How do you manage to drive your house without it all becoming a mess? Don’t things fall over or slide around? 
Actually, when we drive down the road our house has a better than average chance of being quite tidy! While Gary is busy outside the rig bringing in the awnings and disconnecting the water, sewer, and electric lines, I’m busy battening down the inside. For a couple of days before we set out I’ve been slowly putting away stuff. Like the sewing machine (and accompanying accessories), clean laundry that hasn’t quite made it to the drawers, you know – that kind of stuff. It’s kind of like what you do when you’re expecting company. Tidy, tidy, tidy. The only difference is when I’m done tidying, then I start latching things.

Doors	The Pantry
The spice rack. This one’s easy to miss, but boy, when those spice bottles start flying, you remember!	All snugged in and ready to go!

This might look like just a built in microwave.	But actually it’s home to our trusty toaster oven when we’re driving down the road. (Which is also home to a couple of items.  Nesting, friends, it’s all about nesting!)
Most of our drawers and cabinets have sturdy locking-type latches. Our desk, however is a “after-market” addition, and to keep those drawers from escaping, we’ve gone with some extra insurance.	Our kitchen sink cabinet has a combination of a broken latch on a door and no latch on the silverware drawer, so that’s when those bungee cords come in handy! (Trust me, having the silverware drawer crash to the ground when you’re driving is no ones idea of fun!)

Once again the bungee cord does the trick on keeping the the coffee machine in place. Never travel without bungee cords. It’s a rule.	And the rolling chairs either get tucked under the table or laid on its side.  They’ve come up to visit us in the front once to often.

Once the slide come in, the brace goes on,	and the sofa starts accumulating anything that generally lives on a counter or on the floor that’s been displaced by the slide.

The computer and printer (and a variety of files on the desk) ride along just fine. Well, unless it’s really bumpy and then I just have to keep checking that nothing has bounced off the desk. Think I10 in Louisiana.

So that’s the basic Battening-Down-the-Hatches that happens when it’s time for us to hit the road. If our travels will be less than a day, then it’s a pretty easy procedure. Anything that isn’t put away (but maybe has a home if I took the time to put it there) can always live on the bed or the sofa for a couple hundred miles. If we’re likely to be on the road for several days, I need to be a bit more organized because we need to sleep in that bed and sit on that sofa. If we had to bug out in a hurry (like if a hurricane was headed our way), I think we could be on the road in less than an hour. And believe me, I have the better end of the packing-up job.

Sewer lines. Ewwww.

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