Part 1 of our journey started with planning.
Part 2 of our journey continues with planning - of a different kind. Jeff is a master at figuring out what we might need during any portion of our trip. I'm glad he has this ability because I'm just along for the ride - I truly have no clue how most of our motorcoach stuff works. I simply do the "mom" stuff of packing, cooking, cleaning, etc.
Jeff keeps telling me about Alaskan roads (AKA tundra pavement that's not really pavement). Yes - I just made up the phrase "tundra pavement" as I typed it. This means everything in the coach needs to be secure during daily travel to our next destinations. This could mean in a plastic container or just secure in a cabinet/closet. Things will be bumping around though, so everything having a spot is pretty important! Prepping each area is time consuming but will be worth it when it makes daily life in the motorcoach easier for us.
We will be boondocking for many nights in different locations. The first 4 nights, last 6 nights, and many nights in between of our trip will be boondocking nights so we need EVERYTHING. We have a generator, but that needs gas or power. Luckily Jeff's parents had some solar panels they used previously on their travels that Jeff and Bennett got set up on the roof for us. It took a few weekends and many trips to the store, but he's finally happy with how it's all working!
Power - solar panels on the roof and extra batteries down below.
Somewhere up on the roof also is our Starlink internet. We know that we need to download maps for days / times when we have no service, but we have heard amazing things about Starlink and we've got our fingers crossed everything works for the duration of our trip. Jeff will continue to work via email/phone while we're gone. He is going to miss out on the daily visits to job sites, but he has some great guys working for him in place to keep him updated and I get the title of "Secretary" to add to my resume during this trip. Pray for us - our working styles are WAAAYYY different!
Let's get back to boondocking. Some of you may not know what it is. It is staying in our motorcoach with no amenities. No water, sewer, or power. This means Jeff has been busy prepping for anything we need regarding any of those amenities. Our generator is our lifeline and since our old trailer had one, we're pretty used to boondocking and managing power/water with it. I remember testing out on one trip in CA how many days we could go with what we had. (I think we made it 4 days...pretty impressive for us!) Here are our lifelines for this trip:
Water! We can fill up with this and use if we're running low, out, etc. As we travel, this will be in the back of our truck (tow vehicle).
Gas - this will also stay in the back of the truck we're towing as we travel from place to place. This is for the motorcoach as well as our truck and most likely we'll fill up when we can so we don't run out at any time.
Sewer - We will be staying at several RV parks in Alaska that don't have sewer, but have dump stations. This is the "tool" that allows Jeff to dump our sewer at those locations. A ton of people who camp in trailers/coaches have these and use these for each camping trip. We have never owned one because we lived in our trailer in CA and emptying the sewer at our spot was just part of daily life. So this is a normal thing most people use - it's just new to us.
Many people wonder how we can be gone this long (41 days). It won't be easy. Jeff has been working his tail off on all of his jobs for the past 2 months in order to get things in gear so he can leave. It will be a nightmare when he gets back (just like being gone for 1 week usually is), but like I said above, he has great guys in place who he will be in constant contact with to ensure the most success possible with jobs. (The boys and I are also used to traveling and having to be quiet while Jeff is on a work call, look something up for him, send emails for him, etc.) Part of my preparation is to have a notebook, pens, etc. handy in the passenger seat area so we can help him during our long drives. Luckily that passenger seat has a desktop that pops out of the dashboard to help make this possible!
Now...what have I been doing as far as prepping you ask? The same thing that any teacher does over the summer - trying to get the house in order! Anyone who knows us knows that we ALWAYS have a project going on. That hasn't stopped just because we have this journey planned! Anyone who has made it over to our house in the past month or so has seen the insane amount of Amazon boxes, project pieces, pieces of things for our trip, etc ALL over our entryway area!
The day school got out for summer, I sat down and wrote down a "to do" list for myself that included camps, tutoring for me, appointments, plans already made, and a cleaning schedule. I realized I could only tackle one room a day and it's made it so much easier to get things accomplished! It's not like my normal cleaning schedule but I love it! I'm going to treat myself to a house cleaning the week before we return so I come home to a completely clean house that I got to organize prior to leaving! It won't be perfect, but it will be as perfect as I can get it before we leave!
Dogs. We went back and forth. And back and forth. And back and forth. Do we take them with us or not? We finally realized it was not in their best interest to take them because there are too many times in our trip where they will be confined to the coach. It's not fair to keep two 90lb labs confined. They really are great travel dogs but the negatives outweighed the positives on this trip. Thank goodness for Jeff's parents because they're going to keep them while we're gone. We're building a fence for their yard this weekend and we're planning on having a few days/nights where we have a practice run of them staying with them to make sure we're making everything as easy as possible for the humans and the dogs!
The "boys" in South Dakota exploring the Badlands - they would definitely love Alaska!
Now I'm about ready to plan the fun stuff. What the heck do we pack as far as clothing and food? I've already started a pile in the laundry room of things to put in the coach. I'm positive that pile will just keep growing until we finally pack it in the coach a few days prior to leaving. If our freezer was larger, I'd meal prep but that's not the case! We have plenty of room in our under-carriage area for storage (as well as quite a few cabinets inside that are empty since we're still learning how to live in the coach), so I just have to make sure I don't overload our weight and pack as best as I can for the entirety of our trip! Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment