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.