Florida to Alaska and Back

For unrelated reasons, I was off work Friday. This gave me a chance to run to the DMV and get the title transferred and get the tag. My son and I drove to the seller's house Sunday and arrived at 1:00 to pick it up. I'd already secured storage earlier in the week. The seller showed us around it a bit more and demonstrated how to light the hot water heater (6 gallons) and turn the inverter (1500 watts) on and off. It has two batteries, although only one is wired into the 12-volt electric system and the inverter. The wiring is in place for a second battery, but that will be a separate post. I drove it back to our cul-de-sac so we it to the wife/mom, and then we headed off to an industrial park for my son to practice driving it. It's a 4 speed manual, and although he's driven his sister's car (also a manual), he probably has a total of an hour operating a manual vehicle, and only under practice conditions. He does, however, play Forza on his Playstation 3 with wh

Yep, finally pulled the trigger, and purchased the Toyota Sunrader I looked at on Tuesday . It's got some quirks, but the guy did a really good job of renovating it. Completely redone interior and a ton of new parts on the engine. I've got to secure storage and complete the title transfer. He's letting me keep it parked where it is until I can get that don'e Hoping to pick up up this weekend. More to come, including photos!

Here we are, about a month away from my son's high school graduation and ~6 weeks away from trip departure... and still no RV. I've recognized in myself a reluctance to act when I'm unsure or uncertain. The whole trip is rather foreboding, as is the expense of a motor home (and my lack of associated knowledge required to operate it), so I've been procrastinating. With the ETD (estimated time of departure) looming, it's time to kick the ball. Although I've been keeping an eye out on Craigslist, RVTrader, and local RV dealer sites, I haven't seen anything I'm interested in. I know I want a small one, this being my first RV, and because of the planned length of the trip, mileage is important. Plus there's only the two of us, so we won't need much. I headed back to the Cruise America site. Again. And discovered they didn't have any of the 19 footers in stock. Last time I checked, maybe 2 months ago, they had maybe 10? In one sense, I