10 things to never leave "home" without

So driving down the road your mind comes up with lots of things to occupy itself. Recently I was thinking of what would I tell someone who was thinking of living on the road full-time they should definitely bring with them to survive and thrive in life on the highways. So for all you potential full-timers or long-termers here is my list of ten things to bring that you might not think of ordinarily. By that I mean I assume you will bring your underwear and some plates. This list is geared for people with kids.

1. Duct tape - Red Green said it is the handy man's secret weapon and he wasn'tkidding! Temporary fixes are a must on the road. Throw in some liquid nails and super glue while you are at it.
2. The Kindle - we read to our kids all the time and they also read. We have some books and we utilize exchange libraries all the time, but the Kindle saves a ton of space.
3. Our membership cards. Zoo, museum, Passport America, Escapees, National Park, Pet Smart and Kroger cards save us a ton of mulah!!
4. Bikes and scooters. We have some hanging from Howard's ladder, and carry some in our toadie. Kids use them all the time.
5. Toys. We have bins of legos, army men, magnetix, playdoh, dress-up, dinosaurs, Mr. Potato head, weapons, hot wheels, and remote control cars. All boys here so no Barbie.
6. Your printer. You need to print off coupons, tickets, tax docs, etc. Nice to have one with you.
7. A portable electric convection oven. Our little RV oven does one pizza at a time, so we needed more oven space. We have used our extra little oven a ton. Makes meatloaf even.
8. Crockpot. Another great alternative to the little oven. We have made some killer lasagna in our crockpot and even cooked our Easter ham in ours. Set it and forget it! (We have actually had it cooking while driving down the road before).
9. Atlas and GPS. You really need both. Do not count on your GPS to get you there every time.
10. Verizon mifi. Great little wireless internet card that gives you access wherever Verizon is found. Cant rely on parks wifi.

Kevin Shutterbug - Boredom while driving Howard

Kevin Shutterbug talks to Marty about how our family deals with the long hours of driving in Howard the RV.

Forester Sunseeker tour inside

The inside of Howard our RV. Howard is a derivative of the acronym HOW (Home On Wheels)! We named it Saturday.

Forester Sunseeker tour outside

It's here, It's here! It is finally here!! The dream is finally taking shape!

Getting gear

July has been an incredibly busy month, getting moved in, unpacked, two birthdays, visiting family, family visiting us, getting the yard back in shape, catching up with old friends and a ton of paperwork!

But we also have been outfitting our RV, even though we don't have it yet (it should be ready in a couple of weeks). So what have we got so far for our big adventure?

• DVD based curriculum called Switched on Schoolhouse for Blake and Tanner. This is highly recommended stuff and will save a ton of room compared to books.


• Regular curriculum for David, Brendan and Chase. They are all going to be working on Kindergarten together using My Father's World. They are also each going to have their own Leapster and we have got several games with birthday money.


• A docking station for our Wii-motes - very important stuff! It will help cut down on battery needs.


• A portable screened in room for our picnic area. Got to keep the flies out.


• A table-top grill. Our RV does not come equipped.


• We also bought a crank-turn, non-electric washing machine. It is pretty compact and hopefully we can save some money by doing some of our laundry in it. We will post more on this later. We tried it once on some sheets and towels and it worked pretty well. You can buy one from the clean air gardening website. You can see the picture of it here.


• For work we got a Verizon mifi card, for wireless internet wherever we can get Verizon cell service. So far it works very nice.
• We finally got a GPS, a Garmin. Didn't figure we should try and tackle driving around the continent without taking advantage of this technology at our fingertips. We even found an RV for the display!
• Several little small things like laundry bags, folding tables and some clothing.

So fun and exciting to do the outfitting part! It feels like we are getting closer. Can't wait to hit the road.

We think we have our rig picked out

We believe have settled on a 2010 Sunseeker 3170 bunkhouse class C motorhome with a Ford chassis. We were previously considering a diesel Jayco Seneca 36 FS. Problem is GM has stopped making the chassis for these and so there are not really any left. This is a nice unit, decently priced, with enough tow capacity to handle our van. It is not as big as the Jayco, but also about $40,000 less! I think I feel better about the Ford chassis right now too, that is that Ford will be in business long enough to honor the warranty!

This motorhome could technically sleep 11, but we wanted one that you would not have to take apart the bed to make a table every morning! This has a queen master bedroom, a bunk with a futon on the bottom, plus the large bed over the cab. Decent amount of storage space in the basement too. Now to try for the financing! That is no done deal either! Praying for everything to come together. We recently got to physically walk through this rig, and we all gave it a thumbs up!

First equipment purchase

Along with downsizing, we are also making a few equipment purchases over the next few months in preparation for our trip. Of course an RV is the most essential component, but I have already told the story of how we are waiting on that!

We did make two purchases recently for our upcoming trip. Since we are going to tow our mini-van and use it quite a bit when traveling, we bought a Sirius Satellite radio system for the van, and we will be able to use it in the RV as well, but for now it will come in handy for our upcoming trip to Walt Disney World at the end of the month. The other purchase we also wanted to get before our WDW trip. We bought a new camera. It is a Nikon Coolpix 100. Great zoom capability and wide angle lens (for wildlife shots and nature shots) and a high quality video feature.

This is an incredible camera with a 26x zoom.It is bigger then the S8000, and not really a pocket camera (unless you have really big pockets) This is out top of the line camera. Image quality is amazing. It also does up to 1080p video with some cool slow motion settings You can check it out here http://www.nikon.ca/en/Product.aspx?m=16627