Across Country Storage

I'd like to say that everything went smoothly from California to Florida, but I can't. Nothing horrible, mind you, but many unexpected bumps along the way. Captain and Mr. T planned on taking 10 days starting the day before Thanksgiving to drive slow and methodically across the country so that we could store the (still nameless) Barth in Florida. However, it had been 3 weeks and it was still at the mechanic's shop, apparently waiting for a part.

So we arrive the day before Thanksgiving, planning to just leave from San Jose instead of back-tracking 45 min to our house and then leaving again, pick up the Barth and leave the mechanic's to fuel up and the steering column begins a very nasty shimmy. Back to the mechanic's. Turns out it needed another part to stabilize the steering column. After several panicked phone calls, the mechanic managed to have the part shipped from Vancouver second day air--due to the holiday that means Monday. (Now we are freaking out a bit because we are losing valuable travel time...) Monday we show up at the same time as UPS and the supplier only shipped one of two pieces! Ugh. So the decision was made that the trip would be made without the new part.

Eastward ho! The first day went remarkably well, but by the end of the day there was little cabin power. Weather was clear but there was a storm front on the way. Turns out they stayed right out of arm's reach of inclement weather the entire trip. When they stopped they parked at rest stops and never had a chance to plug into shore power. Evidently the batteries have issues and by the second day the heat no longer worked, nor the radio. The last 2 nights they chose to book a motel room than endure the dropping temps with no power. Wise choice.

Anyway, long story short, they made it to Florida in one piece on Friday, just in time to catch their flights home on Saturday.

Initial Plan

We don't really have a complete plan, but we have a tentative plan or rather a sketchy outline for our new lifestyle. We currently live in California and the highly-regulated-extremely-safe-family-friendly city in which we live does not allow one to keep a motorhome so we plan on having hubby and eldest take a cross-country road trip to Florida and keep the rig with relatives until the kids are out of school next June. At that time we'll all be ready to join our new home and have time to do renovations on it and chart our course. This first trip will happen at the end of the November.

Currently the rig is still at the mechanics getting inspected and road ready. We still need to make a trip to the DMV to transfer the title and pay the (absolutely exorbitant) sales tax within the next week.

What about the kids' education you ask?

All three kids are currently in public school and it takes everything in my power not to pull them out early and finish out the year homeschooling. But. I. Won't. I'm not new to homeschooling. Historically I've used it when I felt the schools were failing my kids. I taught eldest, Mr. T, who is very bright, for Pre-K, 1st and 2nd grades so he could work at a challenging pace. I taught Mr. S 3/4 of 4th grade because he was slipping through the cracks of WA schools. I enrolled him for a few months in CA school after we moved so he could make new friends. I haven't formally taught Divagirl yet but she's only just started Kindergarten, that's not to say we haven't done tons of informal teaching.

I plan on "road-schooling" all three year round with generous breaks when needed. I think that works out better in the long run so their brains don't turn to mush over the 3 month summer break.