Road Trip Prep Aboard SV Batland

Hi friends!

This week we are getting ready for our road trip to Wisconsin! We’re stopping in Chicago to visit Steve’s sister, driving to Yellowstone to do some camping, and then going to Wisconsin where we’ll be house sitting for three weeks.

Since we’ve already done two cross country road trips together, we’ve gotten pretty good at knowing what we need, what we don’t, and sometimes we even know of places we want to re-visit. But here’s a to-do list we’ve been working off of just in case you want to see what we’ve been up to!

To-do list for the trip:

Drop portholes that didn’t fit off at Salty Dog (our discount marine store)
Get dehumidifier packets for boat
Buy dog food
Buy groceries (road trip snacks, camping friendly food)
Vacuum seal extra towels and sheets on boat (to keep fresh and clean while stored)
Clean out Buoy’s travel bag (yes, she has her own bag)
Clean out and sell truck
Clean out car and organize so everything fits
Change oil
Fix tiny crack in windshield
Get new tires
Fix porthole
Get a pump out (aka get our black water tank in a place where it won’t stink up the boat while we’re gone)
Do laundry
Pack (even though I’ve already packed some things, we have to do more once we finish doing laundry)

Believe it or not, we’ve done everything except the last four. The porthole is in progress – we have to wait for the epoxy to dry each time we work on it so it’s a bit of a process. The pump out will be done once our mast gets put back on. Laundry is one of the last things to do so that we know what clothes are available to then pack!

I’m pretty proud of us being so prepared this time, not that we weren’t before, we just have a better idea of what we want/what we’ll wear/what we need.

As far as boat work goes, we’re doing pretty good so far. The porthole, as I mentioned before, is a process because of the dry-time needed for the epoxy, but we think it’ll work out fine. The mast is down so “the boat looks naked,” as Steve said, but it’s getting done. We’re putting in an LED anchor light and replacing our spreader lights that never worked.

We’ve also taken on the task of eating everything on the boat (in the fridge and fresh stuff mostly) that we can so we don’t waste anything while we’re gone. Luckily, we don’t buy too many perishables at once anyway in order to not be wasteful.

Fried sushi being one of the things we made to get rid of some things from the fridge.

Our DC trip last week was a BLAST. We had dinner with a friend of mine from college and then while Steve was at his conference she and I hung out again. There really is nothing like catching up with old friends, so we’ve decided to do it more often.

Steve and I walked around DC all morning before his conference started. Sightseeing was hilarious with Steve, considering I tried to take a cool picture and we ended up with this: