It’s been almost two months since my last update, and we’ve done a lot of moving since then! I’ll try to bring you up to speed, I hope you can keep up!

6.2 – Tuesday

When I last posted, we were anchored in Charleston harbor waiting on our broker to get us a slip. It took a few days but he came through for us. We immediately picked up a sixpack of beer to celebrate our last passage on Hobbes! We also grabbed a rental car so we could get back to Ft Pierce. This was right after the BLM protests, which we hadn’t known about since we were offshore, so the scene downtown Charleston was a little shocking.

We moved the rest of our stuff off the boat, except for the fridge/freezer stuff since we turned off power to the travel trailer. We’ll have to stop back in Charleston to get that.

6.8 – Monday

Yesterday we had a couple stop to look at Hobbes, and today they decided to put in an offer! So that’s very exciting.

Today’s the day we drove down to Florida. We passed through a checkpoint on our way south, they waved us through and then at the last minute yelled “where are you coming from?” Luckily Kyle didn’t accidentally yell “New York” back at them, although it’s not like they could have stopped us since we rolled through at about 30mph.

We popped the travel trailer back on a campsite and hooked up power and water. We’re only spending a couple days here, getting everything prepped for moving north.

6.10 – Wednesday

We didn’t get on the road until about noon, and we had a busy morning but I’ve forgotten what we did. Our plan was to get about 8 hours north and spend the night somewhere around Florence, SC, which was roughly the halfway point. Kyle checked tire pressures, we tested all the lights, we stowed everything that could move. We’re ready to hit the road!

The trip was fairly uneventful, we passed through a couple rainy spots but they weren’t too bad. Our mileage wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible – we were still in the double digits, but just barely.

As dusk fell, we stopped at a travel stop and looked for the RV overnight parking. We’ve heard you DON’T want to take up a semitruck spot as they can get angsty about that sort of thing. The first place we stopped didn’t have any RV parking that we could see. Back on the freeway, next exit, next travel stop. Nothing. Back on the freeway. At this point it was dark, so when a semi honked at us as he passed, we figured there was an issue with the lights. We pulled off at the next exit and parked at the travel stop (there are tons of them around Florence!) and the trailer was completely dark. We wiggled the trailer plug and the lights would work for a second, then go out – maybe a voltage issue?

There was no way we could get back on the road with no lights, so I asked inside if they had RV overnight parking and the attendant directed me to park across all the car parking spaces in an out-of-the-way place. Good enough.

This is when we found out that the camper battery is so dead we can’t even turn on the interior lights, so we had to get ready for bed in the dark. Also I had a glass jar in a bag on the bed that had somehow shattered. We didn’t seem to have any glass in the bed, or at least none that I could see! It was a thousand degrees and humid and we couldn’t even run a fan. Not a great night for us.

This is an embarrassing story, but I sense that I’m losing you so I better tell it. There were some stray cats in the parking lot, and since it was so hot we had all the windows open. I meowed a distress meow and two of them came running. I should have gone outside and pet them or offered some food but instead I just let them look around in confusion. What a meanie. But also, apparently I can talk to cats.

The next day we drove the rest of the way, an uneventful trip to Kyle’s dad’s marina!

6.15 – Monday

We drove the truck back to Charleston to get all our fridge/freezer items. We stayed for two nights, our last time sleeping on Hobbes. We also went to porch night to see our bus club friends, they are wonderful to visit with! And we walked the docks of City Marina around sunset, what a beautiful area!

7.1 – Wednesday

Life is somewhat stable again! I washed all the laundry. I mean ALL of it. It’s so nice to have clean everything again. I did not wash any frogs that I am aware of.

The people who put in an offer on our boat have been trying to get financing together, and they’ve been taking so long that the contract has expired. We’re both very antsy, will this deal fall through or can they make it work? We’ve been in limbo for weeks. Finally they committed, and now we’re waiting on the survey and sea trial to be scheduled!

7.4 – Saturday

We spent the 4th of July with Kyle’s dad and stepmom at their log cabin in the woods! It was hot. Despite the heat, we still tried to go for a hike – Kyle decided to try out trail running! Even just walking the trail, I got a little hot and dizzy, I can’t imagine how tough that run was!

7.7 – Tuesday

We went straight from the log cabin back to Charleston for the survey and sea trial (think: inspection, test drive). We didn’t stay on the boat this time, we stayed with bus club friends. At this time, Charleston was the fastest growing city in the nation for COVID-19, so the wisdom of that choice can only be judged in hindsight (so far so good).

We attended the survey and sea trial, but we opted not to go for the boat ride. If it started raining we would have been in a fairly confined space with 4 other people, and that seemed like an unnecessary risk. I feel like every day we are weighing the risks of what is necessary and what isn’t.

The haulout was done by crane, which is far more terrifying than by boat lift! Especially when the hook of the rig was literally resting between our windex tails. Like, go ahead, take out the windex, but we JUST replaced the wind transducer and I’ll be ticked if you take out our anchor light. Plus nobody wants to go up the mast to fix these things right now!

The whole thing passed without incident, and other than one small soft spot in the deck, there were no surprises! We were very pleased.

As a way to de-stress, and to thank our hosts for hosting us, we tried out a new brewery that has some decent social-distance measures in place! It’s nice for life to feel a little bit normal, just for a minute.

7.17 – Friday

We tried to twiddle our thumbs and wait for the buyers to send us conditional acceptance, we are now beyond that contract date on that too. And since it’s unbearably hot here (triple digit heat index most days), we’re really struggling with being confined to the camper – it’s too hot to even go for a walk. So we’re packing up our things and moving north. Charleston was our last real exposure risk, and since then we’ve been meticulously careful, limiting ourselves to groceries and gas stations. We’re about to stay with several family members, and we would hate to bring a virus with us.

At this point, I need to tell you that we’re done with the travel trailer. It’s simultaneously too big and too small. It’s a bigger living space than we feel we need right now, and more than we want to haul if we’re living life on the road. It’s too small to hold all our stuff, so we’d still need a storage unit to hold at least some of our belongings. And most importantly, it’s too old to survive long-term full timing. It’s got a lot of life left as a camper, but it can’t be used as a home. We’ve learned a ton about RVs in the 3 months we’ve lived in it, and we’ve figured out that this particularly camper is not a good fit for us right now. This is why we packed up every single thing we own into our delightfully-good-at-hauling Toyota Tundra and hit the road.

7.21 – Tuesday

We stayed with Kyle’s mom in Indiana. It was a pretty lucky break that we were there, because suddenly we needed some notary signatures and overnighted documents, and her office is capable of both! So that turned a headache into an easy project. The broker suddenly decided he needed our signatures on a couple documents that we’d already given him (ie the documents were physically in Charleston), but we were able to sign over power of attorney and let him sign them. I know it’s going to shock you, but the closing contract date was completely missed as well. As buyers, it took 3 weeks to go from offer to boat ownership. As sellers, we’re now at week 6.

Soon after that, things were official. Hobbes has new owners, and we’re officially done with boat life! In fact, we’re actually homeless now.

7.24 – Friday

We invited Granny over for (outdoor, socially distanced!) dinner, and she was sweet enough to sew a few cloth masks for us! I’ve been looking for a couple reusable masks but we don’t stay in one place long enough to ship anything, so this was perfect!

We ended up not staying in Indiana too long, because it was so challenging to live out of the truck when everything was buried inside, and the whole thing was a combination of Tetris + a house of cards. Things fit in just so, and moving one box could cause an avalanche! We were eager to get up to Michigan where we could unpack the truck. So, we pulled the bus out of storage and moved our convoy northward.

7.29 – Wednesday

And that’s where we are today!

We’ll stay here for a few weeks, we’re still trying to figure out if we can make our original plans work. At the very least, we need to stabilize! We’ve been moving, and moving around, packing and unpacking so often that it makes my head spin!

Here in Michigan we’ll enjoy the perfect summer weather, we’ll relax and unwind, we’ll get caught up on all the “admin” things in our lives that we’ve been falling behind on. We’ll see family, we’ll hopefully see some northern lights (or at least some Perseids?), we might even get some nice hikes in! We can do whatever we want, because right now we feel completely free!