Thinking minimalist

 Simpler is better.  Less is more. We have a house and a minivan.  That’s pretty much all we need.  Anything more is just bonus. This line of thinking led us to consider that a Casita might be just the traveling solution for us.  A house, a minivan, and a Casita. http://www.casitatraveltrailers.com/index.html The Casita is small and light enough it could be towed by the minivan.  It’s big enough to include a bed, kitchen, and bathroom.  It was perfect… until we actually walked in to one.  A couple in Flour Bluff was kind enough to give us a tour of theirs.  Judy and the wife went inside.  The guy and I were still outside talking “tongue weight” and “stabilizer jacks” when Judy came back out the door gesturing something.  “Safe at home!” perhaps?  No that’s not it.  She was indicating something more like “No f-ing way!”  She got claustrophobic without even closing the door.  She couldn’t breathe.  So much for minimalist. We’re going to sell the bus, but we’re still going to travel.  When we take a trip from here to Colorado and back, we’re looking at at least a month of living in the rig.  What we get to travel in doesn’t have to be a perfect year-round house, but it can’t be something that makes either one of us crazy.  We’re still trying to find a towable that works, but we’ve expanded the search to include other types of RVs.  We have some basic requirements.  Besides the standard kitchen, bathroom, refrigerator, air conditioner, and furnace, we want a walk-around bed so we don’t have to climb over each other in the middle of the night (or get in and out of bed in a predetermined order).  We want a dinette so we have a place to sit and eat, or sit with the computer.  We need enough room that if one of us is already standing up, that person doesn’t have to sit down before the other can stand. We would prefer to take the “runabout” option and not pull a tow-car; either get a trailer we can drop at camp, or get a motorhome small enough to cast about in when we want to explore or go to the store. We’re looking at 3 different options:

  1. A towable that is light enough to pull with the minivan, but has enough room and windows that it doesn’t feel claustrophobic.
  2. A 25 foot Class B or C with a slide or two so we can get the walk-around bed and room for two to simultaneously stand.
  3. A 30 foot Class A gasser easily meets all our criteria (but feels so spacious it doesn’t seem like much of a downsize).

 So far we’ve narrowed our decision down, not at all… 

Bummer

 One of us came back at exactly the same weight they left at.  The other gained 4 pounds.  Oh well.  I guess life just isn’t always fair… We’re celebrating our return to the Valley with our first 100 degree day (this year).  Mostly, since lunchtime, we’re celebrating from inside our nice cool house.  105 by our thermometer.  We’re down in the south end of some unusual weather structure that is causing severe storms all through the Midwest, mostly north of Texas.  The cold front is supposed to hit on Tuesday, knocking us back down into the mid-80s.  

Wow

 That was a lot of goodbyes. Before we left, we got a picture with the new owners, Tony and Mary, in their new site,  …took a picture of Annnie’s footprints in the cement from when we did the yard remodel. …and hit the road.  A few hours of uneventful driving, and here we are, back to our bungalow in the Valley… …where we were greeted by a happy Mandevilla vine… …ready for the summer.  We pay attention to our weight when we’re at home, but we don’t take the bathroom scales along when we travel.  We weigh when we get back.  We weren’t particularly careful about what we ate on this trip.  We ate out a lot; Juan’s, Snoopy’s, Mac’s Barbecue, Fins…  So many favorite places…  Miguel even took us to a place in Port A whose signature dish is a Bacon Brownie for dessert.  Amazing.  Tomorrow morning we’ll weigh-in and see how we did.  I doubt either of us lost any weight…