The Thinking

The thought of our European sabbatical appeared when we were camping in old landshark.  It wasn't a great camping trip.  Heck, it wasn't even a good camping trip.  But like sailing, a bad day camping is better than the best day in the office.  At least in an RV.  I hate tents in the rain.  Even a mediocre day in the office is better than being soaking wet in a tent in the rain.  But I digress.

I woke up that beautiful Sunday morning, and I was feeling somewhat melancholy that my dream of sailing around the world with my kids while they were still of a certain age (ie, not teens) was over.  25000+ miles at 7 knots takes several years.  Heck, I wasn't sure we could pull off a decent trip back and forth from the Caribbean to Europe.  I didn't even think a tour of the Mediterranean was reasonable in that time frame.

Not in a boat.

Ah, but at 100km/hr, one can see a lot.  A lot more than at 7 knots.  And one can get inland.  True, going to downtown Rome isn't going to happen, but it wasn't going to happen in a cruising catamaran either.  Anchoring isn't that much pricier on land, and there often are more options.  And if anyone gets really annoying, there is the option to pull off the road and take a walk rather than put someone adrift in the dingy.

Over coffee that morning I casually mentioned homeschooling the kids for a year living in an RV to Martha.  There was a combined look of horror, mixed with a smattering of panic but yet a tiny sparkle in her eye.  At first I suggested touring the US, Canada and Mexico (we've already been to all of them in Landshark the former).  Some doubt began to cloud the sparkle.  Then I hit her with the big one, "I bet we could even ship an RV to Europe."  As I pointed out to her, when we were in Spain a few years ago, there was a Class A RV near the ferry to Morocco.  (Admittedly I did not remind her that it it was the smallest Class A I have ever seen -- 26' at most.  One doesn't make an omlette w/o breaking some eggs.)  The continued spark in her eye showed me this was a caper worthy of followup.  Or at least some research.

Within 20 minutes after getting home from the camping trip, we both met in the kitchen and declared that the Scherer Family / some family in Washington did it.  And not only did they do it, they did it in a Sightseer 35J which is exactly the RV I had been thinking would be perfect for our family.  We've been Winnebago fans, have been to the factory.  We haven't joined the club or done a rally, but we certainly have done 6 of the proverbial 9 yards.  The next several hours filled in much more research and gave us the broad strokes of a plan.

• Buy an RV
• Outfit it
• Rent out the house
• Go

The details could be filled in later.

An American RV in Paris

Landshark "the concept" has a whole new lease on life.  Not the old Landshark.  That one has been sold after getting a whole "new to her" engine to replace the one that blew a sparkplug, sucked something into a valve and effectively made it unsellable according to California law.  Of course, I didn't know all that before we bought new Landshark, or I might have held off.  But as they say, in for a dime in for a dollar.  Or in the world of RVs, in for 20k, in for another 20k.

We have a whole new-to-us rig (and much more than 20k entry point *shudder*).  A lovely 36' Tiffin Allegro QBH.  It has bunk beds, thus the boys have their private domains for our next adventure.  And now Sarah gets to sleep on the couch instead of clearing the table.  Also, it seems to double in size when the slides are opened up.  Sure, it doesn't have much storage (I think it has been weighted down a bit too much for the chassis, so in an effort to minimize the weight people add to it, they skimped on storage), but that's OK.  It is a Class A RV weighing in loaded close to (and hopefully not more than) 24,000 lbs and standing a proud 12'6".  Driving past Semi's I look down on the other driver.  I have yet to be passed by anyone who is sitting higher in the air than me.   Yes, tunnels can be alarming.  So can construction.  And trees.  But I have a truckers GPS and faith in our ability to find some fun adventures while sleeping comfortably.

Speaking of, the biggest adventure lies in our very near future.  We've rented our house out, I've given notice, Martha soon will give notice and we're pulling the kids out of school to go on a year of homeschooling adventure.  And if homeschooling for a year in an RV doesn't sound like enough, we've decided to ship Landshark to Europe.

Yes, Europe.

Yes, it is an American RV.

No, we haven't lost it.

We've found at least 1 other family on the internet who has traveled with similarly sized RVs apparently successfully (the Scherer family sold the RV after a full year and returned to Washington).  We've found private label books that specialize in cataloging "pitches" (RV sites) which can hold a 24'+ RV.  And it does point out the ones will hold the size we have.  I comfort myself with the fact that there are people who have 45' RVs in Europe.  They don't blog, but they exist.  At least in rumor.  Or perhaps as cautionary tale.

Our plan is to drive across the country, load it on a roll-on, roll-off ship (RORO, not Scooby saying Ruh-Roh), wait 3-4 weeks and unload it in Southampton, UK.  After that, things get a little vague.  But we know that we can move back into our house in August 2014.

That's the plan, and we're doing it.  More about how we've outfitted Landshark and our shakedown cruise to the Tetons tomorrow.  Or maybe just later tonight.

NOLA and Cruising

Had a great trip as well to New Orleans and cruising on the Carnival Conquest. If one has the means, we definitely recommend the aft wraparound balcony. Not as pricey as a suite, but the room was amazing. All 5 of us were able to hang out comfortably in the room and/or on the balcony. We did need a separate room for the kids to sleep, but an interior cabin down the hall worked great.

Whassup

Been a long long time since I've updated the blog. Since that trip we've voyaged in LandShark to the Grand Canyon, down to San Carlos Mexico, down to Paso Robles, camped on the Pacific Ocean and so on. Currently I'm working to build ClassMonkeys into the best place to figure out what you want to learn next. If financing doesn't work out, we'll be back out in Landshark this summer. So, stay tuned...

The mighty plains

Driving westward from Shorewood, IL there is not a lot going on. Sure, I-80 is packed with trucks and it is generally no fun to drive as a result. But the scenery leaves much to be desired. We crossed the Mississippi again and then cut north to Winnebago county, the home of Winnebago Industries. The makers of our fair Landshark.

Winnebago Industries was started 50+ years ago in an otherwise unremarkable town in Iowa. Seemingly the goal of the company was to employ people from Winnebago. Well, they have done so. And in the process made the RV industry. The factory tour started out very slow with a bus tour of the factory buildings outside. Imagine driving in a bus around a truck stop with identical trucks and with a few warehouse exteriors thrown in. After 10 minutes the kids were out of their minds and Martha was giving me a look to say "we drove 300 miles out of our way for THIS!?!" Fortunately, the bus stopped, we put on safety glasses and we went in to watch a chassis being welded together. It was loud. There were copious amounts of sparks flying around. And it smelled like ozone. Whew. Dodged that bullet. There were three more trips off of the bus to watch the rest of the RV building process. And in the end we got to go into a couple of models whose MSRP was 15x what we paid for Landshark.

Continuing onwards, we headed north to Minnesota for about 10 miles before heading west in a long cut across South Dakota. I didn't expect much out of South Dakota and that was probably a good thing. As the day got later and later (though we did have an hour time change working for us) we watched approaching thunderstorms. Being originally from "tornado alley" in Illinois, we stopped on the edge of what we thought was safe. We filled gas (10+ minutes) and picked up some milk. In that time, the wind shifted 180 degrees and kicked up over 40 knots and dust was flying everywhere including my eyes. We were parked 10 minutes later and the wind had completely died. The sun was out way to the west of us and we could pick up a double rainbow in the now passed storm. Amazing.

Cedar Point until Winnebago County ... no photos

I don't know if I'm lame, Martha is lame or we were just thrown off our game. But however you put it, the 1 week between our trip to Cedar Point and Winnebago county was not immortalized on camera. We scored another national park for the Monopoly game (Indiana Sand Dunes National Park, only 4 miles off the road which pointedly avoided the tollways) bringing us closer to finishing the board. Admittedly, we only ranked the park as "Mediterranean Ave," but something had to be.

After that roadside attraction, we stayed for several days with my family in Shorewood, IL. The boys scored a 2 day sleepover in Evanston, IL with the aunts, and Sarah felt so left out, we dropped her off for 1 of those nights! Amazingly, Mom and Dad got to see a big screen movie for the first time in years. And somehow, Dad got to pick it. We saw Star Trek. Excellent choice! Not much of a date movie, but any movie is a date movie these days. And special kudos to the second run theater in which it played. Not only were there several 3+ star movies playing, each ticket was only $1.50. On Friday/Saturday nights the ticket price bumps to $2. Wow. Finally a movie house that fits our budget.

Sunday dinner was another real treat. We had graduation roast beef for dinner. If you are not acquainted with that meal, but you live close enough to join us for Super Bowl Sunday, you will be. It's what our family served for every first communion, confirmation, graduation and perhaps even some of the wedding receptions. With 5 kids in the family, it was an almost annual meal. After long wait, my mom has shared the recipe. I made it two days ago and it is outstanding.

The other highlight of our trip home was a chance to visit all of my friends from high school. Mike & Kim were also in town, so it was the first time most have been together since they got married a year+ ago. Well before the economy went to liverwurst. It was great to see everyone.

On Monday morning, it was time to head to Iowa and continue our ride westward...

Fallen off a cliff?

Clearly any of the regular readers of this blog are wondering if I have fallen off a cliff. That is not the case. After we got to Chicago, life just became too busy and has remained so for the rest of our trip. I have an hour or so this afternoon and will try to edit & upload some photos as well as try to get as much as I can get down before my memory becomes too fogged. In any case, we are alive & well with LandShark parked in the driveway.