Welcome to the RV show

Yesterday we went to our first RV show. RV and boat show, actually... In other words, one enormous room stuffed with speed boats, pontoon boats, bus-like RVs the size of jetliners, more trailers than I could count, and slide-outs as far as the eye could see.

And people. So many people. Until yesterday, I didn't know going to RV and boat shows was a thing. I figured we'd be three of maybe a few dozen people, but as it turns out, a lot of people are interested in boating and RVing. The sea of humanity combined with the fluorescent lighting was a recipe for a panic attack, but I was on a mission - a mission to figure out what kind of unit we wanted - and so I kept the panic at bay long enough to make the admission fee worthwhile.

The goal was definitely NOT to find and purchase an RV. Even the smallest units here were tens of thousands of dollars. (Excuse me while I stop to laugh.)

Oh you know... Pocket change.

No, the goal was just to see what kind of features and layouts we like so that when we're ready to buy our USED RV, we'll know how to narrow the search.

What we learned:

1. Many RVs are larger than our current house. Also much cleaner and better decorated. Fewer Legos on the floor, too.

I will never live in anything that looks this nice.

2. Many RVs are fancier and have more square footage than a New York City apartment (actually, this was not my observation; it was what one of my NYC friends said when she saw my photos on Facebook).

3. Before the show, we'd determined that our ideal RV will be a class C. Class C RVs have bunks over the cabs, and they don't look like buses. The show confirmed that this will be the best choice for us, at least for our initial foray into nomadic life. The class C's we looked at and liked the best had several features that are musts for us:

• A bunk for me and my husband, and a bunk area for my son, with doors or curtains for privacy. 
• A bathroom accessible from the main part of the RV so that my son doesn't need to wake us up in the middle of the night to get to the facilities.
• A spacious table area. I'm planning to homeschool my son, so we're going to need a spot where we can spread out if we're working inside.
• Storage, storage, storage.
• Total length of less than 30 feet.

One of our favorite RVs from the show

4. Our region has more RV dealers than we'd realized. Although we're open to purchasing the right used RV from anywhere in the region, it would be nice to purchase one from within the immediate area. I don't want to travel 200 miles away to check out an RV only to discover that it looks nothing like the pictures on eBay.

5. RV dealers are way less pushy than I'd expected. I get anxious when salespeople follow me around and ask if I have any questions. That didn't happen here. We were able to look around at our leisure. Or maybe what was really going on was that the dealers were taking one look at us and thinking, "Nope. They are definitely not buying anything today."

All in all, it was a good learning experience, one that will inform our research over the next few months as we save, save, save.

It takes time to turn a ship around

I don't regret quitting my job. If anything, I'm more convinced than ever that it was the right decision.

At the same time, however, I also feel kind of... stunned. A little depressed, even. For so long, this was my would-be identity: assistant professor, PhD. In the last seven years, this is pretty much all I've thought about.

So now to say that I am done with it - not just this particular position in this place, but with traditional academia altogether - it's a bit of a shock. I think I just need some time to get used to the reality of this chapter ending and another one beginning.

Submitting my resignation left me feeling almost euphoric; that's often how I feel when I make a hard decision. But now that the euphoria has worn off, I find myself feeling sensitive to the understandable aftermath of my decision:

• Things at work with my colleagues are awkward. I don't know if they're mad or disappointed or what, but... they don't talk to me like they used to. They don't include me in their conversations. They're treating me like what I suppose my role has become: temporary.

• I'm sad at the thought of leaving people here who I really like, including the other faculty at my institution.

• My students, including my advisees, will soon find out about me leaving, and I worry about their reaction. Of course, they have bigger and better things to worry about than the departure of a teacher, but I'm close with many of them and I don't want them to think less of me for not sticking around.

• I glance around my office and think, "I'm going to need to clean this thing out soon. Ugh." And then I look at the little coffee maker I bought when I was so excited about having my first office and think, "What happened? What's the difference between me then and me now?"

I'm sure this is a totally normal set of feelings and emotions. It'll get better; it's just a low day.

Credit check

Holy cow!

I just checked my credit scores on Credit Karma (I love Credit Karma. It's reliable. It's got nice graphics. It's FREE!) Since paying off my credit cards, my scores have increased by about 40 points!

Granted, the whole point here is to avoid taking out additional loans, but this is gratifying nonetheless. What if our current (also only and issue-ridden) car suddenly craps out? Or what if we need to get a loan for whatever reason? A high credit score will be useful in the long run by helping ensure a low interest rate loan so that we don't have to rely on our high interest rate credit cards.

Meanwhile, we took some action and made some decisions today:

1) We started selling some of our belongings on eBay. A few years ago I sold a bunch of our stuff on eBay with good success. I'll be interested to see whether we can do so this time around. No time like the present to start living a lighter life!

2) After a lot of research and discussion, we've decided that our first RV for this grand adventure will be a Class C RV. We really like fifth wheel trailers, but we don't have a truck and we don't want to go in for a truck loan. So the goal is to save enough to purchase a used, livable class C within the next several months, take it on a few shakeout trips, get it ready to go, and live in it for about a year. If we're still gung-ho about the RV life after that time, we'll upgrade to a nicer, roomier unit.