We recently took advantage of a local Living Social deal and visited the Sarasota Children's Gardens. It was one of those places that looked interesting, and for under $20 for our whole family to visit for the day (with our Living Social voucher), it was worth checking out. And I'm so glad that we did! The gardens are full of magical lands that delighted our children's imaginations and made us adults act like kids again for the afternoon.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road...
Before entering the gardens, the kids had an opportunity to visit the costume room and choose costumes to wear during their visit. Ian chose a cowboy vest, while the girls chose a variety of ball gowns and princess dresses.
The entrance to the magical gardens.
Ian exploring the birdbath in the Fairy Garden area. The details in each section are amazing!
The little Simpsonites climbing Fruity Oops Mountain. You can see part of Snuffy in the foreground. Snuffy is a way-cool dragon!
Little pig, little pig, let me in...
Watering the flowers in the Butterfly Garden.
Eliza is taking her turn swinging from the rope and dropping into the hay bales in Hobbitville.
The sidewalk through The Land Of Od. You can see the "castle" that Eliza claimed for her kingdom at the end of this road.
Just one of the fellas that we met in the Monster Garden
All told, we spent about 2-3 hours exploring the gardens, which was just about the right amount of time for our crew. If you visit Sarasota, this is definitely a hidden gem worth exploring. It's a beautiful, magical place where kids can freely explore and imaginations can run wild!
Over the past few months (6 or so), we have had some on again/off again issues with our front landing jacks. Some sticking, some not wanting to move, and most recently, total failure. Thankfully, not catastrophic, but that is mostly because the fifth wheel was still hooked up to the truck. With each incident, we have tried different remedies, trying to systematically work through the whole system to isolate the issue. There may have been several, but I am now confident that they will work normally from now on, since I have taken off and tested the motor, inspected and greased the reduction gear box, installed a new wireless controller and overloads, and now a brand new leg.
As I mentioned, the most recent failure was several threads inside the opposite door jack just shearing off, causing the leg to not support any weight. It happened when I was getting ready to unhook from the truck and had just started to take the weight off of the truck, so it just returned the load to the truck.
For anyone wondering what it takes to replace one of these legs, it is really, really easy. It took me 20 minutes to pull off the bum leg and about 45 to put the new one on, but I did take some extra time to clean some items up while I had the system disassembled and to document the process. The photos are of a Keystone Mountaineer 345DBQ, and the parts are from Lippert. Parts and shipping for the leg were about $320.
The old leg in back and new in the front. I had to take the foot and locking pin off of the old leg and put it on the new one. A little WD-40 to clean them up and they almost look new.
The two brackets that the leg mounts into.
The leg bolted into the brackets.
The bracket where it is welded to the frame. Take note of the protrusions on the leg and how they sit on the bracket. This is how the load is primarily transferred from the frame to the leg. The bolts are there to hold these in place. Be sure that both protrusions are properly seated before placing weight onto the leg.
The view looking up.
Inside the front compartment, this rod is how the motor attaches to the leg and actuates it. For our rig, one motor controls both legs.
Attach the motor. I left the other leg off of the motor and adjusted the new one to match the existing leg first...
...then I hooked up the tie rod so that they would operate in sync. I set the RV onto some temporary stands so that I could then let the legs take the weight.
And viola! We have a new leg installed. I marked the factory 'all the way in' point with a sharpie so that I knew how far I could run it in with out damage.
Because of the legs mounting to the outside of the frame, it was easy to slide it in and out, and I didn't have to worry about being over a pit to have to slide it straight down. I know that other rigs don't have this much access and clearance and may require extra steps/effort to accomplish this process. I hope that this is informative and a useful aide for anyone wanting to work on their legs.
It is amazing at how different the beaches can be within a few miles of each other on Florida's Gulf Coast. We have visited several beaches during our stay, having played at rocky sand beaches, shell and coral sand beaches, more coarse play sand-like beaches, and today we visited a white sand beach. If you know Stephanie, it is not hard to figure out that she prefers the white sand beaches, so it was a little easier to convince her to go to the beach today, and to stay and play for awhile. I have been itching to get to Siesta Key Beach since we arrived on the Gulf Coast. My parents brought me to this beach as a child, and I have such great memories of it. Needless to say, my memory was correct, and now I can only hope that my children remember this amazingly beautiful and fun beach as well.
We arrived in the late morning so that we would be able to get a parking spot and avoid being out in the heat of the day. The sand was soft and smooth and the tide was just starting to come in. The kids and I had fun playing in the surf, building a small lake to splash in, with a tide wall to protect it. With the tide coming in, it was a losing battle, but it kept us entertained for awhile. The shore gradually slopes into the water, so the three older kids and I had some fun jumping into some knee high waves (knee high for them).
Soon enough lunch time approached and we headed out, covered in sand and fun.
Think back. As far back as you can recall. What was your dream? When you were four? When you were twelve? When you were nineteen? What happened to that dream that was seeded in your heart during the first quarter of your life? What are you doing during your second, third and fourth quarters of your life to bring that dream to fruition? Maybe working out that dream looks different than you expected it to at four or twelve or nineteen, but these dreams were seeded in your heart in childhood for a reason. It's never too late to pursue these deep-seeded dreams that may be lying dormant within your heart. The dream hasn't die. It simply needs nurtured in order to grow.
Honestly, I don't think that it matters who you are, hearing those words seems to make any person's day. Being a constantly connected society, having access to an Internet connection with any reasonable amount of speed can make most people giddy. It seems that we are getting to the point that most retail establishments offer some type of Internet access while you wait or dine.
On the road, we are constantly looking for an Internet connection so that we may update our apps and software, connect on Facebook and check email, and to write blog posts such as this one. A recent step that we have taken to help out with a more reliable connection and speed while not taxing our cellular data plan is to install a system to extend to existing wifi networks that we normally would not be able to access from our campsite. Thanks to our friends at Full Time Families for their initial write up on this system and to Steve for showing me how his setup works, I went ahead and purchased the hardware that I didn't have on hand and got to work. Below, you will find links to the products at Amazon. I already had the cabling and router on hand, but have included links to those as well.
The installation of the hardware was the easy part for me. I spent some time planning out how I wanted the wiring to be run down into the RV and then began with a Lowe's run to get the last few things that I needed. I planned on mounting the antenna to my TV antenna so that I could raise and lower it easily for travel.
Material to mount the antenna
I needed to create a bracket since the U bolts would not fit around my TV antenna in the down position. I used a piece of 1 inch angled aluminum that I cut two 4 inch pieces off of, then pre-drilled holes to line up with the antenna holes for the U bolts. I didn't want to screw the angled pieces onto my antenna and risk nicking the TV antenna cable or the screws getting loose over time, so I very permanently mounted it with some JB Weld. I used the Kwik Weld, since I am familiar with the product and was ready to move quickly. If you have never used JB Weld before, use gloves and have a lot of disposable surface available (read cardboard or plastic). It is a very permanent bond, with at least a 3000 psi breaking rating.
So my antenna is not going anywhere.
Once I attached the bracket to the antenna, I ran the cat 6 cabling to give the JB Weld time to cure. My TV antenna sits next to my front air conditioning unit, and I was able to find a path for the wire to come down into the RV there. I was unable to fish the wire through the ceiling, so I opted to use some wire mold to conceal and support the wire over to the router.
Clean and polished.
Once that was done, I went back to the roof to finish the installation. I attached the antenna to my bracket, hooked the bullet to the wire, and then connected the bullet to the antenna. A few cable ties to keep things neat, and Voila!
The unit raises and lowers very easily and with little strain. I am happy with how clean the installation ended up being, albeit the fact that I cannot adjust the antenna up or down, but it is 14 feet off of the ground, so I think that reception will be alright.
There really aren't any setup instructions for the software on the bullet, but the company does offer a wiki and support forum for questions and troubleshooting. I was fortunate to have someone familiar with the interface that could field my questions. Being someone who is enough of a techie to be dangerous, I found it simple enough to use. Once the initial settings are taken care of, it is just a matter of logging into the bullet and selecting a wifi network to connect to. I have already noticed a huge difference in power and reception. I am able to 'see' 3 times as many networks as before. The down side is that even though I can 'see' some networks, they are not powerful enough to be able to communicate back and forth enough for me to use them.
One of the joys of homeschooling is being able to create lessons that are meaningful to where we are, what is around us, and structure lessons around our lives.
Well, today being March 14 (3.14), we celebrated Pi Day with our kids. How did we celebrate? Well, the kids made a pie, of course!
Some of the lessons that we learned, aside from what pi is and how it is used to find the circumference of a circle included:
states of matter and how solids melt to become liquids
solid and liquid measurement of ingredients in our recipe
chemical reactions and how individual ingredients changed as they were mixed together and then also how they changed when exposed to the heat of the oven
division and fractions to serve equal parts of the whole pie to each member of the family
Caroline, Lydia and Ian observe the ingredients before mixing them all together.
Eliza takes her turn to mix the pie filling.
The finished product. A Toll House Cookie pie.
The kids made (with a little help from Mama) a Toll House Cookie pie. This is one of my (Stephanie's) signature desserts and I'm always asked for the recipe whenever I share this pie. It's incredibly simple and oh, so good. You might want to double the recipe and make two pies. Yes, it's really that good.
Toll House Cookie Pie
2 eggs
1/2 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 C. firmly packed brown sugar
1 C. butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1 C. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
Preheat the oven to 325F. In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Add flour, sugar and brown sugar; beat until well blended. Blend in butter. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 325F for 1 hour. Remove from oven. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.
"Is there anything that you would change if you were to start out on the road again?"
This is a paraphrased question that I've been asked several times over the past week from our readers. One that has really made me think about the past year of preparing to launch and our first 8 months of full-time travel.
Yes. Yes, there are many things that we would have done differently, and some that we have/are changing as the right time comes. These are the top 10 things (in no particular order) that we would do differently, if we had it to do all over again:
1) I wish we'd known what sitting in one place for 2 years does to tires and had replaced all 4 tires on our fifth wheel immediately after purchasing it. Our 5th wheel was 2 years old, barely used and in nearly-new condition, and had been towed a total of 20 miles in those 2 years prior to our purchase. Tires that didn't roll for 2 years were likely the greatest factor in our first-day-out blow-out.
2) Had we known all of the strikes against our first truck and its ability to tow, we would have opted for a different tow vehicle. We planned to replace it after 1 year, but that timeline was moved up to replacing after 5 months when we had to decide if we were going to continue traveling and replace our truck or stay put in Moab, UT indefinitely and just suck it up with our lemon.
Let me be clear: If you plan to tow a fifth wheel or travel trailer, avoid 6.0 Liter Fords like the plague. If you want to just throw your money somewhere for the heck of it, I'll email you our PayPal account address and you can just send your hard-earned dollars our way instead. Seriously--just don't do it!
3) We would not have brought so much stuff. In our first 3 months we took several truckloads of donations to the local thrift store in Glenwood Springs, CO. While we were grateful to help a local outreach, we really didn't need to haul so much extra crap along with us. We also dropped off a significant amount of unnecessary "essentials" in storage when we passed through the Midwest again last Fall.
4) We would have changed our state of residency sooner. While maintaining Indiana residency made sense for us while we owned a house there and makes mail forwarding pretty simple on our end (HUGE thanks to our "housemates" Chris and Holly who do our mail forwarding for us!!), the income taxes and vehicle registration fees are enough to stop us in our tracks. We are in the process of deciding where we will change our domicile to within the next 6 months to minimize the financial impact on our budget. Hey, if you can choose to take residence anywhere, why not choose the best place to set up residence?
5) I would have learned earlier how awesome the laundromat is. While I still use my Wonder Wash for all of our hand washables like our bathing suits and handmade or boutique dresses and for small, quick loads, I've found that taking 90 minutes once a week and setting up shop in the laundromat to wash 5-6 loads of laundry is soooo much more efficient use of my time and energy. I have to use the laundromat for Jason's work clothes anyway. So if I'm washing one load, why not wash a handful all at once?
6) I wouldn't have tried to make homeschooling look like school at home. This was a steep learning curve for me as a former classroom teacher. It took us almost 6 months to find our rhythm with homeschooling and while it looks nothing like I thought homeschooling would look like, it's exactly right for our kids. It's also always changing and evolving as interests and needs change. I feel much more confident as we move into our second homeschool year to know what works for our kids and when to scrap an idea and move onto something else.
7) We would have kept travel days shorter and travelled slower. Granted, since we (more or less) travel following Jason's work, we don't have complete control over the pace that we travel. However, we have discovered that travel days longer than 6 hours become very difficult and stressful for our family. Arriving to a campsite at dusk or later is no fun. And back-to-back travel days become torture for little people that require time and space to run and play.
8) We would have removed all expectations. We've stopped planning more than 24 hours in advance, because we don't really know what we are doing or where we are going unless we are actively en route--and even then plans can change. This is a great thing, because it requires us to remain present where we are, but a challenge to family and friends who always want to know "where to next?". We've stopped speculating because it really doesn't benefit anyone. I hope that we can carry this mindset over if we ever choose to settle somewhere permanently or semi-permanently again.
9) We would have taken the opportunity to get lost more often. Admittedly, I'm less directionally oriented than Jason. I've been known to get us lost a time or two. As long as it doesn't involve being lost while towing a 36-foot rig behind us, getting lost has always led us to someplace off the beaten path and a treasure that we'd never have found otherwise.
10) We would have done this years ago. While the time was exactly right for us to take off down the highway when we did, there are many times that I wish we'd had the courage to leave sooner. Our biggest reason for putting our dream on hold for years was due to pregnancies and newborns and uncertainties as to how to maneuver through those years while on the road. Now that we've met other families out here like us, we've learned of several families who have navigated pregnancies and life with newborns on the road with such grace and ease that I'm certain that we could have made it happen.
One thing that is for certain, if we had to do it all over again, we absolutely would. In a heartbeat and without hesitation. While life on the road is not always easy, it's always been grand.
Posts
