.

Today we drove the RV to pick up Chrissy at school.  Right through carpool line.


 


Crazy Chrissy






We need your help!

First, to the LEFT of this box, under the "Followers" heading, please click FOLLOW and follow the directions to sign up for our blog. We want as many as possible to 'follow' us on our trip! This will help us increase the possiblity of getting a corporate sponsor for our trip. Please tell your friends and family, too. It's also a great way to see the country with us!

NEXT, the route for our first trip is posted on the Tell Us What To See page.  We will be traveling to the Great Lakes in June.

WE NEED you to jump on over to that page and let us know what we shouldn't miss along the way!

Click HERE to help us out!

The trip home from Alabama was successful.  We made really good time, for a motorhome, that is.  The best part, so far, of travelling in the motorhome is how we learn something new each time we go out.  This trip taught us quite a few things.




Home Sweet Home

 




 
We learned that no matter how many towels you pack, it probably isn't enough.  Five people go through towels quickly. I will say that some of us use more towels than others - you know who you are. Ahem.

The same goes for laundry.  I always have laundry to do at home.  However, at home, I can continually work on it.  In the motorhome, not so much.  There is a washer/dryer combo, but it uses a lot of water, and we were 'dry camping'.  Dry camping is when you are not in a campground hooked up to utilities, such as water, electricity, or sewer.  So the water in our fresh water tank is what we had to work with.  So between using the bathroom, drinking water, washing dishes, and showers, there just wasn't extra water to do a load or two of laundry on this trip.  So, again, with five people, the laundry piles up...FAST. 

I had packed some kitchen items for this trip - a saucepan, cookie sheet, pot holders.  These were things we hadn't needed before, but would be able to use on this trip.  I learned what I needed to pack on the next trip: the two boxes of dishes my mom gave me for Christmas, silverware, cups, and more paper towels and napkins.

The motorhome has a lot of storage space.  I had about five days worth of clothes packed for the five of us, and we still had lots of room for more.  So this made me feel better about needing to pack several weeks worth of clothes for various climates when we start travelling extensively.  I just need to figure out how to organize it all.

Any thoughts on what to do with that laundry that's piling up??







Work, work, work!

 
The kids did get school work done, too.  I'm glad we are practicing that now...otherwise we would have serious mountains to climb in that department.  Here are a few pictures of my hard little workers!





Michael hard at work. Sam...relaxing.

 




Rachael and math

 




Chrissy took control of the table

 

We are in Enterprise, Alabama, again.  My grandmother, and a great lady, Ruth Martin, passed away on Monday, February 28, 2011.  We came down to honor her and celebrate the life she lived.  There is no other lady like her...she's my Nannie.





Stuck in Traffic



Our trip down was a good one, even though we were driving at night.  It seemed to go a lot faster than normal, but the reality of it is that it took just as long as it always has.  There were no incidents to speak of, other than a not-very-bright man turning in front of me and stopping.  Thankfully, the lane to my left was free and I was able to move over.  I did get to try out the horn.  That was pretty cool!  It's a giant air horn and it is LOUD.  I think the guy got my point.

We are leaving tomorrow morning to head back to Douglasville.  It will be strange to not have my Nannie to drive down here to visit.  Sure do miss her.

I am very happy to report that I was wrong about the bent rim!  Our good friends, Darrin & Gina Short, came over today.  Darrin is the maintenance team manager at a local transport company.  He took a look at our wheel for us.  It turns out the part that is bent is just a wheel cover, kind of like a hub cap.  It is something that we can replace, but it is a cosmetic problem, not a safety problem.  Yay!  Here is a picture of Jim with our hero of the day, Darrin!

Remember how I mentioned that all's well that ends well? After I hit the crater-sized pot hole?  Yea, well, turns out that hitting that bent the rim. So now we need a new rim and a new tire.  sigh.

So Helen took me out to drive on the interstate today.  It went pretty well, I think.  I just kept to myself in the right lane, and tried to not grip the steering wheel too tightly when 18-wheelers passed me.  I had absolutely no problem with the fact that I was continuously being passed.  I was going around 60 mph, but much faster than that makes me nervous.  The wind was blowing a lot today, too. Imagine a windy day on the interstate in a large SUV, and then multiply that by five, and that is kind of what it felt like in the motorhome.

We stopped by to fill up the gas tank for the first time, too.  We pulled into the side of the truck stop where the big rigs pull in, but it turns out we could have used the regular car side.  We put in about 30 gallons...to the tune of 90-something dollars. Ouch!  We knew to expect that, it just hurt a little to drop $100 on gas in one stop, and know that that only covered 1/3 of the tank!

Hopefully we can take our first 'real' trip in it soon! :)