Flag located beside our motorhome

The time is drawing near.  The long wait is about over.  We are in the final stretch.  In 4 days we will be leaving the Asheville area with hopes of not having to return until around December.

Over the past week we have spent continuing to finish up details with our personal stuff and office.  This past Saturday I sold my Nissan Titan truck to a guy that lived outside of Washington, DC.  Last Friday night we met with the nice couple that is purchasing our home.  The scheduled closing date is June 3rd. YEAHH!!  We have finished all the repairs that were needed and everyone appears to be happy.  We have spent this holiday weekend going through everything in the motorhome to make sure we have what we need and get rid of things we don’t.

The next couple days are full of school activities.  We have field trips and class parties every day.  Wednesday afternoon we are inviting all the kids in Zachary and Carson’s class to the local park for a Pizza party.  Kind of a farewell party.  We are planning Thursday to be our last day going to our office.

Our plans for now are to leave this Friday after the awards ceremonies at school.  This should be around 12:00 or so.  We will drive to my moms were we will leave Saturday for a week at Myrtle Beach.  We will not carry the motorhome with us as we have a condo rented:)  We do this trip every year with mom.

After the Myrtle Beach trip we are still not sure were we are going first.  We may drive straight up to Washington, DC or we may head up the coast through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel up into Delaware (assuming you can take a motorhome in the tunnel).  We are trying to hit each state so we have to plan the best path so we don’t do a lot of backtracking. Some of our first stops will be Washington DC, Gettysburg PA and Lancaster PA.  We have no idea after that other than we will continue to head north.

Once we hit the road we will start posting to our blog more often with what we are doing and pictures from the road.  Please be sure to subscribe to our blog to follow our adventures.

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After a lot of research we discovered that the Saturn Vue is one of the most popular tow vehicles because it is lightweight, 4 door and all wheel drive.  We found an 06 Saturn Vue at the local Toyota dealer and decided to purchase it.  I have not owned a car this small in a long time so it takes a little getting use too.  But I will say it is pretty fun to drive cause it is so small and very powerfull.

We are now working on getting the Toad installed with a base plate to attach to the tow bar behind the motorhome.  We are scheduled to have that installed Monday morning.

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We now only have one car to drive which is my 2004 Nissan Titan.  We will eventually sell this truck as well.  But for now, we need to get another car to tow behind the motorhome. We hope to get something within the next couple weeks.

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So this past Saturday we brought home our 2007 Holiday Rambler Ambassador (made by Monaco).  It is a 40′ diseal pusher with 3 slides.  One of the slides is a full wall slide which gives a larger amount of living space in the coach.  We chose this motorhome for several reasons.  One good feature is that it has a bath and a half.  This will make the waiting in line for a toilet not a problem.  It also has a pretty large storage area under the motorhome for carrying all our stuff.  When looking for a motorhome you need to decide between gas or diesel.  We chose diesel because it is a little better on fuel, has more power and gives a better ride.

Now that we have decided and purchased our motorhome we have now got to get a “toad” to pull behind it.  We are looking a small SUV like the Saturn Vue or Honda CR-V.  We are leaning towards the Saturn because it is less expensive.  We hope to have this within the next week or so since we are suppose to be selling our Toyota van tomorrow which will leave us with one car.

Below I have posted some pictures.  Be sure to subscribe to our blog through our RSS feed or  Subscribe via Email.

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The beginning of this month we really started researching the type of RV we would need to live in.  Not all RV’s are created equal.  There are cheap ones that are good for a few weekends a year and there are good ones that are built for full-time living.  Since we planned to live in this unit for an extended time it had to be build with good quality.  So things like insulation, cabinet quality, heated tanks, durable structure, storage, tank size, and other key features are very important.

Fifth Wheel vs Motorhome

Our original thought was that we would purchase a 5th wheel camper and a large F350 truck.  This is the least expensive option of the two.  Many families live in 5th wheels while traveling since it is less expensive than a motorhome and often offers different floor plans that you can not get in a motorhome.  One really nice feature of a 5th wheel is the ability to get a kids room with bunks.  This way you can send the kids to their room when they get on your nerves.  Fifth wheels are good if you are going to stay in the same place for several weeks or months.  If you are going to be traveling more often then typically a motorhome is a better option.

A motorhome is simply more convenient.  The kids can move around the motorhome during travel and it is easier to setup/breakdown at campsites.  Want to have lunch, just pull over on the side of the road and cook a full meal.  Arrive at your campsite in the pouring rain, just flip on the generator and stay inside.  While motorhomes are more expensive it can make the travel a little nicer.

What to Buy

The decision on what to do has been very tough.  We have gone back and fourth for a while now.  The good thing is that with the poor economy RV dealers are suffering and must sell units.  Pricing on RV’s is as low as it has ever been and this is the best time to buy.  There are some really great deals out there for those that shop around.  Most important for us is getting a RV that will be comfortable and meet the needs of our family for an extended time.

The Decision

We hope to have a final decision within the next week.  When this is purchased then everything starts to jump into high gear.

The Next Step

After the RV is purchased we then need to get our house on the Rental market.  We have decided not to sell our home as the market is terrible and we feel we can get more for it in a couple years.  We also need to sell our Van and Truck since neither of these will work for us.  We actually hope to be out of our house by March/April to start getting rental income to offset the cost of the RV and pay the mortgage.

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Business Organization

The biggest challenge we have in the next 5 months is getting our business to run without us being physically present.  We feel that we can run things pretty well remotely but we have never done it for more than about 2 weeks at a time.  We are however, very fortunate to have good employees that I hope will pull together to make things go smoothly.  We will work on procedures and training to hopefully make things go “as planned”. I have thoughts of Murphy’s Law in my head:)

Sell or Rent?  That is the Question

We have been in our house for over 5 years now.  We like the house and it is the perfect size.  But, we don’t want to deal with it (or pay for it) while we are gone.  Therefore, we need to either sell it or rent it (through a property management company).  We have spent an enormous amount of time trying to get it ready.  We need to decide in the next week to get one of the two options in motion.

Sell Old Camper and Purchase New One

Our current 29′ camper just is not going to be big enough for our travels.  So we are on the hunt for a different one.  Our plans are to go with a 5th Wheel around 34′ to 38′ long.  We have decided to find a bunk model to give the kids their own room.  A second bathroom and washer/dryer hookups are also high on the list.  There are so many models out there that finding the right one is very time consuming.  We will most likely go with something around 1-3 years old. FYI, RV’s loose 50% of their value in the first 5 years so buying new is usually not a great idea.

Sell Old Truck and Purchase New One

Our current Nissan Titan will not pull a large 5th wheel camper.  So we are looking at much larger trucks like the Ford F350 which can tow around 15,000 lbs.  Once again we will be looking a truck a few years old.

What Goes and What Stays

We have probably removed at least 30%-40% of the stuff in our home (excluding furniture).  We will need to daily make decisions of what is really needed and what is not.  Only things that get used daily or weekly will be able to go with us.  Everything else must go!

Roadschooling Preparation

Homeschooling on the road is called “Roadschooling” if you did not already know.  So we will be working to get our curriculum together for next years schooling.  We home schooled Zachary for his Kindergarten year so we know some about the homeschooling process.

These are just a few of the things we have to tackle in the next 5 months.  If you have any ideas or comments that may help us please post them below.  Wish us luck!!

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My wife is very supportive but I knew it wasn’t going to be very easy since a lot of this stuff was hers or things that she has not wanted to get rid of.  Probably the biggest is old baby stuff.  I think she would like to hang on to the old baby clothes and toys in an attempt to keep the memory of the kids being babies.  But I have spent a lot of time trying to convience her that we need to make new memories and this stuff was just stuff.  I told her that if it really meant a lot to her then we can “take a picture” of it and then she could enjoy it whenever she wanted.  I will admit, I got the “evil” eye when I said that.

So over a period of a week or so we spent several days home taking a first pass through the house and getting rid of everything we haven’t used in a year or so.  It is absolutely amazing how things pile up.  We had stuff that I could not believe we had and could not remember why we purchased.  As we got going I was very proud of my wife as she was doing very well and getting rid of things I never thought she would.  She even put a large dent in the baby stuff we had been keeping.

The first pass of our home has led to over 5 truck loads of stuff which we moved to our warehouse for sale or donations.  It feels so good to clean out and I know this will save us a lot of time later when we get closer to possibly selling the house.

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Please stick around as we try to document the ups and downs of planning and executing change in our lives.

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