Lots of Changes
We’ve had a whirlwind of a time lately! So you know we’re in central Florida and we’ve been here about a year and a half. Well in late September, Hurricane Ian made landfall and completely shook our lives upside down. Since it was a big storm we decided to stay in a condo for a few days, but didn’t have the means to get our home out of the danger zone. We slept through the storm and we were all safe, but our 5th wheel - not so much. The next day, I woke up to a picture from a friend that had two trees on top of our camper. A few more pictures rolled in and I was just sick to my stomach. After Jason got up and we each had a few sips of coffee we went next door to check it out.
It still hurts to see these photos and feels a little bit surreal too. The property we were staying at, the one I also work at, was amazing. The next day when it was safe for the landscapers to come in they were up on the roof and taking care of the tree. I didn’t even need to ask. I came around the corner and literally had tears in my eyes because it was getting taken care of. They did it safely and I’m confident they caused no further damage. I had a good set of photos before, during and then we had a friend take some pictures of the roof after the trees were off.
Without being an expert I knew that our roof was shot. I had started a claim with our insurance. I had asked a few friends that are in the industry how to make sure I was completely covered and they suggested the more photos the better. So that’s what I did. I took a bunch of photos and made sure we had a good record. The adjuster that came out in person was really nice. He came out less than a week after the storm, which I was very impressed with. He agreed the roof was going to need a total replacement and that our slide had some damage as well. He took photos and said I’d get a report soon, and I did, that afternoon I had my estimate and I could move forward. At this point our home was still liveable and we were all good.
Fast forward to the middle of October. We moved campgrounds and during the move found more damage. We had sunk way more than we thought we did, part of that was the impact of the tree paired with the extremely wet ground. We had some bent jacks and our landing gear was leaking fluid. At some point a deep crack appeared above the bunk room door, on both sides. I started to notice every little creek and squeak and started to have dreams, well nightmares really, about falling through our slide when we sat on the couch. I reached back out to our insurance adjuster and he came to the new campground and agreed that we had more damage than he originally thought and wrote a new report.
On October 14th, our son’s birthday, we got a call from a guy we’d been talking to about a truck. We knew we needed one and we wanted to start the search so we’d be ready in January. He said, I think you need to get up here today and take a look at this thing. So we dropped off pizza for the teens, and went and saw this gorgeous 2017, Ford Kings Ranch Dually truck. After a test drive and paperwork, we bought it and brought it home with us that night.
Fast forward to another week to ten days and we found out that the camper was totaled and we would need to find another home to live in. I was never in love with the Cougar that we had, but it worked for what we needed, so the idea that we now get to choose our next layout. I started to look at dozens of different layouts. We scheduled some time to go to dealerships to walk through specific models, more on our want list later. I knew what I wanted, but more importantly I knew what I didn’t want. I straight up told our salesman at one dealership - we are in our 4th year of living this lifestyle full time, this is my list, end of story. We narrowed it down to 2 top models. A top 5th wheel and a top toy hauler. We chose the 5th wheel and brought it home on November 5.
About a week later insurance came and picked up our Cougar and we were able to move our new Sabre into our spot and get settled in.
Let me tell you, I know we live tiny, but we still have a bunch of stuff! After two weeks we have most of everything settled but still some lingering boxes and a few more things to figure out. We absolutely love our new home and can’t wait to see where it takes us and the memories we create in it.
So if you’re tracking this timeline - in less than two months absolutely everything in our lives changed. Our home, where we had it parked and our truck. Everything that we knew before Hurricane Ian is pretty much gone. Several things haven’t changed though, our love and strength as a family, our joy for this lifestyle and our ability to adapt and roll with change.