To Travel or Not to Travel

Question: Am I living inside of a National Lampoon’s movie right now? The past few days have really played out like one. It all started with that rip to the roof of our RV. Some low-lying limbs, evidently, were lower than we thought, and we had some major damage to what is our home on the road. Claims were filed. RV was put in the shop. Hotels were booked (for three weeks).

This wasn’t the first bump in our trip. We’ve had a couple of glitches along the way of our travels. First, the used truck we bought back in Virginia turned out to have some major engine rust that had been covered up with paint. It kept breaking down. We got rid of that, decided we would just buy a brand new truck, and we were happily on our way with Bonnie, the 2017 Dodge Ram.

But, then there was the tree limb thing that happened last week. That was a major blow. The cost of the repairs, combined with the amount of time it is going to take to get it done, just about brought me to my knees. Then, I said, “What can you do? Roll with it.” We checked into a dog-friendly hotel just for two days until we could get a reservation for a more preferable place, and that is when the next hit came. I mean, they just keep coming! One after another. No time to come up for air.

All ready to check out and move to the more preferable hotel, we discovered the truck (the new one – Bonnie) had been broken into. Not only had the thieves taken our generator and Ray’s locked-up tools out of the bed, but they broke a window and got the girls’ DVD players, the GPS, and a backpack that had all their school books and notebooks in it. That was the worst blow. The notebooks are full of all the writing they have done during the first grade. Those are memories I wanted to save. Gone.

The police had so many other pressing things that they couldn’t get out there for hours, so we filed a police report online. Who knew this was how things were done if it’s something not so serious (like murder, or rape, or whatever other stuff went on around there last night). So, we filed that, took photos, called the insurance company to file our second claim in three days, and now it’s time to put a tarp on a window until we get the truck into the shop on Wednesday. Did I mention this is the brand new truck? We haven’t even had it two months.

And the girls have questions about why someone would take their things, especially their school things. We’ve explained that some people do bad things, but we have a lot more than a lot of people, and we are really lucky that we are all fine.

Now we’ve moved on down the road to Hotel 2. This is better. It’s on a military base, has a kitchenette, and is roomier than the one we stayed in for the first two nights of this ordeal. But, I’m bummed. This has me questioning things. Big time.

I’m rethinking fulltime RVing. I really am. We’ve seen some great places and done some fantastic things, but if we continue on, what’s next? I hate to think about what that might be. One truck down, an RV with three weeks of work, and another truck that was robbed! I keep thinking we shouldn’t have chosen the RV park where the low trees were nearby, and then I shouldn’t have chosen the hotel where the truck got broken into. At the same time, it was an RV park, and we had no reason to think that a neighborhood outside of it would have trees so low that they’d damage a rig. And the hotel had security and cameras (though we still don’t know why the security guy didn’t see anything, and no one can access the surveillance until tomorrow when the manager makes his way into the hotel). Still, I’m second-guessing every move we’ve made in the past few days. And I’m really questioning continuing the adventure. This may be more adventure than any of us can stand!

I guess we have a few weeks to decide, seeing as we aren’t going anywhere for a while. I am torn between a) it’s a sign that we need to stop the travels and settle down somewhere, even if it’s only been nine months into our journey, and b) these were just a few challenges thrown in to show us what we’re made of, and we need to keep on!

This is a picture of the girls working on their Bible notebooks, which they’ve written in all year. These are the ones that I had hoped to save. They were in the backpack stolen from the truck.