My family has coined the term “drive day,” referring to when we’re on the road, traveling from one location to another in our RV. Although it has become a normal part of my life, I know that it’s not that way for everybody – which is why I’ve decided to give you a bit of an insight into what takes place on one of our drive days!

The day starts off with a wake-up alarm, so that we can get up early enough to pack up our RV. Most RV parks have an 11:00 AM departure time, although we have been to a few places where we had to leave earlier than that in order to avoid paying for another day. By “packing up the RV,” we have to…

• Move everything from the floor on to the beds (the queen-sized bed at the back, the lower bunk, or the bed above the cab)
• Clear all counter spaces (what little counter space we have…) of kitchen appliances or dental hygiene products. All the kitchen appliances and anything else on the “kitchen counter,” like our silicone drinking cups, are neatly put into the kitchen sink. Everything by the sink in the bathroom, like our Waterpik and toothbrushes, are moved to the shower (we use our shower as storage)
• Certain things, like our metal basket stand and plastic storage drawers, are moved away from the slides but kept on the floor so that we can pull in the slides when the time comes (RV slides, also called slide-outs, are rooms on an RV that expand the living space by extending outward).
• Secure the kitchen cabinet and bathroom cabinet with a child lock, so that if we hit a bumpy road, the cabinets won’t pop open, sending miscellaneous items raining down on the ground.

As I mentioned in my first blog post, Welcome To My Blog!, I live in a 32 foot (class C) RV with my parents and three younger sisters. Six people accumulate a lot of stuff – not to mention all the school supplies for my sisters and I – and consume a lot of food. Due to a past health crisis and my younger sisters’ food sensitivities, my family eats quite a healthy diet… hence the baskets of bananas, bags of avocados, and a big metal basket stand full of fruits and veggies that needs to be repositioned for the road.

My dad always packs our car the night before a drive day with our outdoor gear, hoses and cables for the RV, and items that we aren’t currently using.

I’ve found that it’s best to stay out of the way when my parents are getting the RV ready for the road. It can get quite crowded if everybody is moving things around the camper. So as my parents pack up the RV, I usually prepare breakfast for myself and two of my younger sisters (one of my younger sisters prefers to be independent and make herself breakfast). Breakfasts on drive days aren’t fancy, and because of food sensitivities and pickiness, it’s not like I could place a few pop tarts into a toaster and call it a breakfast – which is why I usually make fruit plates or guacamole with chips. Most of the time, we also have some sort of treat with breakfast, like homemade oatmeal bars or a slice of homemade no-bake chocolate pie.

As my sisters and I eat breakfast and my mom finishes putting various items in their designated road-worthy spots, my dad flushes the gray water and sewer tanks, refills the freshwater tank if needed, unhooks the water and sewer hoses and power cable from the RV, and places them in separate plastic containers in the car. The final task is to pull in the slides.

We usually roll out of our RV spot just a few minutes before the required departure time, and my dad hooks up the car to our camper. It becomes a tow car or “toad” in RV slang.

Finally, we hit the road!

Before I continue, I’d like to clear any uncertainty about whether we stay in our car or our RV as we drive to a new location. Since we have a class C RV, we pull our car behind us, so we sit in our RV for the entire span of the drive. It would be the same for anyone who owns a class A RV. However, people who own fifth wheels or trailers would have to drive in their car and tow their recreational vehicle behind them.

Some drive days are shorter, only lasting a couple of hours, while others are very long and we have to break it up into a few 10+ hour days. The shortest drive time from one destination to the next was a mere 10 minutes, when we relocated from the campground at City of Rocks State Park to Faywood Hot Springs in New Mexico.

So, what usually goes on while we’re driving?

Well, my dad drives the RV with the car in tow, and my mom accompanies him up front. My two youngest sisters play near the bed in the back (we try to leave some space back there for them), read books, and like the majority of kids nowadays, play video games on iPads. My other younger sister, who isn’t actually that much younger than I am, reads or does schoolwork. As for me, on most drive days, I catch up on school. For me, it’s a good time to do my schoolwork without being interrupted or distracted, and I often get a lot done. By “school,” I mean the online school I attend. I have pre-recorded video lessons for each subject and many, many, many textbooks. I can play each video lesson on my laptop, and complete my assigned homework in my textbooks. I’ll talk a bit more about how I’m schooled in another blog post in the near future.

First and foremost, I’d like to say that it is not easy to do school on a bumpy road. I figured that out when we first drove through the Texan desert. Writing on a bumpy, lumpy, pothole-filled road is next to impossible if you’re trying to write comprehensively or neatly. I learnt to only do subjects that don’t require much writing when we’re driving on rough terrain. I also learnt to always pay attention to my laptop. Uneven roads cause the RV to rattle and shake all over – which also causes the dinette table I do my schoolwork on to shake uncontrollably, like we’re experiencing an earthquake. I’ve watched my laptop jump across the table, my DVD drive dangling off the table’s edge. Although the non-skid strips on the bottom of my laptop aids in keeping it in place when we’re driving on a highway, they don’t do much to help when we hit a rough road.

For every drive day, my family puts together easy-to-eat snacks which we can snack on if we get hungry. If we have a long drive, we usually prepare chickpeas and/or a grain to cook while we’re driving. We can cook food in instant pots, charge electronic devices, make popcorn, and use anything else that requires electricity off of the generator. Believe it or not, my family has air-popped popcorn as we rolled down the road!

Speaking of food, on most drive days (depending on our food supply), we’ll also stop by a Costco and/or Walmart if it’s along our route. One of the great things about driving your “home” to the supermarket is that you can load your groceries directly from the store and into your fridge; one of the downsides of this, is that when our slides are in, our home is so small that the food ends up being stored on the floor until we can organize it when we reach our destination.

On the road, I try to complete as much schoolwork as I can while at the same time, only doing as much as I will be able to remember. It can be hard to keep track of so much new information If I learn too many new things all at once. On long drive days, when it’s dark out and I’m done with schoolwork for the day, sometimes I’ll lay on the sofa and read an eBook, write, watch the passing cars outside, or plot the next scene in one of my many stories.

The drive day comes to an end when we reach our destination. My dad carefully navigates into the site, levels the camper within a degree front, rear, and side to side; he also gets the electricity, water, and sewer connected.

If it’s too late at night, we’ll quickly unpack the bed in the back for my parents to sleep on, but we’ll leave the bed above the cab full (it takes a lot longer to unpack) and one of my younger sisters and I will sleep together on the sofa. Our sofa folds out into a bed, one which feels too small for two people, but is manageable for a night or two. We also push out the slides, which always makes our RV feel so much bigger.

The next day, we unpack everything and make it feel like home.

I hope you were able to experience a “drive day,” and happy traveling!

Vivienne

PS: Just for the record, we all use seatbelts installed throughout the RV and use the bathroom and kitchen when stopped at roadside rest areas.