Category: tranquility tour

Three things to stay on top of when planning a big tour

With Tranquility Tour, I’m learning a lot about how to organize big events. It just so happens there’s about 20 of them, and they’re spread out over 11,000 miles…

Stay organized – I’ve been using Google Forms to keep all of the city organizers’ submissions in a single spot, and their responses to my questions dump into a single spreadsheet. I may not trust you Google, but I thank you.

Stay simple – every time there’s an instinct to make something complicated, I ask, “can we achieve the same things with a simpler format?” This keeps me sane.

Stay focused – it’s so easy to spiral into the details of each city, the route, the RV… everything. However, staying focused on the steps that need to get done now allow me to complete every step so I can be less attenuated for the details that will come later (I’m looking at you British Columbia ferry schedule! Do not beguile me with your times and your temporal limitations on my island hopping… yet.).

What things do you stay on top of when you plan a big event?

Lillie update: I spent about a half day cleaning the camper up, assessing electrical systems and (most importantly) sealing up the roof. If you’re ever into a camper/RV/etc. the first thing you want to check is the condition of the roof. The second you get a leak, you start into problems that include structural issues. These are things you don’t want on a house that hurtles at 55 mph+ down the highway.

We just bought some LED light bulbs to replace the incandescents in the camper. They consume 8x less energy, which means we can run off of batteries (“dry docked” or “boondocked” in RVese) that much longer. As soon as I get my battery meter installed I intend to run the lights and charge up some the computers off the batteries and see how long we can go. That will inform the decision to go with a solar system or not. After consulting with my father (an electrical engineer) the best bet may be to do a solar system that charges just the electronics rather than hook yet another charging mechanism into the camper batteries… that would be a third method (the alternator charges the batteries as we roll and when we plug into electric at a campsite or home, they charge). Apparently cleaner systems are more efficient. Go figure.

Here are some “before redesign” interior shots and I’m out:

IMG_3268 IMG_3270

Our vintage RV

Introducing Lillie, our new RV:

Lillie

Lillie is named after Lilly, the former owner (complete with a long story about how the state of West Virginia misspelled her name for years and how long in a post 9/11 world it takes to correct such things) and Kimberly’s beloved grandmother Lillian, who will be with us in spirit.

Louis the Pug is already claiming dibs on spots inside:

LtP claims dibs on the table

Lillie drives like a champ, and only has a few things we need to address. She’s only 20 feet long, but has all the internal amenities we need. I’ll hold off on the tour for now: Kimberly is already busily planning cushion revamps and having new curtains made by her mom. I’m looking at the solar panel possibilities because full electric camping sites are stupid expensive, and stupid expensive is for suckers… plus I want to do at least one green thing for this trip!

We’re testing her out this week at Greenbelt National Park, near DC. For now, Lillie is getting used to her new home at the cabin…

RV shopping? Me?

I never thought I’d be in the market for an RV. Let’s face it, they’re not the most environmentally friendly vehicle on the market, plus I tend to prefer my camping to be in places combustion engines don’t reach. But with Tranquiity Tour, I’ve had to get a crash course on RVing, and more importantly, shopping for a used RV.

A good resource I found was the e-book Buying a Used Motorhome – How to get the most for your money and not get burned. It was very helpful for a non-car guy like me to know what to look for. It definitely confirmed a few of my “walk aways” from a few money pits.

We’re looking for something well-maintained, and preferably closer to the size of a van than a bus. There’s a candidate, and I hope to have some news Sunday. In the meantime, I’m starting to think about life on the road and some of the fun that could be had on the green energy front with some solar panels and a few extra deep cycle batteries. I suspect the interior design is out of my hands… with the exception of wiring up an LED chandelier.

RV