Yet another great set of “20 Questions for RV Families”. To have your family featured, please read the questions and e-mail your answers (along with a family photo) to info at wright on time books dot com.

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Wright on Time Books: Tell me a bit about your family.

Tricia: We are the 5 Baehrs, twin boys age 10 Birke & Brandt and 7 yr. old girl Bailey. Dad John works in the industrial flooring industry (epoxies & such) Mom, Tricia responsible for the 3 kids, meal prep, campground procuring, adventures, art and domestic stuff.

Baehr Family

Wright on Time Books: How long has your family (or did your family) live in an RV?

Tricia: We’ve been on the road for 1 year now.

Wright on Time Books: What states/countries has your family traveled to?

Tricia: TN, AL, GA, FL, NC, MO, VA

Wright on Time Books: Are you homeschoolers? Do you call yourselves roadschoolers? What type of homeschoolers are you (or do you prefer to not give your family a label)?

Tricia: We like the term Roadschoolers…we lean more to the unschooling instead of a curriculm based agenda…all of life is a learning experience and much more of it on the road, volunteering for non-profits and organic farms are a couple of things we particularly enjoy and seem to learn the most from the folks at these places.

Wright on Time Books: How well does homeschooling work while living on the road? How do you get new resources (DVDs, books, audio books, etc.)? Are you able to use local libraries, or do you have to buy everything?

Tricia: We use the internet quite a bit…on rainy days local libraries are fun and usually have a lot of local flavor to them. We find a lot of used text books in second hand stores, although my kids are 5th/2nd grade they’ve been known to pick up college text books. We are learning together that acquiring knowledge is a very personal thing and the ability to understand different concepts is not based on a person’s age or grade level. We love books and probably have too many although we do switch them out at times…and they are heavy to travel with.

Wright on Time Books: Do you have a “home base”? This is especially important for legal homeschooling, isn’t it? Did you sell all of your possessions, or keep things in storage?

Tricia: We do not have a home base…we have a state of residence where we umbrella under what our state calls a C.R.S (church related school) We sold 98% of our possessions and we do have a climate controlled storage unit with family heirlooms, photographs and out of season gear in it.

Wright on Time Books: What resources did you use both before you began your adventure and/or while you were on the road? Any particular books or websites that you couldn’t have lived without?

Tricia: The Families on the Road website was what inspired us to live as a FOTR. Whenever we read the stories on that site it touched our hearts in a way that we knew it was the life for us. Also The Story of Stuff was inspirational as well. Another book was Full-Time RVing…we planned for 3 years to live this lifestyle

Wright on Time Books: How hard is it to deal with the maintenance of the RV? What are the most difficult aspects? Who handles what?

Tricia: Well, let’s just put it this way…it’s much easier that dealing with a 5 bedroom house and a 3/4 acre lot!! Learning about grey/black tanks was probably the biggest challenge. We all work together as a team. The kids and I are able to do everything it takes to get the RV ready to travel…however my husband and the boys take care of all the outside stuff while my daughter and I work on “battening down the hatches” on the inside. It’s definitely a group effort; it teaches the children the importance of team work.

Wright on Time Books: How large is your RV? What is it like? We want to know where everything goes and where everyone sleeps. In an ideal world, would you have wanted a bigger RV, smaller RV, or something the same size but with a different configuration?

Tricia: Our RV is a 28 ft. travel trailer with no slides. It has a full size bed in the front and 3 bunks in the back. In the center is a couch (that can also double as a bed), a dinette (into bed also) and the kitchen area.

We purposely bought a used RV to start out to learn the ropes a bit. After a year we have researched quite a bit and visited many RV dealerships looking for the perfect match for us. What we’ve found that we think would be perfect for our family is a little longer (32-33ft.) with at least 2 slides…a U-shaped dinette and an outside entrance into the bathroom. We still think we like the travel trailer vs. a drivable RV or a 5th wheel. An arctic package is something else we need for when my husband has work in colder climates in the fall/winter season. Storage is a big factor too. We have found that several manufacturers are producing floor plans that we like.

Wright on Time Books: How often do you move to a new location? Do gas prices and campground costs affect this? Where do you usually stay the night? Do you have a regular route that you repeat, or do you continually seek out new places to visit?

Tricia: It depends on the job but the longest we’ve been any where without traveling has been 6-8 weeks. Gas is not really a factor. When planning this lifestyle we budgeted for up to $5 a gallon. Campground fees are a factor depending…if my husband is on a job, then his company pays for the campground which is still less expensive than they would be paying for a hotel. Occasionally we boondock at a truck stop if we get someplace late and leave early. We basically go where his work takes him – he has worked mostly in the Southeast since we’ve been on the road the past year.

Wright on Time Books: Who does the driving? Do you ever have issues driving such a large vehicle? Do you avoid cities or curvy/narrow roads up mountains, or do you take them in stride?

Tricia: I drive our F350 Truck most of the time pulling the RV when my husband is driving a work vehicle and his work crews. I was a little nervous at first but now it’s no big deal. Cities haven’t been a problem but we haven’t really been on any really narrow roads yet so I guess I’d be okay. If we are traveling to a new job/company then my husband drives unless he needs a break.

Wright on Time Books: How long have you been on the road/plan to be on the road? Has this worked out to your liking?

Tricia: We’ve been on the road exactly a year (Aug 08-09). At least until our kids get to be high school age and then we will let them take part in the decision about what we do next… Right now I would say this is the BEST way to live – maybe I have gypsy blood – We all love it!

Wright on Time Books: How do you handle privacy issues while living in close quarters?

Tricia: There are partitions, bathroom doors, etc. in the RV. We all have times when we just want a little space alone and we work that out together.

Wright on Time Books: How do you keep in touch with friends and family? Do you visit them? Do they visit you? Phone, e-mail, etc.? What about holidays and birthdays?

Tricia: telephone and internet…of course facebook!! We do visit when we can and if they are near they will visit us. Last Christmas we rented a cabin in the mountains. Birthdays are spent however the birthday person wants…I had the last birthday and we all watched the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean in the early morning then we watched the sunset on the river and the marshes off the coast of Georgia.

Wright on Time Books: Does anyone ever get homesick for your old life? How do you deal with that?

Tricia: Sometimes they miss the place and the people but not the life. We talk about living in the moment and enjoying each moment…that the past is the past. One of our twin boys wants to be an organic farmer and he would like to have earth that is his to grow stuff on – I circumvent this by letting him volunteer at organic farms.

Wright on Time Books: How do you pay for your living expenses? How do you make money while on the road? Do you work full-time/part-time? Do you work certain times of the year and travel other times? Have any of your children had paying jobs?

Tricia: My husband works full-time in the industrial flooring industry which required him to travel extensively prior to us being a family on the road. We just joined him! I do a little face painting for fun and a little extra cash when I can…but it is more for a creative outlet than anything else. The kids really haven’t discovered a way to make money yet, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t thought about it!

Wright on Time Books: Do you have a towed vehicle? Bicycles? Mopeds? Etc.?

Tricia: We have towable RV….big truck and travel trailer, we do have bicycles that we transport with us.

Wright on Time Books: Do you have any pets that travel with your family? How do they like living on the road?

Tricia: We had two cats but one recently got out at a truck stop and we lost him, it was very sad, we looked for hours. He was always a bit skittish and we kind of knew there might come a time that that would happen. The other cat is awesome, loves to travel, never gets lost and loves being with her family!

Wright on Time Books: How can we find out more about you and your family? Website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter, etc.? Please tell us also what the next great adventure for your family is!

Tricia: We have a web-site www.5bearsgousa.blogspot.com also a blog (not very good at blogging) we twitter/twitpics too. My husband & I both have facebook pages. We are getting ready to go to the Augusta, GA area for a week or so and then to visit family in Wisconsin…after that who knows??!?!