Well, WordPress friends and family, after 4 years of being in regular housing, we are back to the RV life!
RV: In case your memories have gotten a little rusty, we moved to Okinawa, Japan in April 2021. We were unable to take our RV with us to Japan, and with the frequent threat of Typhoons, I don’t know that we really wanted to anyways. We were rapidly outgrowing our 32′ fifth wheel that we had called home for 6 years, so we decided to sell it to another member of the U.S. Navy instead of storing it. We spent two months in an AirBnB, then moved into military housing when we reached Japan. Upon returning to the states in 2023, we moved into base housing at our current duty station. We all enjoyed having space to spread out, and the older 2 kids enjoyed having their own rooms. However, we noticed that we really didn’t travel much anymore, in part due to the expense and hassle of finding pet-friendly hotels for 6 people anywhere we went. The kids also made passing comments about aspects of RV living that they enjoyed or missed while we were living in housing. So, in November 2024 we purchased a new-to-us 41′ fifth wheel. This larger RV offers us 9 extra feet in length, 3 additional slides, and a second bathroom compared to our former 32′ RV. Nine extra feet may not sound like a lot of difference, but upgrading from 300 to 380 square feet makes a difference! We let the craziness of the holidays pass us by, then focused on packing things up in preparation for RV living again. In mid-March 2025 we officially moved into the new RV fulltime.
Truck: When we returned from Japan in 2023 we only had the Van (Baymax) and my motorcycle, so I was in search of a truck. We found a 2009 F-350 single rear wheel truck with the 6.4L diesel engine. It served our purposes while living in housing, however after our first trip from California to Texas and back in January 2025 with the 41′ trailer in tow, the engine started making a knocking sound, and upon further exploration, metal flakes were discovered in the engine oil and the local diesel shop recommended we switch vehicles or face the pending “catastrophic failure” of the engine. I knew the 6.0L PowerStroke engines had some issues, but apparently the 6.4L had even more issues, and the truck was not up to the task. The local diesel shop made some recommendations of what engines to search for in a prospective replacement truck and in early March we started combing through online listings.
Another Truck: In late March 2025 we found ourselves a 2020 F-350 Dually with the 6.7L Turbo diesel engine. It has a 10-speed transmission, and came with the factory-prepared towing package for traditional, gooseneck, and fifth wheel towing. According to the manual, our truck is rated for a combined truck+RV weight of 40,000 pounds! We have done some towing around base as well as a 20-mile jaunt up the freeway, and the truck pulled the 41′ fifth wheel with ease!
We are again looking forward to exploring and traveling together as a family on wheels.
The Ready Rovers 