OK. Panic.

If you’re impatient, here’s the video. Read on if you want the back story.

As for most of us, COVID changed everything. As awful and horrible and depressing as the pandemic has been, it forced Beth and me to put a decades-old plan into action. Sell the house, get rid of our stuff and visit breweries, coast to coast—writing about the experience as we go.

For years, we had no shortage of variations. Bicycles. Couch surfing. Cheap hotels. A voice peeped in my head: “RV. With video.” Seemed like a decent idea. I figured, who wants to stay in cheap hotels every night of the year and video’s more fun than just reading, right? But it was just an idea. Years away, when we were ready to “retire,” maybe.

Then, COVID.

COVID made us question everything. It shook the jar, forcing the real priorities to rise to the surface. And six months ago, we pulled the trigger on a brand new, yet-to-be-realized RV platform, untested in the real world.

A half year ago, it seemed like half a century before we’d take delivery. Now, delivery is imminent. And the closer we get, the less sleep I get. I’m in a panic, wondering—can we pull this off? How did we get here? Did we really get rid of all our stuff and plunk down an obscene amount of money on a tiny house on wheels?!

Yeah. We did. COVID makes you do some crazy stuff. But it’s all for a good cause. COVID also made Beth’s job go from miserable to unbearable.

Beth was a retail pharmacist in a big-box store. Being a pharmacist was a damned good career when she went to pharmacy school. Back then, pharmacists got to be pharmacists—caring for their patients. That was before a bunch of greedy, heartless, soulless, Satan-worshipping corporate bottom feeders took over the pharmacy industry. Like Ben-Hur and the other slaves rowing the galley warship, the hapless pharmacists are commanded to be salespeople, telemarketers, marketing analysts, receptionists, price negotiators and vaccine administrators, with no extra help. Help is expensive. In addition to taking constant abuse from their evil, money-grubbing overlords, they spend the entire day fighting with insurance companies on behalf of cretins. The get yelled at, all day, every day, their reward for bending over backwards to help rude, ignorant, malevolent, mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers, too stupid to tie their own shoes.

Then, COVID. Now, they don’t just log dozens of unpaid overtime hours every week and endure Olympic-level stress every day. By exposing themselves to COVID, they also get to risk their lives and those of their families, too. Bonus!

Meanwhile, the virus was making things difficult in Trenton, too. Mom was 90 at the time. Physically stable, but she cannot be left alone—not for five minutes. She’s confined to a wheelchair, but in her mind she’s young, well and completely capable. So if you turn your back on her, she’ll try to get out of her chair to polish the toaster or rearrange her collection of miniature teapots or synchronize the refrigerator magnets, whatever, and risk falling down and hurting herself.

We have a full time aide—doctor’s orders—and the siblings typically took turns covering on her days off. But Beth and I couldn’t go near Trenton for fear of bringing the virus with. Exposed, everyday, Beth referred to herself as the biohazard. My brother couldn’t do it. He and his wife contracted COVID. Thank God, both did fine. That left my sisters holding the proverbial bag—covering every day the aide went home to her family.

They needed help. And Beth needed an exit ramp. So, I said “Let’s do the brewery thing now. Let’s pull you the hell out of the abyss and maybe extend your life a year or two.” To her eternal credit, she agreed. As she tells it, she had a choice to make; work or family. She made the right decision.

Beth gave notice. We got rid of almost all our stuff. We sold the house, left our beloved New Jersey seashore and moved into my childhood home with Mom (after quarantine, of course.)

Beth became a member of Mom’s home health team and logs countless more hours helping the rest of my family. I could see the change in her, immediately and physically, once she escaped one of the most toxic work environments ever engineered. She looked happy, healthy and vibrant. It was magic.

I split my time between work, helping Beth, learning video production and doing RV research. We launched a YouTube channel.

We knew nothing about YouTube and even less about RVs. All those years ago (before COVID, I might add) I had just made the crazy assumption that living in an RV would be cheaper than staying in hotels. In hindsight, that assumption may have been misguided. RVs are stupid expensive to buy and even stupider expensive to run. COVID only made them more so.

But we were committed. Plunging ahead, within a few months, we had pretty well settled on a Canadian RV, built on the Mercedes diesel platform. It ticked a lot of boxes; not too big, easy to drive, good fuel economy, a gear “garage” for bicycles and no garish RV paint scheme. They’ve been around for years, so, even in COVID, one pops up now and again on the used market.

In an ideal world, we could get one with solar power, a real refrigerator, freeze-resistant plumbing and no black tank (where the poop ends up.) Alas, the manufacturer offers no such model. But I figured we could always upgrade the fridge and solar. The rest we’d just have to live with.

That’s when the Winnebago rumors started.

At the end of 2020, we started hearing rumblings about the Ekko, a brand-new Winnebago, based on a design common in Europe, but unheard of on our side of the pond. Everything the Canadian maker offered, but with the addition of all-wheel drive, four-season capability, a real fridge, instant heat and hot water and solar power. It takes regular barbecue propane tanks and … drum roll, no black tank!

On one hand, I couldn’t believe our luck. The Ekko ticked nearly every box. On the other hand, it would come at a cost. We never planned to buy a new RV. If we went for it, we’d have no choice. The Ekko, at this point, was just an idea, a blueprint on the drawing board.

We crunched numbers. Even after spending big bucks on modifying the Canadian rig, we’d still be stuck with the black tank, permanent propane tank and plumbing exposed to the weather. And the Ekko is built on a Ford chassis, way less expensive to maintain.

The more we learned, the more we were convinced the Ekko was the right way to go. That’s why we pulled the trigger, sight-unseen, and put ourselves on the waiting list back in March 2021.

Of course, we’ve seen the demo model since then and that experience confirmed our decision. Delivery is predicted for early 2022. The closer we get, the more anxious I get. It’s too big, the whole thing. Getting rid of the rest of our stuff. Figuring out how to run the RV. Making modifications. Fixing the new-design gremlins. Not to mention the expense. How in hell were we going to afford this, especially with gasoline nearing $4 a gallon?!

Don’t panic, loser. You know you can handle it. After all, what do you always tell the kids whenever they get overwhelmed with a big project? A big job is nothing more than a series of small jobs. Stay focused. Do the little jobs, one at a time, in order and the big job gets done. That’s how NASA put men on the moon. With vacuum tubes and slide rules.

That sentiment, however, didn’t make sleeping any easier. Besides, NASA had an unlimited budget. I needed a teaching aid. A Venn diagram. Or something.

Post-it Notes!

Simple task. A Post-it Note for each job. Stick them to the wall. Start checking things off. And I quickly realized it would be no problem coming up with 48 jobs. So, why not? One for each of the lower 48, the states we hope to explore, looking for craft breweries. Well, two, actually. One red, one green, in duplicate. We even arranged them by big states, medium states and small states, to match the complexity of each job.

So, we simply get a job done, then pull the red note to reveal the green one beneath. It’s only 48 notes.

Wait, 46! We already checked off two ginormous jobs: selling the house and getting rid of most of our stuff, plus video production. I thought both were virtually impossible when we started this. Stay focused. Don’t panic. Two down, 46 to go. Child’s play.

I’m sleeping a bit better these days. But I dream of Post-it Notes.

Here’s the video.

TO BE CONTINUED

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