Considering an adventure...

Jesse and I have been throwing around the idea of taking a cross-country road trip. This is mostly because Jesse has done it, and I haven't, and because he has such great memories of it, he wants me to do it, too. I'm not opposed to the idea, because I grew up "going for a ride" with my grandparents on weekends - driving is pretty much in my blood. I love it. Impromptu road trips are totally awesome.

However, the idea of an extended, planned, multi-state excursion has been really daunting to me. That's really the reason why we haven't gone on the trip yet. I can't wrap my brain around it. Who's car should we take? How many miles is it? Will we be comfortable for that length of time in that car? What should we stop and see? Isn't that an awful lot of vacation time? Do we go to natural wonders or roadside quirks? Both? Again, doesn't that take a long time? Where do we stay? How can we be sure we'll make it to the next hotel on that specific day? Oh, forget it.

Now that my wonderful friend and former neighbor, Chelsea, has moved out of state, I no longer have a built-in, trustworthy, animal-loving cat sitter nearby. We recently found out that our cat, Mimsy, may be more nervous/anxious than we once thought, and we're also treating her for crystals in her urine, and all this means that she needs daily attention and daily box cleaning, which is tough to accommodate while on vacation.

We tossed around some ideas for how to travel (in a car) with cats, but those visuals were pretty rough. I couldn't imagine keeping them in carriers the whole time, and even more than that, I couldn't figure out how to have a litter box AND luggage in the same space, with cats out and about, safely. Ugh.

At some point, Jesse came up with the idea of renting an RV for the cross-country trip, so we could take the cats with us. While I thought it was a great idea, we were digesting it very slowly (because renting an RV is not cheap, and the questions of how long the trip would be kept coming up). Last week, though, while I was looking for a hotel for a quick weekend trip for Jesse's upcoming birthday, a very odd idea hit me.

What if we just buy an RV?

That way, we can use it for the weekend trip AND the cross-country trip, and we'll probably get some good use out of it, given our cat situation.

So to skip to the good part: we're looking for a class C motorhome; it should be as short as possible while still having an always-out bed in the back (~25ft), low miles, not terribly old. Ugly is not a huge issue, but road readiness is. If you know of someone who's selling, please let us know. =)

I don't have any concrete experience with RVs, other than the fact that my grandparents were "full-timers" on their class A motorhome during their retirement, and drove it all over the country. Unfortunately, they've since passed away, and I didn't really ask any questions about RVing when they were alive, so this is all new to me (us). Luckily, library cards are still easy to get, so I've picked up several good books that assure me that RVing takes no special skills or training.

Anyway, as this idea (quickly!) developed, and in order to see if this is just a daydreamer's fancy or a true solution to our problem(s), we've decided to rent an RV for the birthday weekend trip. The plan is to pack up the cats and head out for an adventure, to see how we all like the travel style.

If it all works out and we love it, then in the future, you can look for us at the shuffleboard area of the KOA/Thousand Trails campgrounds (har, har). ;)