Author: Summer

It’s been a while, but we have been busy! We stopped over in a great city park called Chickasaobgue Park in 8 Mile, AL. We were able to check out the USS Alabama (battleship) and the USS Drum (diesel submarine). Everyone really loved it.

Then we had a long stop over in New Orleans where we got to see family for the first time since we left just in time for David’s birthday! We spent several days shopping and eating our way through the French Quarter and learning so many amazing things about history at the WWII museum. You should absolutely check it out if you’re in the area! Lex and Mom really enjoyed a nighttime walking ghost tour of NOLA, and overall LA was a great place to spend a few weeks before heading on.

We are loving it in Texas! The kids have fallen in love with all things cowboy somehow and both got new boots, hats, and belts with flashy buckles. Dad found a dude ranch in Bandera to stay for a week soon, so they talked Mom into getting some boots too so she can ride horses with them at the ranch. There is so much to do and see (and eat!) here. One of the most impressive things is how easy it is to get around. We have been staying just outside of Houston, and one of the ways they set the road up is there are service roads that run parallel to I-45 on either side. You just hop on and off the service roads to get wherever you need to go. Traffic keeps moving, things are easy to find, and it’s not so overwhelming driving in a larger city. Did I mention how good the food is down here? Mexican food has always been a favorite, but TexMex and Texas BBQ are huge hits. Both kids voted Texas BBQ better than NC BBQ and Dad may have threatened to disown them haha!

Dad made the trip back to NC for the Azalea Festival for a few days, so Mom got a chance to wing it on her own with two kiddos and the zoo. Somehow she survived and Dad brought back all of the mail and packages we’ve been shipping back to NC for Nana to gather up for us. The community along the way has been really great! We just left a Thousand Trails park and even though it wasn’t as populated as the FL ones were, we met some more great people who pitched in when we needed help in a pinch, and Dad helped a fellow RV’er out by turning off his water while he was out when we noticed his trailer was leaking. It takes a village and we are still finding ours ever-expanding.

One fun experience we were able to finally get to is a Buc-ee’s. If you haven’t heard of them, it’s a HUGE convenience store down here in TX where you can basically get anything you could possibly need. Mom described it as “if a truck stop and a cracker barrel had a baby that wanted to grow up and own a bass pro shop”. They have everything a truck stop has, plus great gifts and home decor, fishing tackle, dessert shop, fresh sliced BBQ and brisket, smokers, deer corn, etc. You have to just experience it to really understand it.

You read that right. It’s been an entire month of tiny living. So far we have been bouncing around FL and it has been such a great experience for the kids. Finding your community along the way is one of the most important and fulfilling things you can do. One of the major complaints that we have heard from people who are living on the road is how easy it can be to become lonely. If you’ve been following along, you may have noticed that we haven’t experienced that at all so far. Quite the opposite!

We don’t go on many family vacations, so we have basically treated our time in Orlando as a vacation a bit to help break the kids in. They have had a blast at Disney Hollywood Studios and Universal Studios for all that Harry Potter has to offer. (side note: hot butterbeer is a delicious latte, cold butterbeer was just gross). They’ve eaten milkshakes as big as their head and experienced thunderstorms inside during dinner. Overall, I think they don’t mind being so far away from ‘home’. Even with all of that, I think what they have enjoyed the most is the friends they have already made along the way.

When we left TTO and the B field (kid playtime heaven for anyone heading to that park), we stopped temporarily at a smaller campground down the road that finally had real internet (aka fast enough to actually stream) for a week. Turns out, we overlapped there with a family we had already met so the kids got playground and more dinner times with them. Thanks to technology these days, Kids Messenger and Roblox will help them stay connected. On Tuesday we moved on to another Thousand Trails Park that is full of other full-time families. Even though it’s almost 2 hours away, it has turned into a mini TTO reunion with 3 of the families we have really gotten to know in the last month. Seeing familiar faces and hearing the kids squeal as they run to see their friends again has been one of my favorite things to witness. Mom and Dad got to see adult friends too so we’ve barely had a chance to remember we’re supposed to be ‘lonely’, right?

Even though we may have only crossed paths for a night or in some lucky cases just over a week, the community that builds so quickly in full-time living has been truly amazing. Drew was able to get a haircut from a traveling barber at TTO and David will get one this week. Need a tool to fix the closet rod? Our neighbor had exactly what we needed. When we pulled into this campground and got a site we weren’t thrilled with, a friend we met previously let us know a river site opened up next to them, we got the chance to jump on that, and now the kids have spent every day in the river collecting shark teeth with their friends having the time of their life and even hosting another outdoor movie.

I mean, come on. Look at this view!

(pro-tip: get a Fulltime Families membership and join the group campground chats. Such an easy way to connect and get information and meet people. I don’t know what we would have done without them! ) So many nights around the fire hearing fascinating stories about other people’s lives have really shown us what ‘community’ means. It’s more than people who just happen to live near one another, it’s a common thread that ties us all together.

It really does take a village, ours just happens to be on wheels.

So we’ve been at this road life for about two weeks and we’re already finding a few things that are working fine and a few that are not working at all. We know it will be a constant learning experience with this many living things in a tiny space, but it can be done!

WIN: One major thing that has really worked out well is the pop up dog kennel. At the house, all 3 dogs had their own wire kennels to sleep at night or when we’re gone. We knew we wouldn’t have room for that on the camper so we looked for a new solution. I may have mentioned it before, but we settled on a soft-sided pop up play pen structure. We put a washable potty pad along the bottom just in case (the dogs are all elderly and have varying grasps on their bladders), put in a no spill water bowl and a big cushion dog bed. They go right in and can still move around and go right back to sleep! During the day it folds up and tucks neatly between the couch and the wall and they can still use the dog bed to lay around. (BONUS: due to the dogs’ potty issues, these dog diaper bands and the on board washer/dryer have been a life saver ! Throw them in the wash with a squirt of this stuff and it helps keep the small space from smelling like one big bathroom and we have less stress letting the dogs roam around. I don’t think we could have brought them along without either of them.)

Fail: In a short period of time we have already gone through the kids’ stuff at least twice to pare it down even more. Even so, there was still way more than we comfortably had room for them to keep. After tripping over several of them for a week at the Orlando KOA, we decided something was going to have to change. Thanks to Less Junk < More Journey’s latest video, the kids’ saw the storage they used in their midbunk and wanted some cubes of their own. We talked about it and ultimately decided that the chances of needing the sleeper sofa in David’s room were a lot smaller than the need to be able to actually organize and move around. We are living in here after all, so as soon as we rolled into Thousand Trails Orlando, another full time family met us at our site and graciously took the couch to its new home down the street. We picked up two sets of 6 cube shelves, and these cute wood front cube baskets and voila! With 2 beanbags thrown in for the kids to sit and watch tv, you can actually move around in there again with the added bonus of getting mom’s set of plastic craft/exercise filled drawers from the side of her bed and tucked into the corner by the cubes. The kids love it because now they can keep their stuff together and have an actual hangout place. For now, the main couch is still a queen sofa, but they may eventually disappear too and be replaced with a Home Reserve storage couch. Only time will tell.

As I’ve said before, we have been camping in a travel trailer for a handful of years now. Overall, no complaints from those units. We were very lucky to have the ability to do the research ahead of time and pick units that met our needs at the time. Now that we have the fifth wheel here, we have had a parade of family and friends walking through it and marveling over features they didn’t know where possible in a camper. “It’s so big!” “I would be so afraid to pull this thing” “Am I going to be spoiled now if I walk into another camper?” All of these things have gone through our own minds over the years. There is always a bigger unit, a fancier trim, or a different layout that is ‘brand new this year’. That’s just the way businesses have to progress and stay alive/profitable. Once we started telling people what we were doing, I was constantly surprised by just how many responses were “How cool! I’ve always wanted to do that!” or “I’ve been wanted to getting a camper for awhile now, what’s the difference between them?”.

Our sample size is obviously small and Andrew has done so much more research on this topic than I could never dream to do, but from the perspective of someone who has been along for the ride until now and knows the very basics, I know just enough to be dangerous. Andrew can tell you all about gross vehicle weight, axles, what types of slide tracks you want, and other specific details you want to drill down into. BUT. If you’re not looking for that kind technical information and just want a starting point to dip your toe in, I’m your gal!

Budget: Budget is a huge piece of all of this. Everything has a cost from style, age, tow ability, features, etc. Do you already drive a truck? Do you have the means to upgrade your vehicle? Before you even look into what your lifestyle is, it is important to understand what your basic capabilities are. For example, you may be driving a Jeep. A Jeep obviously isn’t able to pull a fifth wheel, so you are limited to travel trailers and smaller. Travel trailers come in all sizes too. The more real estate, the more weight. If you want a bunk room for the kids, the Jeep isn’t going to pull it safely. There are a ton of options at any weight, but knowing what your limitations are from the start are majorly important. From the first trailer we had, we have gone up in truck size from an F150 to a 250, and now to a 450 dually. I am not comfortable driving the 450 at all (and let’s be honest, I hated driving the 250) so if it were just me, we would have stopped at the F150 and stuck with lighter trailers.

Lifestyle: Lifestyle is another incredibly important thing to consider. What is your comfort level? I didn’t grow up as a scout. I don’t sleep in tents on the ground if I don’t have to. I ABSOLUTELY do not pee outside. From the start, this meant I was only agreeing to a more involved trailer that came with a bathroom. Yes, I know that’s fairly high maintenance but it’s also a personal choice. Some people love to be outdoors and are perfectly happy in a tent. If that’s the case for you, there are so many options! You can look into pop ups, A-frames or tear drop units that have a place to sleep on a mattress of sorts, store your stuff, and even cook without having to build a campfire every time. For us, we were a family of 4 with young kids and a picky wife. Minimalist wasn’t going to work for us, so we knew we had to look at travel trailers. Another part of lifestyle is time. How often are you thinking of going? How much do you want to pay to park your unit? (budget sneaks back in here. Per night costs depends on location and amenities that you want from a place to park). If you’re a ‘weekend warrior’, then you may be able to have much less space than you think, because the idea is that you’re not actually inside it all that often unless the weather is bad. You don’t need that giant living room, you have the whole outside. You don’t need a huge dresser space, you only need 2 changes of clothes. These sorts of considerations play into size of unit too. Don’t take our word for it. You will never understand until you’re actually standing in a unit. I would say never buy one until you’ve been inside a few. Go to rv shows or walk around lots and browse. You’ll know as soon as you step inside a layout whether you could live with it or not. Trust me, you’ll be surprised. (Pro tip thrown in for free: go rent a camper. Yes, you can do that. See if you even like it before you invest time and money)

What these meant for us: Since we will be living in it full time with 5 pets (God help us, I know) and 2 kids, we knew we had to have all the comforts of what we expect from a home which meant space to move around. Space for school and work, and frankly to get away from each other just a bit. This meant we needed as much real estate as we could get. I didn’t want to tow a vehicle or have to pack up everytime we needed to go to Walmart. Drew didn’t want the extra needs an engine in a motorhome would need, so a fifth wheel was the natural selection for us. The bunkhouse travel trailer we had was very large in terms of campers, but it only had a loveseat in the living room and a loveseat in the bunkroom. There are 4 of us. For all of us to sit down and spend time together, we had to either be at the table or split up in different rooms, or outside. To split the kids up at night, we could have used the couch as a bed. This wasn’t going to work for an everyday long term option for us and our lifestyle. The kids needed their own space, but we also wanted a family space.

So we settled on looking at fifth wheels. They do not come cheap. We have been fortunate enough to buy brand-new for the last two units. This was not going to be an option straight out of the gate if we were going bigger. Having been doing this a few years, we had learned that new didn’t mean better all the time. Everything is going to break at some point. New. Used. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to have the same problems no matter what, and with the ability to remodel these days, preowned was a no-brainer. That’s where watching rvtrader.com like a hawk came into play. We were also going to have to upgrade in truck size to the dually to pull it off. This was yet another cost at the same time that would be significant.

Letting go of the house has been my biggest fear of this whole process. We recognize how extraordinarily blessed we are that we have options. We also recognized that the way we were living was also not doing us any favors. Working all the time, all the ‘stuff’ that just gathers around us, meticulous financial jenga to keep up with it all. Enough was enough. With the entire world in a state of spinning upset on a daily basis, we wanted the chance to just hit the reset button. A few less bills we have to worry about. That sounds amazing right? Remember how I’m a type A planner? It’s terrifying to not have that back up plan I’m used to. We’re not just throwing some dropcloths over furniture and locking the door. To accomplish the reset we really want and doing it with enough financial stability and mental health capability, we knew we had to make huge sacrifices. We could keep the house and go smaller in the unit. Weighing pros and cons, it just didn’t make sense for us. The stresses would only compound and that defeats the purpose.

All of this to say: it takes time. Do your research. Make your choices. It isn’t easy. You’re going to make decisions you regret or turn out a bit differently than you imagined. (Man I HATED the shower in our travel trailer. It wasn’t worth it for me long term). It’s okay to grieve a bit over the changes, but change is hard. Change is scary. You just have to keep reminding yourself, for every ‘thing’ that goes in that dumpster or into the car of someone else, you get to replace it with a priceless memory. It’s just stuff. It’s just stuff. It’s just stuff. If I say it enough, I’ll make it through this. I know I will. You will too. We’re all in this thing called life together. Find your community. For this phase of our life it’s FullTime Families. Maybe we do this a year, maybe we do it five? I can always buy a couch in 5 years. I can go to 10 more booksales. I can always go to Target if I just can’t do without that thing after all. I can’t redo the years of my kids life before they realize just how uncool their parents are.

One thing that always gets mentioned by those who have hit the road, but yet conveniently never captured, is just exactly how hard it is to downsize. There are many who have romanticized leaving everything behind and chasing adventure. This is a fine take, but it leaves out a glaring hole in every story: the leaving behind. Hi, my name is Summer and I am a packrat. I’m not a hoarder, but I do tend to attach sentimental value to random items like that tshirt I wore to play backyard football in highschool 20 years ago (yes, Icebox still lives, thanks. Go Mongeese! and yes, I still have the final BFE trophy back home in VA. Don’t ask.) I have a set of books my grandparents gave me as a child in ’91. Or just maybe I still have that nail polish I’ve worn once a few years ago and hey, it hasn’t dried out yet and maybe I’ll wear it again? Okay, okay. It can go, no big deal.

When we first starting talking about this decision, my underlying anxiety buzz that usually sits at a simmer these days blew into a full-blown boil over the first time Drew said those hateful, hateful words “you can’t take all of these books” and “when are you going to go through your closet?”

How dare?!

If you know me personally, you know that I read as if I am breathing. I tend to read between 100-150 books a year and until about 2 years ago I refused to get a kindle because I’m old school and prefer physical books so I can skim back to info or know how far along I am. Library book sales are like the 2nd and 3rd coming of Christmas every year. Thus, I had a lot of books. Drew attempted to compromise and allowed for space in storage for 15 boxes of books. You read that right. 15. Not enough, right? RIGHT? He kindly reminded me that he would never say a word to me about how many books I put on my kindle so why not just get the ebook for whatever I wanted to read and keep those that were actually important (like all of my signed copies). Okay, fine. I didn’t like it, but I ripped the band aid and managed to create 5 book boxes. I may or may not have entered a state of mourning for a few days as I saw 4 armloads of books that remained walk out my door to their new homes. (I love my dear friends who all reminded me that if I want them back that I know where they will be because, hey, that’s what makes them such great friends y’all.) Drew boxed up the rest to donate and it’s about 8 boxes? I refuse to watch again to count. It hurts, but I can replace those on Kindle. Or at another library book sale.

and then.

The main reason we built this house was that it came with 2 closets in the master, mine being half the size of the garage. That’s not an exaggeration. This has allowed me to accumulate a myriad of items from formal dresses, shelves of t-shirts, boxes of pictures, scarves upon scarves upon scarves, a box of purses and bags/totes of all sizes, no less than 20 jackets of varying weights and fabrics, not to mention shoes for every occasion. (Do NOT let Drew lie to you, he has more shoes than I do.) Just thinking about it now makes me start to itch. I am fully prepared to spend the afternoon in tears as I try on all of the clothes I know good and well will not still fit and agonize over which of the 4 Auburn jackets I want to take (this is my blog so you don’t get to judge me. They’re all different types and we’re SEC fans. As they say, “Nuff, said”).

How do you possibly choose? How do I possibly whittle down 8 yrs of closet allotment into 4ft? Can it be done? Can it be done fully sober? This is only partially in jest. It’s not until you have to start physically parting with your stuff that you realize just exactly what you’re leaving behind. It’s not just stuff, it’s a lifestyle. It’s convenience. It’s laziness, frankly. It’s avoidance, because you can. It’s comfort. It’s a tether we create of our own making and cutting that cord can physically hurt. I told you. I’m a planner. What if I NEED something in there? Why should I waste the money to replace it if I already own it?

I promise I’ll get there. It is surmountable to be certain. But. Anyone who tells you this part is easy? Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Does anyone remember the TLC show back in the day called “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”? I remember watching that show and not caring so much about the over-the-top extravagant weddings. My real concern was all of these people living in campers. There were several times I turned to Drew and made him watch a portion I rewound to show their living arrangements, specifically saying “there is no way I could ever do that”. At the time, we had never even been camping. It was 2010, we were fresh out of law school and living at the beach. Fast forward to 2014, we now have two kids and started camping a few weekends in a travel trailer because this momma doesn’t sleep on the ground or without access to a shower. I fully admit that I put the “Glam” in glamping. We traded up in size pretty quickly to a travel trailer with a bunkhouse, because it doesn’t take long to have kids stuff exploding everywhere. In my head I’m thinking “we’re on vacation, we need to just shut a door on their mess because I’m not dealing with it”. It was a good thing we did, because soon Drew was working out of town for weeks on end and ended up living in it instead of hotel hopping. He came home and talked about how much he actually enjoyed it. Again, I said, ‘No thanks’. He started watching a lot more youtube channels instead of cable channels, and suddenly “Keep your Daydream” and “Less Junk < More Journey” become household viewing standards. Drew and the kids are fascinated with their travels around the country. Me? not so much. If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m not real big on change or travel in general. I’ll go, but I’m going to overpack to get there.

A couple of years later and we are taking longer and longer trips. Fall break 2019 found us in Atlanta for a week and change before moving on down to Auburn, AL to take the kids to their first Braves and Auburn football game. Little did we know that was one of the last trips we’d get to take for a while. Covid hit before we really had a chance to even de-winterize the camper and suddenly we’re stuck inside. I’ve been WFH for a few years now and it has gotten quite a bit more crowded around my office these days. Even for a homebody like me, it was starting to be a little much and I was itching to just do something. A childhood friend mentioned he was meeting his family at a campground a few hours from here and so I immediately latched on to the invite and booked us last minute for the weekend. It felt good to just get out. A few weeks later, we got word that the kids wouldn’t be going back to school in the fall either. At this point, courts are closed. Schools are closed. I’m still WFH, so nothing changed there thankfully. Again, I’m getting restless to get out of this house even if it means taking the camper somewhere and having to do all that packing again. Because it’s August/Sept and the South, we opted to chase a little bit of a break in humidity.

That’s how we found ourselves for almost three weeks in TN “trying out longer trips”. Drew was doing school with the kids, I was still working full time, but if they are online why not online somewhere they can do other things? All the while, Drew is dropping more and more hints that he wants to do this full time and I just roll my eyes. I tell him, “let’s just see how several weeks go first,” thinking that there is no way this is going to work. About a week in and we’re in a routine and I start to notice that longer is actually easier. I can put stuff away and not feel like it’s a waste of time because I’m about to move it back out. I do some work outside because it’s not the surface of the sun in the mountains. I can get back to running again because I don’t have to wade through the air up there. Drew has now added even more youtube channels onto his list and the kids know their kids by name now. By the time we are set to leave, we aren’t really ready to leave. Drew and the kids start playing the “but what IF we do this full time, what would it take” game. “Wouldn’t it be cool if the kids are doing homework about rocks in the morning and then can walk outside and step into the Grand Canyon and see them in real life that afternoon?”

This game is pretty dangerous if you don’t think you’re actually on board yet. You’ll find yourself agreeing to check RVTrader for midbunk models that could work because your kids won’t actually sleep if they’re in the same room so school the next day will be a nightmare. You’ll also find your self driving all over the state to look at bigger trucks with more wheels in the back. Suddenly, you’ll find yourself in a bit of an out of body experience where you hear yourself saying “okay” and not quite sure who said that. You’ll remind yourself that you’re assuming a timetable of January, because “clearly it’ll take a while and be difficult to find the camper and the truck you want because THANKS COVID, supplies are pretty low” and there would be time for it all to blow over or get used to it,
Then one day you find the perfect camper model you can set your sights on. Within a week, RV Trader posts a deal you just can’t pass up if you’re going to do this. The truck you thought would be the easy part is actually a lot more elusive until out of the ‘blue’ one seems to just appear a few hours away (literally 8mins from said earlier childhood friend’s house). Then the check for the warranty cancellations on the old truck is almost exactly what it costs to transport the new camper here from TX. Pieces all seem to suddenly fall too perfectly into place, and you find yourself sitting here in September, watching boxes of books walk out of your house to their new home ( a moment of silence, please) and you’re listing furniture on FB marketplace.

How did we get here? Little seeds that have germinated for a very, very long time. Restless feet. A changing world that could easily have forced us into a shell within these four walls. Am I still anxious about all of this? Heck yes. I’m a planner. I’m type A with a capital A in bold and underlined. I’m stretching myself in ways I never thought I would already and we haven’t even left yet. It’s scary to make a jump like that, but I also know in my heart how great it will be for our kids. They will get experiences that many only ever dream about (who am I kidding, so will mom & dad). WiFi is so readily available nationwide now, that any excuse I have about school or work is no longer a problem. It will be good for me, too. If left to my own devices (and a book), I’m perfectly happy to not leave my couch. I hate seeing my kids sit in front of a TV and xBox for hours on end, but I can’t really fuss if I’m not giving them other options.

So here we are, scheduling painters and realtors, sitting down to capture all of this process from messy start to eventual finish one day. We still have family and commitments here, so we’ll be dipping in and out of NC for quite a while, but otherwise let’s get out there and see what this world has to offer.