Good job moving far away—Karens in the family are the ultimate nightmare.
They carry a highly contagious and dangerous disease—fascism.
One secret to happiness is to locate the sociopaths in your life—and get the f&^% away from them.
1,000 miles away.
I drove a 73 Chevy wrecker that had been sitting for 9 years which pulled the 35’ 5th wheel camper. The wife drove a 14’ van cab style box truck that had been sitting 4 years which pulled my 24’ car trailer which had an S10 blazer on it. I did a lot of work on both of course, especially made sure the brakes were good on both vehicles and trailers. I had three carbs for the two trucks and had to swap, disassemble and clean them on a regular basis, at least daily, due to the fuel tanks being rusty. I’d clean the spare up every evening to have it ready for the next day.
The floor of the 5th wheel was covered and we walked on top of tool boxes to get to the beds. I’m sure I was way over hauling weight limits. The wrecker did have an 11,000lb GVWR though. We used CB radios to communicate. My handle was Mr Chugs because on hills, I would end up having to downshift into 2nd gear and chug up the hill.(that and I like my beer) Her handle was Mrs Puffs(cartoon character) because the Ford burned oil so it had blue smoke puffing out the back.
Took us a week and hundreds of dollars in fuel. Crazy trip but we made it. Then we lived off grid for 5 years with the first two being heat wave years with temps over 100. We tore down a fire damaged house on that second summer and I started building a cabin on some land we were leasing when we found this property to buy. Tore the almost finished cabin back down and brought all the materials here. Built a cabin and small shop/barn. That was ten years ago.
The attitudes different people had was quite the eye opener. Everyone thought we’d go crawling back with our tails between our legs but we toughed it out. That first year, we ended up scrapping the wrecker & box truck to eat. The second year we scrapped the 5th wheel for gas money to move here where we’re a little closer to civilization but not too close. The city zombies will have to walk 80 miles to get here with the last 25 miles being hill country.
Things have been going slower than I hoped here as far as building a homestead and we’re still in the cabin. I did add bedrooms for the kids because they got big. I was starting to doubt the decision to move to rural MO Ozarks but then covid craziness came and then the summer of riots and then the steal. Now the insanity has no end in sight so we’re good right here as opposed to the crowded East coast that we came from.