Monthly Archives: February 2015

Size Does Matter

22 Sunday Feb 2015

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Size Does Matter

It’s seems crazy to think that things you’ve done all your life may make little to no sense at all. Its all customs and traditions handed down from generation to generation. We follow them because,.. well just because. Mayo and I were discussing dinner and how we would prepare and shop for food while traveling. I remembered as a child, my mom would shop for the week and sometimes for the month. We would get so excited to unpack the bags of grocery and stock the cupboards with food. When I moved out on my own, I would shop for a week at a time. I’d buy canned goods, boxed goods and pack my freezer with meat and frozen veggies. Hey, its my upbringing. You’ve got to be prepared and plan ahead.
For the past 30 or more years, Mayo, not only had to shop and prepare wonderful meal for weeks at a time. She also had to shop for a family of four or more. This means bigger packages, bigger storage spaces and a big supermarket for that one stop shopping.. Our way of life teaches us that this is the normal way to live and the normal way to shop for food. Its all well and fine, if you have a 12 by 12 feet kitchen with plenty of cabinets, a huge refrigerator and a chest freezer. But we are downsizing to a 3 by 6 feet kitchen with a refrigerator no bigger than the cooler I use when I’d go fishing. At first we thought of ways to store more, and how to create more space. Maybe we could steal space from the closet or maybe we can store some in the truck.
Then it hit me,.. why do we need to store food anyway? Again, it’s our upbringing. In many countries in Europe and around the world, people shop daily for the food they plan to eat that day. Its their custom to stop at the farmers market to get fresh veggies and bread on their way home. This not only ensures them that their food is fresh, but it also helps the local farmers and businesses. Mayo and I realized that not only do we need to downsize our home, we needed to downsize our way of thinking. Because, as we are finding out, size does matter.
We began to look into our cupboards to see what we had that we really didn’t need in there. Man, were we ever surprised. Not only did we have enough food for the month, we still had some canned goods and frozen meat from last month. We also found that some of that food had a shelf life of up to 6 or more months. Some of these foods, you could fix in under two minutes. I don’t know why they would need a 6 month shelf life if you can cook them in under two minutes. I also don’t know how it can be label fresh if it is stored for weeks. We began to wonder if any of our store bought food was really fresh. Its label fresh, even if its shipped from South America by boat and then by truck. The time it takes to pick it, inspected it, package it and ship it across the country, is a matter of weeks. Not to mention the unpronounceable and unhealthy ingredients in it to keep it from rotting for 6 months.
We discovered that not having space was going to be a gift, not a curse. That we had to shop small and shopping small would mean shopping fresh. We plan to visit local farmers markets, buy only local and organic veggies. We will shop at Co-Ops and local small businesses buying only what we can eat fresh in a day or two. We plan to pick fresh veggies from small local community gardens and stop by local farms for fresh eggs, honey and milk. We also plan to help folks plant their gardens as we travel. We love the idea of bartering and hope to trade our labor, farming experience and gardening knowledge for a place to park our camper for a few days.
Who knew living small would have the added benefits of eating well and living healthy. Its true size does matter and this time,.. small is a good thing.

What the Truck

14 Saturday Feb 2015

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What The Truck

I know, I’m a guy so I should know a little about trucks. The key words here is “ a little”. I had always been a car kind of guy. I have had a few vans in my day. One van I used for work and my second van I used mainly for camping and to carry my dogs on trips.
My wife and I are now looking for a truck. We’ve tried pulling our trailer with a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500 and a 2003 GMC Envoy, both of these could pull it but they struggle up hills. At first we thought ”let’s trade the travel trailer in for a smaller one that our Envoy can pull. Then we thought “ let’s get a truck big enough to pull the trailer”. We finally decided that since we plan to spend a great deal of time in the trailer, we should get a light weight but roomy trailer and a truck big enough to pull it with ease. Easy to decide but totally confusing to do.
First we had to figure out the weight of the trailer. We have a Coachman Captiva, it weights 5300 pounds empty and is 28 feet long. It has a good bit of space inside if you are camping a week or two, but to spend months in it,.. hmm I don’t know. We found a 2014 Forest River Salem Travel Trailer, that with the bump out living room space, would be easy to live in long term. Its overall length is 33 feet and it weighs 6,355 pounds empty. Mayo loves the floor plan and the rear end kitchen space. I’m a bit concerned about campsite availability for a trailer this size, but we both love it. Mayo and I both agreed that we would stay with something similar to this size and weight,.. or smaller.
After you figure out the weight of the trailer, you must then add the weight of all the things you will load in it. You must also add the weight of your propane tanks, fresh water tank, gray water tanks, and batteries. This is the total weight of your trailer. Since our Salem trailer maximum cargo weight is 1,327 lbs our total weight should never exceed 7,682 pounds.
This means we now need to find a truck that can pull at its very least 7,700 pounds. But wait, there’s more,..lol. We’ll need to add the weight of all passengers and any cargo in the truck, to the weight of the trailer. This will give us the total weight that the truck must be able to pull with ease…
Well before breakfast I weigh about 189 lbs, Mayo’s about 110 dripping wet with rocks in her pockets, so that’s another 299 lbs. Our canoe, which we will never leave home without, weighs 80 pounds. So I’m thinking we now need a truck that can pull at least 8,100 and that’s if we never put anything or anyone else in it.
Here’s the tricky part. Finding a truck salesman that will tell you the truth about what their trucks can pull or the gas mileage of any f-250 or 2500 truck. If you go to a Ford dealer they will tell you every truck on their lot can pull that weight. It’s the same at the Chevy dealership , Dodge dealership or a used car dealership. They will all tell you this and this may very well be the truth. On a clear sunny day when the breezy is prefect and the ground is completely flat for miles in every direction, any truck can pull this weight. But I’m looking for a truck that can pull this weight plus up hill in all direction through the snow and rain, (although I never plan to tow in the snow or rain), and yet gets good gas mileage. Am I asking too much,.. ahh,.. maybe?
Well when I can’t get the answers from the dealerships, I go to my one true source of information,… Mayo. As always, the Google gypsy queen researched until we were sure of what truck to get for the job of pulling our trailer. The 2015 GMC Sierra 1500 double cab truck, with a 5.3liter Ecotec3 V8 engine and a 26 gallon gas tank. Its towing capacity with a 3.42 rear axle is 9,600 pounds, but I’m looking for the 3.73 rear axles because its towing capacity leaps to11,200 pounds. They both get 16 miles per gallon city and 22 highway.
As I see it now, We have the right truck and the perfect trailer for our journey all we need now is some small miracle to enable us to afford them. Oh well,.. if nothing else I know more about trucks now.IMG_8600

The Hardest Part of Leaving

07 Saturday Feb 2015

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The Hardest Part of Leaving

I have spent much of my life solo, I’ve traveled from place to place making new friends and leaving old friends. I’ve never really felt attached to any certain place or area. Although I must admit living in the mountains of Western North Carolina and being in Asheville has felt more like home to me than anywhere else. Still I feel a need to travel, to see new places and have new adventurers. Mayo and I are always talking about our bucketlist and how we don’t want to wait until we are too old to do some of the things on it. Mayo says our bucket will have holes in the bottom so that it will never fill up and we can keep adding adventures to our list. Its always hard to pick up and say good bye to those you love and have become more like family than friends. I know as difficult as it is for me, it must be even harder of my wife.
Mayo has live here for over 20 years, she has friends and friends of friends. She is loved by everyone she knows and everyone that knows her. Most of all she has family here. She has 3 sons and 3 grand sons. She has a young granddaughter here in Asheville. She has a daughter in law that’s more like a daughter and best friend. There are kids that grew up with her kids and parents of those kids who still keep in touch. I know and love them all, but I don’t share the same relationship with them as Mayo. A mother’s love is something that words sometime can never explain, so I will not attempt to explain it. I can only tell you what I see and feel when we talk about this matter.
Mayo always smiles and says “ I’ll be okay,… we’ll come up often to see them or we’ll have them come stay with us.” I usually reply saying something like “ Hey, hey, wait a minute, no need to ruin a good vacation by having them come stay with us.” ….. “ Can’t we just send them a post card saying having a great time, wish you were here!” I don’t know why she puts up with me. I think she knows that in my heart I love and will miss them too, just can’t let them know it,.. it will go straight to their heads.
That’s the hardest part of leaving. Missing our family and friends. Missing being able to call them up and say “Hey what’cha up to today,.. wanna come over and hang out?” or “bring the grand kids over let them spend the night!” It seems that every issue ends up with a call to Mayo for advise. They may be full grown with kids and relationships of their own, but they will always be her babies and grand babies. She will always be their Mayo. So even though she smiles and even though she will be happy to travel and sun her buns on the warm sandy beaches. I know the love in her heart for her kids. I now know the hardest part of leaving.

Let there be light,.. at the end of our tunnel

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

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Let There be light,…..at the end of our tunnel

It became clear to us that we had more stuff than a yard sale could handle. So my wife, who by the way, is brilliant, had an idea. She said “…imagine we are going to stay in a RV, Say you’re only going to stay two weeks. All the furniture is there but pretty much nothing else. Let’s make a list of things we’ll need to take with us such as our basic clothing, dishes and cooking utensils. Maybe some sporting stuff like fishing poles or a couple of bikes. And just for the heck of it a tool box, some books and a couple of lawn chairs. Tah-dah …not much…and we’re done.”
We decided to divide this list into three parts. 1.Things we need,.. this would be our must have to live comfortably, like food and clothes. 2.Things we want, these are things that would add to our comfort or bring joy, but we could do without them. Things like art supplies, my djembe and fishing gear. These item would have a limit based on available space. 3. Then there are things we’ll take just for the hell of it. These are things that we just enjoy like books, cool art, nicknacks, and extra clothes. These item would be very limited and we agreed that before adding another item we must give up one that we have to keep our stuff to a limit. Sounds easy right,.. well lets hope so,..
After a week of working on this list we found ourselves still trying to lighten our load. I keep trying to convince Mayo that all she’ll really needs is her bikini. A man’s got to try,.. and she’s trying to talk me out of taking so many books, but it’s so hard to get rid of a good book. She also came up with the genius idea of taking all our other stuff to a local consignment shop and letting them sell it for us. This was a hobby that we did once before and it work out well for us. It would also be something we can do while traveling that would create an extra income for us. Now you see why I married her, she smart and so cute.
We got a booth at the Regeneration Station a local consignment shop that specialize in keeping furniture out of the landfills and recycling junk. Mayo and I loaded everything we own but didn’t need and placed it in that booth. Finally we were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We knew it wouldn’t be long before we would be on the open road. Our next task was fixing up the house and farm and finding renters.
I tease Mayo all the time saying “what will we do when we have no where to be and all day to get there?” We don’t really have plans for our journey, we just plan to journey. We’ll stay someplace beautiful today and somewhere else tomorrow. I keep telling Mayo I won’t ask “where do you want to go next,” I’ll just ask “Honey RV There Yet??”