Getting Ready for Our Next Trip

Within a week of returning from our trip in January, we decided our next trip would be in April to Casa Grande, Arizona, for the National Alfa Rally. We are still in the learning phase of using and owning an RV. Do you ever stop learning? Craig has found the Alfa forum very interesting, and hopefully has learned how to fix a few things without ever having them break!  He is looking forward to meeting some of the people he has been chatting with on the forum. 

After that we are going to visit my brother in Surprise Arizona for a day, and then go on to the Grand Canyon.

To get there, we will be driving across country we have traveled before, so it will be a couple of long driving days without much stopping. Not that that is bad. I like just riding and driving along in the Alfa. We plan to do our first Walmart boondocking. 

Our daughter bought us the Rand McNally navigation system for Christmas, and one feature is that you can have it show all the Walmarts, Sam's Clubs and Rest Stops on your route with notations of which allow overnight parking. I'm not exactly sure where we will stop, but I know what the alternatives are.

We have worked very hard on house project for over two months. I had a wish list of things I hope to see finished before we went out again. Many of them have been completed. Some things were done that were not on the list, but the one big project, the bathroom downstairs, will not be finished. That makes me sad because with that rolling over into the month after we get back, it is unlikely we will get the house on the market this summer. Craig gets really mad at me when I say that. He is far more optimistic than I am. I really wanted to have it ready by early summer because I think this house will show best in the summer months. People will appreciate the wonderful decks and cool family room more on a hot day than in the winter. There are also many more accidents on the nearby highway in rainy winter weather. It's funny how people tend to forget about that during the summer months. For me a classic example comes from Craig himself. Years ago, when we lived in Wisconsin, he was offered a job in Texas in July. He said no because Texas was too hot. He took the job in October or November, and I sat alone with a country house for sale in rural Wisconsin through the winter. 

I'm at loose ends right now. I don't have a project that I can work on that will make me feel like I am contributing to the goal of getting the house done. Just about everything I need to do involves Craig, and I don't want to take him away from working on those %*@x  bathrooms. Somehow I thought two months would be enough time to do one, but we have had some set backs.  

Next week I will be shopping and packing for our trip. I'm not sure what groceries to take because the week of the Rally will include a number of dinners, lunches and even one breakfast.  No sense in carting around food we won't need for a week.  I figure on shopping in Williams before we go up to the Canyon.

We finished our taxes yesterday, and now I have the use of the dining room table back. It is my trip-packing "staging spot." I have a long printed list and will be filling the table with things for the trip.  I know that if I put something in the Alfa, I will probably need it in the house, so most loading is done on the last day. I don't leave much of anything in the Alfa for the same reason. As I pack I try to think like we are leaving for our full time life. If I'm not putting something in that I will want to take along then, I am either leaving room or really evaluating if I will actually need it. I think this time when we get home instead of rushing around putting things away, I will put most of it back on the table and evaluate what we left behind. It would be a good time to fill some large boxes with things we can get rid of.  

One nice thing about having my list on the computer is that I can reprint it and make changes or additions with each trip.  In addition to what to pack, I list where in the Alfa everything is put. If I decide there is a better place, I simply correct the list. By the time we are full time, I should have a master list!  Of course it will continue to change, but I can try. 

My next post will be about a few little innovations I have done in the Alfa. Little fixes for little problems!