So, in case you didn’t hear, our fifth wheel, affectionately called Ricardo, has been severely damaged while in-transit. We hired a logistics company to deliver our camper to Texas so we could bring our smaller camper over without making two trips across the country. The idea was to leave our bigger camper in storage here so that in future years, we don’t have to haul it all over the place. This has been a plan we’ve been working on for months now.

A friend of mine, Tom, has graciously offered to help me set up a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of getting us in a more-comfortable living arrangement until we get this all sorted. If you’re looking for a way to help us out, this is a solid option, and would be greatly appreciated.

I think Kate said it best in a recent Instagram post.

So, to recap the live I shared yesterday … We employed a service to transport our beloved fifth wheel from storage in Georgia to our winter seasonal place in Texas. Before it was picked up we went down and checked it out to make sure it was ready to be moved, took some photos and pictures of the exterior so we would know for sure if anything were to happen in transit just what was or was not the responsibility of the driver to answer for. Trust but verify, right?

So we locked it up. The driver arrived the next day, hooked up, sent us a photo, and headed out. He got to Texas the last week of October on Thursday the 26th. We weren’t expecting to get to Texas until the 6th of November, so the driver sent a picture of the camper parked at the storage facility we set up an account with. He asked, repeatedly, for speedy payment and then went away. However, when we arrived I immediately saw a giant scuff across the left side of the nose of the RV.

As we pulled up, appalled and nervous, we noticed the awning was gone… Ripped off, then the door handle, and drag marks down the side of the camper. So we parked and got out, enraged to see what we found. Enter my live video from yesterday. So. We looked it over and concluded that the driver clearly hit something on a turn, hard, at a high speed.

We walked into the camper briefly to look at the inside and see if things were ok there. It seemed jostled up pretty bad, but mostly intact. Today when we went in we realized that Alex’s entire desk had been bounced out of its spot and ripped out of the tie down we had holding it in place. The driver hit what he hit so hard that the desk moved half out of the slide and Alex’s computer monitor, which was screwed to the desk, had ripped off the desk and toppled to the floor.

We put so much effort into this camper, and worked really hard to make it feel like home. It had become the perfect place for us to live during the winter months. Ricardo was the most-personal rig we’ve ever had, and to see it in this state…sigh. It’s really upsetting. Countless hours designing, and building the custom cabinetry to make it the perfect rig for our family, and just like that we can’t use it, and may never be able to use it again.

But honestly, the biggest thing I’m feeling is disappointment. We’ve been in smaller campers all summer, and most of this year, and all of us were looking forward to getting into a setup with bedroom doors for a few months. (Second Summer, as we call it). In-fact, we were so excited to get in the bigger camper, that we drove a few pretty long drives to try and get here sooner, because we literally couldn’t wait to get into the bigger camper again.

For the immediate moment, we’re in our small travel rig, Leela, which is a great camper for travel, but not very good when stationary. She’s only 24′ long, has no work desk, very little in-terms of comfortable seating, and no bedroom doors, so you can imagine how excited we were to jump up to something that’s 38′ long!

For the immediate term, we’re working with the campground to see if we can get one of their cabins to hold us over until we figure out what’s going on with the camper. Naturally, we have to navigate insurance with the logistics company, our insurance if needed, and it’s difficult to figure out how long all of this is going to take. I expect the insurance company to cover the cost of my living arrangements, but who knows if they will or not?

A friend of mine, Tom, offered to put up a GoFundMe to help cover the immediate costs of this living arrangement. I was hesitant at first, but after thinking about it, I realized that it would actually be really helpful if I could get some help. Spending the next couple of months in a cabin wouldn’t be as good as staying in our own fifth wheel, but it would definitely be more comfortable than staying in our 24′ rig. So, I took him up on the offer, and am now hopeful that we can get some help in covering the up-front costs of getting into a more-comfortable space to hold us over until we get this all sorted.