Sorry it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. The last few weeks (and especially the last few days) have been insanely busy trying to get ready for the trip. Just 2 more days til we leave and still so much to do! Our plans are falling into place though. Even though we haven’t planned out a timeline for our trip and won’t know where we’ll be at any given point in our journey, there has been a massive amount of planning and preparing for our departure!
After everything involved with the planning process, the last thing I wanted to worry about was having to style my hair while on the road in a trailer. Just the thought of blow-drying my hair in a tiny RV bathroom causes me to start sweating and hyperventilating from claustrophobia. Haha! So I had two options: 1) shave my head or 2) get my hair braided for a low-to-no-maintenance hairstyle.
As tempting as it was to just shave my head, I opted for the latter and decided to get my hair braided into individual braids. I had done it years ago for several summers back in my high school days. I loved how easy the braids were compared to the daily torturous styling methods of blow-drying, flat-ironing and curling for my natural hair. Plus, by having synthetic hair braided in with my own hair, I was able to add some fun colors! I love funky hair colors, but having a professional job for the past 4+ years limited the amount of funk my hair could have. I had to take advantage and have fun with it now that I’m not working! 🙂
Recent braids by Stephanie of Natural Hair Styles by Stephanie.
Back to the planning process though. As I mentioned, there were countless hours spent planning and preparing for this extensive trip. Some (key word: “some”) of the steps involved included the following:
- Sell Justin’s 2 motorcycles (Justin literally shed a tear over the Harley.)
- Sell both of our cars (Including my Lexus…boo hoo! 🙁 )
- Sell most of our furniture (Countless trips to meet random Craigslist buyers at Chevron.)
- Buy a travel trailer (We ended up buying one from Michigan as it was much cheaper than getting one in California. We have to pick it up from Michigan though.)
- Buy a truck to tow the trailer (What a frustrating process it was trying to find the exact truck we need to tow the trailer! The buying process was also a headache.)
- Find a storage unit and move
remaining items into it (We thought we could fit everything into a 5×10 unit. However, even after everything we sold, a 5×10 just wasn’t enough. We didn’t want to have to move everything we already put into the 5×10 unit though and move it into a bigger 10×10 unit, so we ended up renting an additional 5×10 unit. Such a nightmare! A word of advice, spend a little extra money for a bigger unit upfront rather than stress about trying to make everything fit into a smaller one. It’s amazing how much stuff you accumulate and how much space it takes up. “The things you own end up owning you.” – Tyler Durden, Fight Club)
- Have mail forwarded
- Update auto insurance plan
- Get health insurance
- Get the pups up-to-date on their
vaccinations and stocked up on flea & tick control medications
- Find a home for our aquatic turtle Betty (Justin’s co-worker took her for his 5-year-old daughter. She loves Betty and drew a picture of them together!)
- Change address for all accounts and cancel utilities/services
- Update website and set “away” email message for makeup & hair business
- Clean townhome rental to move out
And those are just the main items on our ridiculously long to-do list. There are so many other little details that were involved with planning this trip. I could go on for days telling you about all of them along with the hurdles we faced along the way. But I won’t bore you with all of that. I’m just glad we survived the planning process and got to this point – just days away from setting out on a journey of a lifetime!
Your hair looks really nice my daughter brianna loved all the colors. Very nice. You have a lot to do and get done but it’s looks like you have everything under control. Happy for you.
Thanks, Monica! 🙂
It will be amazing knowing that there is nothing you have to worry about while you are on your journey! Because of all your planning and hurdle jumping you will truly be able to enjoy and focus on your adventure. I look forward to future posts where you are able to talk about the sights you have seen or lessons you have learned to friendships forged through unlikely events! Keep on truckin’!
What a wonderful and cool surprise to see your planned travels!! Best of luck to you and when you get to North Dakota plan on staying with us. We have great queen sized pillowtop beds and a very large bathroom (no claustrophobia) you can have all to yourselves! It’ll be a great reprieve from your travel trailer. With our oil boom going on here you may decide to make ND your permanent home!
Bill
Sounds good, Bill! Thanks!!! 🙂
That’s the goal. 🙂 Thanks, babe! So glad to know you’ll be following along on my journey. I miss you immensely mi hermana!