Suggestions to pass on

We have a five hour ride today and Mike is driving.  SInce we started our trip, we keep getting friend requests from people who are friends of friends and are planning cross country rv trips in the future.  While I am living it now, I decided to write about living in the rv and what has been helpful, special thanks to Carol , Jen and Bekie who dealt with all my questions, and I will add I have lived on youtube since January, any thing that comes up I can google and usually find a video to help.  My biggest source of help for rv stuff was the Jayco owners forum- a group of jayco rv owners and no matter what time I asked a question someone would reply in minutes to help explain something.

To start planning I subscribed to GoodSamsClubRv, paid $60 for year membership and it gives me free trip planning, suggestions for campgrounds that meet their rigorous quality standards within 1 mile of my travel route, warnings for low bridges or routes we can’t take the rv on, information about road side attractions, free towing if we break down, The best feature was the trip routing.  I would put in a destination and it tells me how many miles and hours it is from previous destination.  It also caluclated how much money I would approximately spend on gas for each leg and for the total trip.  The one thing I will caution is we typically do not travel the posted speed limit – some places it was 80 MPH. so for the most part for every hour of travel time listed we would add about 20 minutes to account for slower speeds and our gas stops take about 20 minutes.   This is a great guide to plan.  Our longest leg was about 515 miles which was about 11 hours driving,  Def too long, but kids wanted to see more places and they were really good riding, thanks to cell phones, cards, food and board games. Five hours travel time was ideal to me.  I am the type who wakes up at 5:30 every day and my preference was to wake up and leave while the kids were all sleeping, Mike does not like to be rushed and likes to enjoy the morning and go at a less hectic pace.  So we would alternate depending on the day. The rv holds 48 gallons of gas, the first couple of fillups we got to 1/4 of a tank, our debit card only lets us put in $100 of gas at a time after that We usually filled up around 1/2 empty because I always worried we would get on a stretch and run out.  Typical day we would get up around 7:30 shower, eat and pull out around 8- 8:30.  Sometimes we would drive a few hours to our activity sometimes a good part of the day and then do the activity in the morning.  We only drove once at night, spent 2 days at cedar point, reserved campsite for two nights, and after the kids got done around 7 PM fed them dinner and they got ready for bed and we drove till midnight and then slept at truck stop. We prefered day time driving because the sights were so beautiful and we felt it was safer.  We picked most of our campgrounds for convenience, close to road we were on, full hookups, good sams ratings of clean bathrooms, and friendly people running it. I live on trip advisor and go by the reviews of the former guests.  Many of the campgrounds have a guy in a golf cart escort you to your sight.  We brought camping chairs for each person and a four foot folding table to put the grill on and doubled as picnic table when we had friends visiting for dinner.

As for being in the rv. most essential item- the charger that plugs into lighter than can charge 4 devices, we use both ports and can charge 5 devices. I would also suggest you up your data plan, verizon lets you pay $50 for the month for unlimited data.  Not every campground has good wifi and alot do not let you stream movies.  We can’t watch tv while rolling unless we have generator on but kids didnt care.  We never use the campground cable, most nights the kids will  download a movie on netflix at bedtime and they all would watch that.  For practical items, we brought the toaster, portable grill, and electric skillet.  A big bowl for salad or serving, a mixing bowl with pour spout for pancakes, a container with spices, sprays and oil, grill utensils, cookie sheet, and big pot with strainer, small pot. (none of us drink coffee or tea but lots of people we met have coffe maker) The best thing we did was bought two sets of reusuable plastic cups with 6 different colors and each kid was given a color and those were their two cups.  They all washed their cup and put it away after using so they had it to use.  We also bought everyone a good reusuable water bottle, which they either filled with ice water or they would use the powdered gatorade mix to make gatorade.  We keep a gallon of milk, gallon of ice water and gallon of gatorade or lemonade in the fridge.  We use the water from campground to fill water in fridge, we do not drink the water from the fresh water tanks while rolling.  We only brought 10 plates and bowls so we do not have lots of extras piled up.  We stop at Walmart every 2-3 days, there is not enough room and we do not want the extra weight of stockpiling.  We always have easy mac, spaghetios and bread, pbj in case we don’t find a walmart.  Except for when my family was out, we eat almost always in the rv.  Much cheaper and saves time, sometimes the kids sneak out to subway when we get gas.  They did not eat as much snacks as I was expecting and was surprised when they were actually asking for fruits and vegetables.

For personal care, we bought two shower caddies one for the boys and one for the girls, they sit on the counter in bathroom and keep everything from falling, when they go to showers they usually just carry shampoo and soap and throw it over the showers to each other.  We all brush teeth in rv.  Each person in rv was allowed to bring only 2 towels and after they shower or swim we hang wet stuff on ladder of rv or in the shower to dry.  We also brought two mesh laundry bags and we put all dirty laundry in a mesh bag and store in shower.  Also everyone brought a rain coat and 1 sweatshirt and only 5 days worth of clothes.  Everyone has pair of sneakers, slides, shower flip flops and water shoes.  The shoe situation is the most messy.  We store them outside in one of the storage bays but they switch between slides and sneakers a lot so we always have shoes all over.    We did not bring any suitcases, everyone got a drawer for all their stuff and we hang coats and sweatshirts in closet. The kids each have a back pack for hikes, we store in cabinet.  When we hike they take their own waterbottles.  Fridge and freezer are really good size and with creative organizing can fit good amount of food. We have popsicles, ice cream and waffles on supply all the time. Portable speaker has been great for the kids to control the music in the back with phones.  We use the chromebook for blog and sometimes video.  Kids also brought playstation, they have not used it very much except for netflix.  We also have our binnoculars from home which have been fun for spotting animals. We have two tall coolers in rv with us, one we have between front seat and use as a table for charging stuff and also good for keeping drinks cold in water bottles. The other one is the cube and the kids use it to sit on right behind Mike and I to look out front window and chat with us, funny how that spot rotates.  We also bought a good truckers atlas for the places our cell phone gps did not work.  Another tip someone gave us was to put the key to rv on a lanyard and put around neck when hiking or touring.  We hang the rv storage keys on a hook by the door because if we lose them we are screwed.  Rv uses special toilet paper, you can buy it at walmart.  SInce we had the no pooping in rv rule we only have used about 6 rolls the entire trip ( and we only have 3 girls.) Make sure you take a real broom not a fold up one, broom is our best friend.  We also use a regular kitchen size trash barrel it does not fit under the sink but when we are rolling we put it in the stair well (out of the way and it doesnt tip) and when we are at a sight we  leave it outside the door.

Give all your kids jobs. It makes life easier. I wrote out each kids jobs on index cards to start and now they know them and do them on arrival and deparure.  Luckily 1/2 of our kids are neat and yell at the other half to keep the rv clean.  We use an air freshner on the ac vent up front, glade stuff in bathroom and febreeze spray. WIth the exception of one kid, all of them have good hygiene and shower every day and keep their bunks and drawers neat and clean.

We use the AMerica The Beautiful Park Pass we bought for $80 for all the national parks, saved us a ton of money and is good for a year.  Also the goodsams club gives you a discount card and you save .05 a gallon at flying j gas stations.

A friend made us an emergency travel kit, we have duct tape, electrical tape, scissors, knife, basic tools, batteries. My mom made first aid kit, bandaids, tylenol, tums, benadryl, nail clippers.  We keep them in bins.  We added propane to the tank once, the fridge run on it when not connected to power.  Also been handy have adapter so we can plug our 30 AMP cord into plugs at friends houses, you can’t run the air but you can use lights, fridge, water, and tv.  A couple of times in the desert it was so hot that we had to turn on the generator to put on the ac in the back, but typically the ac from the cab keeps the front people freezing and the back people cool but not cold. A few times we closed the doors to back bedrooms to keep ac up front.  Generator runs on same gas tank for engine and if you get to 1/4 of a tank it will shut off the generator.

Our EZ pass worked until indiana.  We actually did not have many tolls after that, a couple we paid cash and a couple just take a pix of license plate.   Bring rolls of quarters for laundry.  Some camp grounds had lots of machines and others only had a couple.  We did laundry every 3-4 days, with 8 people we had a lot.

Break time over, going to the back to make myself some lunch.  Will add more when I think of it.