Delay is preferable to error.       – Thomas Jefferson

When, after much turmoil and delay, our condo finally sold in September, we thought we were making excellent progress through the key milestones towards our planned late December start to full time RVing.  Unfortunately, progress in key areas has stalled, and we are getting more than a little edgy.  Neither of our two cars has sold despite both local and national advertising, and our bus renovation is taking far longer than we had anticipated.

Our RV repair service seems to do good quality work at a reasonable price, but their communication is abysmal and work pace rather slow.  As such, we have had to scale back the scope of work that we had planned to complete before our departure.  The house systems, water, sewage, and electrical, have been significantly updated, and the propane system largely removed, but the bathroom and kitchen full remodel has barely started.  As such, we will go with just the bathroom redo, and settle for a few appliance upgrades to the kitchen rather than the full Monty.  Perhaps sometime this summer we will arrange to drop off the bus at one of the western RV renovators we have learned about from the various full time RV bloggers we follow to get another stage of work done.  Ah well, we are confident the bus will be functional if not as beautifully appointed as we had hoped.

As for the car situation: the plan was to sell both Saabs and buy a Jeep to tow behind the bus.  In addition to the functionality of a four wheel drive, off road capable vehicle, a Jeep can be “towed flat,” i.e., all four wheels on the ground. Most vehicles would sustain major transmission damage doing this and would thus require some sort of trailer or tow dolly for the drive train wheels, and I really did not want to add that to the driving and parking complexity.  With the delay in selling the Saabs and our strong resistance to buying a Jeep before that is done, we are rethinking the tow vehicle situation entirely.  Our recent thoughts are not to sweat the Jeep and instead purchase a lightly used Vespa-type scooter that can be mounted on a rack behind the bus.  The Big Kahuna already has a two inch hitch receiver, and I have found several affordable motorcycle/scooter carriers that will fit the bill.  Between our bicycles and a scooter I think we can handle the “about town and RV park” transportation while we sort out the Saab selling and Jeep buying situation.

One thing that has been going at the needed rapid pace is our medical and dental work.  In preparation for this big life change we started aggressively pursuing long delayed medical improvements.  Without going into the gruesome details: minor surgeries, specialist examinations, various and sundry tests, and revised prescriptions have all been accomplished for us both in the last two months, so we are leaving with a relatively clean bill of health.