We bought an RV!
We have big news.
WE BOUGHT AN RV!
I cant believe I am typing this right now.
Life and God are wild. I never imagined as I was growing up, looking onto my future, that I would own an RV/travel trailer/ motor home/ rig, or whatever you call it. I honestly, just dont think that I thought about them that much because I wasnt around them much.
The first time we had ever talked about it was when my neighbors back in my hometown bought one back in… 2019??. My friend Meghan, showed me how incredible it really was. Later that day, I brought it up to Mike and he showed interest that maybe in the future we would get one. That was in 2018. In 2019, during Covid we would have loved to have an RV considering my health and the fact that we had to avoid all public places. We were sleeping on rotation or at the same time one in the front passenger seat and two (one human, one german shepherd) in the back on our travel mattress. (This travel mattress is one of our most used items and is something I consider and essential if you have a full cab, crew cab. Its linked below, literal life saver)At that time however, I don’t remember even discussing it and that simply could have been that we both understood that our financials were not going to be able to handle that.
In 2021, we had been traveling back and forth from Baton Rouge to our hometowns in illinois a ton. It was about a 10/12 hour trip depending on how we wanted to play it or how belle was riding. We could do it. Michael could do it but there is something about the constant hard highway bumps that cause so much pain. It hurts for me, and now its hurting for mike and we were getting to a point where we dreaded our road trips, we were miserable before, after and during, on top of there is way too much to pack because we miss everyone so we usually just had things to bring in general, during christmas mike has to pack the circus tent on the trailer for all our gifts, then we bring things up to visit and it all needs to stay waterproof and mostly theft proof. Easy, right?
When Mike was offered this job with Privia in Texas we had a good chunk of time to look for houses’ however, we started looking at the beginning of the market going rogue where each week things were getting more expensive, and less time on the housing sites. We were not having any luck and we began wondering if we were supposed to buy an RV and live in an RV? I have never dreamed of this life but we looked at a few and as we had really started leaning towards buying an RV, the house that God had prepared for us popped up and we knew that was the house for us. We moved in to our new house knowing that one day we want to get an RV but we were in a good place right then.
For the last year or so we have very seriously been discussing how to make our 14 hour trips home more manageable. We also needed to have the ability to get to the rest of my family in Michigan and Ohio. We also wanted to make it so when michael had to travel from here to Montana I can tag along and our entire family can be together. Finally, we love to travel and have wanted to be more mobile easier. It is exhausting traveling with chronic health issues because of all the things you need and remembering it all on top of everything else.
Obviously, our goal is to use the RV. Our goal when it comes to how we will use it is to use it to make our trips up to visit family a lot more manageable. When we travel we are usually prepping for a minimum of 14 hours and we need to be packed to handle that long of a trip, for both me and mike, we need to pack things for events we are attending, its a whole new level for christmas! Plus, we take both dogs so no room for anything in the cab besides the dogs. Mike would have to use the trailer and all these boxes and cover it in hopes of securing our items, keeping them from being stollen and finally, keeping things waterproof. It all was getting too much and the best plan was to look for a different situation and that is how we landed on the RV.
At this point, we had spent so much time praying on it and we knew what we wanted and would need. We went back to a RV store a few months ago, we saw an RV that would be the exact layout and design of the RV we would get. We tested it and decided with everything that our family has been dealing with, this would be the best thing we can do to make our trips a lot more manageable. We have so much to learn. We are so excited to learn too. We were blessed to be able to do three different stays just between first getting it and getting ready for our Easter Trip. We were able to make sure we identified any major kinks, any things we didn’t have, created a priority list, and we created a good safe routine of packing up and communicating so we are going to be able to truly use & benefit from our RV and boy did we!
