Pre-Trip #29:
RV Actually Planning Another Adventure? (Part One)
Whew!! Where do I begin to tell you about all the craziness that’s been going on in our house the past few weeks? You may have noticed that I haven’t been doing much DISing lately, even though I’m a confessed DIS-boards addict! Let me explain. (
*Look out, major, big-time backstory alert!
*)
Way back in the intro to my first TR I mentioned that we live in a
tiny 1-1/2 story Cape Cod-style house with a teeny-tiny kitchen and only one bathroom. Well, this story begins ten years ago when I was expecting Billy and Tricia was not yet two. We were renting an even smaller, 2- bedroom house then. We had my stepson, Eddie, staying with us from time to time as well, and with a third child on the way, we absolutely needed more room.
I was frantically house hunting in the town where Ed works and not finding much that we could afford. Even though it was an affluent suburb, we really wanted to live in this town for a few reasons.
First, Ed could stop by the house on his evening break and have dinner with the family now and then. (Very important, since he worked the night shift and slept during the day, so we saw little enough of him already.) The
second reason we wanted to live in town was that, if he were promoted to captain, he would be required to live in town. It just made more sense to buy a house here and not have to move again because of this regulation. The
third reason that I hoped to get a decent house here was because of the excellent public school system. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this would eventually become a major big deal when it came to Billy’s Special Ed needs.
As the months past and I began to waddle from open house to open house, active toddler in tow, I was getting desperate.
When we did find a house that seemed reasonable, we could not compete in the bidding wars that resulted from low supply and high demand. Heaven smiled upon us, though, and
just a few weeks before Billy was due, we found a post WWII fixer-upper in a nice neighborhood that we could actually afford (kind of!) Although it needed a lot of work, we jumped at it and immediately agreed to pay the modest asking price. No more bidding wars for us; we needed this house!
After the unforgettable experience of packing up one house with a two-year old underfoot, having a new baby, and then moving three weeks later, I swore that it would be a long, long time before I moved again (if ever!)
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Over the following ten years, we intentionally did very little in the way of home improvements. Ed cleared away the massive shrubs that obscured the view of most of the first floor windows and took down a few of the smaller, ailing trees. We painted the house inside and out. I was especially glad to change the exterior colors…they were a very dated and unattractive mustard yellow and dark brown. Yuck.
“Like poo-poo and pee-pee,” Tricia used to say when she was very little (and she was right!)
Let me see… a few new plumbing fixtures for the bathroom… a new sink for the kitchen… a new circuit box in the garage; we really didn’t want to spend any money because we knew eventually the entire house would need a complete remodel to make it more family-friendly and comfortable. But to tell the truth, we didn’t really have the money anyway!
As time went by, we were very fortunate to have a few wonderful things happen. Ed was promoted to lieutenant, I found a higher-paying nursing job here in town, and the value of our home steadily increased with the surrounding real estate. We re-financed our initial mortgage and were finally able to save some money and take that first family vacation to WDW…
and the rest, as you know, is history!
So, here we are close to ten years later in the same house and you can’t swing a
baggallini without hitting a home that isn’t being enlarged, remodeled, or improved in some way. Ed has been working for over 25 years in the police department and can essentially retire with a pension whenever he wants and get another job of his choice. Thankfully, the Board of Education pays for the special education, speech, physical, and occupational therapy that our son needs due to his autism, and our daughter is doing very well in school and has lots of friends. It looks like we will not be moving any time soon. Yes, it looks like this is the perfect time to finally remodel this old house!
Sure, it would make things a bit tight financially for the next year, but Ed knew that I really wanted to do this when I offered to
give up our annual vacation to WDW to save money. Ed was understandably impressesed. “We’ll just bank our DVC points until next year and take a nice, long vacation,” I sighed. The thought of going without a WDW trip for two years made me sad, but hey! How
spoiled have I been being able to do Disney the past four years in a row? I would just make the sacrifice so I could get a nicer home.
There was one major catch, however. The architect hinted that the house would probably be unlivable for a month, maybe two. Sure, the contractor could work around us, but it would be really messy, potentially unsafe, and would wind up taking a much longer time for the entire job to get done.
And then there was
Billy to consider.
He even gets hyper and over-stimulated when the Christmas tree and other decorations go up! I don’t even want to think about how he would handle the noise and dust and general disruption from the work that would need to be done, both upstairs and down. The rest of the family could camp out in the living room on air mattresses, but not Billy. No, it looks as though it would just be better to move completely out of the house for the months of
July and
August.
So this begs the question,
where will we live? There’s a hotel a few towns over that offers suites with small kitchenettes, not unlike the layout of the one-bedroom
villa in DVC resorts, but it is
not cheap. And it means spending the summer on a highway surrounded by strip malls. Blech. And besides, what would we do with Aimee the Dog?
We could
rent a small house, but the realtor I spoke with said that not too many people allow pets and there would be no idea of what’s available until May.
May?? 
I can’t wait until May to know what my plans are! I want to get all my ducks in a row before we agree to start tearing down walls!
We could probably spend a week or two
with my parents, but I firmly hold that the old adage about guests and fish smelling after three days is true, so I wouldn’t want to impose for too long. Oh, wait, I forgot that my mother and my sister still living at home are both terrified of dogs.
There goes that idea.
One sister is expecting a baby this October and
another sister is expecting this April. I don’t think either of them could take on long-term houseguests. Besides, I don’t think they will have any room to spare!
The
last sister would love to put us up for a few weeks. She has been slowly working on remodeling her own house, but since she and her husband have been doing most of the work themselves, it has been a long, arduous process.
I seriously doubt they will be done by summer.
*Sigh* This is not going to be easy.
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The answer came, surprisingly, from my mother. We were discussing the above difficulties when she
joked that we could always
rent an RV. This was a family
joke because Ed has mentioned many times that he would love to buy a huge RV someday and spend his retirement years toodling around the country just seeing the sights. I had always retorted that this was definitely
not my idea of a blissful retirement. My family chuckles at the very thought of me, camping.
I have never been the “outdoorsy” type and certainly never had the desire to “rough it” on a camping trip.
The Wilderness Lodge is my idea of rustic vacationing! So, I fully expected that Ed would just laugh at the little RV quip from my mom. Instead, he thought it was a brilliant solution!
If we couldn’t rent a
house that would allow pets, he reasoned, we would rent a
motorhome. He wouldn’t be able to take off from work for July and August, but definitely for August. We would camp in the somewhat nearby
Pocono Mountains for the month of July and he would commute back and forth to work. (He has a 12 hr. shift, so he works five days one week and two days the next.)
The kids would be safely out of the way of the construction and get plenty of fresh air. They could swim, fish, bike and have fun for the whole summer. And Ed could try out the RV lifestyle and see if it really suits him. It seemed like a good idea all around.
So now I put down the kitchen renovating magazines and got busy at the computer, researching RV rentals and campgrounds. Even an inexperienced camper like me realized that July and August would be very busy at the better campgrounds and I wanted to start planning our locations as soon as possible.
Now, the
first two weeks of August have traditionally been our summer visitation with Eddie, so after our four weeks in the Poconos, we plan to cruise down to
North Carolina, set up at a nice campground down there, and spend that time with him. By mid-August, he would be heading off to
college as a freshman! (Yikes, I feel old!)
Here in Jersey, however, our kids don’t go back to school until after
Labor Day.
“We could spend the last two weeks of August in
South Carolina, or maybe
Virginia,” I suggested last night. “Perhaps something near the beach?”
That’s when Ed totally blew my mind.
“If we’re already all the way down in North Carolina, why don’t we just keep on going down to
Orlando?” he said, rather matter-of-factly. “We could camp at
Fort Wilderness.”
I stared at him. “What? What did you just say?”
“I said, why don’t we camp at Fort Wilder…”
“I thought that’s what you said, I just didn’t believe I was hearing it,” I managed to say.
“I…I thought you said we wouldn’t be able to go to Disney next year because it would be too expensive,” I said with disbelief.
“Well, look at it this way,” he began. “We’re
already paying for the RV rental and the RV site and it will basically be
the same whether we’re staying in Virginia or Florida.”
Okay, I get it so far.
“You’re already getting us
annual passes because of Marathon Weekend, so get annual passes for the kids, too. That way we won’t have to pay for park tickets.”
Sounds good to me! Unbelievable. $$$ Ed was actually working the fuzzy Disney math!
“Hey! We may even get to take advantage of
Free Dining if they do it again next year!” I said, excitedly. “That would save us even more!” Ed nodded in agreement. I could hardly wrap my mind around the concept of ANOTHER WDW adventure!
Hmmm. Just one thing nagged at me, though.
Florida in August. I do not do well in heat and Billy does not do well in crowds. I did a quick
Tour Guide Mike check. August would still be hot, naturally, but the crowds fall off toward the end of the month as many of the country’s school age kids head back to class. If we got to the parks at opening, I reasoned, and spent the afternoons in the pool, we would do okay! Wow, we might even get to do
Typhoon Lagoon and
Blizzard Beach for the first time! I was so excited now, I felt like I was about to burst!
“How many nights should we stay?” I asked.
“How’s about ten?” he replied.
Me =
“That way, we can leave Florida mid-week and take a nice, easy drive back up to New Jersey. We’ll stop in Virginia for a night or two on the way back. And maybe a night or two in
Maryland or
Delaware; I don’t want to rush.”
I couldn’t get to sleep last night because I was so excited… and a bit scared. This was a
huge undertaking that we were planning and I tossed and turned as my mind continued to race, even though I tried like crazy to put on the brakes. Why, oh why, can’t
WDW Central Reservations be open 24 hours? That was the one camping reservation I just
had to make!
To be continued...
Kathy
You guys must be getting excited about your upcoming trip
And I completely agree with you about the merits of play and imagination. It's a huge loss if we lose it entirely as adults and I think we're lesser for it if we do.
(BTW, where's Kanga and Roo??)
when you can drape yourself with lanyards full of shiny new PINS!!!
YAY!!!
A baby!!! Wonderful news, but number 4
.
He practices every day!
(Oooh, I feel almost famous!) What a great book!! 
to the party!
