Day 1

If you told me a year ago I'd be the co-owner of a brand new recreational vehicle, I would've called you straight-up nuts. My experience with trailers has been pretty limited to those The Price of Right episodes, when I used to salivate over all the amenities in the winners' showcase showdown trailers (in my opinion, it wasn't a good prize package unless there was a trailer included). To my six- or seven-year-old mind, trailers were the neatest thing in the world. I mean, a bathroom and a kitchen and a bed on wheels?!?! It was just too good to be true!

Now, we have our very own 2011 Jayco JayFlight travel trailer. Although I must say, it's a bit trickier than I expected when my husband Steve and I first sat down to talk logistics with a very charming RV salesman. For one thing, our Mercury Mountaineer, which I once referred to as a "beast," might as well be a mouse in the world of towing vehicles. We had to purchase a special hitch to accommodate the 4,500-lb weight we'd soon be hauling all over the highways, and then Steve installed it himself when the RV technicians where we bought the trailer complained the installation would "take four hours" (for the record, it took him the same amount of time, sans bitching). 

Then there's the slight issue of towing the thing. For some reason, when you're touring an RV in the showroom, it doesn't look half as big as it does when it's hooked up to your SUV. Suddenly it's this massive monstrosity and we have to somehow figure out how to navigate narrow roads, turns, gas stations, and don't even get me started on backing into teeny-tiny spots at storage spaces and campgrounds...

It's a reality now.

All of a sudden we look so much tinier...

But when we're sitting at our kitchen table, enjoying a meal I cooked on our adorably compact stove, and sneaking looks at our dog passed out on the couch two feet away, all the stress and headaches are worth it. It may still be freezing outside and the campground we're staying in for the night is next to deserted, but we're tucked away in our own little home on wheels, cozy as can be. This is the life! 

It's really ours!