I am thinking of naming our camper Arrakis

I am showing you the superhero syndrome and your own participation in it.
—Frank Herbert

We found more 3M Command Spice Racks that are 

large enough for our bigger items

I know it is a cheesy...

Referencing the Dune Saga, but if you think about all of this talk about spice racks, the Indiana Dunes, I thought it was appropriate. What would be cooler is if Frank Herbert used the Indiana Dunes as his inspiration for the books. Unfortunately, that came from the Oregon Dunes.

But, Like Paule Atredies, we have had to overcome many hardships in the past ten years. From an unstable economy, several lay offs, poor financial and investment decisions, to the death of my father and closing our martial arts schools, we have had to face a lot. By the grace of God and sheer will, we have made it through. 

Making Arrakis our home, organization and simplicity is the key...

I started to be fascinated by camping and RV'ing a little over a year ago. In my research, I came across Families On The Road, and have been in awe of the families who decided to change their lives and live freely. What is inspiring to see is that people from various backgrounds and countries, changing their lives, living more simply, and experiencing a closeness and contentment I haven't found in the path I had chosen for my life.

You see, I am just different. Sure, easy for me to say, since I am the one writing this. I have so many interests and pursuits, that normally 'define' someone. From my faith in God, strong technical skills, multiple black belts, Master's rank in Kung Fu, entrepreneur pursuits, and various 'sub' interests, I find myself lost, only finding solace in one pursuit or the next.

Obviously, that is unhealthy and not the norm. I decided two years ago to put those pursuits on the back burner and focus on the family and righting both our emotional, spiritual, and financial courses. Changing jobs to become a consultant allotted me less hours of work for much more money. I am home more, spend more time with the kids and dedicate more time to them. We are invested more in our Church and I have taken back the reigns from the world on my family and decided it was time to be back in the driver's seat.

What I admire most from these families and this lifestyle is the simplicity of it. I did a back of the envelop assessment of our expenses living on the road versus living in a traditional home. For our family, I believe we can save $900 to $1000 per month without sacrificing on the luxuries we are akin to.The sacrifice is the home lifestyle in exchange to less room with more experiences, distractions that drain our time to fulfilling our emotional and spiritual needs.

While cutting the chord in selling everything and be completely unattached is still in the planning phase, we have settled on the happy medium of our 'experiment' in living in Casa Barnes, AKA Arrakis for a month. Today, the kids start their first full day of road schooling. We have prepared ourselves and have made the transition. We will keep you updated as our experiment unfolds its results.

The Spice and Bikes

Jen made a new addition to the home. Spice Racks! As you may well know, RV's/Campers are not known for their storage space. There are countless blog posts I have read who have made the decision to live full time on the road and their number one complaint is organization and storage space. Jen and I have thought creatively, took several trips to big box stores, and have start making the camper our home.

One of the major improvements has been push lights for the kids at night. Instead of struggling to reach up to flip the switch for the over head lights, they can simply push on the dome tap lights to give them enough light to make it to the bathroom and back. Another addition is hooks. We got that inspiration from our dear friend Dee Grom. She taught us way back in Tulsa, the wonders of hanging hooks to keep what could be a mess, much more manageable. 

With the modern inventions of sticky backed wall hanging, we are using the 3M Command products and a Velcro variety we found at Walmart to hang our tap lights and anything essential on the walls. Jen found these lightweight spice racks to hang on the wall. We are in pursuit of a larger one for the odd size spices she likes to use for seasoning. Instead of taking up space on the counter or in the cabinets, this limited space can be used for the essential items.

I worked twelve hours today. With a long drive back to the camper, my mouth began to water as I was greeted with the smell of flank steak on the grill to be finished off in the skillet and made into fajita style steak. Cooked with peppers, and onions, add in a dash of salsa, and the dinner made for a welcome ending of my day.

The gruesome twosome's (AKA minions two and three, AKA the twins's) birthday is next Sunday. Jen decided that it was time to buy them new bikes. They had outgrown their old ones, and the chain on JJ's bike had broke. For an early birthday present, Jen bought them two very cool bikes with security locks to keep them attached to the camper when they are not using them. We never had bikes this cool when I was a kid.

My last 'cool' bike I had when I was a kid got stolen. It was found at the elementary school I attended slipped over a fire man pole. I don't know how they did it, but to my dismay, they had to cut it in order to get the bike free. Thus, expensive bike, my cool bike, lost to unknown criminals out to make mischief. I am happy that I can give my kids a bike that they can love as much as I did at their age.

Jayelle (minion numero uno), also got a bike. Sure, it slightly diminishes the joy of getting a bike for your birthday, but Jen and I plan a couple more gifts for the twins. The caveat, was that Uno would only get a 'normal' bike while the dynamic Duo (I have endless names for them), get more high end fancy bikes. At first, I wasn't a fan of this idea. Ultimately, I see the wisdom in it. Jayelle didn't bring her bike and was feeling left out. Her razor scooter isn't conducive to the surroundings. Having a bike, will allow her to be a part of the gaggle of kids roaming the park and have fun. It goes to show the heart of the Duo that they wanted her to have a bike too. Gotta love these kids!

It's the little things

It wasn't too long after getting my new camper when things started falling apart. Don't get me wrong, I still love the lifestyle. In my mind, I just want things to be perfect. Don't know why I expect that, maybe when you spend the money for a shiny new thing, you just want this to stay nice for a while. Thanks to my step-mom Lorelei for imprinting this on me during my teenage years.

As you can see in the photo above, the gas arm and hinge popped off the outside kitchen door. Right now, I am propping the door open with a shower curtain rod that I purchased from Walmart. It works, but less than ideal. Maybe it is God telling me that as far as I travel, and important I think I am, I am still a redneck.

In an earlier post, I wrote about how frustrated I got over a brand new computer not working that I had purchased for my wife to aid in road schooling. You just have to appreciate the lessons God gives us. This lesson learned yesterday played out to lesson applied that night. 

I am in the middle of an implementation for my client site. They have two hospitals going live and this by far is the most stressful times. It is a month straight working with little to no time off. Sure the overtime is a huge blessing, and will be well used to help pay off the last of our debt, but it runs you down something fierce. With my family in tow, having 'down time' really isn't an option. This could be a recipe for disaster. God used that computer fiasco to temper me for the evening.

More things broke. Piva, our family cat decided to lounge in between the slide out and trim for one side of the kids bunk room. My oldest daughter was worried about her being there and attempted to fetch her down. In doing so, she reached for the trim piece to give her a little support. As you can imagine, the entire trim piece came completely off. Our new camper is not so new anymore.

Instead of getting angry, I decided to inspect it. I know that material cannot be super sturdy and strong for this camper to be light enough to be pulled by a standard truck. They made it that way so that people could enjoy the larger campers like the fifth wheels without having to purchase a new truck to handle the load. It is an easy fix. I could do it my self. I could use gorilla glue epoxy and adhere it back to the original surface and you will not know that there was ever a problem. 

I debated fixing it myself. Instead I chose to get in touch with our RV dealer who is actually close by. We were planning to get the gas arm replaced with lower strength ones (the cause of our problem). Since I was going to pay for them to come out (the issue is covered under warranty), I might as well have them come out and professionally repair this as well. Jen will call today to work out the details. In the event it is not covered, I will fix it. 

What I learned is that, it is most important to teach the kids to respect and treat this camper with care. Thinking before acting is going to be important. That said, I know from reading other blogs that campers are a luxury, they are not perfect. They have a purpose to serve and while you may try to make it perfect, in the end, you sacrifice quality for weight reduction.

The biggest plus from this all, is that the family is together. I have noticed some important changes in the last two weeks. We are closer both physically, spiritually, and emotionally together. We cannot run and hide in our rooms, or get involved in too many other distractions in the RV. What a blessing that is. We keep the important stuff, important! Everything else doesn't matter

.

Fun in the Sun, and not handling stress well

Another day in the Sun. The kids had an absolute blast yesterday when they visited Central Beach along the Lake Shore. Always careful as you can see, each of the minions wore a life jacket. It seems that the lake claims lives every year and that the under tow can pull people away. Of course this is the case whether you are in the Great Lakes, a river, or the ocean... there are always dangers.

Combine common sense, and a little extra precaution, you can have a fun day at the beach wherever you may end up. The only issue we had is that the kids came back a little sun burned. It could have been worse, all of our children take after me with fair complexion. We found earlier this year bathing suits that have UV protection and bought a swim suit for everyone in the family. That helps a lot. Me, I go from pasty white to the color a Lobster, back to pasty white.

The kids also were able to get five pounds of Michigan Blueberries from a local farmer's market. I would rather them eat healthy and delicious blueberries than snack away on unhealthy things like potato chips and other garbage easy to find at your local grocer. As you can see T-Rex in this photo, she is drinking one of the soda's made from our new SodaStream. Ok, we are not perfect! Sure, we could go the all natural way, however for our family, we live in a balance.

For me, I had a long frustrating day on the job. Coming home, I wanted to bless the wife by taking her out and buying her a new laptop since our old one crashed and the junker desktop we have been limping along at home didn't quite fit in our camper, we needed something very manageable that could server multiple purposes. 

We decided on a MacBook Air. I am a huge fan when it comes to Apple products. After supporting both Windows and Linux environments in my past, I decided several years back that I would buy a Mac and see what the hub-bub was all about. I was very surprised and happy. It combines the best in general security, had a great operating system based on Unix, that was mainstream enough to provide plenty of apps to meet my needs that worked well to integrate easily with Windows environments and networks. 

The main use of the new MacBook Air is for homeschooling. Providing kids with the tools they need to do their schoolwork, and matched with awesome and easy to use creative tools to make the whole process fun. My lovely bride would have all the tools she needed to prepare for teaching, with a small footprint to boot. And it fits really well with the RV life. It is ultra portable, lightweight, and rugged!

We found a great deal on the MacBook at the local BestBuy. They had an open boxed version for $250 less than a brand new one. I bought an external super drive as well as an AppleTV to go along with the accessories. The drive allows us to run DVD's as well as other learning programs we use to help the kids in the learning. We had to purchase this because MacBook Airs do not have a DVD/CD drive. That is fine with me because most of the time, we don't use it. Most of the material is available online to download. The AppleTV is for us to be able to send video streaming to our large TV. Thus making the material much more easily watched instead of having kids cram around a small screen.

Bought and paid for, off to the camper...that is when the trouble started. I opened the MacBook Air and everything looked fine. As soon as I booted up, I expected the normal start up and walk through that you normally see on Mac's to help you set up the computer. To my surprise, they hadn't wiped the machine. Worse they had locked the login user out from basically EVERYTHING. This along with not even providing passwords for the accounts made things more difficult. I even tried removing the setup file using terminal so that when I rebooted, it would take me through the process again of setting up the machine and creating new Admin and user accounts.

None of that worked. Instead, I had to call Apple Support. We went and wiped out the old settings and to my dismay, they wiped out the entire OS. The good thing is that you can restore the entire machine by downloading a new OS through the restore process. Unfortunately, it wouldn't find my wireless connection in the camper. I tried everything. I even walked the campground in the dark in hopes to find a good signal. No Dice. Eventually, I just gave up, put the machine in the box and tried to calm down.

In the kids excitement, they all wanted to see and look at the new machine. I was already under a lot of stress trying to get it configured. I really didn't want to be bombarded with a thousand questions and have everyone clambering around me to get a look at the new machine. I lost my cool. I yelled at the kids. Father of the year award... lost. 

I am definitely not perfect. I have lots of opportunities to grow in this area. I wasn't angry at them, I was angered that this new purchase that was supposed to be a godsend to my wife and children was utterly falling flat on its face. Instead of closing the computer and giving up an hour and a half before I did, I took the frustrations out on my children. Some things are just not worth yelling about. A smart person would realize that we should have had it checked out before we took it home. You know what they say when you assume...

Needless to say, Jen and I got up in the morning and prayed. I asked for forgiveness for my crappy attitude, and we are taking the MacBook Air back. I left it up to Jen as to whether she would take a replacement, or have the GeekSquad (who we purchased a package from) would work on the machine. Either way, I am fine with the decision. God is in control, even when I think I should be. This is a great lesson to me about living on the road. Things don't go as planned. Sometimes it will be out of your control. The best way to respond when things get away from you is to give up, seek help from those who are well suited to do so, and move on. It is not worth all the fuss nor the damage to relationships it could cause!

Indiana Dunes and the Jr. Ranger Program

Officially, we have told the kids that school starts next week. This will allow us to fully try out road schooling and determine whether or not this is something we want to do for the long term. I will say however, I am very impressed with how the kids are adapting. They have come from having their own rooms to a much more cramped living space. Our living room is combined with kitchen and dining room which means that we multi-purpose everything.

However, each of the children have a designated place to use for learning and working. 'Defined' spaces means a lot to our children as we are still fighting constant 'mines' over property. Just last night we had an Epic battle over an extra blanket being used during a movie of  'Mirror, Mirror' we rented from RedBox. 'It's Mine,' got in the way of a peaceful evening only to be settled by me turning off the TV and reminding the children that we are all in this together and that sharing is an absolute must. Finally, they calmed down and peace was restored.

The Indiana Dunes has been a huge draw for us. The kids love adventures at the beach. From climbing Mt. Baldy, to just playing on the beach, the kids seem to love it. I am actually even more impressed with the Indiana Dunes Junior Ranger Program. They have booklets that you can get in their office or download. The kids explore and learn about the lake shore, the beaches, plants, birds, and other historical information. From there, they fill out their booklets to turn them in and get their Junior Ranger badge.

Earlier last week, I had the chance to climb Mt. Baldy and it was a fun adventure for all. There is so much to do and see. It has also provided us with an endless list of 'to do's' and 'to see's.' What better way to spend an evening than a sunset walk along the beach with the wife as the kids scamper and play in the surf?

Drums and Soda

Trying to keep our children well rounded on the road, we have tried to keep our children's music lessons as part of our program. Both my oldest and middle daughter keep busy with guitar lessons and piano lessons. However, my son is much more laid back and both of those options didn't seem to be a good fit for him. Well, while trying to get new strings for Jayelle's guitar, Jen and the minions visited a music shop. They were quite friendly and helpful. They even installed the strings for Jayelle. That is a plus because normally, I am the one having to do it for her. I don't mind, however this gave her the opportunity to practice during the day while I am at work.

JJ found his calling I believe. He wanted drums. While we don't have the room for a full percussion ensemble, we did find a djembe. It allows him to practice rhythm and work on different sounds made by striking the skin of the drum in different ways. I am excited for him. Normally, he loses interest rather quickly. I think when things become difficult or a sibling may be more gifted, he likes to stray away.  Since nobody in the house plays the drum, it is his opportunity to shine all by himself. We may have to struggle with him banging his lil' drum for a while, but I say 'bang on, my son!'

We also ventured out to the local outlet mall in Michigan City. Pretty cool place. The weather was nice for walking even though T-Rex, our littlest decided not to cooperate. We visited one of the chef supplies places and found a SodaStream with all the different flavors. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love Diet Dr. Pepper. Being a soda addict is an affliction, I know. However buying all those expensive cans and bottles does hurt the budget a little. More so, having storage for all of it doesn't make good sense. We are so limited in space, buying extra and storing like we normally do at home is not an option. There have been nights I have had to do without (how sad, right?). With the SodaStream, they even have a Diet Dr. Pepper flavor. I guess that is all I needed to splurge on the unit.

I am very impressed .The flavors are great. They taste so close to the real thing, you will be surprised. The added benefits of cost, no plastic bottles to throw away, and the reduced calories in the other flavored drinks  makes this a real win for the Barnes family on the road!

I was skeptical, but I was desperate...

I was skeptical, but I was desperate as to whether or not I could ever get any satisfactory wireless internet at the RV. Often times in the evening, I am logging in to make sure there are not problems and to prepare for the next day. Having a decent wireless connection speed saves me tons of time. Instead of fighting to connect, hopefully not getting dropped or suspended for an indefinite time, I want to log on, do my stuff and log off so that I can do something more meaningful like playing with the kids, fishing, or just about anything else.


As for road schooling, we don't have the extra room to store books and lots of 'paper' materials. A lot of the work has to be done online or using products such as Google docs to get the work done. Each of our children have a Amazon Kindle Fire we bought when they were selling refurbished ones for $149. This allows us to use them in conjunction with one laptop computer instead of having a laptop for each child. As you can imagine, for road-schooling like we are, connectivity is a must. Nothing like having a toddler upset that she cannot watch her PBS kids on her Kindle Fire! With the Kindle Fire's loaded down with books, and materials for homeschooling, it is just a matter of having connectivity to the Internet to allow us to facilitate and guide them through the process.


Over the last couple of years, I have tried several products from wireless tethering on my phone to buying a separate service such as Clear.com (don't get me started on them), paying for a data plan on my iPad, and just being frustrated all the time.


However, from a good suggestion I found perusing forums to find a way to amplify or extend an existing wireless network that would work well in an RV setting, I came across the NETGEAR Universal Wi-Fi Range Extender. The price was $67 and available at the local Walmart.  I have spent far more to try and get connected only to feel like I have utterly wasted my time and money. Often times products are so hard or complicated to setup or worse, they just don't work as described.


However, I did try this product after some glowing reviews in the forums along with great reviews on Walmart's own website. I was surprised at how easy it was to setup. I don't own the wireless at the campground but I was easily able to connect to, extend, and fully use it with this extender. As you can see, it takes up very little room and makes a world of difference.