I’m In HELL.

Because, seriously, where else is it 111 degrees?

Oh, it’s 7:20pm and it’s dropped from 111 to 108 degrees. It’s brutal. And when you’re living in a 1988 Fleetwood Jamboree motorhome, you feel the heat. Intensely. We have the roof unit and a portable AC unit running and it still doesn’t get much cooler than 85 in here during the day. Nights are nice though, and I usually wake up freezing first thing in the morning.

Anyway, I owe y’all an update:

The trip:

We made it. 

A 5 hour drive took 9+ hours. It ended up being a 16 hour day in 105+ degree weather with lots of heavy lifting.

We broke 3 tow straps holding the chicken coop to the trailer.

The rear U-Haul door flew open once (and we only lost one empty basket out of the back thanks to Jen’s amazing tetris-like packing skills).

The U-Haul hauled all of our belongings and towed a trailer with a riding mower, chicken coop, washer, and dryer on it.

The cab of the U-Haul also hauled Shelby, Tucker the German Shepherd (for part of the trip), Aggie the Boxer (for the other part of the trip), and 2 chicks in danger of heat stroke.

The motorhome (without a/c) transported my husband, Tucker the German Shepherd (for part of the trip), and 10 chicks (after the 2 that were in danger of heat stroke were moved to the U-Haul).

The Suburu transported Jen and Mav Dog.

The CX-7 transported two chihuahuas, The Gnome, and myself.

When we finally pulled into the storage place at 9:30pm, the storage unit was WAY too small for our stuff (wait, I thought we were minimalists…) so we had to rent another one. Even though we never used the first one, they wouldn’t refund us for it… boo.

After unloading the U-Haul and loading the storage unit, Hubby and Shelby dropped the coop, mower, chickens, and trailer off at my sister’s while Jen got beer and I finally nursed The Gnome to sleep.

We hung out outside the motorhome for a bit before one toddler, 4 adults, and 5 dogs went to bed in the motorhome for the night.

The motorhome: 

The fridge broke when Jen was loading up our food back in Texas.

The toilet started leaking when we hooked up to a water supply at the RV Ranch.

The door broke. Like, it won’t close. It was being held closed with a bungee cord.

We finally just decided to buy a travel trailer for temporary living quarters. We need a functioning space because we will be moving on to the land that we purchased ASAP. More details on the new temp “house” to come soon,

Settling in:

The Gnome has been a trouper. There has been a lot of car time lately (we’re in the boonies – everything is so far away!) and y’all might remember that he hates his car seat. We took him to the aquarium today to do something for him, because we totally owed him (more on how we’re fitting that into the budget soon over on Bringing Back The Village).

It’s going to be an adjustment (like, we almost ran out of gas today because gas stations are NOT on every corner like they were in the DFW area and we’re learning to stock up so we don’t need to go 30 miles out of the way to pick up one item). We will probably need to reevaluate our fuel budget because $50/week is a joke here. I had my first experience washing diapers in a laundromat in 110+ degree weather and it was a nightmare.

But, the place that we’re staying is really new and nice so that’s helping with the adjustment. My “sheep peeps” (ladies I’m in a wool Facebook group with) bought us beer and completely saved the day (and the budget).

More to come soon, but I can’t promise it won’t be spotty at best. We’re crazy busy, especially this week since Hubby has to be back to work on Monday. We’re cramming our entire to-do list into one week and it’s HUGE. We’re hoping to talk to a builder about our dream shack tomorrow, and we’re also taking delivery of the travel trailer we bought.

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