Getting ready for an RV trip is a weeklong exercise for us. Actually, it starts much earlier than that because about a month before we go I pull out our lists and start mulling over what we need. When we left the RV at the end of the last trip, I had taken my RV inventory list and circled all of the things we had taken out of it. So I need to get those in order first; some are just items that need to go back in (oils, vinegar, dish towels that got taken out to be washed at home etc.) and some we need to buy. That done I can relax for a few weeks.
But come a week ahead I start accumulating everything that is not standard RV equipment, the things on my RV packing list—travel books, extra glasses, medications etc. They go into laundry baskets that I commandeer to carry things to the RV. We keep our RV at a storage facility about 30 miles from home (we live in a very urban area), so we have to take things to it. I know there are some of you who have the luxury of parking your RV outside your home. Nope. Not us.
So everything gets accumulated into my baskets. Whenever I have a spare minute, I pick up my list and gather a few things. Some can’t go in until the last minute – phone chargers, phones, electric toothbrush, etc. We have an inside porch, so the baskets get lined up on the porch, more and more each day.
Then I make up my ‘grocery’ shopping list. I look at the freezer inventory (yes, we do have a list of what is in the freezer and it is remarkably accurate). I browse my cabinets. And because I always leave something behind if I don’t make a list – and sometimes even when I do – I write down what I want to take from the freezer and from the cabinets. I have three small bins for canned goods and pasta and such. I have a long bin that fits under the dinette for cereal and chocolate chips (who can travel without chocolate chips? Certainly not us!) and mixes. These get filled early but there are always items that can’t go in until the last minute.
And on this trip they included potatoes, onions, fresh tomatoes, and lemons. I wrote those on corner of my freezer shopping list and completely forgot them. We were long away from home when I remembered so I called our neighbor and invited her to go shopping in our kitchen.
We have a minivan and everything, including our bikes, goes in the back. Two coolers with food from the refrigerator and freezer, my many bins (5 of them
this time), our clothes (hanging clothes in a clothes bag and everything else in 2 pillowcases – one for him and one for me), our bedding (a Travasak and our pillows from home). It all just fits in. If we get rid of the minivan, we will have to make two trips. But we are ready to go.
