After many days/hours of preparation, it was time to put the trailer slides in to drive.
As it turns out, moving into an RV is not much different/easier than moving to a new house. Big thanks to our family members that made donation runs, packed/taped/labeled boxes, carried boxes, cooked for us, or graciously allowed us to store boxes! Thank you also to our neighbors who showed us so much generosity and support as we learned to drive and park our giant home on wheels, often blocking the whole street trying to do so!
After weeks of packing, sorting, storing, and donating we finally got all of the "essentials" packed up to hit the road. We were aiming to leave Annapolis around noon, and I think we left the driveway closer to 3:30pm but we were happy to actually be hitting the road on the day we planned! Dylan wanted to get some experience driving in the dark and was happy to push it as far as we felt comfortable for the first drive day en route to Myrtle Beach! We caught sunset at a rest stop and began research to figure out where we would park and sleep for the night.
Luckily one of the Cracker Barrels close to our route that allows overnight parking had all 3 RV spots open. We got take out for dinner since it was cold and Luna couldn't come in with us. First night sleeping in our RV "on the road" was made better by the roaring fire and hot meal from Cracker Barrel...and also the beer we were able to order to go! I was a little confused when I woke up in my bed and remembered that I was in a parking lot!
After a quick trip to the Dunkin Donuts, located conveniently across the street, we were ready to hit the road again! We made great time to Myrtle Beach Travel Park and had plenty of daylight to get setup. We were excited to explore our home for the next 5 weeks! Luna was still recovering from her ACL surgery in December, but we figured beach walks might be just the key to work on building back her strength!
Lucky for us, we had dinner plans with Dylan's Aunt and Uncle (the RV veterans who recommended the Myrtle Beach RV park)! I can't think of a better way to kick off our RV adventure than a delicious food and family time! They spoiled us by bringing a home cooked meal along with table settings and dishes. They even took all of the dirty dishes home to wash! Thanks Bug and Vic <3 We were glad we took the next day off of work to rest and finish getting settled.
It turns out being at the beach in winter means having the beach to yourself a lot of the time and we were a-okay with that! It was fun to watch the tides even if they sometimes flooded into the RV park, luckily we were far enough from the dunes that our site stayed dry!
Although we had traveled 8 hours South we found that it was still chilly enough to put our electric fireplace to good use. When she wasn't snuggled up in front of the fire, Luna spent her days working on building her muscle, and growing her leg hair!
We spent February squeezing in lots of facetimes, and family time between work! I also took advantage of access to a "real" oven to do some baking while visiting Aunt Bug and Uncle Vic.
We did not do a ton of exploring outside of our campground during our first month as "full-timers" but we were working on figuring out our new lifestyle, including the mundane tasks of maximizing our storage space. This involved lots of measuring and looking for bins to make our storage compartments work more effectively. We also FINALLY bought a trash can for the RV after owning it for almost a year...goodbye trash bag hanging from the end of our kitchen island!
