curious???

I received an email from Stephanie asking a few ?s of how we do things - thought that I'd just answer them on here in case anyone else out there is wondering how a family of 13 handles these things in an RV :)

If you don't mind, could you give me an idea of how you find or decide what RV camp to stay at, or is it just a big guessing game? Do you research a lot about the different camps, or is it by the seat of your pants!? :)
Well, it is mostly by the seat of our pants! State parks in Montana are very rugged - no showers, electric, or even flush toilets - we figured that state parks everywhere we like that, so initially, we had planned to find places to dry camp to save money. We figured that we would find 'camping' spots for most nights, and splurge for a KOA or the like twice a week or so to catch up on showers, laundry, and 'tank maintenance' (refilling fresh water, dumping black and grey tanks). When we got to Oregon, we thought we had died and gone to camping heaven - state parks with hot showers, flush toilets, and electric hookups??? for $14 dollars a night??? who knew??? (obviously not us!) So for the month that we were on the OR coast, we stayed exclusively at state parks (who never had an issue with how many kids we had!).

Come Nov., OR was turning a little cold (and moist - we found mold growing in the camper!), we decided that it was time for a warmer, and drier, climate - we beat feet for Arizona. Driven from the Grand Canyon by the threat of coming snow, we drove south into Phoenix - where it was 95 degrees at 6pm - in NOVEMBER! We couldn't believe it! We hit a state park there, but it wasn't a good fit (weird neighbors), so we searched on the internet for RV parks in the area that weren't 55+ parks (there aren't many that aren't), and started calling around for an RV resort (Anything with a pool!). Total RV culture shock there! When you make a reservation for a campground, they will ask how many kids you have as most charge per head above the average 1.3 (OK, it's usually 2...). When I said that we had 11 kids, I was told 'no way can we do 11 kids!!!', 'I don't think that will work', 'are you serious?', and (my fav) 'Click!' (they really did hang up on me!). So, no pool for us sweatin' northerners! We found a wonderful AZ state park (Picacho Peak), and it ended up being one of our fav spots of the trip.

Anyway, all that to say that a lot of RV parks didn't work out for us!
We did, over time, find some great parks that were super-kid-friendly.
What we learned over the course of the trip was to NOT call - at least not call to ask if it was OK to bring 11 kids - it was better to show up so that the park could see that we were clean, neat, and, well, not ghetto! I would call ahead of time and could usually get a good feel for the park by talking to the person that answered the phone for a few minutes (never mentioning that I had a tribe!). Also, I learned that getting a feel for a person goes both ways - I will ask ?s and talk a bit to the person at the camp before mentioning that we have so many in our group, and many times I have felt that they are OK with it after we have conversed a few minutes - they very well may have rejected us had I dropped the '11 kids' bombshell on them right at the beginning of the call. Also, I learned to be persistent. At first I just gave up too quickly and felt like NO-ONE would allow us to camp in their park. But, after awhile, we learned to keep calling around to parks - there are quite a few truly family-friendly parks out there, sometimes it just takes a little effort to find them - but they are worth it as they are also usually the most wonderful people to meet!

Also, has your grocery bill seemed to increase, decrease, or is it spent in different ways?
I think that at first the grocery bill increased quite a bit. I was used to bulk buying when I found a good deal (pairing sales with coupons...), not buying meat (my guys hunt), and making most of our meals from scratch. When we first got in the trailer, we still had a 'camping' mentality. Lots of boxed, one-pot, super-easy meals, individual portion items, drink boxes... Plus we ate out a ton when we first hit the road. It took awhile for us to get used to cooking much in the RV.

I think that our grocery bill is effected more by the seasons now than it was in the sticks & bricks. During the summer, we spend a lot on fruit and ice cream, :) in the winter, we do more baked goods and comfort foods like big pots of soup. In the summer, we mainly grill (more expensive meats), in the winter, we cook more inside.

The grocery bill is also effected by whether we are traveling or staying put for awhile. If we are putting on miles, we are much more likely to use paper plates and bowls, and make one-pot meals (and nothing too messy since we are limited on water). If we are parked for awhile with hookups, we don't mind having to wash more dishes, and are likely to put more effort into the meals (which usually means healthier and cheaper too!).

One item that effected our grocery budget that we had not thought of was bottled water. We have always had well water, and consider 'city' water to be contaminated :) We have had a hard time stomaching some of the drinking water that we have come across, and we ended up spending a lot in bottled water, and also in powdered gatorade (or the like) to cover the taste when we did have to drink the nasty stuff. ;)

To be honest, I don't keep track of our grocery expenditures, but I would have to say that our bill has gone up; part of that is because being debt free has given us the freedom to spend more on groceries, but part is that we don't have room to store overflow and end up paying more for some items since I can't stock up like in the house.

How do you keep control of the laundry monster in a small space? Where do you store dirty clothes, and do you ever hand wash, or is it, just wait till we get to a laundry mat?
hehehe! Laundry Monster is right! It sometimes drives us out of the back room simply because it takes up so much space. I have found, whether in a house or an rv, the way to conserve floor space, is to go vertical with my storage needs. I found some great storage bins at Target. The are 3 sided with handles on the top sides. The handles fold inward, stopping horizontally, and you can stack another bin on top of the handles... (I will try to remember to come back and post a pic) These work great, and the clothes get sorted as they get thrown in the different bins.

While we are parked here at the lake, we do our laundry at the KOA up the road, and I try to do it every other day just to keep it in check. On the road, however, we would do the laundry every 5 to 7 days. That is too many dirty clothes for even my wonderful bins, so when it became overflowing, I would throw the pre-sorted loads into cloth laundry bags, and stash them behind the back seat in the van (and when that was full, even in the back seat of the van). I have not had to hand wash clothes other than soaking a few extra dirty items.

One thing about going to the laundry mat is the expense! Our laundry mat bill would run between $40 and $60+/week. Laundry mat prices vary incredibly from place to place. If we had hookups all the time on the road (and weren't worried about weight), we would have a w/d stacked set in the garage, but many times we dry camp.


*I love to share our life in an RV - I'd like to say our life On The Road, but we are parked right now, so...
If anyone out there has any other ?s, I'd be happy to try to answer them for you!
:) dana