This endeavor has taught us to be flexible, really flexible.

That being said, no more countdowns. Now I am going to keep track of how much we spend and how far we travel. I’m still up in the air about whether or not to include the RV payment in our expenses.

What do you think?

Okay, this is why I love this blog. Once I actually typed that last line out, I realized how stupid it is. It’s not like someone’s going to be looking at my pics saying, “Oh my God, are you wearing the same outfit on Route 66 that you wore in Hawaii??”

Okay, I better go sort through my clothes right now while I’m feeling determined.

Hollywood has made me afraid to visit new places. I’m tired of it and something has got to change.

Now that I think about it, it’s not just small towns, I am generally afraid of the unknown. I think I have Yahoo News and Hollywood to thank for that. And yes, I realize this is not a good quality to have if one is about to embark on a life of traveling, but how will our multicultural family be received? Am I being ridiculous?

I expect for our family to learn some hard lessons on this trip. But I thought the lessons would be about learning to tell the difference between needs and wants, how to conserve, and how to respect others’ from different cultures.

I don’t know if I’m prepared to explain racism, abuse of authority, or other topics like that.

Help me out on this, am I totally out of line here? What do you think about small town America? For our readers who consider themselves to be from small town America, what do you think about big cities? Do you think Hollywood makes you afraid of places like NYC?

Sally, one of the characters said something like, “People used to drive these roads to have a good time, not to make good time.” Honestly, that stuck with me. I want to take a slow ride across the country. I want the whole family to see the sights. Furthermore, I want us to stop at little restaurants that aren’t part of national chains.

Recently, I’ve been thinking that if we see a field of flowers like the ones I’ve seen in the movies, we’re going to pullover and lay in it. I’ve never done that before.

When we reach California, we’re going to fly to Hawaii to see a volcano. It seems like a great symbol of our journey. These feelings of dissatisfaction with the status quo have finally bubbled up to the service and now we are creating a new life. Just like the lava bubbles up creates new islands in the Pacific.

I thought it was interesting how everyone at the RV park was pretty young, albeit they could’ve been extras in “Deliverance”, but young nonetheless. I can’t wait to go to my first RV park and see what people are really like. As far as demographics, did art imitate life or did the filmmakers use younger actors to mirror their target audience. I read on an RV organization’s web site that they actually expected and received a bump in RV sales/rentals from the movie.

So go check out the movie and let me know what you think.

Watch the trailer below:

R.V. – video powered by Metacafe

What scares me is how will I be able to convince my children that new isn’t always better if I don’t practice it myself? Living in an RV will definitely keep us from buying a lot of new stuff. It will hopefully make us, as one fellow Craigslister put it, “aware of what we bring into our space”. So much of product marketing is built around making you feel like you’re missing something and then selling you a product that will fill that void and thus make you whole. That pattern/cycle has been etched into my brain. My hope is that this time in the RV will help me create new patterns that don’t involve buying things to make me feel better.

The reading made me realize that I do not need most of those clothes and I do not need most of my “stuff”. As I complete my transition from apartment living to RV living I will keep this article in mind. If you have 7 minutes, you should read the manifesto here.

Daily Wisdom: It doesn’t matter who else can “see” who you are. What matters is that you know. ~Rob Walker

If you have the time, let me know what you think about the piece.

Initially, I was pretty pissed, but once I got passed the anger the news made me glad that I have an RV and this is why:

It’s an incentive for me not to be paralyzed by gas prices. If prices were higher because of some tax to curb global warming, I’d do everything I could to reduce my consumption. (CM and I shopped around for the most fuel-efficient RV that we could find. The one we ended up buying gets nearly just as good gas mileage as our Honda Odyssey. Which is pretty sad now that I think about it.)

But this is about a handful of people getting rich while we suffer. I feel that as a parent, my children need to travel in order to gain wisdom about the way the world works. They need to learn about different cultures and different ways of doing things. I want them to see that all people don’t obsess over money. I’m going to make that happen even if gas gets up to $10 a gallon because I feel that kind of knowledge is priceless.

How do you react to higher gas prices? Do you stay home or is it business as usual?

Overall, it was very different environment, one that will take some getting used to. No one has yet to use the toilet, so I’m still pretty worried about smells. Maybe we’ll try it out today.

There has been one huge change that neither CM or I expected: Midget was really affectionate. She is usually pretty moody and doesn’t like to give hugs and kisses. Once we were in the RV, she was giving hugs and kisses all night long.

Things are definitely starting to get interesting.