With a Couple of False Starts (Part 1)

So wha ha happened was....

Our original plan.

Ha. Those words. Don't they always ring a bit hollow? I mean, let's face it. Whenever anything starts with "the plan", you just know that that is NOT what is going to happen, right? 

I'll tell you what ours was anyway. It's part of the story after all. 

Our lease was up in our apartment on March 31st. Originally we were going to be in a local RV campground in the RV by March 30th. We were to bring the RV to the apartment the 23rd and begin packing the RV over the course of the week - because it takes a LONG time to pack an RV when you are living a healing lifestyle and are planning to live in said RV for about 2 months. Especially when you are healing, so the whole idea is to do said packing with as little stress as possible. Slow and steady, that's the way of healing. Slow and steady. 

So we would stay in the RV at the campground while my husband went back and got the apartment cleaned, took the rest of the things to storage that we'd accidentally forgotten in the original packing, and tied up whatever loose ends there might be. Slow and steady. We had 5 days at the campground. We could then stock up on groceries, get food prepped for the long drive, and also rest before we had to do this big drive.
When my husband brought the RV home, it smelled so strongly of exhaust inside that I wondered how my husband made it alive, and how many brain cells of his didn't. Seriously, it was terrible inside. Note that we'd been storing the RV in Wisconsin outside in the winter. Two winters now. 18 months. Who knows what could have happened, right?

Before we started doing any packing of our possessions into it, we took it to see a mechanic. That took a couple of days, and he said we have a cracked exhaust manifold. He said it could be repaired, but that takes a lot longer than just replacing it, and also replacing it is a better choice because of it being stronger than a repair, since a repair involves welding and reshaping and no. In the meanwhile, he said we can seal up the back closet (where most of the exhaust was leaking into) and be able to "safely" drive it. Which we discovered meant with all of the windows open because no, the exhaust still leaks heavily into the RV when driven - just maybe slightly less heavily. 

The mechanic's shop was really full with work and he wouldn't be able to get us in for the repair until a few days after we were meant to be out of our apartment, so we thought okay, let's just drive the car with myself, my son and the animals behind the RV while my husband drives the RV freezing his buns off with all of the windows open. Because remember, Wisconsin. Still cold in the beginning of spring. And our first destination, where we'd be visiting family, is only a 6-7 hour drive according to G00gle. I can drive that myself, right?

So okay, we had a new plan. 

The first two nights we were booked at the RV campground were slated to be 18 and 24 degrees overnight, and we  knew that we wouldn't be able to handle that in the RV. So we asked the Apartment Manager if we could possibly stay an extra couple of days until it wasn't below freezing overnight and mercifully, she said we could, she'd just prorate the rent for two days and we could giver her a check. Great!

We called the campground to shuffle our days and they said they were just about to call us as well. It turns out that they had just bought the campground this year, they were the new owners. And there must have been a glitch in their system when changing hands because they didn't actually open until April 5th, and the water wouldn't be on until then either. Which meant that we didn't have anywhere to stay, because they were literally the only campground open before May 1st in a 50 mile radius. 

Okay, hm. We called to ask the apartment manager if we could extend our stay again, only this time she couldn't. She felt terrible but the apartment was already rented for the 5th, and she had the cleaners, the tub repair guy and the painters coming to get everything ready for them, literally all at once, so we had to be out on the 3rd.

Okay, that definitely increased the pressure on and we had to start packing the RV stat. Only the closer we got to the day of leaving, the less my energy levels and capacity seemed to get, and I was essentially no help at all. I could prepare food but anything more just erased me. My adrenals were depleted, as were my glucose reserves, despite my best efforts.  Which meant that my husband was on his own trying to pack the entire RV, put the remainder of our items into storage, and clean the apartment before the final walk through. In something like 3 days. Rather than the 10 we had originally scheduled for ourselves.

(Read Part 2 here)