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Saturday, August 5, 2017

Choosing our RV

When Christy first suggested the RV life I thought it was a pretty crazy idea. I had already been planning to transition to working full time for the company I started with a friend back in 2014 which meant working from home. Her reasoning was that if I could work from home, why couldn't I work from anywhere? My parents had a camper trailer when I was a kid that I have fond memories of but at the same time I couldn't imagine living in that thing all the time. People do that? I had no idea.

Nonetheless I tried to keep an open mind about it, figuring we would come to the conclusion that it wasn't really for us. Shortly after she came up with the idea Christy discovered there was an RV show in downtown Denver, not too far from where we lived at the time. Turns out that was incredibly good timing, as that was the only (or at least the last) show of the year in our area. I agreed to go. It seemed like a pretty small price to get this idea out of our system.

The more time we spent walking around and through RVs at the show, the more we could start to see how it might actually work for us. Going from being complete noobs about the various terms, we learned a lot that day! We pretty quickly zeroed in on what's known as a "Class C" RV. Here's a breakdown of the different motorhome types:

Class As are the large, bus-like RVs with the flat front ends:


Class Bs are the smallest of the 3 types and are based on a van chassis:

Class Cs are in-between and based on a truck chassis like the F-450:

The class C seemed like plenty of room for our family of 3 and offered a good balance of living space and maneuverability.

There are also 2 types of tow-behind RVs known as fifth-wheels and travel trailers, but for various reasons we had our hearts set on a motorhome and didn't really spend any time looking at those.

We wrote out our wishlist of features for our new home which included:

  • An over-the-cab bed for Lorelei (she was really excited about these after seeing them at the show)
  • A full size residential refrigerator. Many RVs have a smaller fridge that runs off of either propane or electricity. While it is an advantage to be able to run these without electricity, they are smaller, don't have ice makers, and are much slower to cool down.
  • A washer / dryer. We have a hard enough time keeping up with laundry as it is without the added hassle of lugging piles of clothes to and from campground laundromats constantly. I can imagine us giving up on this endeavor pretty quickly under those conditions so this was a "must have" for us.
  • A work space for me. As a software developer I spend a lot of time sitting in front of the computer and to work effectively I need a nice pair of wide-screen monitors, a full-size keyboard, and a mouse. I can work for short periods on a laptop but it feels like I have 1 hand tied behind my back the whole time. We thought about just setting up my work space on the dinette but that would mean breaking it down frequently for meals and travel, plus it left no space for Lorelei's school work and projects. I needed a desk!
As we began to look for a floor plan that met all our needs we discovered that due to space and weight constraints, there were very few class Cs that offered a washer / dryer. Of the ones that did, exactly zero had a good spot to put a desk. Despite the trepidation over driving something so large, we realized we would have to move up to a class A if we wanted all those features.

After lots of research, we decided the Forest River Georgetown 364TS was one of the only models that would check all the boxes:
The "bunk beds" area in the middle we figured would be a good spot for my desk so we ripped those out and installed one. I'll do a post on that process later. The refrigerator shows a pantry beside it but that's only if you choose the RV fridge option. If you get the residential option (as we did) then the pantry space is used up by the fridge.

This model also happened to have 2 full bathrooms which is pretty rare. We really like having 2 toilets and bathroom sinks, but honestly having 2 showers is kind of silly. There's not enough water pressure or hot water for 2 people to shower at the same time.

We placed our order for a new unit on April 12, 2016 from RV One Superstores. They had the best prices of anywhere that we could find. The only catch is that you have to make your way out to one of their locations to pick it up: NY, FL, or Des Moines, Iowa. We opted for Des Moines as it was in reasonable driving distance from Denver. The RV was actually ready a little sooner, but we ended up picking it up on July 15.

We have been pretty happy with our decision. There are trade-offs with any RV you pick but I think we made the right decision for our family of 3. Now that that is set to increase to 4 later this year we will have to see how long we keep making this work!

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Hanging with friends on Long Island

Lorelei and Melody sea kayaking at Greenport Beach
We have been in New York for a little over 3 weeks now.  I'm loving that we are getting to see a variety of what the state has to offer.  We started out on Long Island.  I wanted to head there to visit with my friend Marianne whom I met in Las Vegas when Lorelei was a baby.  Her son Dylan is about a week older than Lorelei and they get along great.  He taught her how to sea kayak and paddled her around on his Mom's paddleboard.  Dylan and Melody (his little sister) got to have 2 slumber party nights with Lorelei in the RV.  I think the kids had a fantastic time together and Lorelei has already started planning what she wants to do with them the next time she sees them.
Lorelei and Addison

In addition to hanging out with Dylan and Melody, Lorelei also made some really good friends at Eastern Long Island Kampground who she is hoping to see again in the future.   I didn't end up taking any pictures of her with her new friends but her friend Addison's Dad texted me one with the 2 of them together so at least I have one of them, thanks to him!  I need to make an effort to take more pictures of Lorelei with her friends.

Movie time before bed 

Video game silliness

Paddleboarding at Meschutt Beach

Sea Kayaking at Meschutt Beach


Saturday night dance party at Eastern Long Island Kampground
Lorelei eventually let Dylan have a turn

Drone spotting
Lorelei taught Dylan how to fly the drone

A Lott on the road... with friends!

Blueberry Picking


Blueberry Eyes

Today, Lorelei and I visited Kelder's Farm and picked blueberries, tomatoes, and a cucumber. We had to cut our visit short because of a thunderstorm but I think Lorelei enjoyed it a lot more than she thought she would.  She was a bit reluctant to go but once we started picking she didn't want to leave and now she wants to go back another day to pick raspberries.  The farm is just around the corner from our campground so hopefully we can make it over again before we leave in a few days.





















Our farm loot.  We picked up a few peaches and golden plums from the
market, as well as 3 ears of corn to throw on the grill!

We are hiding inside our house on wheels right now, waiting for this thunderstorm to pass. Perhaps I can get a few blog posts knocked out... David noticed last night that I have 8 unfinished posts. It will be a minor miracle if I am actually able to publish this one today since I never seem to start and finish one on the same day.

It's kind of blah out... I'm glad we were able to
make it out to the farm before the storm hit!