Update (with a side of guilt)

OK, so this is why I shouldn't blog... Over a year since my last post!  Wow, how life has changed.  I want to do it... I think about it ALL THE TIME!  But then, Life happens and I put it off for one reason or another.
So, this is going to be a quick and breezy blog post and I am going to give it another go.  =)

We've been doing this crazy RV thing for almost 2 years!  As a matter of fact, we've been RV owners for over 2 years now!  We said we'd do it for 1-2 years and re-evaluate.  Well, we have re-evaluated and want to keep going with no end date.  As a matter of fact, we love our traveling life so much we are going to build a custom 5th wheel to fit our family perfectly (perhaps with a little room to grow)!  I thought for sure that 1-2 years would be plenty of time to see the whole country.  Boy, was I WRONG!  Since we started our official journey we've been to Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, Washington DC, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska.  That's barely half of the country!  Just about every place we've visited I've felt like I didn't get to see enough... clearly this journey is going to last a lifetime!

In case you didn't know, our big change is the new addition to our family, Linnea.  She is 10 months old and full of personality and spunk.  She is a great little traveler and does pretty darn good entertaining herself (i.e. tearing up rolls of toilet paper, playing in the dog bowl, and eating rocks).  She's one of those little ones where you definitely start to worry when things start getting a little quiet!

We are currently on the Oregon coast (which is my new favorite place, BTW) and we will soon be heading east to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.  On our way there, we will make a pit stop in the Southeast to go to THREE weddings (yes, we already had our funeral for the year so if anyone wants to plan one more wedding perhaps we could make a movie).  If you don't think that makes sense for a pit stop, you are right, so we are doing this pit stop by airplane!

OK, that's my brief update.  I want to write a million more things but I am going to try to make it to bed before tomorrow!!!!!!!!!

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!

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!