Our puppy is terrified of thunderstorms. The past two nights we have been awakened in the middle of the night by a crack of lightening and terrified puppy. Vincent used to sleep in our bed at our feet, but lately he’s taken to sleeping with the kids or in his own bed. That is until the storms hit and Vincent barrels into our room, squeezing his shaking body between my husband and me, scared to death. He sits up, heart pounding waiting for the next crack of lightening and finally, as the storm subsides, he’ll calm down and leave the safety of our room to venture back to bed in the other room, his actions reminding me of those of a frightened child. I’ve decided that I don’t care for thunderstorms while sleeping in our camper either. And though I once thought I’d love to hear the rain pattering on a metal roof, I’ve discovered that pattering and pounding are two totally different sounds with totally different effects.
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Homeschooling…Live the Adventure
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Day 1
We awoke early and drove to the dealership for a final walk through of the camper. We needed to make sure that everything vital to our immediate comfort was in working order. We already knew that the camper drove well, my husband had driven it on the freeway two days before and it hit 70 without any problems. The tires are new, brakes are good, the roof mounted air units blow ice cold air, refrigerator and freezer appeared to work, the microwave and stove top worked. We didn’t see any evidence of leaks and the unit was winterized. The salesman showed us how everything worked, like we’d remember, right??? We wrote the check and completed the paperwork and a way we went. We couldn’t fit the unit in our drive, so I called a friend and asked if we could park at her house for a couple days.
I cleaned the camper while my husband hooked everything up and prepared the camper for our drive south. The kids had a blast playing in the camper with their friends and exploring how everything works.
Day 2
Went to the camper to begin loading up our necessities or rather, what we couldn’t bear to part with right away. My husband tried to start the camper and found out the battery was dead. We jumped the camper with my vehicle and it started. He thinks that we must have left something on that drained the battery since it started right up at the dealership. Some friends and family stopped by to see our new home.
Day 3
Moving day, we continued loading everything up and filling the storage compartments under the camper. I’m beginning to feel some stress because I know we’ve over packed but I’m not really sure how to narrow things down from this point. The biggest problem area is our school books.
It’s time to pull out and the camper won’t start….again. My husband is a bit perplexed because he still doesn’t know what drained the battery. We prayed together and my husband, kids and puppy head off in the camper with me following them in my vehicle to his sister’s to show the camper off to her family and his mom. On the way to her house, the puppy gets car sick and vomits…something that’s never happened before. He will ride with me to Alabama. My husband’s family loves our new camper and are happy for us because they know how long we’ve dreamed of being full-time travelers. I suspect they also think we’re a bit crazy, but that’s okay…we probably are.
We probably should have been nervous about buying and driving our camper over 500 miles away before we’d even slept in it. But we both felt that the Lord had provided our camper and he knew just where we needed to go.
Back on the road…we made it 3 hours from home when a passing car flagged my husband over. We discovered that one of the exhaust pipes had fallen and was dragging on the ground. Not a major problem. My husband clamped it back in place and away we went.
We drove until we were tired and then we pulled over at a rest stop to sleep for the night. Very convenient and easy. We soon discovered that we would need to invest in leveling jacks. Every time a semi passed us, it would toss us a bit. We’ll add the jacks to our list of items to buy later.
Day 4
When it was time to head out in the morning, the camper started right up. God is good! We continued on our way. About an hour from our destination, we needed to stop once more. This time, the camper was overheating. It appeared that traversing through the mountains at the posted speed limit of 70 was a bit much for the camper. We pulled over, let the camper rest and back on the road we went. No more problems, we made it safely to the mountaintop campground, our lovely home for the next couple weeks. Time to settle in….
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Homeschooling…Live the Adventure
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Now, were do I begin so I can catch you up on the happenings for the Traveling Prater’s? If you’ve read through my blog from the beginning and remember my first post, you’ll understand that my husband and I have dreamed of owning a camper and traveling the countryside for years. Well, part of that dream has now become a reality. We are now proud owners of what we have nicknamed the Mauve-a-lous Motor home, our wonderful, new-to-us home on wheels and not a moment too soon. We had all grown to the place of dreading one more night in a hotel. A conservative estimate is that we’ve spent 413 nights in various hotel rooms since our traveling journey began nearly 3 ½ years ago. So, I guess when you look at that number it’s not a surprise that we were beginning to feel cramped, confined and miserable. Even though the square footage is much smaller in our camper, we are happier to have our own space.
When we first began thinking about buying a camper, we were considering something to pull. We looked and looked and decided that a fifth wheel would be our best bet. We found one that was really roomy with all the comforts of home in our price range. The problem? We don’t have a vehicle capable of pulling it and would have to rely on someone moving it for us. This option is very expensive. Also, what if we had it placed in an RV Park that we really didn’t like? We’d be stuck or we’d have to pay someone to transport it again. You may be wondering why we’d even consider such an option and to tell you the truth, now, I’m really not sure anymore. Although the option of having a camper that was roomy and homelike would serve the purpose of getting us out of a hotel room, it certainly wouldn’t allow us the freedom to pack up and travel the countryside.
About that time, we found out that we’d be heading to Atlanta for a while. It became crystal clear that we really did need a camper that we were able to pack up and move as needed. My husband decided what we really needed was a driving camper, a motor home. After browsing through the used models at local dealerships, RV circulars and on Craigslist, we’d determined that we’d probably be able to purchase a Class C model pretty easily and inexpensively. So, we began seriously shopping and found that we’d most likely be able to purchase an older model that was between 24 and 26 feet in length. This would be really cramped, but would fit our needs and wouldn’t kill us on gas when we were traveling. We called about many and found they were already sold. At home in Ohio we saw one in an RV circular at a local dealership that might work. It was priced a bit higher than what we could afford, but since we would be paying cash, we thought maybe they’d deal with us. We test drove a 26 or 27 foot Class C that had sleeping space for 6, if needed. It was an older model with 36,000 miles, started right up and drove good. The cons were that it did not have a bedroom for us, which I guess I’d come to accept that I was not going to get and the bathroom didn’t have a door that closed, but rather had a curtain that wrapped around it. The toilet was directly across from our bed, that certainly didn’t thrill me so we told the kids they’d have to hold it at night. I was not thrilled about that, still, the kids liked it, my husband liked it and my mother in law thought it was very nice. We made an offer to the salesman and they said no way could they drop the price to our price range. We were ready to leave when they asked us to look at a model they had just taken in on trade. If we were interested, we could buy it for what we had before it reached their service department and was looked over and detailed. The catch? We had that night to make the decision to purchase or not. This new model was a 32 foot Class A, which we did not want. And then we saw the inside. We couldn’t believe it. It was so much nicer and roomier than we’d imagined we’d be able to afford, but there was the fact that we had to decide right then if we wanted it. That fact alone made me want to run. My husband wasn’t sure he could drive it but the salesman assured him he’d probably like driving the Class A better than the Class C. This motor home was a year newer than the other one we’d looked at, but had more mileage. It also had a bedroom and a bathroom with a door that closed on both! It would sleep 5 comfortably and had plenty of room for storage. I was beginning to get excited but felt like there had to be a catch. We took it for a test drive and dropped it off at the dealer. Although my husband and I were both interested, we were leery that it seemed too good to be true on one hand, on the other we wondered if this was the camper that the Lord intended for us. We decided that we needed to pray about it and not rush into anything. Two days later we decided to explore the possibility of purchasing the camper if everything major worked properly. We were told to look for leaks on the roof and also check the water system for leaks to determine if it had been properly winterized. The salesman went through everything with us step by step. The only problem we immediately found was that although the generator would start, it wouldn’t stay running. This wasn’t a huge problem, especially if we were heading to an RV park or campground since we’d be using their electric. We decided to take it and the rest is history.
Did I mention that everything in our motor home is light blue and mauve? It’s covered with mauve carpeting from front to back. Hence the name, The Mauve-a-Less Motor Home.
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Homeschooling…Live the Adventure
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