After weeks of decluttering, donating and downsizing, we finally arrived at our deadline to move out of our home in San Francisco and into our RV. We were actually a day late, as we were still scrambling to get everything sorted before we took off, but we managed to have our final dinner in the Bay Area with our friends Paulie and Katie, hanging out at their place until the early hours of the morning before sleeping in the RV on a quiet street in their neighborhood. Perhaps it was because we were exhausted from the past few weeks or because we were on a fairly familiar street, but we were able to sleep fairly soundly for our first night in the RV.
Being in an RV, we’d soon learn that I could hear outside noises pretty easily, and it would take some time to get used to this (besides the fact that our bed was now much smaller–it’s a queen bed, but we have king bed sheets, which means that the linen droop heavily over the sides).
When we woke up the next morning, we realized that the power seemed to be very sporadic–we’d try to charge our phones only for it to not seem to register. Power shouldn’t have been an issue, given that we’d just installed enough solar–plus we couldn’t have depleted it already! We couldn’t work out the issue, but needed to head back to our (former!) home to grab the remaining items to put in our RV (including strapping our eBikes to the front of the RV) and fill the tank with freshwater.
It was a slow drive back, as we were still not sure if everything in the cupboards will be stable, and every bump in the road makes us nervous that cupboards will open or things will break inside. We had been very meticulous about packing everything inside the cupboards that was breakable–such as using non-slip shelf liners, and using cardboard boxes or other containers to compartmentalize our breakables (which also had some towels in between plates so they wouldn’t rattle too much when we were on the move). Michael was able to park in front of our old house, although we soon found out that when the RV was sloping downhill, there was a leak above the driver’s and passenger’s side which then dripped inside. Just one of the many issues we’ll encounter with the RV…
After doing a final packing and filling our fresh water tank, we were finally off, although our RV was extremely disorganized inside. There were a ton of bags tucked underneath the table, strewn on the sofa, and sitting on the floor next to our bed. It was certainly not easy to pack our home into the RV! While Lisette felt that we were able to declutter quite a bit (Michael probably disagrees with this sentiment), there were some things that we brought that we’ll go through while on the road and not necessarily replace (e.g. all Lisette’s bags of loose leaf tea!). We’ll also probably end up decluttering further as the seasons change. What’s hard is that after this trip we’re moving to Nicaragua, so it’s also not a standard RV trip–it’s packing for this and what’s beyond.
Poor Sheila doesn’t know what’s going on, and has undoubtedly felt neglected for the last few weeks (well, the entire 2025 so far!). We didn’t feed her until late on Sunday, the house we returned to is pretty much empty, and she stayed in the vacant house while we were running around in the RV getting it ready. And the space in the RV is the equivalent of our living room… so no wonder she’s not loving it yet. We decided to give her the passenger seat once we drove off, in the hopes that she’d start warming up to her new home.
We drove to Berkeley to get another phat tire extension (weird that we got 2 bike racks but the company only provides one extension!), ate lunch, and saw Lisette’s West African dance teacher, Naby, one last time with his kids to drop off some lemons/mandarins and give him some stuff for the car we sold him.
And then… we were off! Leaving the Bay Area, who knows when we will next be here, our home for the last 13+ years. So much has happened recently, that the reality of the situation has probably not hit us–yet!
Rather than go straight to Lake Tahoe, as was our original plan, we had to drive up to Sacramento so that we could see the solar installers on Monday morning to troubleshoot the solar power issue. We arrived in the afternoon, did some grocery shopping and made our first meal in the RV: used up some leftover pasta and poured pasta sauce over it, and added some parmesan cheese. Not the most delicious meal, but it did the trick. Lisette realized our box grater was missing (and would later find out that my well-loved grater had been accidentally picked up by an overeager Buy Nothing neighbor). The grocery store (Grocery Outlet) was great, and we were able to use the store to keep going to the restroom–until 8pm when I found out that the toilets closed at 7pm. Then we realized that the neighborhood was pretty intimidating, with a bunch of sketchy-looking people loitering around after dark. We drove to another store to use the restroom, before we headed toward the solar installation place to find a place to park and sleep for the night.
Because the neighborhood didn’t seem so nice (super industrial), it took us a while to find a place, before we found a spot… only to find that a man seemed to be sleeping in his car due to a probable domestic squabble with his partner, and dogs constantly barking as they argued and yelled. So we moved on, and ended up parking on the side of the road, but on a slope. It turned out to be next to some kind of farm, so our sleep was disturbed not only by the fact that it felt like we were snoozing on a hill, but also by the sounds of goats, and a rooster that couldn’t stop crowing even at night! After waking up feeling exhausted, we vowed to never sleep on a slope again.
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