Our Adventure Plans – Part 3
Besides coming up with a budget, getting the money and sticking to that budget you may need to plan out where you are going. The Florida State Parks have an online reservation system that you can use to help you plan out your adventure. In fact, they kind of insist that you reserve your space up to a year in advance to ensure that you will be able to get one. The parks have their popular times and you will more than like go during these times. You don’t want to get there and not have a place to spend the night or week. And with our trip we have to plan out our route as much as possible to save gas. We have decided to go across the north part of Florida (being as we live in Jacksonville), traveling westward, go around the panhandle, head south along the Gulf Coast, around the tip to the Keys and finally head north on the Atlantic Coast until we get home again. Along the way we will head into the middle parts of Florida as needed. Trying to hit all 49 Florida State Parks with RV Facilities will take some coordination and planning. You have to go onto the Park’s Website to keep abreast of upcoming events, outages and closures.
It helps if you have a map of the area, write out your plan and see if you can accomplish your goals. We have purchased a “Large Print” map to plot out our course, marked each park with a pushpin and have calculated the distance between each of the parks. Saving gas is our main concern and being able to get to each of the parks is our challenge. Your adventure may not include ALL of the parks but just a few. Looking at the website and signing up for any newsletters will help you keep abreast of what’s happening in the area. Most counties have some kind of Visitor website that you can get information on festivals and stuff in the area and you can plan to be there during those events or if you’re looking for peace and quiet you want to go when they are not being held.
Planning Our Adventure – Part 2
Next on our list is sifting through all of our stuff and deciding what we’re going to keep, what we’re going to sell and what we’re going to throw away. Whether or not you’re going to keep your current residence you should do some or all of this because you want to get rid of stuff you no longer need, you have to decide what you can and cannot take with you (depending on the amount of time you’re going to be away) and it is always nice to make a little money on the things you can no longer use or want. And you want to have your most precious things in a safe and secure storage place. Yes, outside storage is another expense but for some people it is a necessary one. I would suggest that you give a spare key and authorization to someone you trust to your storage in case you need to send some things home, there is a problem with the facility or (God Forbid) something happens to you on your journey. Just a little side note: Most of the storage companies offers deals if you pay for your rentals in advance. For instance, pay 6 months get the 7 month FREE. When shopping for a storage facility don’t forget to ask about deals. You don’t want to have to remember to pay your bill every month if your going to be away for an extended period of time. As a matter of fact it is a good idea to pay as many bills as you can in advance so that you enjoy your time away and not have those niggling little worries.
Before you go you might even want to have all of your pictures and important papers scanned, and home movies burned to a DVD. Make at least 2 or 3 copies of this DVD or DVDs, one to store and one to take with you. Even though you are going on a Great Adventure, from time to time, you will want to look at pictures or movies of your loved ones or need a copy of an important document and a DVD doesn’t take up any room in your RV. Copying them onto a Flash Drive is nice but a DVD is a more permanent solution to storage so long as you don’t scratch the surface. That is what DVD Boxes are for. Burning all of your music, videos, pictures and documents from your computers is a good idea as well. This should be done once a year anyway. You can leave these DVDs in storage and if you have a computer crash you can always have your authorized person get the DVD and mail it to you on the road. Some of you will need to copy over your pictures and videos off of your cellphones too. It is amazing that some people buy these expensive phones, take all of these great pictures and videos and don’t make copies of them once a quarter or even once a year. Those little Flash Drives in your phones will fit into your laptop to copy over or you can get a READER device for your particular flash drive that fits into a USB port. BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP! I cannot stress that enough. When you go on a trip you don’t want to lose those great moments due to dropping your camera, loosing it or even through theft. STUFF HAPPENS!
More Next Week
What Goes Into Planning Our Adventure – Part 1
I thought I would write out the steps for planning “Our Great Adventure” so that it might help you plan your own in the near future. The hardest part is deciding what your going to do. We picked this journey because we all love to visit our local State parks, we were born and raised here and we have relatives all over the state that we can visit or have them visit us along the way. Mom, sad to say, is not a spring chicken anymore but she likes to travel and this is going to be her LAST HOORAY! We are by no means “well-off” and indeed it will take just about everything we have to make this journey but we decided it would be worth it. Who knows, we might even make some money off the crafts we’re going to sell, the book we’re going to publish at the end and even the video my friends are going to help me produce from all of the pictures and video we take!
Once you decide your going to do something like this you have to be committed to the process, willing to work hard at accomplishing your goals and finally getting and staying as organized as possible. Let’s face it going from a 4 Bedroom house to just a 31 Foot RV may seem like a daunting task but you can do it if you really want to. It helps if you have friends and family willing to help out as much as possible. My sons have volunteered to do all the heavy lifting of the boxes we are putting in storage, my brother will help make sure that the RV is mechanically sound and the RV Dealer has assured us they will make sure we know how to do everything with the RV that we need to. Finally, we have already decided to get the RV Roadside Assistance Insurance that guarantees they will come to us where ever we are when we have a problem with the RV. You can never have too much insurance. But shop around and compare prices and services to get the best deal that you can. We have attended a RV Show and have asked lots of questions from the various vendors present.
There are some things that we need that you might not. For instance, since we will continue to homeschool my youngest daughter, updating our various websites and producing a “Live Broadcast” every week it is essential that we have a fast and reliable wireless internet service that we can take with us on the road. You might just want to “Get Away From It All”. That is very hard to find at a reasonable price and that can reach as many of the areas we are going to visit as possible. We may have to leave the parks and head to the nearest city to get Internet/Phone Service to do the computing and broadcasting park in some areas. So far, we have a prepaid service, no contract, with MIFI ($129 for device) through Virgin Mobile that only costs about $50 a month for up to 2.5 GB of data but that is not really enough for us. The next service we are looking at is through AT&T and that is a 2 year contract at $80 a month for 10GB data and about $50 for their device. Each will allow us to have 5 wireless devices sharing the Internet connection. According to their coverage maps they will cover most of the places we will be going. I set up our home network here that is currently sharing connections with 2 desktops, 2 laptops and a wireless printer, hopefully, I won’t have too much problems setting the mobile service up.
More Next Week!
We Faltered But Are Not Defeated
Our Kickstarter campaign was a bust but we are not defeated. The more obstacles that are put in our paths the more determined we become to meet our goals. We are planning a new campaign and hope to have it going in the next 2 or 3 weeks. We want to reassess and come up with a new plan. The Three Southern Ladies are still going on their GREAT ADVENTURE and we are still planning on beginning in June of this year. And we still need help to get there. In the mean time we have changed up the website and our sister site http://southern-women-crafts.jolenesbooksandmore.com and will be posting reviews of parks on this website and writing crafting type articles on the other one. Please stayed tuned for more
Updated Video
We have updated the video on our Kickstarter Campaign page. It is a little shorter and made entirely with Windows Live Movie Maker. This is a FREE program offered to anyone with Windows Operating Systems. It has some pretty cool features and doesn’t take a lot of memory to run. If you haven’t updated to the Windows Live Essential programs yet give them a try. We will be posted a new State Park Review within the next day or two of O’Leno State Park and hope you will review it when you get a chance. Click below to view the new video!
Our Kickstarter Project is Now LIVE
WHOO HOO! Our Kickstarter project is finally LIVE. It took me weeks to come up with a decent video to add to the project before launching it and I hope you will take a few minutes to visit the site, watch the video and, if you cannot contribute, at least “Like It” on Facebook and send a link to you family and friends. We are so excited about this website that helps so many artists and inventors get funding for their projects. We have posted some of the projects we have found on our website and we know you will find something that will interest you. It is a great funding resource and, of course, we hope our campaign goes well.
We only have 30 days to reach our funding goal and really could use your help. So, PASS IT ON!
SEE the NEWEST POST FOR AND UPDATED VIDEO (Feb 29, 2012)
Other Great Projects
Hey Everybody! We were looking through the various projects on Kickstarter that might be in competition or complement our own project and we found this one. The Project is totally worthwhile and we hope you will take a look at it and give if you can. This guy will be traveling up through the middle of the State of Florida taking photographs of the local wildlife and their habitats. His photos are really great. He only has about 2 weeks left before his project ends and is only half-way there. Read through his proposal and if you can support him!
We have also made a few changes to the Donate Page and our Project on Kickstarter. We hope to launch the project by next week as I am putting together an introduction video. Here is the Preview Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jolenemacinjax/1720035190?token=25a94fd4
Cleaning Out and Moving On
Christmas is behind us and the New Year’s is looming. We are in the process of making our New Year’s Resolutions and one of those, for me, is the clean out my room and decide what I want to keep, what I want to sell, what I need to throw away and what I need to bring with me. Of course, I will have to bring my laptop, some clothes (Good thing I am not a clothes horse), my printer, load up my KINDLE with reading material, and of course, our craft supplies. I am a pack-rat by nature and have a tendency of keeping everything. I have all kinds of stuff crammed into boxes and on bookcases that I will have to go through. Most of it will need to be tossed. I just hope I don’t throw away something important. Most of our pictures are scanned into my computer and I have them backed up on an external hard drive as well as burned onto a disk. I cannot stress how important that is. I cringe every time I think about the 2 times my computers crashed and I hadn’t backed-up my files. I lost a few photos that will never be replaced. With all the websites that I own and write for I have to back each of those sites with their accompanying databases onto my laptop and external hard drive and then onto a DVD. External hard drives are not the most reliable medium but are very necessary for quick retrieval of data stored on them and can hold all of your stuff in one place. You just have to be very careful not to drop or bang it on anything. You can add things to it every week in an hour or so depending on how many files you copy over.
DVDs are now limited to 4GB of space. That may sound like a lot but for me with all the pictures, music, and videos I have it takes a few DVDs to back up my stuff and once you finish the burning process that is usually it. Re-writable DVDs are okay but still a bit expensive. Regular data DVDs can be burned once, place in a plastic case and stored until needed. Unless they are badly scratched or broken you can always copy your data back without too many problems. Just make sure you “COPY” your data and not use your computer’s BACKUP feature. The Backup programs for most computers are used strictly by that computer’s version of the system software or program that you used. If you have a replacement or new computer there is no guarantee that you will be able to RESTORE your files. Anyway, I will have to make sure that all my files are copied over to the external hard drive and burned onto a new set of DVDs. The DVDs will probably be stored and if needed I could always ask my oldest daughter to send them to me where ever we happen to be at the time.
To that end we will be looking for at storage units within the next week or so. Committing to a storage place is important if you plan on coming back to your hometown after traveling. We have to consider how big of a space we will need, whether it is climate-controlled or not, who will have access to it while we are away, and whether the space is secured. So, we are looking for a place down the street from our house and close to where my oldest daughter lives. She will be able to check on it once a month or so and put things into it for us. Let’s face it when you travel you do have a tendency to collect new stuff along the way. It would be nice to be able to send that extra stuff home for storage. RVs and travel trailers are extremely limited in space and weight so we have to restrain ourselves as much as possible. Climate-controlled spaces are more expensive, of course, but with all the books, DVDs and computer equipment we have a climate-controlled unit will probably be required. Some of our local storage places are offering specials when you pay months in advance and/or half-priced months for signing a short-term lease, etc. We will be looking into those as well. Shopping around and comparing is key. Don’t be too quick to settle for something that doesn’t suit you or cost too much. After all, if you are not able to pay for your unit and cannot get your stuff out before the end of your lease, they will sell your stuff or just throw it away. Then you will have to get insurance for your stuff in the unit. Usually, your home-owners insurance is supposed to cover any loses from a storage unit. However, if we are selling our home then we will have to look into another avenue. That is for another week!
RV Versus Trailer Campers
We have done lots of research and are trying to decide if we should concentrate on RV Campers or pull-along Trailers. Now an RV is an all-in-one kind of environment and would need a trailer hitch in back to bring along a small car. The travel trailer requires a large truck with a special hitch to keep the trailer from swaying too much. RVs are pretty expensive for the new ones and the older models are usually pretty used up and if it breaks down we would have to stay in a hotel. With a travel trailer mom and I would have to learn how to back up the rig like one of those semi-truck drivers. I don’t know if we have the strength to do that. Even though we could get a brand new travel trailer for a lot less than an RV we would still have to pay for a large engine pick-up truck and even a used one is pretty expensive. Yes, we could just park the trailer and detach the truck to use for our journeys to flea markets and fruit stands. And if the truck breaks down we will still have a place to live while we wait for repairs.
Now the camper salesman thinks we should get a pull-along trailer up to 31 feet long. Yes, it will be new and many different options out there. Being in one we found there seems to be lots of room especially with the pull-outs. And we could get a 2-bedroom deal with a full-size refrigerator and possibly a washer and dryer. Being as we are doing this full-time a trailer would give us the room we need for a little privacy. With three women going along a little privacy would be nice even if it is a 6 x 9 space. But we still have that problem of learning how to hook-up the trailer, re-learn how to drive and back up with a trailer that will weigh about 10,000 pounds and bends in the opposite direction of what we are used to. The truck will add another 10 or 11 feet we have to keep in mind. And we would probably need a large diesel-powered truck for that. The gas mileage is not very good with either options.
Now a friend from work who loves to camp and has used both RVs and travel trailers with his spouse and kids believes the RV is a better option for us. The RV is self-contained and the Class Cs really do drive like a large truck. A all-in-one self-contained unit with a generator and everything built-in is better for us. He did stress that the length should be limited to about 28 feet but with at least 2 to 4 slide outs. That way we have more room when we park and not take up as much space lengthwise as we travel. I have driven a U-Haul Truck before and it wasn’t too bad. We will have to take into consideration the height as well as the length wherever we go. Stopping for Gas, each of the Parks and some of the roads we will need to travel down. My friend recommended that we get the AAA full package for any problems we have on the road. I will have to check into that. You want to make sure that no matter what time of the day or night all you have to do is make a phone call and have someone come out and help with whatever.
We have been going to our local RV places and looking at the various models while comparing prices and such. We have talked to a very nice salesman named, Jerry with Camping World here in Jacksonville. He has offered to pay us $100 for each referral we get him that actually buys an RV or Camper from him. He is paid by commission only and highly motivated to sell stuff but he is very patient and willing to keep looking for an RV or trailer that meets our needs. So, if you are in the market for a RV or Travel Trailer, please give Jerry a Call and he will give you a hook-up.
Crafts and Communications
We have been cruising on the web searching for ways to keep our readers informed, gather alternate sources of income and just for the fun of it. Our biggest fundraiser will be through the Kickstarter website and we have included one of the many worthy projects that we are supporting. Remember what goes around, comes around and we are hoping to start a little good karma coming our way. Check out the various websites we have joined to help us reach our goal!
****Please Note***** We are still crafting our intro video for Kickstarter and we will post on Facebook and here when we actually Launch our project. Hopefully, by the end of this week we will have it done. We have also created a Broadcast Page on this website for Streaming our videos and even have some LIVE shows for you to take part in….
http://pinterest.com/jolenemacinjax/pins/
http://yardsellr.com/yardsale/Jolene-Macfadden-Kowalchuk-584848
http://www.facebook.com/SouthernLadiesTravels
Here is a Project on Kickstarter that we are supporting….. Pass it along
