What it Took to Start My Epic Journey

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I’m starting a whole new journey in a whole new way!

We sold “Mr Moto”, our motor home. Very sad…

Sold the motorhome, which was hard for me. I think Tim was glad to see it go as he’s not really the kind of guy that likes to be constantly fixing engine, toilet plumbing, roof leaks, window leaks, electrical issues, and dashboard problems. Engine grease, dirt, sweat, and Tim just do not mix very well.

Anything with four wheels and a motor he just wants to take to a dealership or repair shop and let them fix it. Can’t always do that with a MotorHome.

Yes, there are RV repair places out there. They range from the absolutely awful to the mediocre. The big ones like Camping World are awful, and if you can get a person to come out to wherever you are who purports to be an RV engineer or repair person, it really is hit or miss as to whether they’re able to fix any problems.

Camping World sucks! At least it does in terms of getting repairs done properly.

A motor home is an earthquake on wheels

The biggest problem with any camper, RV, or motorhome, is they are moving earthquakes. We all know what a house looks like after an earthquake, well, the total destruction isn’t quite there, but with an RV you can just about guarantee something will break every other week.

Gypsy Blood

We spent quite a few years traveling in that motor home, and I absolutely loved it. Think I must have gypsy blood or perpetually itchy feet as I would have lived and traveled in that motorhome probably for the next 20 years lol.

I loved driving the motorhome. Here I am driving it over a very narrow bridge crossing from Indiana into Ohio.

So we ended up buying a house in Michigan (kids and grandkids nearby) and selling the motorhome.

It really is a nice house but I did cry when we sold the motorhome. I loved that bugger, even through all the days spent parked in repair shop parking lots, fixing the toilet, again, and everything else that could possibly go wrong with an old rig, we spent some wonderful times on the road.

We traveled to some of the most fantastic places, you just wouldn’t go there in a car. Out in the desert, up a mountain, on beaches, even 2 miles down a really rocky, potholed road, just outside Yellowstone Park to the most fantastic meadow on the side of the mountain.

And we’ve been to so many States! I still haven’t been out east, as in Massachusetts, New England, Maine, etc. but based on my new setup, I am going to be able to do that.

My New Motorhome!

After a LOT of research, I picked a Pacifica Limited AWD.

I had a lot of reasons for this choice:

I wanted a car, taking Tims every time I wanted to go on a retreat or out for the day really wasn’t fair.
The back 2 rows fold down into the floor giving roughly an 8ft x 4 to 5 foot flattish space. No other minivans do this.
I can stealth camp in it, you can with a bigger van but I drive a lot of miles when I’m not on a ‘camping’ trip so I wanted that car ‘feel’.
The safety features are awesome.
It had the tow package I wanted
It had an upgraded security package
It was all-wheel drive
It was white inside! (Seems black is pretty standard now)

The hardest part was actually acquiring a Pacifica.

Everything the dealers had in stock had features I didn’t want such as a surround sound theater package. Complete waste of money for my needs. I could only find one but it was still in Windsor Canada and hadn’t been released to a dealer yet. After finding a dealer that would actually negotiate on price, I bought it. Still took another 6 weeks before Chrysler shipped it to the dealer and I love it.

I did a proof of concept run to Tennessee, I had a quilt in a show there and really wanted to see it hanging. That week showed me it was very feasible and what I would need to purchase in order to travel this wonderful country!

Here’s how we set up the van for my Tennessee trip:

Building my ‘no build’ van setup with stuff I already had.

Trying to determine what is needed to get the camp bed level.

Now we have the height needed Tim built a frame to support the bed. Now we need to bolt the bed to the wooden frame.

All my clothes and shower stuff etc are under the bed beside the seat. Food etc is in the orange tub and next to that on the left is my toilet, you can just see my fridge to the right.

The sheet hides everything and makes it look neat and tidy. Leaving a single back seat up left lots of room and a nice place to sit but it was difficult to get anything out from under the bed in that area.

From left to right: A 5-gallon narrow water container with a USB rechargeable pump, worked very well. The blue bag held the most used cooking items including coffee and breakfast cereal. The maroon case is a ‘Hot Logic’ type of cooker, it’s a different brand but it works well. The three drawers have plates, bowls, utensils, and basic kitchen stuff. The blue IKEA bag next to the drawers has the Coleman gas cooker.

As a Celiac I have to be careful as a lot of people think that just means I’m from Seattle!

It all worked well enough, for a one-week trip but it would not have worked for any longer. The difficulty in getting stuff from under the bed, no way to charge my 2000-watt EcoFlow power pack, a bed that wasn’t completely flat, and a limited kitchen among other things made life a bit difficult.

As a Celiac I have to be careful what I eat and so I cook everything from scratch. I can eat out but my choices on most menus, as well as limited choices of places to eat at, make life a bit more of a challenge.