That’s some serious alliteration I’ve got going on up there! I’m in the middle of planning out school for the kids for the year, so that’s probably why.
We’re spending these last days of summer (for Dave goes back for pre-planning Tuesday of next week) swimming, sitting in our air conditioning, painting Abe’s room (previews on Instagram, but I was overly ambitious to think we could finish it in time for a blog post this week), staying up too late watching TV (Dave had never seen White Nights! We watched it last night. I hadn’t remembered any of the extraneous Escape from Russia! plot that interferes with all the awesome dancing), and…..driving all over the state looking at travel trailers.
So remember how awhile back I was all “we need a travel trailer!” and I made Dave go to an RV show (and also I talked about bear attacks a lot)? And then a couple of months later I thought, “we don’t need a travel trailer! hotels forever!”?
Yeah, so now I want a travel trailer again.
So much that we went and bought this the other week:
It’s a giant van! We call it Big Blue. We had to drive to Huntsville to buy it, because we wanted a V10 passenger van, and there are almost no used v10 passenger vans for sale in the whole country. I won’t bore you with details, but I did a lot of reading about what tow vehicle you want to tow your travel trailer, and, basically, if you need it to fit 6 people, many of whom are adult sized or nearly adult sized, you don’t have a lot of options. So a v10 passenger van it was. Also, I will just note that if you show up at a car dealership, and they know you just drove four hours to look at their van, your negotiating powers are rather limited.
But still! We love our van! It actually only seats 7 people, which is sort of hilarious because my minivan seats 8. And it came with a VHS player, which is also hilarious. But we think it’s broken. We need to get someone to look at it. It has a DVD player, too. And a back up camera! And GPS! It’s FANCY for a 12 year old van.
With humans, for scale:
So now we’re at the part where we need to find a trailer to pull with our giant van. I think we’re going to get this:
I’m just kidding! We can’t afford an Airstream AND there’s no Airstream that will fit all of us. It makes me kind of sad, though, because Airstreams are, inarguably, much prettier than any other trailers. Also, it seems like all the people who have Airstreams are automatically friends with each other, and maybe they don’t want to be friends with people with ugly travel trailers, and that’s kind of a bummer.
So, yeah….something cheaper. Is what we will buy. We thought we’d found The One the other day, but then someone bought it before we could get it. We’re not in a huge rush, so we’re just kind of looking around and trying to be patient.
Which is hard because I want to go on all the trips!
But it actually might be a good thing that it’s taking a little while to find something, because we also need to have a parking pad put in in our backyard (not a DIY project, Dave is quite sure) and a bigger gate so we can get it into our yard (that might wind up being a DIY project, but Dave doesn’t want it to be).
So I will keep you updated on the status of our search for a second boxy little house. And I’ll show you what Abe’s room is looking like, too. Next week!
if you get a travel trailer i want you, big blue, the travel trailer, and your family, too, to come visit!
Of course! 🙂
What Cassie said 🙂 Obviously you’ll be roadtripping around to visit all your blogging buddies, right?
Yes, of course! the people with the biggest driveways get priority 😉
I think your big blue van is awesome! Oh so many years ago, I learned to drive in a van like that.
I haven’t even driven this one yet! I’m a little nervous 🙂
We bought a pop up and realized we wanted something bigger than our minivan to pull it. I think your purchase decisions are in a more logical order. And that’s one gorgeous van, as far as vans go.
How do you like the pop-up otherwise?
It’s pretty great – lightweight, easy to tow, airconditioned, and sleeps 6 comfortably (it theoretically sleeps 8, but they’d have to be more into human contact than my children are). It actually can be towed by our minivan, but once we add the weight of all the humans, dogs, and gear, we’re pushing it for what a Kia can do. Rather than only going places we can take two cars, we’ve decided to get a vehicle with more towing capacity.
You’ll be able to tow a monster camper with that V10. There are some pretty spiffy giant pop ups out there, you know. 😉
We watched one video of someone setting up a pop-up and got very….overwhelmed. I think too many of our trips will be of the stay somewhere a night or two and then pack up and move on variety (but then I think that the set up is probably quick compared to unloading the car and then packing a hotel room back up the next morning). Although I know people who’ve had and loved pop-ups for years….oh, but also I want a bathroom!
The bigger ones do have bathrooms, but I’m not going to pretend there’s no set up time. For roadtripping, you’re probably going to be much happier in something with walls. 🙂
We have travel trailer fantasies, too. But we think mostly what we’d do is fix it up cute and park it in our driveway. And send the teenagers out to live in it when they’re getting too obnoxious to bear. 🙂
ha–a great plan! I, on the other hand, am about five minutes away from trying to figure out a way to take off in a trailer full time. Not really. But I’ve been home from our last trip for all of 3 weeks, and I’m feeling antsy already. I’m quite fidgety lately.
Amazing! Love this purchase! I totally want an airstream too. It’s a cult tho. One of our neighbors has one and she’s always talking about her airstream friends. I’m incredibly jealous.
Maybe I don’t even WANT to be part of the dumb old Airstream clique. Wait, yes, I totally do, actually!
Airstreams are gaw-geous but yes they’re pricey AND heavy which means more gas money. All around a lot of money.
Good luck trailer shopping! It’s fun and addicting!! We’ve loved our little travel trailer, and it’s pushed us to travel so much more.
I wish we could be looking for a little one like you have! The monstrosities that will sleep all of us kind of scare me 🙂