Last week we spent 2 nights at Angel Lake high in the Ruby Mountains. It was beautiful and surprising given that generally our excursions across Nevada on I-80 are done as quickly as possible due to the lack of scenery. The Ruby Mountains, however, are definitely not lacking in scenery. Located south of Wells, foraging into these hills is definitely worth the time and effort if you can manage it. The only downside to this beautiful place is the drive up there. Located at nearly 8500 feet elevation, the road to get there is windy, twisty, and there are seriously NO guardrails. I really almost had a heart attack. Once we got to to the top (and were all still in one piece) I spent some of the next two days dreading the drive back down. I had visions of our brakes giving out and us careening over the edge to our deaths. Luckily, no such thing happened, and the trip down was pretty uneventful. Lucky for you, we made a video of our descent. Check it out! The kids mention in the video that one of their favorite things was to hike to the waterfall. We also spent an afternoon swimming in the fairly frigid (yet quite refreshing) Angel Lake. Someday maybe we’ll even add a fishing pole to our arsenal of gear and catch us some dinner while we are at it. 
As you can see the scenery is quite breathtaking. My kids (and Sam!) were fairly impressed with my impromptu hike to the top of the waterfall as well. I’m pretty sure Andrew was just jealous as scrambling into dangerous places is one of his favorite past times. We definitely enjoyed this trip and look forward to the next time we get to visit this amazing places!
Category: Video
We already had a great storage system in place before we started this whole downsizing thing, so I just kept the system. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, right? We have 38 tubs all purchased at various times from Lowe’s and each one has a number that coordinates to a spreadsheet in Google Docs. This way I don’t have to label the tubs with what is in it, and if I empty one and fill it with something else I just update the spreadsheet. As I emptied them out to our DI and Yard Sale piles I would fill them up with things we were keeping and update the contents in the spreadsheet. Easy peasy. Once we had moved the bin to the storage unit (it took about 8 trips to get everything over there) I would highlight that line in BOLD.
Hopefully we can keep track of everything! I was going to organize the tubs in the storage unit so anything we might need would be easily accessible, but that just didn’t happen. We’ll have to dig. The boxes at the bottom of the list are Rachel’s old clothes ready and sorted for Cara to wear when she grows into them. I’m hoping we can either swing through and grab a box when needed, or convince my parents to go get it and mail it? We’ll see. I have a feeling we’ll just end up mostly buying her new clothes instead of using hand me downs. I guess we’ll put that in the “con” category of full time travel.
Here’s a video of Sam talking about our storage unit and what we kept:
While it may not be the perfect solution, we’ll see how it goes over the next year or so. Hopefully we have everything we need with us which will make trips to the storage unit few and far between!
As you can imagine things have been a bit crazy around here. We have been working like crazy people trying to sell the rest of our belongings, as well as finishing up projects in the Airstream.
Here’s a look at our progress on the house, and what we still need to accomplish by FRIDAY! Ahhhh! I might be freaking out just a little.
While getting the truck ready for traveling, I added a locking Tonneau Truck Bed Cover, and I needed a way to lock the tailgate to create a safe place to store stuff. While tailgate and truck bed covers are not perfect protection, they certainly go a long way to making it really inconvenient to dig through the contents of our truck bed.
The bed of the truck is a perfect place to keep the things not generally welcome inside an Airstream: generators, tools, and emergency supplies, as well as some long-term storage items in plastic storage bins.
Our truck did not have a locking tailgate when we bought it, but I found two reasonably priced options: The Pop Lock, and the Bully Lock.
Both of these aftermarket tailgate locks have models that fit most trucks on the market. These I linked to fit my Dodge Ram 1500, so make sure you find the right one for your vehicle.
I went with the bully lock, as it looked like a better install, and was less than half the price. The installation was fast and easy, provided you have the right star screwdriver and socket. I paid around $19 for the bully lock, and I’m happy with the result. It carries an OEM look, locks securely, and gives me the security I was looking for. I’ve been using it for a few months now, and have no complaints.
I recorded the install, so have a look if you are considering installing one yourself.
Months ago, I backed a KickStarter project called Robot Turtles, a board game designed to teach kids fundamental concepts of programming. I had been thinking about using programming as part of our home school curriculum, and this was a great place to start. We received Robot Turtles just before Christmas, and it was one of the gifts opened during our Airstream Christmas.
At the request of the kids, we pulled out the game and figured out how to play. I recorded one of our games to share.
The game is played with an adult acting as the Turtle Mover and the other players acting as Turtle Masters. Turtle Masters cannot directly move their turtles, and must use the instruction cards to instruct the Turtle Mover as they move pieces on the board game. The game action cards include Right, Left, and Forward, as well as Laser, Bug and the Function Frog. The Function frog teaches code reuse. The Bug is for when they incorrectly instruct their Turtle and want the Turtle Mover to reset their game piece. The game does not include loops or conditionals, but otherwise does a great job teaching the basics to kids.
When I say kids, I mean all of them. Rachel and Andrew play very well, but even little 3 year old Cara understands the concepts and plays well. She is more easily distracted, and frequently directs her turtle out of the way to ‘laser blast’ an ice wall. Despite her shenanigans, it is very clear that she understands the basic ideas.
Jess took the kids to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas this week, and the kids rocked the ‘program a robot’ exhibit. I didn’t get to see it happen, but Jess was ridiculously excited about how well our kids were able to program the robot to navigate the maze.
There will be more Robot Turtles (and related teaching tools) in our future.