Establishing a routine and an acceptable new canine sleeping spot
Well, it is our last Monday in WA state for 97 days. Flower beds are cut back. We keep reminding both kids that we’ll be leaving on a huge trip in less than a week now. Major fridge & freezer cleanout going on, garage clean up, pantry clean up. Back to virtual school tomorrow. I hope I’m not alone in thinking that taking fall off from being mom AND teacher sounds amazing. There’s not much left to do except load day of stuff like pillows and stock the fridge and freezer at the end of the week. The cat, who is indoor/outdoor during daylight hours, probably doesn’t see her world change coming her way. Hopefully she doesn’t go crazy and dart out of the trailer somewhere in the middle of the US and we lose her!
Moved School to the trailer to get used to the space before we leave…
Well, this time next week we will be on the road en route to Idaho. There are wildfires burning in Eastern, WA which are closing down stretches of I-90. Fires from Oregon are blowing smoke and unhealthy air up to us, Mt Rainier is all blotted out on the horizon.
Kids are all packed, most of the bins are packed and labeled and stored. Animals are mostly all packed. Still having issues with our GPS tracking collar for the cat. Tech issues never cease to persist lately, it seems. The trailer is full of technology with 2 Hotspots, one router to create a HUB network inside the trailer to run to printer and apple TVs off. Wifi Antenna also installed – we are staying closer to cites v. the boondocks in order to keep a more solid, consistent WIFI/cellular so work and school can happen. Getting the house all buttoned up to leave for a bit.
Well, we are T-minus 7 days to departure. Today we finished truck mechanical prep everyone has all their clothing packed up in the trailer. We are worried about how the cat will adjust to the captivity of the trailer after being indoor/outdoor for the last year. Hoping she doesn’t jump ship somewhere in the middle of Arkansas or something! I feel like I have packed a billion disposable masks and gallons of hand sanitizer…
We’ve got ourselves a 100″ wide tow on this gal, 37.5′ long from tongue to back bumper, 10K lbs dry weight, 13, 300lbs gross vehicle weight, 14.2 gallons (60lbs) propane, 106 gallons fresh water capacity, 30 gallons of auxiliary fuel capacity (adds 114lbs weight). The list goes on and on. What’s my point? Every single little thing adds up to weight which adds up to worse gas mileage which costs more money. I’ve been packing, marinating whatever I just packed for a day and then likely unpacking some of it. There are A LOT of BIIIIIIGGGGGG hills and mountain passes for us on this trip and right here at the beginning especially. We’d like to be nice to our truck and our pocketbook at the same time.
Meet the 2017 Highland Ridge Toy Hauler, measuring 37.5 feet from back to tongue.
OMG I have to learn to tow this thing and maneuver it. My husband can tow and back trailers all day long without even a redo necessary but I just learned earlier this summer with our boat trailer. Wish me (and maybe him) luck!!
Now if you’re like most of our friends the burning question is how did this plan come into existence. Well, it started on a Friday night in August – the 14th I think. We had just gotten word that Kellan’s private school was going all virtual for the start of the school year. Our public school district was already all virtual for Eme. Tyler was at a guys night when I got the email update about the fall start of school. I can come up with some out of the blue ideas when left to my own devices (even when not left alone, let’s face it… I’m an out of the box sorta girl). I thought well, school at home in the spring was ROUGH, fall was going to be as bad if not worse and it seemed, to my brain, that it wouldn’t matter if we did home school at HOME or on a road trip getting to see the country a lot more than we have been able to in years past. Eme has slowly grown to hate camping outdoors and its not like we’re on a champagne budget for vacations otherwise.
Tyler and I have been together since late 1997 and we got a used boat a few years ago and this May we finally had time for him to teach me to pull the trailer and back the boat up. I can hear the collective gasps from spouses as you read this. We did pretty good – no fights, no damages, no one taking videos to post of me on YouTube…. Tyler is super patient, he has grown up towing everything and he also got his CDL with his first engineering job – the guy can maneuver a trailer in tow blindfolded, nearly. The boat is maybe 22/23 feet – so we spent the summer tag teaming our weekend boat trips with driving and docking. Why is it that one side is SOOOO much easier to back than another? I love driving large vehicles and towing makes driving so much more interesting. ANYWAY – I texted Tyler at his guys’ night and pitched (and I quote) “we should get a trailer – I’ll learn how to tow it so you can work on the road and I’ll drive for a few months”. Thus, the idea was born. 8 days later we moved mountains, learned an obscene amount of information about RV’s, trailers, towing, rv parks and backed a travel trailer in the driveway. I spent about 2 weeks from conception of the idea planning logistics for stops and drives through 20 states for 90 days covering 10K miles. 11 days after we first backed the trailer in our driveway we left bound for Idaho and the start of our trip.
I stressed myself into kidney stones from all the need to do’s from planning this trip. Yes, you can literally do this. I wouldn’t recommend it, the pain was awful and covid is a bad time to run to an ER so I suffered a lot while still scrambling to get ducks and stars aligned. Amazon was delivering until the morning of the day we left on the trip. We figured, whatever we needed along the way we could find. I had planned our first stop in Couer D’Alene figuring between CDA and Spokane we could find what we needed. Aside from the drive home from purchasing the trailer, neither of us drove the trailer until the morning of the day we left. In short, this was a fly by the seat of our pants trip and it was a ton of great memories and fun despite the massive amount of work it took to leave and be on the trip.
“We’d like to get away from it all in something that can take it all with us.”
Roaming Wheels 