Dapper Travel Diaries: Week 5
Balancing work, travel and life can be tricky. In this week’s Dapper Travel Diary, you’ll see that we definitely don’t have it all figured out but we’re trying. It takes a lot of teamwork, planning and willingness to be flexible to make it happen. For the record, I could use a lot more days like #29 and a less of #28 on The Ultimate Golf Road Trip.
Day 27 – What happened to the $1 menu?
When you call to what the fee is for the dump station at the travel center coming up and they respond “It’s free and behind the Wendy’s on the right.” You know it’s a sign to use the $5 you normally spend for a dump station and use that on the $1 Wendy’s menu for dinner. Your heart is now set on a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and value fry. Until you get there and the $1 menu in Mississippi is a $3 menu. Refusing to cave to a $3 menu, we heat up leftover chili and make peanut butter and honey sandwiches in the dark next to the dump station. How glamourous.
Day 28 – Not the best travel day
This was one of those travel days that just kept serving us lemons. Here’s the abridged version.
Left Florida for Mississippi. Wrench lights came on the dashboard. Freak out. Call the closest dealership for an appointment. Told us to just get it serviced in the next 500 miles and we’d be fine. Awesome. Freak out averted.
Next crisis – close to running out of gas. Stop to get diesel. It’s not low sulfur. Must have low sulfur. So low on fuel, we stop to call the 10 closest places. Only one with low sulfur is 10 miles behind us. Awesome. Turn around, backtrack, get diesel and push forward.
Up next – Parked at our boondocking spot for the night to realize we still need to fill our water tank to shower and wash dishes. Thankfully the gas station nearby had a tight little spot to back into and fill up.
It continues – Finally parked, got settled, opened the door to take Ella out and the wind was so strong it ripped the door open, slamming into the RV temporarily causing the door to jam and not shut. Finally fixed it. Crisis adverted until…
Will it ever end – The generator wouldn’t start because our house battery was too low on charge. Didn’t know that was a thing. Which means we couldn’t bring in the slide the next morning without hooking up the battery boost pack. Which also means the battery went completely dead in the middle of the night cutting the power to everything including the propane alarm. No power means beeping once every 30 seconds starting at 5:30am. Awesome.
At this point, I’m ready for a glass of wine for breakfast and the closest campground.
Day 29 – Golf course to the rescue
We’re tired and a little worn down from all the RV’ing dilemmas. To our surprise, Fallen Oak (the golf course we were playing that day) graciously had us park near the golf cart storage so they could plug us up to recharge our batteries during the round. AND they invited Ella (our dog) on the golf course to join us for our round. Talk about 5-star service.
Day 30 – Balancing a mobile business
Thursdays are usually meetings for me. Unfortunately, this Thursday was a little bit of a juggling act with travel and work but Jordan helped me hold down the fort. He prepped us for travel, drove and handled the pets while I had 3 meetings – 1 in the casino parking lot we stayed in, 1 buckled in at the kitchen table while Jordan drove, and the last in the dealership parking lot before our oil change. Then we drove to the Texas Welcome Center/our office for the evening to get a few more things done and relax. #teamwork
Day 31 – It’s way more than just fun golf and travel
Today was hard for me. The minute Jordan went into Walmart to get the weekly round of groceries, all the emotions started flooding in and down my face. It was a combo of weird sleep the night before, the stress of trying to balance it all, being a female and life. Cheery Jordan with bags full of groceries was welcomed back to the RV by my hot mess of emotions. He so sweetly hugged me and had a nice long conversation about creating boundaries for our work and play time, using our time intentionally, scheduling quality time together with no screens allowed, making our daily couple’s devotional a priority and trying to leave 1 day a week to watch church and just hang out. From the outside looking in, it might seem like we just have fun all day golfing and hanging out. The reality is, there’s a lot of work behind the scenes that has to happen for the trip but nothing is more important than spending quality time together so we’re making that a priority. Then we napped!
Day 32 – Internet friends turned real life friends
When Jordan started the website 2 years ago, John stumbled on the website and reached out to Jordan. They have a lot in common – finance world, love of golf, looking dapper. When we announce this year’s crazy trip, him and his lovely wife Jenna offered up their driveway when we passed through Texas. So we soaked up their electricity and water for the weekend. What sweet, amazing, welcoming hosts! They made us dinner, offered up their washer and dryer and loved on us all weekend like we’ve known each other for years. Now if we can just convince them to get an RV too and come with us, we’d have it made!
Day 33 – Prep all the food
Life on the road can get a little crazy sometimes. But it’s important for us to eat well and not eat out all the time. In fact, our goal is to eat out once or twice a month only. The rest of the time, we control what goes in our bodies to give us energy, keep us health and to save on food costs. To save time throughout the week cooking, we prep all of it in one day so we only have to throw it all together. That means lots of veggie chopping and shredded chicken in the crockpot. This is what our fridge looks like after food prep day, enough to feed us for a week!
That wraps up week 5 of the #ultimategolfroadtrip on the Dapper Travel Diaries. We’ll see you from Texas next week!