Did that really just happen?

I figured that I would start this bad boy off by explaining how we got to our decision to live in an RV full time.

First I'll begin by saying, I expect the readership of this blog to be approximately 4, and I created it with the intent of making a virtual scrap book for our family to be able to look back on our latest adventure (potential disaster?).

We are currently stationed in the beautiful state of Vermont finishing up Tom's tour on recruiting duty. He recently got orders to return to Camp Pendleton in Southern California, and we have been excitedly discussing our trip across the country. We quickly decided that we wanted to take our time driving, to be able to see as much of the US as possible, with plans on visiting the Marine Corps Museum in Virginia, Yellowstone National Park, Reno/Lake Tahoe, and wherever else we can get to along that route.

The following shows the progression of summed up conversations that happened over a couple month period on how an extended cross-country move ended up with us deciding to live in an RV full time:

1. "Hey, we should rent an RV and just tow our car behind for the trip- I bet that would be way cheaper than hotel rooms, and way more fun!"
2. "Crap on a cracker! Renting an RV is crazy expensive for that long. Scratch that idea."
3. "...well if it's that much to rent, maybe we could think about buying a little bitty travel trailer- that would be rad!"
4. "It's not really smart of us to buy a travel trailer that will just sit in our driveway for the most part after we get there, and have another payment we have to deal with." (<---Tom as the voice of reason.)
5. Housing on Camp Pendleton tells us there is a 6-8 month wait for the housing area we want to be in.
6. "What if we went totally rogue and bought a big RV and lived in it for a while? It would be perfect for our move, plus we could save sooooo much money every month! We could work on paying off debt, we could live on the beach, spend more good quality time together, live simply."
7. "Are you crazy?! Nerp, no thank you, I don't think so." (<----Tom as the voice of reason. Are you sensing the theme?)
8. Christine goes into research mode. It's how I process things. I have been reading as much as I can get my hands on about living in an RV full time. I researched RV companies, floor plans, what would work with our truck, costs, considerations, read as many blogs as I could find. I'll spare you the full extent of my research, but it was an exhaustive effort. We went to RV dealerships in any of the few moments Tom had off of work, we talked, we discussed, we considered.
9. "Let's do this!"
10. "Heck no we aren't doing this, we're freaking nuts for even considering this!" (collective)
11. We're on board!
12. We're not.
13. We are!
14. We're not.
15. "This could really work, but we'd have to be committed to living in this for at least 6 months." We decide to take the plunge and now have a 38 foot travel trailer sitting in our driveway waiting for us to move in!

We move into our travel trailer in exactly 15 days. 15. Did I mention that neither Tom or I have any experience with RV's whatsoever? Hence the Crappy Campers. This should be quite the adventure, but we know there will be bumps and a lot of learning on the way, and we're looking forward to it!

Here it is, along with our youngest, William: 

We've been working on making some modifications to our RV to better suit us, but I'll save that for another post...