This Family's Adventure – Page 3 – Our RV stories and adventures.

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## The Tale of two Kittens

For 10 years we had a dog. A wonderful, big, loyal, lovable dog named Duke. If you knew him, just the thought of him brings a smile to your face I bet.
Well, Duke liked to chase (and try to taste) cats. We knew this from the day we picked him up from the Humane Society. Over the course of ten years the talk of trying to get a cat came and went. Rebecka expressed her desire for a cat often. She knew we couldn’t have one with Duke, yet still yearned for one.
Sadly this past summer we said goodbye to our old man Duke. It was a hard time for our family. We mourned his loss. The house seemed emptier. We thought we wouldn’t be ready for another pet until after we moved from San Diego.
In late September Rebecka started asking for a cat again. Marc also expressed he might be ready for a cat to join our family. He had them as a child and wanted Rebecka to experience the joy of a cat. For years we said that if we got another pet we would most likely get two. Two pets could keep each other company. Duke appeared lonely at times and it broke our heart.
I wasn’t ready for the responsibility of having another pet just yet. Plus with our new “plan” a pet didn’t sound like a great idea. A little research showed I was wrong and that cats are just as common as dogs for companions on RV travels. Some people even teach their cats to walk on leashes, but you have better luck with that if you train them as kittens. I decided to “think about it”, but I told Marc I was still leaning towards us not being ready.
A week later a coworker told me about three kittens her family found. The kitten’s mother had left them. These three kittens were starving and alone. My coworker could only take one. This left her two kittens to find homes for. When I told Marc, he was all for it, but left the decision up to me. I felt horrible at the thought of these two orphaned kittens being alone. I knew for years Rebecka wanted a cat. I felt a little selfish not being 100% on board.
I decided the timing of these orphans was a direct sign from a higher power. Just a week ago we were discussing possibly being pet owners again. Then before I knew it, these kittens needed us. Blam, in your face. It was impossible for me to deny that these kittens were meant to be in our life.
My coworker brought the kittens over the next day after work. We choose to surprise Rebecka, she had no idea.
She decided on “Pearl” and “Hunter”.
Their first night with us, Pearl curled herself up and looked like a pearl in a clam shell. Hunter appeared to always be looking for something.
They are kittens and they are cute! (in my humble opinion) We have weaned them off milk. I look forward to when they make less of a mess when they eat though. We have litter box trained them. I watched a movie once where a cat was trained to use the toilet. I might need to research that. They do not sleep all night. I am a light sleeper and I can hear them playing and wrestling at the wee hours. The other night they both learned to climb up onto our bed. This made for a tough night of sleep for me, as they had trouble with “personal space”.

They also thought I was a jungle gym at 3 am. Marc assures me that as they get a little older all these things will get better. Here’s hoping, because this lady needs some good sleep. Read about their first time in the trailer here. {link to Pala Casino post)
For those of you who like kittens, I have good news. You will be seeing more of them in photos and videos. They love to play and Rebecka loves to record them. For those of you who don’t, I apologize, they will be posted anyway.
We left the kittens with my coworker on our Disney trip. That ended up being a great decision as our Disney trip had some unexpected events. (More on that in my next post. Link here)
In the meantime, here are more photos and videos of Hunter and Pearl. Enjoy!

## First night

Finished up at the dealership and couldn’t wait to test it out. Marc is a “push every button and lever” kind of guy. He wants to know how everything works first hand, not because someone told him how it should work. Knowing this about him, I booked a campground in advance for this first night.

I choose Lake O’Neil. This location was a good halfway point, it is on a military base which offers cheaper rates and it wasn’t expected to be very crowded. We know there is a store and gas station nearby.

I reserved a “Dry” camping spot for $10. Dry camping means that the space where you are parked does not have access to power, water or sewage. The campground does offer all of those things under “full hookups”, but we needed to test everything out. We needed to see how much fuel the generator would use. How much fresh water we used. How quickly the grey and black tanks would fill. (grey water is the waste from the sinks, and black water is the waste from the toilet.)

After we detached the trailer from the truck and settled in a bit we made our way to a grocery store. Picked up some perishable items that we hadn’t brought with us. I wasn’t ready to test out the kitchen yet, so we picked up a late lunch and brought it back.

The evening was very relaxing. We went on a family walk around the campground, the goal was to explore. (We never do that at home, nothing new to see) There was a whole section filled with Boy Scouts tent camping for the night. Brought back some memories for Marc. I think Rebecka enjoys hearing her dads stories. There was a playground, that made Rebecka happy. The lake had been drained a little during our visit, but we were told that fishing was still allowed. Next trip we might bring the fishing gear.

After the walk we went back to the trailer. We played cards and listened to music……… It was peaceful and perfect (in my humble opinion).

Confession…… I didn’t sleep well at all! I am considered a light sleeper and hearing the generator all night made it hard to relax. I’m sure sleeping in a new bed didn’t help either. Rebecka also complained about the generator and woke up with a stuffed nose. Fingers crossed the next time we get more sleep.

On Sunday I made breakfast. Pancakes! It was an adjustment cooking in a small kitchen with no counter space to speak of, but I managed. We brought the Keurig coffee pot from home. After a super terrible cup of coffee, i realized we need to make coffee with bottled water while we are in the trailer.

After breakfast, Marc and Rebecka played with the remote controlled cars we brought. They had fun racing around until the batteries died. We went for another walk. The Boy Scouts were in clean up mode and doing a great job. Then we played mini golf. That’s right, the campground had a mini golf course on the other side of the lake.

The plan was to pack up and head home by lunch time. However, family vote came into play and we all wanted to stay longer. Marc had run back out to the store to get creamer for the coffee earlier and he picked up a few other odds and ends we had on a short list of things the trailer needed. (trash can, broom, ect.) He also picked up a DVD. I made lunch and we relaxed to a movie.

Finally, we all came to the realization that we had to pack up and head home. I can honestly say that the first night/weekend in the trailer was a two thumbs up success.

Be sure to read Marc’s post about the first night.

## Disneyland, here we come.

Alright, it’s now time for our second trip with our new trailer, Toby. Check out Nicole’s posts to see how we ended up with Toby. So for this trip we are taking Toby to Disneyland!

We got our spot at the Anaheim RV Resort which is only a mile from the parks. They also have a bus that takes you right to the park and the bus ride was only about three minutes. The RV park was actually really nice. We basically got three spots for ourselves. We had a spot to park the truck and a separate spot for the trailer but we also got a third spot that was all Astro Turf and had a picnic table and umbrella on it and all that was on our porch side of the trailer. It was pretty nice, although for shade I really just used the awning on the trailer.

So we got there on Saturday and the plan was to leave on Wednesday and use our park hopper tickets Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Saturday was nice, we were able to take our time getting up to the park and getting Toby settled into his spot for the next for days. Since we weren’t planning to use the tickets that day, we decided to go to downtown Disney that day. Nicole and Rebecka had never been to a Rainforest Cafe before and that is exactly where we went. The food was good and they both really enjoyed the experience of a new restaurant. After dinner, we just walked around for a little while checking out all of the stores there and we were even lucky enough to catch a magic show right at the start of it and we were front row for it. The magician called on Rebecka to be the first volunteer but she was a little to shy for that and said no. He completely understood and didn’t push at all. We went back to Toby and enjoyed a nice peaceful nice in the trailer together. Oh yeah, we went back to the trailer before the fireworks started and we weren’t even sure that we would still be awake for them but we got very lucky and we were able to watch them from inside the trailer. How cool is that?

On Sunday, our 14 year anniversary, (How did she put up with me for that long? The truly amazing part is that she still likes me and still, for whatever reason, wants to stay with me. I feel extremely blessed and I’m very great full that she still loves and likes me enough to want to stay with me. It’s awesome) we had what I say is this greatest time I have ever had at Disneyland. We somehow ended up at several shows just as they were starting and we ended up getting front row seats for them. We had people give us Fast Passes that they weren’t going to use, they said it was an anniversary gift. We even got to ride in the very front of the Monorail with the pilot! I didn’t even know that was possible! Wow! That changed the entire experience of the Monorail for ever. Oh, one of the best parts of that day for me was the fact that Rebecka, who is 8, was finally ready to start riding some of the bigger rides. How long have I been waiting for that? So I’ll say it again, Sunday was amazing and easily the best time that I’ve ever had at Disneyland.

The next day, we woke up to rain. We weren’t really in a hurry to go out and get wet since we forgot to bring any rain jackets or umbrellas. I ended up laying in bed for a little while as I was waking up. While I was laying there, I ended up getting my first ever unexplained nose bleed. For me, that was a little bit scary. I mean, I’m 38 and this has never happened before. That lasted about 30 minutes before it finally stopped bleeding. Just to be safe and since it was still raining, we hungout in the trailer for most of the morning. We were letting the rain die down and trying to make sure that my nose was ok. We went to the park and had a good time. We had my sister-in-law and her daughter and son with us and we were all having a good time. Monday night was the night for the extra tickets that we bought so that we could do the Halloween Party that they had. Lots of trick-or-treating, ok, you stand in line and get candy. It was still kind of cool. I wasn’t going to carry a bag, but then Nicole mentioned how much the tickets cost and I thought that we might as well get as much free stuff as we can. One really cool thing about that time frame is that most of the people in the park were there to get the candy. That meant the lines for the rides were pretty much non-existent. We got on the Matterhorn in 5 minutes and Space Mountain in 10 minutes. We even had front row seats for the parade.

After the parade, my world turned upside down. I got another nose bleed and this time it wouldn’t stop. I’m not going to talk about all the gross and scary stuff but I will say that it was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. From Monday night till Tuesday night, I spent most of my time in the ER in Anaheim. What a way to ruin my trip. I’ve always been the one to “take care of the family” and this time I was the one who needed the help. Nicole and Rebecka stepped up and took that one head on. I don’t think that I could’ve made it through that without them. After my third time to the ER, Nicole decided that it was time to get back to San Diego and get me to my hospital. Nicole made her mind up and said that she was going to drive the truck with the trailer for the very first time while I’m sitting in the passenger seat bleeding all over the place and can’t help at all. She is my Super Woman! She got all of us and all of our things home safe and sound when I couldn’t do anything to help. Teamwork is so very important and is often taken for granted. Please don’t do that to your partner. Always cherish what you do for each other.

Well, I’m doing well now and the bleeding has finally stopped. The doctors couldn’t figure out what made it start or even where it was coming from. But it did stop and now I’m taking things easy to try to keep it from happening again. I will say, though, that even will all the stuff that I had to go through on that trip, I’m still looking forward to the next one.

This was a long post, but I think the point that I wanted to make is that as long as you are a team with your family, you can get through anything and still have a good time. We are all ready for the next trip and can’t wait for it to get here. Don’t forget to read Nicole’s posts. She has a different point of view and she talks about different topics. We are a team and we will always be a team. That’s how we roll!

## Picking up “Toby”

The day has come to pick up our Toy-hauler. We have affectionately named it “Toby”. (Fun, right? lol) The pick up location is about 2 hours north of our house. We left early so we had plenty of time.

I made a reservation for that night at a campground on a military base halfway between our home and the pick up location. Of course we have to try it out the first night. More on that later.

We arrived with enough time to walk around the dealership before our appointment. Boy there are some dreamy RV’s out there. Fireplaces, 2 floors, granite kitchens. These truly are houses on wheels.

This dealership gave us an hour long walk through of our new purchase. Showing us how everything worked. Front to back, top to bottom. We took video of the whole thing. Now we can refer back to it when I forget how to light the oven. We will work on uploading these to you tube and post the link. They are long videos so it might be a bit before we upload them, but we will.

We also let Rebecka take the camera and do a tour of her own. we tried not to interfere. When you watch it, keep in mind she is 8 and just having fun.

After our hour walk through, a bunch of money spent at the dealerships supply store, and a pile of paperwork to sign with the finance department.
TOBY is ours!!!

## The “PLAN”

Funny thing about “plans”… they can always change.

Our original plan: use our new Toy-hauler to help move our belongings halfway across the country when Marc retires. Use it between then and now to take Rebecka out on adventures. Hope that she enjoys it as much as we do.

The two weeks between choosing our toy hauler and picking it up were filled with ideas of all the adventures we could have. It was apparent we were all excited about what was to come. We had more idea for trips then we could possibly do.

I had a light bulb idea. At first I kept it to myself, but with every day the passion for my idea grew and i needed to share it with Marc. I needed to get his opinion. Was it a pipe dream? Was it something he’d even be interested in?

Instead of in a year, when Marc retires from the Navy, move to Texas and start our lives there. Maybe we could push that off? Maybe when we leave San Diego, we could use a year to travel around the United States? We could home school Rebecka for her 4th grade year. Take her to actually see first hand the things she is learning about. Take her to Mount Rushmore and teach her about some great presidents. Take her to Yellowstone to experience the beauty of that land first hand. Take her to Four Corners, where 4 states boarder each other (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet) to teach her some geography.

I remember growing up with our mother (a teacher) taking us on educational summer vacations. These are memories that stay with you. Colonial Williamsburg VA, exploring underground caves and touring a natural bridge, these are just a few of the wonderful trips my mother took my siblings and I on when we were children. I want to do this with my daughter.

Being a military family, planning a vacation was a difficult task. The timing had to be just right for Marc’s command. They never wanted to approve leave too far out in advance. Plane fairs and hotel prices increase in cost the closer to travel time. We ended up skipping big vacations all together. Always talked about how we would do it after he retired.

My idea to take a year to travel in our new RV across the country for a year while home schooling Rebecka took a few days for Marc to process. Then he was fully on-board. After discussing the idea with Rebecka and seeing her excitement as well, my idea became:

“OUR NEW PLAN”.

Now I am on count down mode. How many more days until Marc retires from the military?

{insert count down plug in}

We won’t start our cross country adventure at that moment, but we will no longer have an obligation to stay where the military tells us.

In the mean time we take our toy-hauler out at least once a month. Visiting different types of local campgrounds. Getting our feet wet and learning what to expect.

Please stay tuned to hear about our adventures.

## Choosing our Toy-hauler

We went to an RV Dealership to actually “look” at and walk around different options. This way we could make a more informed decision.
…….We spent about 2 hours walking in and out of different RV’s.

We kept returning to a specific toy-hauler again and again. It fit the weight limit we needed to stay under. It had an on board generator, which not all units do. It had chairs! I know, chairs?… really? However, most designs have two couches that sit across from each other. The “chairs” seemed to feel right. It had the ability to sleep 7 people. So if we decide to have other family members join us for an adventure there is room for them. It has a big enough cargo area to fit both our motorcycles in and possibly a third depending on size. Everything just felt right.

Time to make an informed decision. We really had no idea what kind of financing was available. We have good credit so we were not worried there. But what would the monthly payments be? Only way to know is to have them run the numbers. So that’s what we did.

While we waited we went back to Toby and hung out. We started talking about all the different adventures we could have. All the places we could visit. It was so exciting. All three of us couldn’t wait.

The numbers…. Honestly, the numbers were reasonable. This is a home on wheels. Who knew RV financing is stretched over 15 years! We most likely won’t drag it out that long as we are very fond of little to no overhead debt. Marc and I talked about it and decided this was the toy-hauler we wanted.

Let the adventure begin!……. well not yet….. need to wait until the dealership does final clean up and inspection… need to make an appointment to pick it up. Our appointment was two weeks away.

## A little bit about us.

“This Family’s Adventure” is brought to you by Marc, Nicole and Rebecka.
At the time of writing this post Marc and I have recently celebrated our 14th Wedding Anniversary.

Rebecka is 8, two months until 9. We live in San Diego, CA. I work at a car dealership in the AP/AR (Accounts Payable/ Accounts Receivable) department. Marc is full time as active duty in the Navy.

We are an anomaly in the military family world, as we have been lucky enough to stay in one city for 14 years. Marc’s retirement is less then a year away. We had a plan. Retire, leave San Diego, move to Texas, buy an affordable home. The cost of living in Texas is more manageable then San Diego, CA. Marc is from Texas, so it’s “home” to him. It’s a plan, yes. Honestly though, we both were feeling a little uneasy about different parts of what the future held.

In our 14 years in San Diego we have acquired a lot of belongings. We knew moving all these belongings would be a daunting task. The military will help us move, however after a certain weight limit we pay the remainder of the fees. In preparation for this we started to research cargo trailers with a ramp. Something we could fill with some of the heavier items, like motorcycles, tool boxes, the table saw, stuff like that. Something we could tow behind our truck and drive to Texas ourselves.

Used Cargo trailers in San Diego are hard to find. Then we looked into new cargo trailers. New cargo trailers can cost about the same as a used toy-hauler. (a Toy-hauler is a travel trailer with a ramp door. A Travel Trailer is a camper you pull/tow behind your truck.) A Toy-hauler became the new idea of what we wanted. How cool to be able to have something that we could use to help move us as well as something we can take out on trips. Marc and I had a cargo trailer as well as a toy-hauler prior to the birth of our daughter. We used to go out on weekend trips camping and riding 4 wheelers.

We ended up selling all of that when we realized going out and riding on the weekends wasn’t practical with a newborn. (Photos with old Toy-hauler lost in a computer crash) Rebecka is at the age now where she can enjoy adventures like Marc and I used to have. The decision to get a toy-hauler was made.

After searching locally at available used toy-haulers we were feeling frustrated with the options. When shopping around for something like this it is important to consider the weight of the vehicle. It is important to know how much weight your truck can pull safely and the weight of what you are pulling both empty and full. These are things we didn’t really pay much attention to in the past. (we burned through a transmission or two in the old truck in the past). We were NOT going to make that mistake again.

Then we started looking at our options for buying new. Wow there were so many options. We were entranced with all the possibilities. We spent weeks looking at all the different brands, styles and designs. We decided to make more of an informed decision we needed to go see some in person. One weekend we decided to drive north of San Diego and visit a large RV dealer.
…….. We only went to look…… but then……
(Next post: Our Toy-hauler Purchase)

## The beginning

Back in the day, 10 or 11 years ago, before we had a daughter, we had a toy hauler and some quads that we used to take to the desert on a regular basis. Usually at least twice a month. We started out with just a cargo trailer and tents. We cooked everything on the camp fire and life was good. Then we decided to upgrade to the toy hauler and things got a lot easier. At least at the camp site. It was quite a bit heavier than the cargo trailer and it made getting to and from the campsites a lot more challenging. But we did it and we had a blast. Then we had our beautiful little girl and we stopped going to the desert all together. We ended up selling the quads and the toy hauler and lived life in the city again.

Now our daughter is almost 9 years old and has started to like getting out of the house and seeing new things. So we ended up getting another toy hauler. I have to be able to take my Harley with me. We have only used it twice since we’ve had it but they are memorable trips non the less.

The first trip we took with it was the day we picked it up. We went through the whole process of learning how to use everything, which we didn’t get when we bought the used one years ago, and then we were off. We actually didn’t really go very far for that trip. We had to pick up the trailer about two hours north of where we live and we had a really cool camp site to check out on a military base on the way home. So we stopped with the trailer and stayed over night. We had a really great time staying in it that night. The plan was to pack everything up and head back home with it around lunch time. Well, that didn’t really happen the way we planned. We were all having such a great time with each other just hanging out in the trailer that non of us wanted to go home. We ended up leaving around three or four in the afternoon. It turned out just fine.

That first night, we boondocked it and went dry camping. It was mostly because I wanted to see how we would do with dry camping and it went pretty well. Nicole didn’t like sleeping with the generator running but it really didn’t bother me. We did learn more about the trailer by using it. We figured out that if you want to wash the dishes with hot water, you have to turn on the water heater. Funny how that works, huh? You can learn a lot by using something. Things that you just can’t really prep for. Things like having a trash can in the trailer. We couldn’t really figure out what size to get until we were in it for a little while and figured out the best place for it. We also realized simple things that can be easily forgotten about, like a broom. So we learned some of the things that we felt we were gonna need and things that we felt we were gonna want.

We got most of those things and we were ready for another trip. That will be in the next post, Disneyland, here we come. Until then, I really hope that you enjoyed reading this at least a little bit. And remember, this is all a work in progress and who knows, maybe the posts will get better. Until next time, here are some pictures from our first trip, happy travels and good luck. Here are some pictures from the first time out with the trailer. Don’t forget to check out Nicole’s posts. In the time line of things she has written posts on “A little bit about us“, “Choosing our toy hauler“, “The plan“, “Picking up Toby“, and “The first night“.