Things sure don’t work out like you plan, do they??  We WERE able to get the truck earlier this week, but things are still held up with the Alpha.  Dang!!  We have the truck and went last night to fill it up with fuel.  It was on empty and we filled it with 30.074 gallons of diesel at $4.159 per gallon = $125.08.  We are keeping a little notebook in the truck to keep track of mileage and fuel costs.

The hold up with the Alpha now is like I said in the last entry, Mike was going to register the Alpha in our name and then put Southeast Financial as the lien holder, however; the problem is that Southeast Financial is NOT a finance company, they are a broker!  None of us knew this.  So, they have to have an American title to show to the banks that they represent.  The biggest problem is that we were only approved for a 30 day period and locked into the rate that made it so that we could afford both payments (Ford and Alpha).  I talked to Elizabeth at Southeast and she extended the 30 days to 60, but that was for the credit approval only.  If the finance rate goes up, we might not be able to afford the monthly payment and won’t be able to get the Alpha.  Needless to say, we are VERY disappointed!!  We had hoped to have the whole set up here at home this weekend before Tom goes to Nashville next week.  Oh well!  We’ll just have to be patient.  Ha!!  We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that it all comes through soon and that the rate doesn’t increase!

We are going to head out for a drive today and take Daisy for a ride in the truck.

It will be interesting to see how well (or not) Daisy gets up in to the big truck and then the Alpha.

A week has gone by now since the last entry and it looks like Mike’s estimate of us getting the set up on or around Valentine’s Day is going to be on target.  He went to the DMV today and got everything pretty much taken care of.  He found out that he has to get the truck weighted and obtain a certificate of weight in order to get the license plates for the truck.  Otherwise, he has that all done.  He went ahead and got the Alpha registered in our name, even though he still hasn’t received the money from Southeast Financial.  Like I mentioned earlier, they are being picky about the paperwork.  They want to see front and back of an American title (not Canadian).

What Mike did, is he went down and put it in our name on the registration with Southeast Financial as the lien holder.  We hope this will make them happy.  So, tomorrow, Mike is going to get the truck weighted and then he can go get the plates.  I sure hope we get the rig (Alpha) all situated so that we can get the whole set up this weekend.

Tom has really been getting in to reading on the RV-Dreams forums and now he’s starting to read the journal that Howard from RV-Dreams writes.  Howard started writing the journal in the beginning of their decision and planning process and that is what gave me the inspiration to start writing this one.

I told Tom to start at the very beginning.  I found it to be very interesting, informative, and amusing.  Howard is an entertaining writer.  The website, RV-Dreams.com is full of so much useful and helpful information.  Howard and his wife, Linda began their journey back in January 2005.  Well, they started making the decision a little before Jan ’05, but didn’t take too long to hit the road in August ’05.

Tom has given us a 12/24 month period before we head out.  I’m really hoping it’s not the “24”, but this will give us time to get rid of everything, get some money saved, some “on-the-road” jobs lined up, and get to know our set-up inside and out; top-to-bottom’ front-to-back; left-to-right, etc.

We plan to have it set up here in the yard with hook-ups so we can practice and learn about everything and kind of live in it on the weekends.

I really think that once we get started staying in it and Tom is comfortable driving it around, that the 12 month (or sooner) plan will be most realistic.  We’ve already been selling things on eBay.  I’ve been holding back a little on getting everything ready to sell until we have the keys and those babies are in our driveway!  Then it will be massive purge and downsizing time.  I already bought poster board for the yard sale signs and printed off some smaller fliers.  If the stars align and we get the set up in our yard this weekend, then I don’t see any reason we couldn’t start having yard sales in two weeks.  It will probably take that long to go through, sort, and price everything.  Of course, there will be new stuff put out every week.  It’s going to be a lot of work and sad at some points too, I’m sure, but it’ll be really worth it in the long run.

We are having a bit of a “scare” today.  The finance company for the Alpha doesn’t like that the title is still a Canadian one.  I called Mike and he assured me everything is moving along and that all should be totally finalized at least by next Friday, which is Valentine’s Day.  We sure hope so!

Not that this has anything to do with our RV Life to come, but it is a major thing to happen in our life, a sad thing to happen ~ we had to let go of our sweet little Bridgette yesterday.  Her cancer had her so sick and hurting, she was ready.  Mouth cancer in kitties is so fatal.  Our hearts are broken and full of sadness.

The day started out on a better note though, since we went and signed all of the papers at the dealer for the truck and the Alpha.

We had worked all week on obtaining financing and getting everything we needed.  The two finance companies we went with are Sierra Pacific Federal Credit Union for the truck and Southeast Financial for the Alpha.

Down payment will be made some time this week.  Mike (the dealer) is still working on getting the titles “imported” since the vehicles had been in Canada.  We hope to have the set-up in our driveway this week, or at least by Valentine’s Day!!

We started purging today.  We went through all of our DVDs and picked out a bunch for sale.  We kept a small handful.  Tom has been posting them on eBay.  We also moved some railroad ties out of the way of where we want to park the Alpha.

Tom thought of what we should name our fiver (fifth-wheel).  He said that we should name it “T & L” or “TNL” for “Truck N/& Living” or it could also be for “Tom N/& Lori.  I think it’s a great idea!

We’ve set a 12/24 month timeline for when we actually become full-timers, but I really think that once it (the whole set up) is in our driveway, our motivation will be moving things along even more quickly.

I’m so glad that Tom like the whole idea and has gotten even more excited about it all since we first talked about it and he has been reading so much about it.