i'm a bit freaked out
bethany
we wanted to leave by october 1st, and still have no appropriate vehicle. which is rather necessary for getting this thing off the ground! our lovely little Neon, which had seemed more or less reliable, finally had its cylinder 4 misfire code figured out, and it's got low compression. which means boku bucks in repairs (head gasket etc) and it's just not worth it. so our plans to buy a cheap RV and tow the Neon have morphed into buying a cheap (but reliable!) truck and then getting a cheap trailer to haul behind it.
i can't tell you how many times we've switched sides in the last 6 months ... RV+car ... no ... truck+trailer! and back, and forth, and back, and forth. the death-knell for the Neon (which we're still driving, and hoping the right front strut doesn't give out too soon) was the decision-maker in which way to go. we'll need a truck when this is all over anyway, for building a cob/stone house, so it makes sense to get a decent one now. the mpg benefits of the Neon were big for long trips, but i hope we won't be making any terribly long road trips any day too soon after this one is over, so that's a mostly moot point.
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this kind of rambling/thinking/researching/worrying has been going on for months now. my head is a mess. and in the last few weeks, it's ramped up considerably. the things we have to figure out (and get done!) are legion. starting with finding a diesel pickup truck with an extended cab, and then a trailer. then there's selling the Neon for whatever we can get, finishing up the projects we promised to get done here at our rental house on the Delaware, choosing a new state of residence and transferring insurance/mail/etc over there. finding new insurance because Geico doesn't do full-time RV insurance. purging as much as possible from our belongings, sorting into take/store piles, and finding and loading up the storage space. selling old tech stuff on ebay. finding a laptop that's viable for blogging and web design, including Photoshop etc, and transferring everything from the desktop over, before selling that whole system. finding a laptop that the boys can blog from and do their schoolwork from. and a hard drive big enough to store all our photos. we plan to rely on public wifi + 3G cell data, so I don't want to depend on the cloud for everything.
i could go on for pages. it's simply not simple to become an itinerant family. there are services that cater to this lifestyle, and thankfully many people whose stories and ideas i can pick over, but it's a mind-boggling number of changes and decisions. i've had to fall back and let go the last few days, just chipping away at things, and not force decisions or timing. trusting God to bring things together. our desire to get out by october first has to do with weather, finances/rent/heating costs, and the desire to just get going. it looks impossible to me from here, but i can't let that rule the day.
onward.