could probably wait. If I can't find it a few years from now, I can always buy it off ebay...or maybe make one out of cardboard.

In the driver's seat

Six weeks after buying our truck, I finally drove it today. Here I am at the helm of the Canyonero:

The truck and I both handled it extremely well. The Canyonero was actually remarkably easy to drive. I kept checking to see how far my outer wheels were from the curb/lane markers/cars/bicyclists, and I always had plenty of room. ("Plenty" being a relative term, of course, when you're driving a vehicle practically double the width of many others on the road.)

I drove from our house to a Salvation Army collection center so we could get rid of some more stuff. That involved backing up toward the drop-off bay, which I accomplished marginally. I did not hit the car or people next to us, though I did get a little panicky about it.

Afterwards we went to Starbucks and I did a very good job parking. Not great, but very good. Granted, I got to pull through and had to deal with a car on only one side, but I didn't hit anything!

Then I drove home and parked on the curb, which involved backing up and not running into our other car. I did skim the curb once, but I straightened out and parked within a foot of our Pilot's front bumper. The back-up camera and parking assist get most the credit on that one.

Other than backing up at the Salvation Army, I was surprisingly relaxed the whole time. Even Steve commented that he wasn't as nervous as he thought he'd be. (Thanks, Sweetie!)

I still haven't handled it in tight situations--nor do I want to--but for easy drives and big parking spaces, I could get used to it.

Purging, Part 2 (clothing)

Yesterday I tackled a task I kept putting off: Getting rid of my clothes.

Our new wardrobe space will be decent by RV standards, but nowhere near as large as our already overflowing residential closet. Given space and weight concerns (even clothes get heavy when you have enough of them), we need to downsize greatly.

I'm not sure why I had been putting off this task. I'm no fashionista. My wardrobe consists mostly of Old Navy t-shirts and jeans, so it's not like I'm shedding pricey designer duds. I guess I mostly dreaded the task of clearing out the closet because cleaning is never really fun.

Rather than choose what to get rid of, I decided to choose what I'm keeping. (Same result, slightly different psychology.) I decided to allow myself five pieces of each type of clothing (long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts, etc.), and 10 pairs of socks and underwear. Shirts can be re-worn in a pinch. Underwear...not so much.

I emptied everything from the closet onto the bathroom floor and started sorting. (This is a great experiment to do with a curious 15-month-old.) (Note sarcasm.)

I found a few things I had forgotten about and decided to keep. I easily threw a ton of stuff--including some items I thought I really liked--onto the "donate" pile.

Within an hour, I had packed up six bags of clothes for the Salvation Army, and had significantly pared down my wardrobe. Here's what remains:

The final result:

• 5 long-sleeved shirts
• 6 short-sleeved shirts
• 4 tank tops
• 4 nursing tanks
• 3 pairs of jeans
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 2 pairs of capris
• 1 sweatshirt
• 1 blouse (just in case)
• 1 dress (just in case)
• (I still have to go through my pajamas, but that should only take a few minutes.)

Looking at that list, it still seems like a lot, or perhaps my sense of reality is skewed. If it turns out I don't need that many things, I can pare down more later.

At some point I'll reduce Elias's clothes, although I'll allot him more since he gets dirtier.

Anna will be allowed as many clothes as I want because they're small, and because I waited my whole life to dress a girl and I'm not going to let small closets ruin my dream. Plus we opted for the larger wardrobe in the kids' room in lieu of the outdoor kitchen, so I might as well take advantage.

Bureaucracy

In the state of California, if you're towing a trailer with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating less than 15,000 pounds, you need to take a simple 20-question written test for a trailer endorsement on your license.

Logic would dictate that if you're towing more than 15,000 pounds, you'd need to take a longer written test or maybe a simple driving test, right?

Hahahahahahahaha! If you said yes, you clearly don't know California.

No, if your trailer has a GVWR over 15,000 pounds, you need to get a non-commercial Class A license--essentially the same license big rig operators have.

That entails taking a written test to get a permit. Then, any time you tow your trailer, you need to have someone with a Class A license with you. Then you need to take your person and your trailer back to the DMV to do a rigorous driving, maneuverability, and safety test.

Our trailer has a GVWR of 15,500 pounds. If it were 500 pounds lighter, Steve would be done in about 10 minutes. Since it's 500 pounds heavier, we get to jump through a bunch of hoops. Don't get me wrong: I understand the need to have more stringent requirements for larger vehicles, but doesn't it seem like there should be some sort of middle-ground?

There are a lot of people out there with vehicles over 15,000 pounds who don't have a Class A license, either because they don't know they need one or because the DMV doesn't realize it. Steve has read stories about people going their entire RVing lives without the proper license and never running into trouble. He has also read about people losing their driving privileges because of it.

We're not ones to risk things when it comes to the law, so we're going by the book. Obviously this raises some questions about how, exactly, we get our trailer to California and what we do with it once we're here.

My suggestion was to drive it to the Arizona-California border and have someone with a Class A license meet us, then figure out the rest later. My contention was that if the states we're going through have no requirement for a special license, we're fine. Steve, on the other hand, contends that if we're driving with a California license, it needs to be a proper California license, regardless of the state we're in.

Rather than consult a lawyer, we have decided that the best course of action is for Steve to get his Class A before we leave. That will require borrowing a truck and fifth wheel, and also borrowing a person with Class A license to take to the test. Hopefully between friends and people in the fire department we'll be able to secure both. And hopefully he'll pass. (Thirty years of maneuvering fire trucks ought to pay off in this situation.)

Obviously other states come with their own quirks and frustrations, but it seems to be especially rampant here. Just one more reason we're not too upset about leaving California.

Road trip!

The dealership in San Diego quoted us an MSRP and a "best offer" that were both $10,000 higher than the dealership in Ohio. We have no idea how they came up with such an inflated MSRP given that we asked for the exact same options for a trailer coming from the exact same plant in Indiana. Even factoring in a couple thousand more for destination charges shouldn't result in that much of a difference.

Rather than negotiate with them, we went ahead and ordered from the dealer in Ohio. That's right: We have paid our deposit, and should be the owners of new wheel estate in just a few short weeks! Right now they're estimating the middle of August.

Now I get to start planning our road trip to Cincinnati. In case you're wondering, we don't have to go pick up the trailer. The dealer will deliver it to us, but we can get there ourselves for less. Plus we want to have them install the hitch on the truck, make sure everything lines up, and make sure the trailer is as we ordered it before we get it 3,000 miles away.

Driving that far with two little kids will be a challenge, but it will also give us all a taste of what we're in for.

Meanwhile, I have been cleaning the house all day so our real estate agent can come take pictures this weekend.

Quick Update

We have definitely decided on the Cedar Creek fifth wheel I talked about a couple weeks ago. We have secured financing and planned on ordering it last week, but a few minor glitches have arisen.

We are working with a dealer in Ohio because the dealership in San Diego was non-responsive. However, when the Ohio guy quoted us the price, he forgot to include an option we wanted. Once that was fixed, the price was higher than we would have liked, so we decided to give the San Diego people another chance to give us a quote. We should be hearing from them today, which means we will likely be ordering the trailer tomorrow (and possibly planning a road trip to Cincinnati, depending on the outcome).

In other news, we have been semi-displaced from our house the past few days while a crew works on fixing up some things that we should have done long ago. Our handyman has trimmed our eaves, painted the kitchen cabinets, touched up the baseboards, and is working on some repairs in our bathroom.

The place is looking so good, we might not even move! (Just kidding--although I do feel like I'm in an episode of "Designed to Sell" or whatever that show is where they make the house look so good that the current owners don't want to move.)

We continue to purge our belongings, though I was a bit hasty in throwing something away the other day. I was cleaning out a purse I haven't used since Anna was born (too small to hold the baby gear), and found a little green notebook I used to carry around to jot down book titles and to-do lists and whatnot. I flipped through the first few pages, didn't see anything I needed, and tossed it into the recycling bin.

A few days later I remembered what else was in that notebook: My record of Elias's reaction when we told him I was pregnant. I don't remember exactly how it went, but I remember it was really sweet. Hopefully the details will come back to me at some point so I can write them down in a more secure location.

Other than the notebook, though, I have no regrets about anything else we've sold/donated. It does, for the most part, continue to be an uplifting experience.