Diary of a Pair of RV Virgins

Come full circle.

2011-12-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

We've been stationary going on 2 years now. Originally we were living in our 5th wheel in the driveway and then after receiving anonymous complaints about lowering the property values in the neighborhood, we moved to a local American Legion campground. Now we are back in the house since the kids decided they really needed a bigger house and yard and are currently in a 4bdrm with a nice yard. We're in the process of making upgrades and repairs since we will probably stay here for a at least the next 2 years until the grand kids are in pre-school. We already said we weren't babysitting another baby so if another one comes along they are on their own.

Meanwhile, we've been painting inside, replaced the two toilets with low flush units that we got $100 rebates for each one so the total cost to us was $70. What we thought was a leaking roof around the brick fireplace turned out to be 'brick saturation'. Who knew? In heavy rainfall, which we had in abundance here in the NW last year, the rain striking the edge of the bricks where the mortar is is absorbed by the bricks, plus the cracks in the cement cap didn't help. The water then wicks down through the bricks until the warmer temperature inside the house causes it to evaporate leaving behind a chalky white residue, which I thought was from the drywall in the ceiling. The fix is to grind out the mortar to about 1" deep and re-mortar. It's called 'tuck pointing'. About $1200 later it is done and then in the spring/summer when it's warmer/dryer a sealant will be applied. Hopefully this is the end of it. Already had the ceiling repaired and repainted once and don't want to have to do it a third time. (Haven't done the second time yet.)

Next on the list is upgrading the electric to 200 amp service. Estimates so far put that in the $2300 - $2500 range. Whoopee!! Started off getting quotes for fixing a couple of dead outlets and escalated from there. In today's electronic lifestyle I'm surprised I've gotten by so far.

Next will be the kitchen. Mostly new counter tops and re-doing the cupboards, plus upgrading the appliances so I'll probably be lucky to get through that for less than $10K. We'll see.

That's probably enough to keep me busy for now and it's finally warmed up enough that I should get outside and finish washing the 5th wheel so I can get the cover on before it decides to snow.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and Happy Holidays to those so inclined and if you don't you can just disregard this part.

So far, So good.

2011-02-27T07:52:00.000-08:00

We've had a bought of cold weather lately with overnight temps in the high teens and daytime temps in the mid thirties, and lately, snow. The good news is that things have held up well and the only thing I wish I had done was to heat tape and insulate the 3/4" hose from the mascerator pump to the sewer cleanout at the house. Normally I leave the gray water valves open and let them drain continuously but with the cold weather it freezes up. Not a big problem since I have a back up hose I temporarily connect to drain the tanks then remove it and make sure it is drained of all fluids, but the gray water tanks need to be emptied every other day and if the freezing weather last more than a few days, which it hasn't so far this winter, then it does become a pain in the butt.

As for heat, with the furnace and one 1500W electric heater we are keeping warm enough. We both like it a bit on the cool side so we keep the thermostat set to 66 degrees and have comforters to snuggle under while watching TV at night.

Fortunately the weather is warming and things are melting which we are glad to see since it's our grandson's first birthday and we are looking forward to our guests being able to attend.

Next time you hear from me I'll probably be complaing about it being too warm. Sigh...

Life After Grandkids

2010-11-11T18:47:00.000-08:00

So much for the RVing life. Our first grandkids, both boys, came in February and April and we, with sappy grins, volunteered to babysit for the first year. Now don't get me wrong, I would'nt trade the time spent with them for anything and am actually wondering how well I will handle being separated if/when we leave. Right now we are pretty well ensconced in our son-in-law and daughter's driveway.

We had 30 amp service installed, plumbed in a sewer connection, applied heat tape and insulation on the fresh water line and installed skirting around the trailer to help keep it warmer this winter without the propane furnace running all the time.

The skirting is 3/4" R-Tech foam board found at most big box hardware outlets. It's screwed to a simple wood frame at the bottom. We're sitting on concrete or I would have dug a trench and just buried the bottoms. The tops are taped to the trailer with foil backed tape. The vertical seams are done with white duct tape. I hung two 150W lights on the leaf springs near the holding tanks for the extra warmth. The trailer bottom is enclosed and the furnace is ducted to provide heat to the tank and storage areas, but, what the heck, more is better. Right? The furnace is set for 64 deg and we have a 1500 W electric heater we run at night. So far, with the night time temps in the low 30's the furnace has only run once or twice so that will save me extra trips to get the propane bottles filled.

I bought 2 extra 30#ers and go fill them when 3 are empty. I looked into renting a bigger tank from the distributor, which at $99/year and a one time installtion fee of $120 sounded pretty good, but one of the contract stipulations was that you purchased at least two tanks full. That was a total of about 240 gallons at about $2.39/gal and was a bit more propane than I thought we would use.

Next project is to put that shrink to fit plastic sheeting on the windows. I'll leave a couple of the openable windows uncovered for ventilation.

And last, but not least, I ordered a dehumidifier. The windows have been damp in the mornings and the cheap bucket of white pellets just isn't enough.

Enough for now and I'll try to post more often but two babies are really kicking my butt...also giving me a good work-out. My back is getting stronger everyday and not hurting as much as it used to. Kind of like going in for physical therapy.

RV Refrigerator Revisited

2010-05-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

It's been 2 weeks now since I installed the new cooling unit for our refrigerator. I wanted to give it some time before I reported on how well the job went. So far, so good. It's been running on 120 VAC and holding around 0 degrees in the freezer and in the low 40's in the refer section, which is about where it should be.

Going back a couple of weeks to the ordering of the cooling unit. I had trouble with the shopping cart website of the company I wanted to buy from so I opted to go with another supplier that let me order online. Their website stated that the cooling units normally shipped within 24-72 hours of receiving the order. I received an order confirmation email right away but after a week I still hadn't received a shipping confirmation so I called them. The guy who answered the phone was a bit surly and said he'd go check with the shop. He came back to the phone and said it MIGHT ship in 2 or 3 days. MIGHT??? I went back to the first company, who was highly recommended by rver's on various rv forums I'd visited while researching my refer problem. I called them on the phone and after confirming that they had my cooling unit in stock and could ship it right away I placed the order with them and called back the first company and cancelled that order. I followed up with an email to confirm the cancellation and received an acknowledgement email reply and the message that the original order had been packaged and was sitting on the shop floor, ready to ship. I replied back that if I had gotten a better answer from the guy on the phone I wouldn't have cancelled the order. They did promptly reverse the charges to my credit card so all I had lost was another week without our refer.

The new unit arrived 3 days later with only minimal damage due to UPS's careful handling. Had to straighten out one of the angle iron mounting frames and some of the cooling fins.

Now for the fun part. I had been studying the instructions that the second company had sent me via email and already had the 120 VAC and 12 VDC disconnected and several components that would be reused on the new unit removed. I chose to unbolt the propane supply valve from the refer and leave the propane supply pipe attached rather than just disconnecting the pipe. It's a flare fitting and probably would have resealed but I chose to do it my way instead. I did check for propane leaks just to be safe. Since I was by myself I also removed the two refer doors to make it as light as possible.

In our trailer the refer is mounted in the wall about 24 inches above the floor. My ice chest is a couple inches shorter than that so, with a couple of towels on top for padding, it was just the right height. I had to lift the refer up just a little bit to clear the wood cabinet in front and then work it side to side to work it out of the framework. It is a snug fit.

Once the refer was out I used a milk crate (because I had one) and some more towels and carefully laid the refer on it's face. I removed the rest of the components that would be reused on the new cooling unit and, following the instructions, used a 6ft by 3/4 inch pipe (or a 2X4) to pry the old unit off. It is sealed to the back of the refer with a special compound that helps to transfer the cooling and won't work very well if it's not resealed again correctly. Again following the instructions, I test fit the new cooling unit to make sure it fit properly and then applied the sealing compound and set it back in place. I replaced all the components I had removed from the old unit and stood the refer back up and slid it back into it's place.

It took about 5 - 6 hours and cost $520 compared to a new refer at about $1200 or more than $2000 to have it done at the dealer.

The only thing I would do differently is to take pictures of everything. I had one piece of tin flashing that went around the propane burner that I couldn't remember where it went. I ended up going to the rv dealer and looking at one of their used trailers with the same refer to finally figure it out.

We now have ice cream and cold beer again. Life is good.

Who Knew Dry Ice Was So Expensive?

2010-04-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Well, not as expensive as a new refrigerator, but it also does not last as long. The remanufactored unit has not yet arrived, so we are keeping things in the refrigerator and freezer cool using dry ice. It works very well actually, and saves us from having to run into our daughter's house multiple times a day for food. We are a snacking bunch. Unfortunately, ice cream does not keep well. Why is it that one always wants ice cream just before bed? Perhaps I shall lose a few pounds this way? Come on Fed Ex - I want my refrigerator to work again!

As President Barlett says on West Wing, 'What's Next?'

2010-04-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

The next lesson in owning a RV is upon me. This morning I noticed the thermometer in the refrigerator was going up. I checked all the usual things, ie: fuses, breakers, voltages where there is supposed to be voltages.

Phase 2, check online. Where would we be these days without the world wide web?

After about 15 minutes of searching I confirmed my problem. A cracked weld in the cooling unit piping has let all the ammonia escape. Dometic, the manufacturer, has a recall for several models, including mine. Unfortunately, their 'fix' only addresses the possible fire hazard the leaking ammonia can cause and nothing to actually fix cracked pipe.

So, back to the internet and more searching. A new refrigerator is about $1200 plus shipping and you have to go pick it up at the freight company's warehouse, or a remanufactured cooling unit for about $550 with shipping to your door, and from all I learned online, pretty easy to install.

New/remanufactured cooling unit ordered and on it's way.

Stay tuned for the follow-up blog on how the actual replacement job turns out.

NECCESSITY: The Mother of Invention

2010-02-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

As we sit, parked in our daughter's driveway, awaiting the arrival of our first grandkid, several things become apparent about urban camping. First, 15 amp electric power doesn't run much. We have to be very aware of what we have running before turning on any other appliances. We found out the hard way that the circuit we are plugged into is also shared by our daughter's bedroom and if the breaker trips in the middle of the night their alarm clocks don't go off in the morning. Ooops!

The second problem is what to do with full waste water tanks. It is a big hassle to get the trailer ready for the road and drive 15 miles to the nearest dump station and back again ever two weeks so I was really looking for a simpler option.

Ideally one would just tap into the houses sewer system through the clean-out plug but it hasn't been opened in decades and the previous owners built a wall that partially encloses the drain making it almost impossible to get a wrench on the plug. I've got some ideas on how to go about getting the plug out but for now I needed a sure way to get my tanks emptied.

I searched on the internet and found "blue buddies". The name belongs to one manufacturer but is used generically to describe any small tank with wheels, a handle and sewer hose connection. They are called "blue buddies" because the originals are made out of blue plastic. They are made to be either pulled by hand or the handle is designed so that it can be hooked over a hitch ball and then pulled to the dump station. The problem with this is that the wheels are cheap plastic ones like on a kiddie car and the handle just loops over the hitch ball. I have to go 15 miles on the freeway to the nearest dump station plus the largest "blue buddy", at 45 gallons, is over $250.

Since I already have a Flomax mascerator pump that liquifies everything so it can be pumped through a regular garden hose I decided I could put a tank in the back of the truck. Tanks of any kind are still not particulary cheap so I ended up with a used white plastic barrel I got for $20. I built a cradle out of a 3 ft by 3 ft piece of 3/4" plywood I had laying around with 4 plastic wheel chocks screwed to it and two ratcheting tie-down straps to hold the barrel in place. I used two more tie-down straps to secure the whole thing in the back of the truck.

The barrel has two 2" bungs in the top. One is standard pipe thread and I bought the necessary PVC fittings at the local big box store to fit on a 2" PVC ball valve and reduce to 10 ft of 1 1/2" spa/pool hose. The barrel was placed in the cradle so this would be on the bottom.

The top bung was coarse thread but had been pre-cast with an option to use a 3/4" fitting. I just had to remove the molded in plug. I used a pipe thread to female hose adapter and added one of those in-line garden hose shut-offs.

Just above and to the left of the top bung I drilled a 3/16" hole to let the air out when pumping liquids in and used a 1/4" sheet metal screw to plug it when not in use.

The Flomax mascerator pump is designed to twist on to the rv's sewer outlet and has an outlet to attach a garden hose. The garden hose connects to the top fitting on the barrel, open the shut-off valve, make sure the 2" ball valve is closed and take the screw out of the air bleed hole and we're ready to try it out.

After the fact, it all worked as planned. The waste water tank pumped into the barrel in about five minutes with no problems and emptied in less than 3 minutes at the dump station at the I-5 rest stop. It took about 10 minutes to rinse out the barrel because they have some funky fitting on the ends of the hose at the dump station. I have a new gizmo to try next time called a "water thief". It's kind of like a piece of hose about 4" long with a male garden hose fitting on one end and the other fits over any kind of outlet with or without threads and has a hose clamp to keep the connection tight. That will free up my hands to tilt the barrel around while the water is running to rinse it out.

Not including the mascerator pump I have less than $100 invested. One advantage of the "blue buddy" is that it doesn't take up as much room to stow it if you are taking it with you.

Home Sweet Home

2010-02-09T17:07:00.000-08:00

Well, we made it. Completed our first 4 months on the road. A few lessons learned - primarily the awning and the wind. A few unpleasant surprises - the electrical problems and the stuck open slide, but all in all, I think we did okay.

Our daughter did not deliver before we arrived home, so we are happy about that. We are parked in her driveway. We've got water and electricity, and a place to drain the gray water. It's the black water that will be interesting. We do have a macerater pump and have pumped directly into the toliet before, but it really smells up the house. It was one thing in the late summer when we could open the winds to air things out, but it won't be an option for now. Kim has purchased some big plastic barrels, which will fit in the back of the truck. It will work a bit like a "blue buddy" as I understand it. You pump the black water tank into the barrel, and then take the barrel the dump station. That way you don't have to move the 5th wheel.

I'm excited to stay put for a bit. I've got my books and 'stuff' out - like my Lakshmi and Ganesha statues, my crystals and stuffed animals. I've got lots of people I'd like to see during my stay in the area, and of course, I'll be busy with Grandma Duty.

I'm a big believer in taking a Play Day each week, and I hope to do some touristy stuff in my home town. A bit of a stay-cation and I will post from time to time for those of you that haven't been to the Seattle area so you can see what there is to do around here.

Our general plans are to take off sometime in September 2010, and head east to Montana, and then south through Utah and Northern Arizona, eventually winding up in Yuma and maybe Palm Springs. Stay tuned for our further adventures!

Another lesson in RVing.

2010-02-03T00:36:00.000-08:00

As part of my research prior to our buying our NuWa (which, by the way, is pronounced 'new way') HitchHiker II LS 5th wheel trailer I read several forums, including one (nuwaowners.org) devoted to NuWas, so I was somewhat prepared when our largest slide-out decided not to slide out. The slide rides on two toothed tracks and has two toothed wheels (gears) that ride in the tracks. The two gears are connected by a shaft so the slide goes in and out evenly because the hydraulic ram that provides the force to move it is mounted, not in the middle but, one end so that when the hydraulic ram pushes out or pulls in the one gear nearest the ram starts to turn and the shaft to the other gear makes the other gear turn and thus the other end of the slide also goes out: that is until one of the bolts that holds the shaft to the gears breaks. Then only the end of the slide-out where the hydraulic ram is attached trys to go out.

This happened to us in Yuma, AZ. Betsy and I managed to get the slide out by letting the hydraulic ram push is out a few inches and then we'd brace ourselves against the kitchen counter and push. To get it back in required a come-along and three men pushing. We had an appointment at CJ's RV Repair and 2 hours and $90 later we had the broken bolts replaced. The mechanic said he had just done the same repair the day before on another rv.

All in all not so bad as far as catastrophes go.

Back in Washington

2010-02-02T23:26:00.000-08:00

We took Highway 126 from Florence, Oregon, over to I-5 at Eugene. This is a 45 mile stretch of road that is absolutely lovely. We hooked up with I-5, and decided to try the I-205 route around Portland. OMG - I can't believe I've never taken this road before. If you are driving north or south on I-5, and don't need to stop in Portland, this loop around the city is a must!

We pulled into Brookhollow RV Park - another gem - in a lovely setting with large paved, and level pull through sites.

We hadn't unhooked the truck from the rig since we left Jamul. Today was the day because we wanted to look around the area. My grandparent's home was here and this is where my dad grew up and attended high school. Things have definitely changed since I was last here in the 1960s.

Fortuna and Florence

2010-02-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

We spent the first night on our journey up 101 in Fortuna, California at the Riverwalk RV Park. This is a nice little park and we'd stay there again. I know I took pictures of this park as well, but they are not on the camera. Maybe I am my mother's daughter.....My mother travelled through Europe taking pictures with her finger over the camera lens. I think maybe I was pushing the power button, turning the camera on and off. Yes, I am a blonde.

The next night, we stayed in Florence, Oregon at the Hecata Beach RV Park. I have always said Heck-ah-ta, but the gal at the park pronounced it Ha-zee-ta. I had to look it up. The area is named after a Basque explorer who was sent to investigate the area. His name was Bruno de Heceta y Dudagoitia. His name was pronounced Ha-zee-ta, although the Heck-ah-ta pronunciation is also accepted.

This is another nice little park. Spaces are large, and easily accomodated our 33' rig with 3 slides. There were hedges and trees between each space. It was very quiet and we would definitely stay there again. It is a few blocks walk to the beach.

Our site

An empty site next to us.

I slept 9 hours and woke up to lovely blue skies! Next stop - Kelso, WA.

Heading Over to 101

2010-02-02T22:54:00.000-08:00

When we found out we were heading home sooner than we had originally planned, the first reference I checked was the Farmers Almanac. I wanted to know what the forecast was for snow in the Siskiyous. We were in luck and it appeared we would be able to get by without having to worry about snow or incliment weather. Okay, we'll go I-5 all the way. But wait, you are apparently required to carry chains when going over the pass, not only for the truck, but also for the trailer. Quick pricing looked like we would have to spend over $200 on chains that we probably wouldn't use. There we were, caught in the Catch 22. We had to have chains to take I-5, but if we needed chains, we wouldn't take that route. So forget I-5, we are going up 101. I've never been on that section of 101, and I was really looking forward to it, but I was also concerned about the road - I'd heard it was curvy and twisty.

Well, let me just say, as I repeated to Kim over and over and over - Oh My God - I am so glad we came this way. Each part of the drive, from the short section of I-5, over Highway 12, and then a series of weird interchanges on a bunch of interstates (thank God for GPS), we finally were on Highway 101. It was absolutely beautiful. The wine country, rolling hills, and into the Redwoods. Really, I can't wait to go back and spend some time just driving around this area.

Here are some pictures I snapped from the car on the drive.

Too bad there were cars behind us on this section - I'd have just asked Kim to stop so I could get a good picture. It was a nice long section of canopied redwoods.

Ah, the Pacific. I did miss you!

We had just passed a herd of elk in a large field, and came upon this straggler, all by himself in someone's front yard.

By the way, both Kim and I had expected 2 lane, rough road. We were pleasantly surprised to find 4 lanes of well paved road almost all the way. I just loved this drive!

Next Stop, Manteca California

2010-02-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

When we headed south, for me, the most boring part of the drive was coming down I-5 through the Imperial Valley. This surprised me because years before when we had driven from Washington to Alabama, I had really enjoyed this section of I-5. Perhaps it was the difference between driving down in June and driving down in November. I talked Kim into taking Highway 99 all the way up to Manteca. The drive was much more interesting as far as things to see and changing scenery. The highway gets a 7 out of 10 rating. Most of the road was good to really good 4 to 6 lane highway. We did notice that often times the road wasn't as well maintained as it went through the various towns and cities. Our guess is that those city budgets did not have extra funds for maintaining the highways. It was pretty bumpy and hard on the bladder. This was not the day to have 3 cups of coffee!

We had elected to stay in the Stockton area because Kim's brother had recently moved to the area for a new job. We wanted to stop and see Tom and have dinner with him.

We used our RPI membership to stay at the Thousand Trails Turtle Beach reserve for $10 that night.. We got in just before sunset and only had time to do basic set up before Tom arrived. This reserve is another nice setting. Nice wide spaces - enough for the rig, the truck, a picnic table and a tent (if we had one). I know we'll come back and spend more time here later in the year. I only wish we'd had time to walk along the delta and explore a bit. My only complaint would be the 2 mile road leading to the resort. It is very narrow and I'd hate to meet another big rig coming the other direction.

I could have sworn I took pictures of our site, but I can't find them on the camera. It was a long day, maybe I just thought I took pictures......

Pio Pico - Jamul, California

2010-02-02T22:47:00.000-08:00

After a wonderful week in Yuma, we moved west to Jamul, California. We took I-8 to Hwy 94. This may be the time to mention that not only am I a 5 star resort camper, but I'm also a back road wimp. While I-8 was a typical interstate through the desert, Hwy 94 wasn't really made for a truck towing a 5th wheel. In fact, there was a sign that said vehicles over 40' were prohibited on that stretch of highway. We were already committed to this route when we saw the sign, with no place to turn around, so we continued on. The road was a little twisty for my tastes, and there were spots with drop off areas on the passenger side (my side) without guard rails. There were tons of border patrol cars on the road - about every 4th or 5th car was border patrol. Not sure if that was the norm for the area, or if there was something going on. It was interesting, nonetheless.

We had made reservations at the Thousand Trails Pio Pico reserve, using our Resorts of Distinction membership. I had made the reservations 90 days in advance, requesting a full hook up. We arrived and were told that full hook ups were not available, and that we could camp in the north part of the park that had water and 30 amp electric. Oh, and the water was not drinkable. Oh, and by the way, there is no cell phone service nor Verizon air card service. However, we could go choose our own spot, come back and let them know. Every morning at 9am, we could report to the ranger station and see if there were any full hook up sites available. I was not happy. Okay, I can dry camp for a night or so, but any more than that, we would have to change campgrounds.
We found a good sized back-in site so that we had a nice view out the back of our trailer. It was a bit of a challenge as many of the sites had black garbage bags over the electric polls. I was a little bit happier at this point, because scenery wise, this was a very lovely campground.

Our site at Pio Pico

Other campsites

The view out our back window

We decided we would spend the night and re-evaluate in the morning. The next morning, we lost power briefly - sort of. The UPS (unlimited power supply) alarm went off at 7:30am. The power wasn't completely lost, but the voltage had dropped below 100. We speculated that it was due to the rest of the park all waking up and turning on their electric heaters, hot water tanks, etc. Because of the problem we had with the electric system in the rig while we were in Phoenix, and the cost to replace all our electronics, we do not like to take chances. When we started running water to wash dishes and take showers, it was all milky - and not the air in the line kind of milky. We made the decision to move on the next day, but for that day we had made arrangements to have lunch with my friend Leila in Carlsbad. Lunch with her was the best part of that day.

In the meantime, once we got into cell phone range, I found a message from our daughter. She is pregnant and due in March, but was having some serious contractions and there was concern she would deliver early. So much for taking our time heading home. We called and learned that the contractions had stopped, and the doctor felt the baby would not be coming now, but nothing was guaranteed. We don't wait to miss the birth of our first grandchild, so we knew we'd be packing up and leaving the next morning.

We returned to the rig after spending the day in Carlsbad. Double checked the amperage and it was still low, so we went to the Adult Lodge to use the park's wifi. The Adult Lodge gets a 1 out of 5 stars in my book. It needs updating and an interior designer. We plotted a route home, deciding to come up I-5 to the Stockton area, and then make the decision about whether to take I-5 or 101 up to Washington. We wanted to avoid the Siskiyous if there was any chance of snow or ice.
The next morning, we packed up and headed out. Next stop, Bakersfield, California.

San Diego to Bakersfield

2010-02-02T21:29:00.000-08:00

We left Pio Pico, taking Otay Lakes Road into Chula Vista, California, where we picked up I-5 heading north. Not much to say about this drive except that I hope to never do it again, towing a rig!

We had made reservations at Bear Mountain RV Resort in Bakersfield. I had checked http://www.rvparkreviews.com/ and found good reviews for the park. We had stayed at Bakersfield RV Park on the way down, and enjoyed it. However, it was off Highway 58, and a bit out of the way. We wouldn't have a chance to enjoy its resort ammenities, so we decided to try another resort. Bear Mountain gets a high rating from me, if you are looking for a park just off Highway 99, and need a place to sleep. The park manager was very nice. The park was plain, but very clean and well maintained. And $25 per night was great for the budget. Nice big and spacious pull through sites. It was quiet and an easy in & out.

Our site.

Dog run and view of other sites.

Office, restrooms and laundry.

Next stop, Manteca, California.

Cocopaugh RV Resort in Yuma, Arizona

2010-02-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

We spent the week at Cocopaugh with our friends. Here are some pictures of the resort. I thought it was one of the prettier resorts in which we have stayed.

One of the nicest pool areas I've seen.

Shuffle Board Court

Grounds near the tennis court

Part of the 2.5 acre pet area.

The only challenge we had in Yuma was that when we arrived, one of our slides wouldn't open. Kim and I managed to push it out. Kim did some research and visual inspection, and determined we had probably shirred one of the bolts in the hydaulic system that opens the slides. At least I think that is what he said. He is supposed to write up something for those of you that understand this kind of stuff. I just know that we had to push it open ourselves, and then when it came time to pack up, some of the resorts escorts and maintenance crews helped get it back in. We dropped it off at CJs RV repair, and 1.5 hours later, less $90, we were on the road to California. Nothing but praise for CJs from me!

We had a great time in Yuma, much of it thanks to our friends The Luques. Next year, we will come back and stay longer.

The Best Part Of Camping - Eating!

2010-01-26T10:20:00.000-08:00

Oh - surely you didn't think I meant cooking. No, I meant trying out different restaurants in various areas. Yes, I have a few campfire recipes that I really like, but today I'd like to focus on eating out in Yuma. Thanks to our friends locally, and some suggestions from Facebook friends, we've sample 3 great restaurants in Yuma.

First is Brownie's Cafe. This is a good old fashioned diner. If you were born after 1980, you probably don't know what that really means, but it refers to good old, almost as tasty as home cooked, food. We had breakfast at Brownies. I had the Maggie's Special which was home made corned beef, 2 eggs and hashbrowns. It was fantastic. Kim had waffles and eggs - the Belgian waffle kind, and he gave them a two thumbs up as well. If we had more time here in Yuma, we'd go back for lunch or dinner as I hear the Brownie Dessert is to die for. As it was, I was stuffed so I didn't try dessert. Hey - there's nothing wrong with dessert with breakfast!

The next day, we were treated to Kneaders for lunch. Soup, salad and sandwhiches - oh and desserts! Are you sensing a pattern here? This was a 'wheat cheat day' for me. I do try to avoid wheat, but the bread at this restaurant smelled so good, I just had to give in. And then there was the cannolis. I had the turkey feta salad, broccoli cheese soup, a slice of Russian Rye bread and the aforementioned cannoli. (Not as good as the cannoli I've had in the French Quarter in New Orleans, but well worth having.). Kim had a toasted cheese sandwhich - I think there were 4 kinds of cheese in this double decker treat. Again, we will return the next time we are in Yuma. Hint - go early for lunch. There were only 2 people in front of us when we arrived at 11:50am. When we left 45 minutes later - the line was out the door.

And of course, you can't eat in Yuma, so close to Mexico, without sampling some Mexican Food. We joined a group of friends at El Pappagallo. Most of them ordered The Sampler-taco, tamale, enchilada, burrito and tostado. I understand the enchilada was particularly good - cheese, sour cream and onion. Must have been, because no one offered me a taste. I had the carne asada and it was wonderful. Great salsa and guacamole.

If you are in Yuma, I would highly recommend anyone of these restaurants.

Now if you are reading this, and hoping for a camp recipe, I will share one of my favorites. It's cooking in foil, and makes clean up a snap. Take a large piece of aluminum foil (double layer if using the small regular size foil). In the center spread out some sliced onion - I use 1/2 onion, but I love onions. On top of that, a ground beef patty. I like to mix my meat with some barbeque sauce, but you can also just top the meat with a generous glob. Next layer with sliced potatoes, sliced carrots and sliced mushrooms. Top with a pat of butter, or some olive oil. Season for taste. Wrap it up tent style - Bring the edges of one side together and fold over a few times, then crimp up the sides - leaving some air/breathing room. Put on the barbeque, right over the coals, medium heat, close the lid and cook for about 20 -25 minutes. Yummy! We eat this 2-3 times a week sometimes. Easy to make. Easy clean up. What more could you ask for!

Yuma and Specialty Diets

2010-01-25T14:06:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Yuma last Wednesday, the day before all the heavy rains and tornado watches. They say this kind of weather happens only once every 20 years or so. Good thing, because I really like the area, but the ground around our 5th wheel was covered with 3 inches of water for the better part of 2 days and that was not so good. Yuma has green! The Colorado River makes the area very good for agriculture, and we've seen fields of all kinds of produce - all kinds of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, etc. The skies are brilliant blue and the sun is warm most days. I could see spending winters here very easily. Yuma is large enough to have decent shopping, but small enough to make it feel home-town.

As I've mentioned before, Kim and I try to maintain a wheat free, dairy free, soy free diet, and finding the foods we eat can often be a challenge. I'm happy to report that we found Sunshine Herbs N' More on Fortuna Avenue. They stock the rice bread we use, the rice cheese I like, the coconut milk yogurt too. If they get deliveries from those companies, I'm sure they can then order the other things I like (especially the coconut milk products from the Soy-Delicious Company).

Happy Travelling!

Earp, California and Quartzsite, Arizona

2010-01-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

We camped 3 nights at the Emerald Cove Resort along the Colorado River. It's a large park, over 700 spots I think. The place was packed for the MLK Holiday Weekend. I was afraid it was going to loud and a party park. Actually, it was very pleasant and quiet. Beautiful putt putt golf course. Two pools. Two spas. Lovely back in sites along the river. Unfortunately, these are reserved for members of the Colorado River Adventures campgrounds. We stayed there under an RPI membership. It was adequate and the spaces large enough to accomodate our 3 slides.

While there, we made a trip into Quartzsite for the Rock and Mineral Show and the RV show. Never in my life have I seen so many RVs on the road, and campground after campground filled along with all the folks dry camping on BLM land. Oh my goodness. It was a sight to see. And that was it....a sight! The place was packed full of vendors of all things - not just RV related or gem related. It reminded me of the vendor areas at a huge state fair. Not much rhyme or reason to where things were. I'm filing this under the heading of Been There, Done That, Don't Need To Do It Again. On a positive note, if you are looking for large crystal geodes, or are a jewelry designer/beader - you will find great prices on things. If you own a metaphysical store, prices on bracelets and necklaces were very very good as well.

(photo courtesy of therockwarehouse.com)

(photo courtesy of travelsw.com)

(Pictures courtesy of http://www.quartzsitervshow.com/)

We also took a ride up to Lake Havasu City as well. We had driven through on our way from Laughlin to Phoenix, but we were towing the 5th wheel and unable to stop to see the London Bridge. It really was amazing to see the bridge reconstructed there. There is a replica of London Town, a shopping area, under the bridge. Worth a stop to see and snap a few pictures.

We also stopped to take pictures at the Earp, California post office. Yes, the town is named after Wyatt Earp, who homesteaded in the area while he was working some gold mines just south of here. There is a picture of Wyatt on the building, and we stopped to see if Kurt Russell or Kevin Costner looked more like the real Wyatt Earp. If you care, IMHO it would be Kurt Russell.

Next stop: Yuma, Arizona

Special Diets and RVing

2010-01-24T17:15:00.000-08:00

I am on a wheat free, dairy free diet, so finding stores that carry the products I eat can be difficult while travelling. We were in Northern Phoenix, and there really was nothing close by that carried all the things in one store. Here are the stores we shopped at most frequently:

Safeway in Anthem, AZ carries many gluten free products including waffles, rice crackers and pretzels. (5 miles from our campground)
Bashas in Cave Creek/Carefree carries wheat free bread and dairy free ice cream. They have a great meat market - the best hamburger and steaks we found in the area. (10 miles from our campground)
Whole Foods Market in Tempe or Scottsdale (both about 20 miles from our campground) carried everything I needed from rice bread to rice cheese to coconut milk (in a carton like regular milk, not the canned coconut milk used in Thai cooking) and coconut milk ice cream.
Trader Joes had the best bulk food shopping that I found.

I don't do soy products myself, but soy milk is readily available at most stores, and many do carry the Soy-Delicious ice cream too. I didn't find that many stores carried soy cheese or almond cheese either - other than Whole Foods and Trader Joes.

I was a little surprised that the 'regular' stores did not carry these products as I can get them at my local Top Foods and Safeway Stores in our small home town of Snohomish, WA. We stocked up before we left Phoenix as our next stop was Earp, California/Parker, Arizona and then on to Yuma, and I'm not sure we will be able to find these things in the smaller towns if it was a challenge in Phoenix.

Phoenix Wrap Up

2010-01-24T17:02:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share a few thoughts about our stay at Pioneer Park in North Phoenix. I found it to be a nice RV Park. Mostly snow birds or full time residents in their late 60s to 80s. We had a site on the perimeter edge, so that our back window looked out on to the desert. We did really enjoy this as we were able to watch the local wild life, including the twice daily parade of quail, the daily visit of the local coyotes as they ran by on their way to Lake Pleasant, the bunnies, the squirrels and the birds. The sunsets were gorgeous! This is a quiet park. People were friendly, and the office staff very helpful. The restrooms and showers are a bit dated, but clean. The pool and spa are under cover which is nice morning or late night swims. There is a pool (billiard) room, a craft room, a card room, a library and puzzle room, plus a large multi purpose room. There was a shuffle board court, and a quite popular horse shoe pit (complete with bleachers), and bocce ball court. Shopping is close by off I-17 at the Carefree Highway and Happy Valley Road.

The only minor complaints I had about staying here were nothing that the Pioneer Park people could fix. The wind whips up quite a bit at night and can shake and rattle the rig quite a bit. It's worthwhile to roll up the awning each afternoon. There is a shooting range just over the hill, and the sounds of gun fire carry. You learn to ignore it rather quickly. And when the FBI comes to practice with automatic weapons at the nearby Correctional Center, it's a bit unnerving. I'd rate the park a 9 out of 10.

We did drive out to look at the camping areas at two regional parks - Lake Pleasant and Cave Creek. Beautiful desert camping areas. There is water and electricity at each site, but no sewer hook ups. I loved the views and the quietness of the parks, and would definitely consider camping at either place in the future.

All and all, our visit to Phoenix was good. We have family here, so we will return. I didn't realize how big the metropolitan Phoenix area was. The freeway/highway system I found confusing, and I am very thankful for GPS. What did we do without it?

Wickenburg, Arizona

2010-01-24T16:37:00.000-08:00

We had one week left in Phoenix, and decided to take a day trip up to Wickenburg. From Pioneer Park, we took Highway 74, connecting with Highway 60, right into Wickenburg. It was a nice drive, decent highway. . We took the Walking Tour of Wickenburg, picking up the map at the Chamber of Commerce, which is housed in the old Santa Fe Railroad Depot. There are bronze sculptures throughout the walking tour, with recorded messages on the history of the spot. There are also some smaller sculptures of desert wildlife strategical placed on the side walks. I had to look twice at a roadrunner, and the rattlesnake gave me a bit of a start.

The Jail Tree (residents were too busy mining gold to build a jail, so the sheriff handcuffed prisoners to the tree used for hanging the bad guys)

Betsy at the Saloon

Henry Wickenburg

We toured the Desert Caballeros Western Museum. This is a must see if you are in Wickenburg. There is a Hall of History, which recounts the story of Wickenburg. There was a large gold discovery made there by Henry Wickenburg. Allegedly, he discovered the gold when he tossed a rock at an escaping mule. The rock broke and gold was found. Since that time, more than $30 million in gold has been dug from the Vulture Mine. There was a section in the museum devoted to Cowboys, Indians, Minerals and a changing Art Gallery. Unfortunately, the Art Gallery was closed when we were visiting, but the collection of Cowboy and Indian memorobilia and the Mineral/Gem exhibit was very impressed. On the lower level, there is an early Wickenburg street scene, and examples of period rooms from the early 1900s, and an exhibit which features an old adobe home and stable. This museum was well worth the admission price of $7. The docents are quite knowledgable and eager to share the history of the region.

Kim in the General Store Replica Room

The Saloon Period Room

Gun and Rifle Collection from the Desert Caballeros Western Museum

Living Room/Parlor circa 1905

Early 1900s version of a Johnny Jump Up (bouncy chair for babies)

Stagecoach Replica

We took Highway 60 back to Phoenix, and picked up Highway 303 which took us to Happy Valley Road and I-17, just about 5 miles south of our 'home' at Pioneer Park.

Awinings: Who needs 'em...

2010-01-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

The holidays are past, the weather was cooperating and I had no excuse to procrastinate any longer. If you recall from an earlier post or two when we were
having problems with our electrical stuff we had to stay with relatives for several days until we could get a new converter/charger to keep our batteries charged. We (I) were a little distracted at the time with all that going on and I left the awning extended while we were away. A wind storm came up one evening and, despite the best efforts of our neighbors, the awning canvas tore about 6-8 inches at the rear edge right where it attaches to the side of the trailer before they could get it put away. Some of the brackets got slightly twisted too.

I bought some awning repair tape from the local rv dealer and today I extended the awning to see what could be done. First the rear arm was stuck and I had to get out the ladder to see what was jamming. Seems it is just due to all the twisting that occurred during the wind storm. I just twisted the arm a little and the rivet head that was hanging up came free and I was then able to completely unfurl the awning.

Upon inspection of the tear it was obvious that the vinyl was sun damaged. It was brittle and cracking and had a permanent curl. I cleaned up the vinyl as best I could and applied several pieces of repair tape, which is holding for now but with the sun damaged vinyl I can see we will be replacing it sooner rather than later.

My forgeting to retract the awning while we were away is just one more of those lessons you hope you could have learned from someone else's mistakes but sometimes have to learn for yourself. I don't feel like a complete idiot as I've read many accounts on rv blogs and forums where others have 'been there, done that' already.

Ok, what's next? I'm ready for our next adventure. One without any new mishaps.

Keep on truckin'!!

Traveling By Air - Now Feels Weird

2010-01-02T07:17:00.000-08:00

We are back at Pioneer Park in Phoenix, after flying home for the holidays. The last few years, I had flown hither and yon on business and pleasure, so much so that it got to be routine, and no big deal. Now it just feels weird. No fear or anxiety, but just not right. I guess I am liking this whole RV thing.

We were treated to a beautiful sunset on our first night back!

The coyotes were surely howling last night. I guess they appreciated the sunset too! Rumor has it the javelinas have returned but I neither saw nor heard them.

This morning the sun is out, the quail are on parade, and life is good .

Betsy Suggests A Sunday Drive - Payson and Bumble Bee - or not

2009-12-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

In my defense, it was looking pretty nice when I suggested a drive up to Payson to check things out. We got on the road, and the drizzle started. By the time we got off I-17, and headed toward Payson, it started to pour. For some reason, I thought Payson was just a few miles off I-17. It's more like 50. Kim humored me and we kept on driving. And then we encountered this:

Snow!

So we turned around. Payson will have to wait until another time.

We saw an exit for Bumble Bee and decided we should check it out. About one mile from the exit, it pavement stops, and it turns into a Primative Dirt Road, not regularly maintained. It was 5 miles to Bumble Bee. About 2 miles in, it got so rough that we decided to turn around and head back. Looking for a place to turn around, we came around a curve and were greeted with one of the most vivid rainbows I had ever seen. Too bad these pictures do not do it justice.

Bumble Bee, it turns out, is a ghost town, "once a flourishing stage stop on the Prescott-Phoenix stage line. In the mid 1930’s an attempt was made to bring Bumble Bee back to life by making it into a tourist attraction. Several new buildings were constructed, but the attraction never drew the tourists they hoped for. Over the years, the property changed hands a number of times, until the entire town was placed on the market and purchased in 1960 by newspaper king, Charles A. Penn. Though Penn had plans to restore the town and build a museum, it never happened." (http://www.legendsofamerica.com/az-bumblebee.html)

Unless there is another road in, I can understand why it did not thrive. We were in a Ford F250 truck and it was not an easy drive for us. I can't imagine what it would be like in regular car.

South Mountain Park in Phoenix

2009-12-13T13:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, at the suggestion of Kim's dad, Warren, we took a drive to the Dobbins Trail Outlook at the top of South Mountain Park here in Phoenix. South Mountain Park is the largest municipal park in the country. The day was overcast, so the pictures aren't as far reaching as I would have liked, but here they are.

Looking down onto the central valley

At the top of the lookout

Kim and Warren at South Mountain, Phoenix

Down the otherside of the mountain (looking south)

Looking toward Tempe and Mesa

It is a slow 5-10mph drive up to the top, with lots of curves. You need to watch for the bicyclists coming down the mountain, sometimes they cut the corners. We had a few close calls.

Taken from the truck as we were leaving. One of buildings by the Ranger Station at the entrance to the park.

Electronics - Really, Really, Fingers Crossed, The Rest Of The Story

2009-12-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

Headed back out to Pioneer Park today, hopefully to stay, until we fly home to Snohomish for Christmas. The insurance inspector, the RV tech and electrician have all been out to look at what happened. Kim has run all the test checks, and we are going to try it again.

Many thanks to Ken, Tom and Cathy for putting up with us for the last few weeks. We will miss playing pinochele each night. I do have dibbs on the 'good' chair when we come to visit next.

And now, here's the rest of the story, according to Kim:

The rest of the story....

Previously, we experienced an electrical problem that ruined our day as well as several pieces of electronic equipment; ie: LCD TV, DVD/Surround Sound System, UPS, Printer and most importantly the ac/dc converter. The converter keeps the 12 volt batteries charged which run most of our lights, the refer control panel and the furnace fan and it's been darn cold at night lately.

We thought we had found the problem in a shorted water heater element and as the water heater can also be run on propane we replaced the burner out ac/dc converter and thought we were set to go.

Not to be. The new UPS started beeping, just like the previous one did just before Armegedon struck, and the new ac/dc converter made a hissing noise and emitted a puff of smoke just before I could get to the main circuit breaker to cut the power.

I called the RV repair technician and told him what occurred and he returned the next day to look deeper into the problem. He finally located the problem as a loose neutral wire in the receptacle in the trailer where the power cord plugs in from the campgrounds power box.

Instead of causing an electrical surge and tripping the circuit breaker the electrical current found a different path back to the breaker panel and combined it's 120 volts ac with the 120 volts ac already there and became 240 volts ac which the electronics didn't like.

We have a new converter installed and I test ran everything yesterday for several hours, running all the heavy power users, electric space heater, toaster, electric tea kettle as well as all the normal things like lights, refer and furnace.

We will be moving back into the trailer today. We've been at the campground for just over two weeks now and only stayed in the trailer for 3 days. Its been fun staying at my brother's house but it will be nice to be back in our own 'home' again.

Thar She Blows

2009-11-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

It was perfectly calm in Laveen, but apparently the breeze picked up out at Pioneer Park in North Phoenix. And of course, you guessed it - We left the awning out when we moved into Tom's house, waiting for the electrician and insurance adjustor. I haven't seen it yet, but there apparently is a nice rip in the awning over the doorway, and some damage to the extender thingees.

Have to wonder, is there a place to put a note on the insurance claim that we are new at this stuff, or will they think we are perpetrating insurance fraud? Nope, we are just learning through our mistakes.

Funny this is, I'm a practicing psychic and got the hit to check the awning the other day, and didn't follow through on it. What a dope!

Living and learning and carrying on.

Playing The Waiting Game

2009-11-27T10:05:00.000-08:00

Here I sit at Kim's brother's house, a week and one day after the electronics incident. Why do these things happen around long weekends/holidays?

We did get an electrician out to confirm that the problem was indeed with a short in the water heater. We have filed a claim with the extended warrenty insurer, and are waiting to hear back about how to proceed.

We went ahead and ordered a new converter, so Kim is out at the park installing that, assisted by his dad and his youngest brother. I'm playing the waiting game at Tom's house - which is a pretty nice place to be. I'm having a love/hate relationship with Farkle, and probably drinking too much coffee in between snacking on Thanksgiving left-overs.

Allegedly, once the converter is installed, we can recharge the batteries. I forget what the batteries run - the lights I guess. We can heat water using propane, and I believe the refrigerator is okay to use with electric (and if not, propane is available).

Keeping my fingers crossed that we can move back out to our 'home' later today. And with any luck, the insurance adjustors are working today, so we do not have to wait until Monday or Tuesday to hear about the other things that we damaged in the incident.

Smoking Electronics - The Rest Of The Story

2009-11-22T07:20:00.000-08:00

One cross threaded water connection causes major damage.

As they say down south, 's@#t happens'. Last Thursday evening as we were preparing dinner, our UPS (uninterruptable power supply)that we have our laptops plugged into, beeped a couple of times which usually indicates we lost power. It stopped beeping but I went out to the power pedestal to double check and our surge protector was still showing everything was good. About 15 minutes later, the UPS started beeping again and I went over to it to see what was going on and saw smoke coming out of it. I immediately unplugged it and as I turned around I saw more smoke coming from the cabinet where the DVD player is. I opened the cabinet and smoke was roiling out of the DVD player. I quickly unplugged it and the other equipment plugged into the same outlet. I went to the breaker panel to turn off the circuit breakers for those outlets and more smoke is coming from the converter. At this point I ran outside and turned off the power at the pedestal. The trailer has a 12 vdc system that powers several lights, water pump, furnace fan and a few other essentials so we weren't totally in the dark.

With the smell of burnt electronics hanging in the air, we decided it would be best to head into Laveen and spend the night at my brother's house. So after assuring ourselves that nothing was still burning, we packed up some clothes and neccessary items, told our neighbor and the park office what had happened and left for Laveen.

The next day, after calling around, I was recommended to a local rv repair business and after contacting them I had an appointment for later that day. He showed up around noon. He switched modes of transportation from his truck to a pair of crutches. He had recently broken his foot.

Between the two of us we checked circuit breakers, wiring, appliances, etc. and at that time couldn't find the what had causes all the trouble. Using an outlet tester, a device with 3 lights on it that indicates any problems with the wiring depending on which combination of bulbs light, and a multimeter we checked the power coming into the trailer and going through the breaker panel and out to the different outlets and appliances.

At one point we were seeing 240 vac in the breaker box were there should only have been 120 vac. That would have fried the electronics all right, but where is it coming from?

Using the process of elimination, we started turning breakers off or on in different
combinations and determined the circuit labeled 'water heater' was the culprit. Looking at the water heater, I discovered the wiring was all wet and found that the source of the water was a cross threaded connection on the water heater inlet that is right above the wiring box. It probably hadn't been leaking at first but since we put about 1,800 miles on it in the past two weeks all that vibration and jarring down
the highway must have loosened it enough to let out the occasional drip.

The wires being shorted out were feeding 120 vac back through the ground wire and, without going into more detail on how, adding to the 120 vac already at the breaker panel and giving us the 240 vac. After disconnecting the wiring to the water heater all the voltage readings are back to normal. But in the meantime the TV, DVD, Satellite receiver, UPS, HP printer, converter, refer control circuit board and water heater have all bit the dust all because someone cross threaded the water inlet connection to the water heater.

It wasn't me, this time I'm innocent.

The RV Honeymoon Is Over

2009-11-22T05:21:00.000-08:00

I suppose it was not realistic that we could just not have a single problem ever with a rig. Well, we had the whole thermostat issue, where the heat wanted to set itself at 94, but that was nothing compared to what happened the other night. Thursday night, we were sitting in our recliners, watching TV, minding our own business, when the lamp on the wall started flickering and the UPS (uninterrupted power supply) to our computers started beeping. The UPS will beep anytime power is cut, no matter how briefly. It gives you 15 minutes to shut down your computer(s) and not lose any data. Usually it happens when we've overloaded the kitchen breaker - like the space heater, the tea kettle, and the hair dryer. Or when we lose power because of weather, etc. Nothing was going on that night. We re-set the power supply, and took a look at the other rigs around us. They all had power. Must be gremlins.

Less then an hour later, boom, it happens again, accompanied by a big pop. Next thing we know, there is smoke coming out of the dvd player and the UPS. We quickly unplugged the computers and the dvd player. Kim flipped the main electrical breaker so we were just on battery power. Now smoke is coming out from the converter box and the water heater. WTF! I'm outta here!

We called Kim's brother Tom and invited ourselves to spend the night. We told our neighbor Gary what had happened, and left a note for the management. We packed up a bag, grabbed out computers, unplugged everything and headed to Laveen.

Friday morning, Kim called Pioneer Park for a referral to a local repair person. He was not an electrician, but he and Kim did do some checking of 'stuff' and concurred that an electrician was needed.

Saturday, Kim and his dad, Warren, went back out to the park and did some more tinkering. Long story short, we think the hot water tank was leaking and caused a short, and that 's where I quit understanding what Kim was talking about. Something to do with 110 and 240 and batteries and grounds. I'll let Kim do the detailed explanation.

As I write this, it's Sunday morning. We are still at Tom's. Hopefully we will get an electrician out to the rig tomorrow to fix it. Very thankful for our extended warranty. I'm crossing my fingers that it will cover the electronics that are now toast (dvd, flat screen tv, UPS) not to mention the converter panel, the refrigerator and the water heater.

Pioneer Park in North Phoenix

2009-11-21T16:15:00.000-08:00

After visiting a number of parks in the Phoenix area, we decided to take a spot at Pioneer Park for two months. Kim's parents had lived here in their own motor home and then in a park model for a number of years, so we were familiar with the park. It is a 55+ park, and so we are some of the youngsters here. We picked a site so that when we backed in, our main living room windows looked out onto the desert. The recliners we have are swivels, so we can turn and look out at the view, or we can turn and look in at the TV.

We do have neighbors on both sides, but we just close the side shades and leave the back ones open.

And we finally have the awning out!

Our view, looking toward Anthem.

And the view toward the northwest.

We have fun watching the quail, the roadrunners, and the bunnies each day. Still waiting to see (or hear) a coyote or the havalenas.

I think we will like it here at Pioneer. There is an indoor/covered pool, hot tub, card room, pool/billards room (with at least 4 decent tables), a big rec hall and lounge. There are 2 laundry rooms with regular size washer and dryers and also commercial size.

There is shopping within 5 miles, going north to Anthem, or south to Happy Valley.

We will be here for 2 months, which hopefully will give us time to do some exploring. I want to get back up to Sedona, over to Cottonwood, Prescott, Wickenburg, Superstition Mountain, and down to Tuscon. I'm giving Kim a week or so to get settled before I start in on, "Let's go here" today....

Kim and The Satellite TV Dish - Who Will Win?

2009-11-18T09:53:00.000-08:00

Not a 'Complete Idiot' yet - but I'm working on it.

So as you know, if you've been following Betsy's posts, we've been traveling from Snohomish, WA to Phoenix, AZ. So far we've gotten by with hooking up to the various camp ground's tv cable outlet. Well, now that we've gotten to the Phoenix area and are stayin in one spot for the next week it was time to drag out and set up the satellite tv dish. The satellite receiver has a built in application with two bar graphs and an audible signal that runs on the tv screen to help you aim the dish for maximum signal strength. So I'm all set up, the tripod is leveled and locked in place,the dish is aimed in the general direction (145 deg south) and I'm slowly moving the dish right to left trying to locate the signal. After several attempts with no luck I remember we are now much further south and the dish probably has to be re-aimed higher. I fired up the old computer and Googled 'directv aiming dish' and found a web site were you can enter your zip code and get the proper coordinates for that area. Sure enough, I need to aim about 10 deg higher. I make that
adjustment and...what!! still not a hint of a signal.

As I'm sitting at my computer, scratching myhead, I look up and notice that although I had run the dish cables through the window I neglected to connect them to the dish receiver. Once I had the cables connected it only took another minute to tune in the dish and, voila! tv!

I'm not sure if continuing to work at becoming a 'complete idiot' is better than finally becoming one and not have to keep making dumb mistakes. I'm sure I'll never know.

The Reader's Digest Condensed Version of the Past Week - Buckeye, AZ

2009-11-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

On checking out of the Colorado River Oasis in Ehrenberg, I learned that the nice spots on the river with the grass are saved for the Western Horizon members. Even though we have affiliate agreements through ROD and RPI, unless the park was empty, we would not be able to enjoy those spots. I even asked if there was a premium payment we could use to, but apparently not.

Still, I would consider staying there again for convenience sake, but I would check out the site first for the sewer plug and the cement pad.

On to Laveen, Arizona, to spend the night at Kim's brother's house. We had a family get together that night. Kim's folks, his youngest brother David, sister Cathy, Tom and his partner Ken were all there. Ken barbequed some wonderful pork chops, Cathy made potato salad and asparagus. And we stuffed outselves. Then on to pinochele. We play by Mingo family rules, which means cheating is possible. Code talk across the table, substituting a club for a spade in a slug, etc. One must keep his or her eyes peeled! And the best part of the evening (okay - second best - family comes first) was a long luxurious soak in the garden tub! It was heaven.

After 3 loads of laundry, and Tom taking us to the Whole Foods Store in Tempe, we headed out to Buckeye, AZ (about 30 miles west) for a week at the Leafe Verde Resort. Nice check in reception, with an escort to our site, and help getting lined up. The park is basically a parking lot. Back in sites around the perimeter are occupied mostly by permenant residents, it appears. There is an assortment of park models, motor homes, 5th wheels and trailers. All the other sites are pull throughs. There is one aisle that is devoted to over nights only. Honestly, that is the worst thing I can say about this park. There are a few trees. You can hear some of the freeway noise from I-10 (east of Phoenix, just before Goodyear). But really, it was a nice stay.

The park is very, very clean and well cared for. The staff friendly. The one big compliment I have is that they do not cram everyone in side by side. We spent a week there, and had 2 open spots on either side of us, with permanent residents in the next spots over. So it went occupied, open, open, us, open, open, occupied. That appeared to be the rule of thumb, unless you requested a specific spot or were travelling with other rigs.

There is a nice pool and hot tub. We didn't use them, but they appeared very clean. We checked out the showers and restrooms. Again, very clean, with liquid soap provided in the showers. My only thought would be that if your rig didn't have a head, you'd want to be parked near the office, as that is where the restrooms and showers were. You would not want to be 10 rows away, and have to run for the restroom in the morning. There is a lounge with a fairly nice pool table, and tables for cards with a small book exchange. Nice clean washing machines and dryers - which I noticed they wipe out and clean daily (another plus). They offer larger events, including weekly yoga, at the 'barn'. And there is a small hair salon on site as well. There was one small fenced dog run, and then at the back of the park, there is a gate that opens out onto an acre or more of free run area but it is not fenced.

There are lots of services within a mile of the park, including a Super WalMart, a Frys grocery store, Lowes, Staples, fast food, nail salons, a Cracker Barrel and a chinese restaurant. The little community of Verrado with a quaint shopping area is just a few miles down I-10 toward Phoenix.

Look at that blue sky! And all the space around us.

We finally got the picnic table cloth and the lawn chairs out.

This was our view to the north. Fighter jets did do manuevers over the area occasionally and we fun to watch. I wish I could have captured one of the pretty sunrises we were able to enjoy that week.

All in all, it was a nice stay. We considered staying there for another 30 days, but instead opted to move out to Pioneer Park in North Phoenix, just south of Anthem.

Laughlin to Ehrenberg, Arizona

2009-11-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

We let Roundabout Rhonda (GPS) have a day off. We knew the route she wanted to take, and it wasn't the one we wanted to do, so we reverted to (if you can believe it) a regular map! We liked taking Arizona Hwy 95 to Needles, and then hopping on I-10 for a few miles. Note that when you first get on I-10 going eastbound from Needles, the highway is very much in need of resurfacing. However, it was only a few miles, and the pavement improved.

Our drive today took us through Lake Havasu City, which prompted the discussion of is it Hava-Sue or Hava-Saw? The city is much bigger than I had realized. Population over 41,000. The shopping centers, including a Super Wal-Mart, Staples, Home Depot, Lowes, Safeway, and all the requisite fast food places one could imagine, were fairly new...and if not new, well maintained. I was surprised that at the number of homes we could see from the highway that were without grass. With all the water from the 45 mile long Lake, I would have expected to see more green. Pulling out the AAA travel guide, I did some 'research'.

Lake Havasu City was originally an Army Air Corps landing strip, presumably for bringing in supplies while they were building the Parker Dam, the land was purchased in 1963 by Robert P McCulloch Sr, and developed as a planned retirement and recreational community. The city's claim to fame came when Mr McCulloch bought The London Bridge. (Side commentary - either he was a genius or a kook - who buys a broken down bridge and transports it from London to Arizona?).

So back to the lawn question - the water from the lake supplies water to Arizona, Los Angeles and other cities in between. If I had to guess, I'd say that the water is more valuable to sell, and therefore the cost to maintain a green lawn is probably higher than someone on a fixed income (ie a retiree) would want to pay.

Coming from the north, the London Bridge is on the far side of town. You can see part of it from the highway (still Arizona Hwy 95), but we might have missed it had I not been looking right at the London Bridge Parking sign (which is definitely in need of updating).

(photo credit http://www.desertusa.com/)

Anyway, it looked like a nice pleasant and clean community, and we will come back here to camp at some point. There are plenty of camp sites along the river between Lake Havasu and Parker. It's a pretty drive along the river here. We stopped in Parker at the Blue Water Resort and Casino. It's a nice little casino. I only saw 2 table games open, and the rest was slot machines. We played a 25¢ Wheel of Fortune Machine. I should have stopped after my first 'spin' of 100 coins and walked away, but alas, I didn't, and we once again contributed to the economy, this time of the Colorado River Indian Tribe.

We had lunch at the buffet, opting for the salad bar which included tossed salad and all the standard extras, coleslaw which was wonderful, cucumber salad, potato salad and macaroni salad, plus fruit and cottage cheese, bread/crackers, soup (a very delicious beef vegetable), dessert bar and drink, for $5.95. The casino is small, but quite clean, with friendly employees. There is also a movie theatre in the complex, and although I can't be certain, it looked like there were 4-6 screens. They do have an ampitheater as well. Three Dog Night is scheduled to be there on November 21st. http://www.bluewaterfun.com/

Next stop, Quartsite for fuel. Finally, we paid less than $3 a gallon for diesel. The sign said $2.83 on the Shell reader board, but it was actually down to $2.75. We drove through town just to get a feel for it. We will be returning in January or February for the big rock and mineral show. There's not much there. Population is around 3,400, but swells into the hundreds of thousands during January and February.

(Photo credit http://www.desertusa.com/)

An interesting little note, there is a Memorial to a man named Hadji Ali (from the Middle East - the AAA Guide refers to him as an Arab man) who came to Arizona in 1856 with a herd of camels at the Army's request. The camels were never used successfully in the area because they caused the horses, mules and cattle to stampede.

Quartzsite to Ehrenberg is a short drive, about 20 miles. We are staying at the Colorado River Oasis, in spot #20, a pull through. The sites are all gravel, but there are cement patio pads with full hook ups. Because we were just staying the night, we didn't want to unhook. The electric and water hook ups are at the front of the pad, and we did not have enough extra electrical cord to plug in without unhooking. So instead, we pulled in backwards, and ran the water hose and the electric cord under the trailer. We did not hook up to the sewer. (A side note, the sewer hook up did not have a solid cap, and it was a little smelly. There was a slotted cap, like a drain filter, and we put a plastic bag on top of slotted cap and covered it with some rocks to deal with the stench).

Again, it's a clean park with nice swimming pool, hot tub, laundry and rec center. I'd rate it 3 out of 5 stars. Nothing special, but quiet and clean with friendly hosts.

Most of the sites are pull throughs on the gravel, but there were about 20 back in spaces right on the river, with a grass lawn between river/beach and camp site. We stayed here on our Resorts of Distinction membership, so it was free for the night. If we could reserve one of the waterfront sites, we'd come back again for sure!

Picnic tables by the Colorado River

The grassy area in front of the primo sites (picnic table shot above is to the right of this shot)

Today, we are off to Laveen. No camping tonight. We are spending the night at Kim's brother Tom's house, and visiting with their folks, sister Cathy, and brother David. And I have a scheduled date for a luxurious sea salt bath in Tom's garden tub! Tuesday, we are off to Buckeye, AZ for a week stay to see if we like the area. Rumor has it that Buckeye is a bit like West Seattle, only warmer LOL.

A Day Off In Laughlin

2009-11-08T07:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we spent a quiet morning just catching up on correspondence and reading. We finally emerged from the 5th wheel around 11am, and took a drive over to Bullhead City. We bought a few things at Safeway, and then drove over to the Avi Casino, http://www.avicasino.com/. There may be a way to get there from the Nevada side, but we drove through Bullhead City and then back over the Colorado River. We drove through the RV Park just to get an idea.

They have are gravel, instead of cement pads, but with full hook ups. The Fall Marketplace Extravaganza going on. There were booths with jewelry, pet goodies, artwork, etc. I saw a few geodes I liked, but they were too heavy to carry around in a 5th wheel. We did a walk about through the casino. It was full, but a little too smokey to stay.

We headed back to Laughlin, and had lunch at the Aquarius, and then made our contribution to the economy over the next 1-2 hours. The Aquarius looks to be the newest casino or at least most recently refurbished, http://www.aquariuscasinoresort.com/. It was clean and fresh looking with high ceilings, and good air cleaners. We weren't too aware of the cigarette smoke.

We went outside to enjoy the River Walk. I was a little disappointed. It has deteriorated since we were here 20 years ago. I was looking forward to seeing all the little hummingbirds feeding on the shrubbery that lines the walk. It must be the wrong time of year for the hummingbirds as there were none to be seen. Just alot of flies.

Of note, there is a Preferred Outlet Mall (previously known as Horizon Outlet Mall) across from the Aquarius. We didn't go explore, but I will the next time we are here. www.preferredoutlets.com/center.aspx?centerId=0c14a561-b6ec-4f75-bc92-94ea4664b35a

Today, we are off to Ehrenberg. Out last stop on the way to Phoenix (Laveen). It will be good to anchor down for a bit, take out the lawn chairs, and eat off the regular plates.

Bakersfield, CA to Laughlin, NV - yawn.....

2009-11-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

We left Bakersfield yesterday for a relatively easy drive to Laughlin, NV, about 240 miles. It's drives like this that bring up conversations about how amazing it is to think about the early settlers coming west, and even the initial stringing of power and phone lines across the desert, as well as the railroad tracks and how they created the tunnels with what today would be considered primative tools.

Coming through the Tehachapi Pass, we saw one of the largest wind farms in the world. The turbines are operated by a dozen private companies, and collectively produce about 800 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to meet the residential needs of 350,000 people every year. It was pretty cool. I couldn't get any pictures because of course that was the time the batteries decided to quit.

Here are some shots of scenes along the way. It was a long drive with not much to see. There were no animals to comment on - no cows, no horses, no sheep, nary a bird to see. I wonder who owns much of that land. With both Edwards Air Force Base and 29 Palms nearby, maybe it is all government land.

Roundabout Rhonda (the GPS) wanted us to take US Hwy 95 up to Laughlin, but based on a suggestion from Kim's folks, we elected to go through Needles, and then come up Arizona 95. It was a nice drive, some lovely Colorado Radio views and back in agriculture areas, so some farm crops on which to speculate. We are staying at the Riverside RV Park, across from Don Laughlin's Riverside Resort. Although the park address is the same as the resort, the park is across the street. You don't see the 'turn here' sign until you are almost up on it, so be in the right lane. The registration office is at the end of the first driveway, and around the corner. There are about 4 pull through spaces for registration. Registration was quick with a friendly attendant. We were assigned a back in site on level 3. Yup, back in. Our first experience. Lucky to say, there were no cross words exchanged. Kim and I did have to clarify what was meant by 'when the back tire hits here....' Is the back tire, the back of the last tire, the front of the last tire, the front of the first tire....We got that figured out, and with a few adjustments, Kim back us in perfectly.

Cement pads with sandy gravel around the pad. Technically, it is 2 sites, but if the park is not full, you can use the gravel area to park the car/truck, and set up chairs or tables. There are no picnic tables with this site. We did have full hook with 30 amp service. For our rig, the utility hook ups could be a bit better placed, more toward the center of the pad. We had to back to the end to get the living room slide out. So the area to the left of the door is actually another side, without cement pad. You can see the blue space identifier there. I'm praying the spot stays empty for the duration of our stay.

This is the view from outside our door.

We went over to the casino for dinner. Had the Friday night seafood buffet. It was passable, keeping in mind Kim was a commercial fisherman and we are seafood picky. We played some video keno in the non-smoking section. The Riverside does have a fairly good sized nonsmoking gaming area with a large selection of machines, and a few live games. Only roulette and blackjack were open, however, for the hour we were there. Kim lost his $20, but I won it back for him by hitting 5 out of 6 on a Power Ball Keno machine with the last number drawn being one of mine, thus quadrupling the prize. We played a few games of live keno, and made a $9 contribution to the Riverside's profit.

It is an easy walk back to the park, using the overpass and cutting through the parking garage. Considering it was a Friday night, and essentially we are right on Casino Drive, it was very quiet and we slept soundly through the night. BTW, cable hook up is clear (and free), and our Verizon Wireless card is working great.

Today, we are off to explore the other casinos, walk the strip and stop at a grocery store for some bottled water. The water at the site has a definite minerally taste to it.

I looked up my lucky numbers on my numerology program, and we are set for the day. Temperature is to be about 80 degrees with a light breeze. Can't complain, that's for sure!

Red Bluff to Bakersfield

2009-11-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

This was a 400 mile day, so we left Red Bluff early, at 7:00am. We drove to Williams for breakfast and at at Granzella's, exit 577 (turn right and go about 4 blocks). There is RV parking in the lot across the street from the restaurant, and behind the gift shop. Great food. Nice little deli with olive tasting. We did not stop in the gift shop. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining brightly, right in our eyes. Note to self, make sure baseball cap is in the truck before leaving. It saves a quick stop at the rest stop to retrieve cap from rig.

I know I have said this again, but there should be a law that the crops growing next to the side of the road be labelled. I know we saw olives, almonds, pistachios, tangerines and other stuff. We also saw many acres of unfarmed land. There were signs along the way stating it was a "Congress Created Dustbowl". I did a very little searching on the subject and apparently the Delta Smelt, a small fish, has been placed on the endangered species list, and thus water from the local rivers and aquaducts has been severely limited to the local farmers. I have no opinion on this topic as I know very little of the facts. It was just sad to see all this land going unused. Last time we drove this section of I-5 was in 1990, on our way to Mobile, Alabama. It was filled with a variety of crops being grown, which is when I first thought that crops should be labeled. (Note - I'm not implying I was the first to come up with this thought - just that this was the first time it occurred to me that it would be nice to know what was growing where.)

Anyway, we continued on down the freeway, looking for a rest stop to pull into for a lunch break. Many of the rest stops are closed along I-5 southbound. I'm not sure if there were under repair or if it was due to budget cuts (like the rest stops in Arizona). We stopped at the rest stop at mile marker 386. There was a warning sign about rattlesnakes, so chicken that I am, I ran from the truck back to the rig, making as much noise as I could (stomping my feet, etc) to use the head, and make lunch. Then I insisted on eating inside, even though it was quite pleasant outside. (FYI, I've since learned that rattlesnakes are basically deaf, but they can and do pick up the vibrations created by people walking - on in my case running - nearby. And of course, there were no snakes to be seen in the parking lot anyway.)

Next stop was for diesel at Harris Ranch, exit 334. I'd been watching the price of diesel since we last got fuel, after crossing the California border. At that time, I commented on what I though was a higher cost for diesel. Coming down through the San Joquin Valley, I noticed the prices dropping to less than the cost of regular gas. Woo Hoo! It had been costing us about $100 to fill the tank. Saving $15-20 in fuel would have been nice. Not so at the Harris Ranch Shell station. We paid $3.349 per gallon. We get back on the freeway, and see a sign advertising diesel at $2.88 at the very next exit, Jayne Avenue. It must be a new station because it was not listed in the 2009 Next Exit book. Drat! Hopefully just mentioning this will help someone else save a few bucks on fuel. BTW, we have been using Shell because we have a Shell Gas Saver card. It is supposed to work as a debit card, and in using it, you save 5 cents per gallon of fuel until the end of 2009. We've found that at some stations it works, and at others it doesn't. We are going to call Shell and find out why that is. It could be the amount of fuel we are using. It could be a trigger if you fill up more than once in a day. It could be the station's equipment. We aren't sure. Unfortunately, it didn't work at Harris Ranch and we paid full price.

We love our GPS, and wonder how we ever did without it, but sometimes the route 'she' picks is not always the most convenient. I call 'her' Roundabout Rhonda. She had us take the Stockdale Highway exit, and then turn down a 2 lane road that parelleled the freeway. The road surface was actually better, and the speed was the same - 55 mph. (Note, if you are pulling a trailer, your maximum allowable speed on I-5 in California is 55. Cars have speed limits anywhere from 55 - 70 mph, depending on the section of the road. Anyway, Rhonda took us in what I thought was a very weird route, but we did arrive at Bakersfield RV Resort, safe and sound.

Another very nice resort - boy can I pick 'em! Easy check in, and a valet guide to our site. Another pull through site, with grass between the spaces. There are a minimal number of picnic tables spread around the resort. Our site, #120, did not have one.

The hook ups could be a little more toward the middle of the space. We had to pull quite a bit forward to put out our slides, and not hit anything. In doing so, it was a stretch for the sewer line and water hose. Water may be on a timer as the pressure dropped suddenly during my shower. Kim went over to the showers by the pool, and didn't have a problem. The shower stalls are all private. You have a locking door with a dressing area, and a regular shower with glass doors (rather than curtains).

The resort has a great restaurant and bar. It was dark after we finished setting up, and after the 400 mile drive, we treated ourselves to dinner out. We split orders of coconut shrimp, coleslaw and stuffed mushrooms. If you don't want to come to the restaurant for dinner - they will deliver to your site!

This resort offers free cable and wifi so we watched a little TV after dinner before going to bed. Although there is a major road outside the resort, we slept soundly. We did hear a train early in the morning - maybe 5am or so, but we were already awake so it wasn't an issue for us.

This resort is pretty much as described on their website, http://www.bakersfieldrvresort.com/. We paid $70 for two nights, using a Good Sam discount.

I've been surprised at how well we are doing on our first major trip. In fact, I was a bit suspicious because things were going so well. I should know better. All of a sudden, all the sensors on our gray water and black water tanks are reading full. We know this can't be so because we just emptied them yesterday. The battery reads charged, so there must be a short somewhere. Hopefully, it is something simple as Kim doesn't want to address it until we are in Phoenix. In the meantime, we will empty the tanks (especially the kitchen and shower) each day, just to be sure.

We stayed an extra day here in Bakersfield, and were able to accomplish a few errands. Roundabout Rhonda took us to Trader Joe's for some groceries, and to Wal-Mart for a spring tension shower rod to use to hang up wet swim suits. It was a little too cool to swim today, but we are planning ahead.

We also drove out to see the California Living Museum. http://www.calmzoo.org/

"California's Premier Native Zoo and Garden

Founded in 1980 and opened to the public in 1983, CALM displays and interprets native California animals, plants, fossils, and artifacts to teach a respect for all living things through education, recreation, conservation, and research."

I wanted to go to make some peace with the rattlesnakes. We had a nice chat, and with the safety glass between us, I was comfortable. I enjoyed especially the pelican exhibit, the roadrunner, and the fox exhibit.

We got back to the rig about 3:00pm and having been doing some computer work - our Verizon wireless card works very well here - and just taking it easy...watched a few early episodes of Gray's Anatomy, and then fixed dinner.

When we checked in, we were given a coupon for a breakfast deal - buy one, get the second at 50% off - so we plan to enjoy the restaurant one more time tomorrow morning. They open at 7am, and then we head off to Laughlin for a few days. Tonight, we will catch the new CSI episode, and then I will flip a coin about whether to watch Project Runway or The Mentalist....probably The Mentalist as I can catch reruns of the PR episode tomorrow. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I've got the gambling books out - I need to refresh my memory on playing 3 card poker and pai gow.

Inside the Rig

2009-11-05T16:43:00.000-08:00

For those of you that asked, here are some inside shots. The door is about 1/3 back from the end of the overhang (front of the 5th wheel that hangs over the bed of the truck).

Entering the door and turning left to go up the stairs toward the bedroom at the front of the trailer.

The queen bed and the 'dresser' with 4 drawers and 3 cupboards (Middle cupboard houses the bedroom TV). Two full closets are to the right of the bed, and have mirrored doors (unable to get a picture without having a picture of me taking a picture of the closets).

After you come up the stairs, but before you reach the bedroom, the bathroom is on the left. Here is the 2 storage cabinets. If we had them, the washer and dryer would fit in one of the cabinets. I wanted the storage space instead of the washer and dryer. To the left of the storage is the shower. And to the left of shower is the vanity. I did not take a picture of the toliet, which is to the right of the cabinets, with a towel rack and a upper cabinet. You can use your imagination.

Back down the stairs, we have a cabinet and 4 drawers and the refrigerator/freezer, and kitchen.

To the left of the galley/kitchen, we have the pantry, and the cabinets that hold the audio/video equipment including the wireless printer. The flat screen TV is mounted on a cabinet door.

(This view is from my recliner)

To the right of the TV, is the dining table, which doubles as Kim's work/computer station.

Across from the dining area is Betsy's desk, which in this picture is unusually cleaned off.

And our relaxing areas - the recliners which face the TV, but also swivel so we can look out the back window whenever there is a worthy view.

I hope you enjoyed our little home tour. To give you a size idea, the rig is 33' long and has about 334 sq feet of living space with the slides out. The dining table and my desk are in the living room slides. The bed is part of the other slide, and when it is in, the bottom of the bed butts up to the dresser.

At some point, I may give tours of the 'basement'. LOL - this is what we call the storage area underneath the rig, where we store stuff - like tools, leveling blocks, tire chocks, hoses, electrical cords, and assorted stuff.

Day 3 - California Here We Come

2009-11-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

After a great night in Canyonville, we depared at 9am for Red Bluff, CA. Very foggy in the morning, and made the drive from Canyonville to Ashland a little scary for me....not that I was doing the driving, but still. At some points, we could not see a truck length in front of us. After crossing the border into California, we stopped by the rest area at the Klamath River for a picnic lunch. Blue skies and warmer weather - probably in the low 70s. Warning, however, the picnic benches are made of marble or marble like material, and our behinders got quite chilled. Good Verizon cell service, so I put in a call to our daughter in Snohomish with good reception.

Kim by the Klamath River at the Rest Stop just over the border into California

We had a beautiful view of Mt Shasta on the drive. These pictures were taken from inside the truck while we were driving.

We stopped for fuel outside of Redding and were surprised to find that the cost of diesel was higher than regular gas. Diesel has been less expensive in Washington and Oregon.

We arrived in Red Bluff about 3pm. Another 5 star resort here at Durango RV Resort. Easy access off I-5 (or as they say in California 'the' 5). You can see the freeway from the resort, but the traffic noise was not bad at all. You can hear it if you pay attention. There must a train track near by, because we heard the whistles at about 8pm and then again around 4:30am. Re the early morning whistle - I was already awake so I heard it. It's not loud, and I think I would have slept through it had I not already been up prepping for an early start. Beautiful grassy lots with cement pads. Nice big pool and smaller sized jacuzzi. We were in a pull through space #116. They have a nice club house with TV, books, games and a computer station. Restrooms were immaculate. I did not get a chance to check out the showers. Maybe before we head out this morning.

There is a nice pathway down to a walk along the Sacramento River.

Across the street, is the backside of a strip mall, so there is no heavy traffic. In the strip mall is a large grocery store, a few restaurants, a Hallmark store, a beauty salon and manicure salon. Gas/diesel is available nearby as well.

The resort is exactly as described on their website, http://www.durangorvresorts.com/

Today, we are off to Bakersfield where we will be spending 2 nights.

Day 2 - Canyonville, OR at 7 Feathers RV Resort

2009-11-03T07:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was an easy drive from Salem to Canyonville. I planned it that way to have time to explore this lovely resort. I understand the owners interviewed RVers to see what they wanted in a resort. This park is off the freeway, about 1/4 - 1/2 mile and is very, very quiet. We had a warm and friendly welcome, and there is a valet that drives you to your site, and guides you in.

The sites are large, with grassy areas in between, and nice picnic tables. We arrived about noon yesterday and it was warm enough to eat outside in the sunshine (I'd guess in the upper 60s). Our spot, #61, was great.

We walked the perimeter of the park. Lots of nice trees and a walkway along the creek. Watch out for poison oak, though.

There was one area behind the fitness center that had a strong sewer smell. Could have been that someone just dumped their tank, but I read a similar complaint on rvparkreviews.com early.

One thing I have to mention is the restrooms and showers. They were individualized - meaning each restroom was a private room with a shower and lockable door. Very nice. Large laundry with tables for folding clothes. $1.25 to wash, $1 to dry. We swam in the indoor pool and enjoyed the hot tub. Next time we come back, we will try out the fitness room which included treadmills, stairsteppers, a recumbant bicycle, universal gym and other equipment I couldn't identify. There was a TV to watch while exercising as well. There is a gift shop in the office, and a meeting area in the clubhouse.

We took the shuttle over to the 7 Feathers Casino for dinner and a little game time. There was a fairly good sized non-smoking gaming area (behind glass doors) but no live gaming tables. We played a little video keno for a bit. Contributed $5 over the 2 hours we played. If you visit, you are welcome to retrieve it and enjoy. We enjoyed an $8 dinner special of rib eye steaks, baked potatoes and fresh mixed vegetables. You could order a side salad for 99 cents, which we did. Be sure to ask about the specials. The waitresses don't always share that information. (That tip came from the shuttle driver!) The live keno game moved very slowly. I guess I should be thankful because our numbers were not coming up anyway. Only got 2 games in over dinner.

The parking valet called the shuttle for us, and it arrived quickly. He took us right to our rig. We took a few moments to really enjoy the brilliant and beautiful full moon and a sky full of twinkling stars before hitting the rack. Slept like a log!

We didn't set up the Direct TV dish, and can't comment on the cable TV because we are having cable issues on our end. The resort does offer a good variety of channels and free wifi. I used my Verizon wireless card and had good reception.

We used the Good Sam discount plus the Players Club discount from the casino, and our overnight came to $32. We will definitely stay here again.

Thanks to Kim's Aunt Maria for telling us about the resort.

Next stop, Red Bluff, California.

Day One - We Survived!

2009-11-02T07:14:00.000-08:00

The survived part is mostly about saying good bye to family for six weeks, sans tears, as we head out on our first big journey to Arizona. For those of you that have been asking, here are a few pictures taken just before we left Snohomish, WA yesterday morning at 8:51am. Kim's getting quite good at backing out of the driveway, and I'm glad to say we hit no curbs, no paper or mail boxes, and no plants along the driveway were injured in the backing out process.

Kim and Betsy with Truck and 5th Wheel getting ready to depart for Phoenix.

Betsy with grandpuppy, Sonny, before backing out of the driveway

Betsy goofing off with Sonny while Kim waits somewhat patiently off camera

We made a quick stop at Camping World in Fife, WA to pick up some water/sediment filters, tire covers, a book on cooking in foil on the barbeque, and a game of Farkle. (My facebook friends all play Farkle, and I guess I should learn how too - Although it looks alot like Yatzee to me). By the way, Camping World is Fife is not easy to find. You can see if from the freeway, but getting to it is another thing. The cross street is Willow. After that, just turn in the driveway with all the RVs. A sign would be a good thing.

Next stop was the Toutle River Safety Rest Area at mile post 55. As far as rest stops go, this one was very nice. Restrooms clean and plenty of stalls on the women's side. Kim used the head in the rig, so I cannot report on the Men's Room. Nice place to picnic - lots of well maintained grassy areas. If you are travelling with them, there is lots of room for the kids to run.

The leaves are all changing color, and it was a sunny day, so our ride was beautiful. It was surprised to see how built up the area was around Kelso, WA. This is where my grandparents lived when I was young. There was nothing there, but a small town, in my recollection. Now there is a mall! My how things change in 40 years - go figure!

Going through Portland on I-5 is always interesting. There is the big bridge across the Columbia River when you enter Oregon from the Washington side, and then there are bridges all around over the various tributaries. For me, it's nerve wracking in a regular car, but towing a 33' fiver (I'm learning the lingo here) made me nervous. Good thing I wasn't driving. Kim did fine, however.

We crossed the 45th Parallel - halfway between the Equator and the North Pole. It just makes me stop and think at how big Canada really is.

We pulled into the Phoenix RV Park about 3:30pm. It was about a mile from the freeway off ramp. The store and office were closed on Sunday, but there is a check in box, and our paperwork and map to our site was right there. We had space 97, a large pull through lot. Nice level, cement pad. We didn't even extend the stablizers for our one night stay. This park is lovely, when you consider it is not out in the country. Each site has a grassy area with picnic table and barbeque stand. We did a walk around the place, and were very impressed. There appears to be a lot of full timers here, and I can see why. The place is immaculate. The restrooms and showers were clean with good water pressure. In the lounge, there was a fairly new pool table, which got a 2 thumbs up from Kim. Also, exercise equipment (treadmill, stair stepper and universal gym) along with a large TV, and a few tables with jig saw puzzles. I didn't notice any traffic noise until I woke up this morning early, and even then it wasn't really loud. There is a big Safeway store next door and strip mall with a fabric/crafts store, a clothing and shoe store, a post office, a European foods store with deli (mostly Russian/Slavic from what I could tell) which had a nice selection of very large porcelain dolls, and a teriyaki/sushi bar. If I had reason to be in Salem for any length of time, I would definitely considering staying here.

Site 97 at Phoenix RV Park in Salem, Oregon

Today, we have a short drive day, only 160 miles to Canyonville, OR and the 7 Feathers RV Resort and Casino.

Three Days and Counting to our Launch

2009-10-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Today I am off to an "Until We Meet Again" lunch with some good friends in West Seattle. Kim is building me a desk that will fit perfectly in the slide. Tomorrow we hope to clear out one of the storage lockers, and finish up stowing the odds and ends. Saturday will be family day and the last loads of laundry. And then...

We leave Snohomish for Phoenix on Sunday. Plans will take us down I-5 to Salem, OR the first night. Then on through Canyonville, OR (Seven Feathers Casino - yay!), Red Bluff, CA, Bakersfield, CA, and then to Laughlin for a 2 day stay (Ask us if we like to gamble? LOL). Then we have a short trip to Ehrenberg, AZ for an overnight there, and on to Laveen, AZ where Kim's family lives. We will overnight there, and hopefully by the time we arrive, I will have figured out where to stay in the Phoenix area until Thanksgiving.

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Beachwood Resort - Birch Bay, Washington - Test Trip #2

2009-10-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

(Wow, where does time go. I meant to post this update the day we left home.)

Kim and I left our home base (the driveway of our daughter's home in Snohomish, WA) on Wednesday, and headed for the Beachwood Resort (a KM Resort) in Birch Bay, Washington. It only took Kim 3 tries to back out of the driveway. Each time, it is getting better and better. The use of our walk-talkies helped, and the fact that all the cars in the neighbor's driveway across the street were gone. It gave us more room to manuever. The driveway is curved a bit, and there are big bolders differentiating the garden area from the driveway. Anyway, Kim backed the rig out quicker than our prior tries, which is good because it was raining and I could not for the life of me find an umbrella.

And, stopping to pat ourselves on the back, we drove 'all' the way from Snohomish to Birch Bay (about 80 miles) without having to stop and make adjustments along the way! Things were anchored well in the bed of the truck. Steps and hand rail locked in their travelling position. Yay for us!

Birch Bay, Washington is a coastal town just 7 miles south of the US/Canadian Border. Lovely area, which is hopping busy in the summer, and pleasantly quiet during this time of year. It’s home to about 4,500 year-round residents, and in the summer population swells to over 12,000 people, with Birch Bay State Park recording over a million individual visits each year. It's a great place for a weekend getaway, or longer visit, with lots to do in the area. According to http://www.visitbirchbay.com/, "Birch Bay’s claim to fame is a large tide flat of sand several square miles in size that bares itself at low tide, and as the water creeps back in over the hot sand it warms to bath water temperatures in the summer." The town is quaint and a little funky. There are a combination of regular homes, beach cabins, RV resorts and new condominiums all mingled together. During the warmer times of the year, there is so much to do up here. As a family, we've vacationed up here many times, enjoying the clamming, the crabbing, the water slidees, the miniture golf, sand castle building, kite flying, and so on. The Semiahmoo Resort is host to a championship golf course, designed by golf legend Arnold Palmer. We don't golf, but people we know sing the praises of this course.

We took some time over the last few days to drive around a bit. Although, we had visited the area many times, there are always roads to find that you haven't explored, or to go over roads you have driven before but this time without the kids asking the famous question - "Are we there yet?". We drove the road along the water from Birch Bay up to Blaine. Some very lovely houses and estates along this drive. We drove over to Lynden, where the Dutch Heritage is very evident. What impressed me about Lynden was how clean it was. It didn't matter whether you were cruising the main drag or driving in the residential areas, community pride was very evident.

I'm always curious about what makes businesses help to support these smaller communities. What surprised me about Lynden was the number of vineyards! Apparently, this is becoming quite the popular growing area for wine connoisseurs. However, the major industries in the area seem to involve community support, such as schools and services.

The primary reason we chose to visit Birch Bay for our second test trip was because I was taking a Medical Intuitive course in Bellingham, Washington over the weekend. Bellingham is another fun place to visit. Home to Western Washington University, the city shows evidence of a younger population. Lots of great stores, restaurants, art galleries, shops, etc, along with all the major services one could need. We had some time between class events one afternoon, and drove out the Mount Baker Highway to the Nooksack Reservation and Casino. It was a lovely drive with all the fall colors. We didn't go into the casino, however. Both Kim and I love to gamble. We know better than to just go in for a look - we'd be there for hours, and I had a class to attend. Maybe another trip.

I did want to give my praises to the Beachwood Resort. http://www.kmresorts.com/resorts/beachwood The hosts were very friendly and helpful. There are over 250 spots to choose from. We parked in a pull-through at C11. The spot is good sized with full hook up and cable if you choose. We used our regular antenna for the first two nights because it was quite windy, but then put up our Direct TV satelitte dish and have had wonderful reception. We picked up only a few Canadian channels with the antenna, so I was happy to have the satellite working. (I'm a gambling loving TV junkie who is into spirituality, psychic work, healing and metaphysics - deal with it **wink**). Next time, I think we would try for a back in spot (now that Kim's skills are improving) in the G section. The spaces are bigger and better defined. The rest rooms,showers (free with good water pressure) laundry and tent camping areas were clear and well kept. They have a nice big store (propane available). Three pools (a children's pool, an adult pool and a family pool) plus a hot tub/jazucci. There is an adult clubhouse with pool table (unfortunately it had a big tear in cloth) and ping pong table in a separate room, a little too close together if you are an exuberant ping pong player. There are horse shoe pits, volleyball, basketball and tennis courts, as well as a soccer/baseball field, and play area for kids. Apparently there is a gold driving range as well, but I haven't seen it yet.

There are some permanent residents here, as well as what appears to be long term campers. Everyone is very friendly, and very quiet. We are definitely giving this stay a 4 thumbs up!

Gremlins Came A Calling

2009-10-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

Woke up the other morning noticing that it was rather warm and the furnace was still running. Got up to look at the digital thermostat and saw that it was set for 98 degrees!! It was up to about 74 degrees inside so I reset it to 68 degrees and made myself a cup of coffee and set about the business of waking up, which means I'm sitting in my recliner with my eyes closed, rousing from time to time to have a sip of coffee, hopefully before it gets too cold. As I'm sitting there, contemplating life, I notice the electric tea kettle sits on the counter right next to the thermostat. I'm thinking the steam it gives off must have gotten into the thermostat and the moisture must have shorted out the electronics. I also noticed that the furnace had been running for a while again so I got up to have a look and see that the set temperature has crept up to 76 degrees. I reset the temperature to 68 and watched it creep up to 76 again. Definately something going on. A close eyeball inspection doesn't reveal anything obviously wrong and an email to the manufacturer echoes my thoughts of 'try resetting it and if that doesn't work it must be defective". Off I go to the big box hardware store and pick out a new thermostat. Our trailer has a gas furnace and a roof-top A/C with an optional "heat pump" feature which is a heat strip so I need a thermostat that can handle the extra functions plus, as long as I'm getting a new one, one that is programable. My only choice was one made by Honeywell, an RTH 7500. Following the instructions I begin the simple task of replacing the thermostat. Wait. Did I say simple? The instructions have you mark the old wires so you can match them to the new thermostat. Ok, got that, but wait, the colors and markings don't coincide with the new thermostat's. For example, the new thermostat has a connection for a blue or orange wire (don't have an orange one) that controls the change-over valve for either heat or cool. My blue wire is the common or -12 vdc and I don't have a change over valve either. To make this long story shorter, after several hours on the internet I gleaned enough information to make the connections needed to get the furnace running again. I think I have the wires connected to the right terminals now but because we are currently camped in our daughter's driveway and I can't run the A/C on the 15amp circuit we are on I haven't been able to try out the other functions. That will have to wait until we are camped somewhere with at least a 30 amp hook-up. I'm just glad we have heat for now since the temperature at night is in the low 50's to high 40's.

The Trip Home

2009-10-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

We left Cheney on Wednesday. Packed up fairly quickly. Got on I-90 headed west without problem. A few miles down the road, we noticed the ice chest and the outdoor carpet in the bed of the truck were bouncing around. We pulled off so Kim could tie them down with the extra bungee cords we had packed. He went into the 5th wheel to get a few bottles of water for the cab of the truck. Back on the freeway. Oops, left the handrail folded open. Pulled off at the next exit to fix that. Back on the road. Going all, listening to a book on cd. Kim looked back and even though it was tied down, the ice chest was flopping around again. Pulled over again, unhook the ice chest, stow it in the basement. Re-secure the carpet. Back on the road.

We decided to stop and pull into the scenic outlook to the Gingko Petrified Forest just before the bridge at Vantage. Took a stroll down to read the information plaques (affirming that we would meet no rattlesnakes on the trail) and enjoy the lovely view. Back on the road. I suggested stopping at the rest area at Vantage for lunch, but apparently the rest area was moved. As a kid, I had made many trips to Moses Lake and Spokane, and I could have sworn the rest area was right there in Vantage. Whether they moved the rest area, or my memory is faulty (God forbid), it was up at the top of the hill. BTW, this is a very long hill. We had to slow down to about 40-45 mph. Made it to the rest stop. Way too windy to eat outside, so we quickly made some sandwiches and ate in the truck.

Just outside of CleElum, we look back, and the box with the TV satellite is bouncing around in the bed of the truck. Pull over again, at the next exit, get box, put inside of RV. Get back on freeway. Oh oh - looked in the mirror - Handrail is out again. Pull over, again, at the next exit, secure handrail. Vow to make checkoff list for future trips.

We managed to make the rest of the drive without stopping. We are home for 2 weeks, and then head to Blaine/Birch Bay, for our second practice trip.

Under The Heading of Good To Know

2009-09-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

The plug in for the electric tea kettle, the plug in for the UPS (uninterrupted power supply for the laptops) and the plug in we used for the space heater are all on the same breaker. Or were. Today I learned where the breaker switches are. Moved the space heater plug to a different outlet.

Update: Outlet in the bathroom that I 'used' for my hair dryer is also on the same breaker.

So we can have heat and hot water, or heat and power to the laptops, or laptops and tea, or dry hair and some heat, or any combination of 2 things. Two, not three. Good to know!

A Delightful Day For A Drive

2009-09-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

A nice night's sleep. A beautiful sunrise. Great morning.

We stopped in to visit briefly with my uncle here in Spokane, and then headed out for a "Saturday afternoon drive" on Monday morning. We went eastbound on Highway 2 up to Newport, Washington to take a look at another KM Resort - Old American Kampground. It was a little more rustic than Ponderosa Falls where we are currently camping, but there were some very nice spots along the Pend Orielle River. Not alot for the kids to do, but since we don't have any kids with us, it was very appealing. And the preserve host was an absolute delight, taking the time to talk with us about the area, and give us suggestions on which route to take down to Couer D'Alene.

We drove down to Spirit Lake, and turned off the highway to the boat ramp. There was a road that appeared to go all around the lake....emphasis on the word "appeared". It didn't show it on the AAA Map, but it did show an alleged road on the GPS. Ten miles down the winding narrow road, crossing our fingers that we wouldn't run into any logging trucks, we came to the end of paved road. Prior experience with logging roads told us to turn around and go back, which we did. Spirit Lake is very lovely and pristine and I'm glad we took the side trip.

We took Highway 54 (this would be Idaho Highway 54), and then went south on Highway 95 to Couer D'Alene. I had wanted to explore the area, but it was getting late, and we had one more stop at the R and R RV Store in Liberty Lake and then wanted to say Good Night to my uncle. So today, all we saw of this lovely resort town just over the Washington Idaho border was a few malls. Maybe tomorrow.

For now, the grill is being prepped for burgers, and I'm off to cut up some fruit.

Inaugural Voyage

2009-09-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it! For those of you that wondered if we were ever going to get out of the driveway, we did it. The funny part was that getting out of said driveway was the hardest part of the journey. We left Snohomish yesterday about 11am - just an hour later than we had planned. We headed for Spokane. We headed east on WA State HWY 2, turned south on Hwy 203 to Carnation, then Fall City, Preston and finally east bound on I-90. We stopped at the Rest Area outside of CleElum for potty breaks and lunch.

One of the pleasant surprises on the trip was that in one area of agriculture - there were signs on the fences saying what crops were planted there. It would have been even better earlier in the year when the crops were still growing, but still it was nice. A new crop to me was 'green manure'. From Wikipedia, " In agriculture, a green manure is a type of cover crop grown primarily to add nutrients and organic matter to the soil. Typically, a green manure crop is grown for a specific period, and then plowed under and incorporated into the soil." Who knew? Here I thought it would be harvested and then blended in with other stuff and sold in bags at the garden centers.

We pulled into Ponderosa Falls, a KM resort, just after 5pm. It took 3 tries to getting the right number of levelling blocks, but other than that, things went without a hitch. Beginner's luck? Probably.

Ghosts, Gremlins or A Reasonable Explanation

2009-09-25T05:19:00.000-07:00

It's Autumn. It's getting cold at night. Have I mentioned that every time the propane furnace kicks on, it wakes me up? We have the thermostat set at 67 degrees. Last night, it must have been hovering around 66 because the furnace would start and stop, start and stop. I'd just drift back to sleep, and whammo, the furnace kicked on. And of course, it's not just one noise - it's two. First the burner, then the furnace. So about 1:30am, I get up and lower the thermostate to 65. Furnace clicks off, and I jump back into bed, hoping to be a happy camper. At 3:34am, furnace clicks on again. I rolled over, laying on my back, with the thoughts going through my head, "It's just a noise, it will stop soon. No, you don't smell propane. It's just your imagination. Surely, it's up to 65 by now. It's just a hot flash. Take some deep breaths. It will pass. No, really, it's got to be warmer than 65 now." By this time, I've tossed, turned, kicked off the comforter, kicked off the sheet. I've tried sleeping on my back, on my belly, on my right side, on my left side. No, no, no, I don't want to get up again. Okay, it's frigging hot in here. I get up to check the thermostat. It's set for 98 degrees! What? How did that happen? I tried to turn it down, and I can get the digits to go down to 65, but the minute I try to set it there, it flips back to 98 degrees.

Okay, that did it. Time for Kim to wake up and do whatever it is that men do to fix things. Personally, I think it may be a gremlin. Or maybe my Dad is visiting from beyond the grave. I have been smelling cigarette and pipe smoke recently. While Kim is reading through the owners manual, and researching thermostat problems on the internet, I'm calling on my angels and asking for some help. I need some sleep!

You Learn Something New Every Day

2009-09-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

Woke up yesterday morning, and thought it was a tad cooler than normal. We have the thermostat set at about 65 degrees at night. When the propane furnace kicks on, it wakes me up. I hope it is a noise that I will learn to sleep through, and even more I hope we will not be staying places that we will need the furnace anyway.

But yesterday, I got up a bit early, and was doing fine, sitting in my chair, wrapped in a blanket, attempting to doze. I eventually gave up and went to heat some water for tea. I noticed the thermostat read 61 degrees. I thought maybe Kim had dropped the temperature down to 60 degrees so I could sleep through the night. I kept trying to set the temperature to 67. I just couldn't get it to go past 61 though.

So I drug out the owners manual - big old 3 ring binder - and started to read up about the furnace and the thermostat. I couldn't find anything to help me get it to work.

It finally occured to me that maybe we were out of propane. I knew how to turn on the water heater, so I pushed that button. I could hear it try to light, but it never clicked on. On the 3rd try, the red light came on. Oh, okay, no propane. So I woke Kim up to go check on it, and to switch to the second tank. (You may recall, I don't do anything with the propane).

The thing we learned - the primary tank automatically switches to the secondary tank when the primary tank is empty. Here we thought we were doing so well, only using a little propane here and there. I was so thrilled it was lasting so long. I wasn't really surprised to find out that we had gone through both tanks. Must be intuition, because it sure as heck wasn't from experience.

It was 8am, and Kim was off in search of propane. The local Shell station had removed their propane tank. The 76 Station had one, but the guy that billed tanks didn't come in until 10:30. On to the next stations, nope no propane. Another one where the propane guy wasn't in yet. Kim stopped at the local Permagas dealer. No luck, they only did commercial accounts. Finally it dawned on him that the local farm co-op probably had propane. They did, and the two tanks were filled. That little excusion only took 2 hours.

But now we know. And next time, hopefully we will be in an RV park that offers propane delivery! In the meantime, we have hot water. It was 90 degrees today, so the furnace was not necessary. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not - LOL. 90 degrees is a little too hot for me!

New Tires for the Rig and A Stop At The Truck Scales

2009-09-16T09:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I went to get new tires for the 5th wheel trailer. From reading RV forums I notice some people give their rigs a name. Maybe we can have a "name that rig" contest? I digress. After shopping around, and with budget constraints in mind, I settled on Les Schwab's and their Toyo brand LT235/85R-16 Open Country H/T All Position. Since they are for a trailer, there was no need for a traction type tread design and I had read that the straighter tread patterns were better than the staggered tread. One reason for choosing Les Schwab is that they are all over the country so we have a pretty good chance of finding one while traveling if the need should arise. I can't comment on the Toyo's just yet. I'll have to see how they hold up before making a comment on them.
This was the first trip out of the driveway since we got the trailer and my first foray into the wonderful world of backing up. It only took 4 tries. Betsy was the spotter, making sure I didn't back into or run over anything and did an excellent job for her first time. We plan to get a set of walkie-talkies to improve communications for those times when the spotter is not in view of the driver.

One thing that has been weighing on my mind (pun intended) is how much does all this stuff weigh. The truck has a maximum hauling capacity called GVWR (I'm not going to get into that as their are several other ratings and factors involved and you can google it if you really want to know) and the trailer axles are also rated for their maximum capacity as well as the tires. So, on my way to get the new tires, I made a quick detour into a small truck weigh station that isn't often open. I had checked it out the week before and you can see the scale readout through the glass in the door of the office. It doesn't have the split weighing platforms that the more popular weigh stations do but I managed to get several key weights recorded and was relieved to see we are still well under the maximum load ratings. I'll need to make one more trip to the scales to weigh the truck by itself so I can see what the weight is on the rear axle when it's unloaded so I can calculate the trailer pin weight. The pin is the part of the trailer that locks into the hitch in the bed of the truck. The pin weight is how much of the trailer weight is supported by the truck and is part of figuring the truck's loaded weight. ie: If the truck is rated to carry 3000lbs and the pin weight is 2500 lbs then you are 500 lbs under the maximum rated capacity. Other factors involved are weight of driver and passengers, fuel and any personal belongings. It all adds up really quickly. Just a couple of things here, a favorite widget, a few books, DVD's and you've added a couple hundred pounds or more.

New Tires for the 5th Wheel

2009-09-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

We made our first trip out of the driveway. Kim just left with the rig for Les Schwab in Lake Stevens for some new tires. Considering this was our first experience with backing up, there were no angry words exchanged. It was an easy back up out of the driveway, and then a 3 point turn on our cross street.

And I drove! Okay, I backed up about 20 feet in a straight line. I heard 'noises' coming from the rig. Sounded to me like a parking break not released. But I'm not a 'noise' specialist. Kim thinks the springs just need greasing.

We'll go with his assessment for the moment.

What's That Beeping Noise By The Propane Detector?

2009-09-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday's lesson in what can go wrong. Earlier that morning I thought I smelled a whiff of propane, but it wasn't the first time, and after checking the usual places I didn't find anything suspicious. Just to be sure I got out the spray bottle of soapy water and sprayed all the propane fittings. Nothing. Ok, no big deal. Then, a few hours later, getting on to around 1-2pm, I heard a 'beep,beep'. I glanced at the propane detector and the green light was still steady so I figured it must be the battery wearing out in the smoke detector so I checked it out and it appeared to be functioning normally. As I was putting the smoke detector back on the ceiling I heard the beeping sound behind me and as I turned to look at the propane detector I saw the the green light flashing! But still no propane smell. After checking the user's manual for the detector it said that low batteries could cause a false signal so I went to check the trailer's 2 12v batteries. They both checked out ok so I went back to the detector with my test meter and discovered that there now wasn't any power to the detector. What?!! It was just on a minute ago. Ok, so back to the batteries to do some more checking. Both batteries still showing 13.5 volts. I noticed some more wiring with in-line fuses and started to inspect them. When I was tugging on one of them I heard the propane detector beeping again. I went and looked and the green light was back on. Hmmm? I went back to the wiring and wiggled it some more and heard it beep again. My conclusion is that because the wiring was stretched fairly tightly that due to the outside temperature being higher than usual that after the trailer had gotten really warm and expanded that the spring loaded contact in the in-line fuse separated far enough to lose contact and that's what caused the intermittent beeping. Go figure!

Satellite TV Installation

2009-09-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we got satellite TV installed in the 5th wheel. We decided to go with Directv. The technician showed up this morning about 9am. First he set up the dish and tripod and using his expensive satellite finder homed it in on the proper satellite. Next he installed the cables and ran them into the trailer using flat wire adapters. The adapters go through a window opening and then you can close (almost) the window. Next we went inside to set up the satellite receiver/DVR box. Again, this only took a few minutes to make up the inside satellite cables to the receiver box, plug in the video and audio cables to the TV and plug in the box. After turning everything on it went through a self-initialization process and downloaded a system upgrade and, Ta da, we now have satellite TV. We got the DVR option so we can pre-record our favorite programs. We had this option when we had Comcast cable and really liked being able to record and then watch programs at a more convenient time. Plus you can record one program while watching another.

LCD Flat Panel TV installation

2009-09-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

Our new LCD flat panel TV arrived via UPS the other day. I bought it on-line through TigerDirect. It's a 32" Toshiba and it came packaged with a simple tiltable wall mount and HDMI cable. He reason behind replacing the perfectly good Motorola TV was that it was heavier and took up the entire cabinet in the built-in entertainment center. By making a door to enclose the cabinet and mounting the LCD TV to that I gained all the cabinet room for other stuff, like our HP All-In-One printer.
First I removed the trim frame that went around the original opening. It is made out of solid wood so it is pretty sturdy. I then got a piece of 3/4" A/C plywood and cut it to closely fit the cabinet opening. After some careful measuring and aligning I attached the plywood to the back side of the trim frame to created a door. I then attached the door to the cabinet with a piano hinge. I used some brass screw inserts and machine screws to attach the hinge so it would be stronger. The TV wall mount was then bolted through the plywood and the other part of the mount attached to the TV. The TV then just hooks to the top of the mount and the bottom has latches to secure it. I drilled some 1" diameter holes in the plywood and the bottom of the inside shelf to run all the necessary wiring.
With the tiltable mount and opening the new door part way the new TV is now adjustable for the best viewing angle.
Watched a DVD and so far everything is looking good. Now it's time to order Directv satellite service.

The Macerator Pump and Emptying The Black Water Tank

2009-09-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

Since RVing is new to us I don't have any experience draining the blackwater tank which would also require moving the trailer. I also haven't had much experience towing it or, especially, backing it up. To go to a dump station would require stowing all the stuff we've been haphazardly piling in, retracting the slide-outs, disconnecting electrical power, and hitching up the truck and since the tank was starting to get full I was really interested when I read about using a macerator pump which reduces everything to a slurry and can be pumped through a 5/8" garden hose into a sewer clean-out or even through a window in the house and into a toilet. I did some research on-line a bought a portable macerator pump that just twists onto the sewer outlet just like the hose normally would. After a few mis-tries I got the wiring run and everything looked like it was ready to go. Since we didn't have the sewer clean-out option we went for the toilet. Betsy is outside with the hand-held switch for the macerator and I'm inside holding the hose in the toilet. After a few false starts while testing with fresh water, in which we discovered the knife gate valve leaked, we finally started pumping the crud. I expected some odor, but WOW!!!, that was bad. Stunk up the whole house! In retrospect I believe I could have pushed the hose all the way down the toilet a few feet and not have had to deal with all the aroma. Even thought the instructions say you can pump into a toilet they don't go into much detail. If I try this again and pushing the hose further down works I'll let you know.

Gray Water Leak

2009-09-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

Learning new lessons the hard way. Last week, I got the gray water tank drain hose set up and drained the two gray water tanks. One for the kitchen and one for the bathroom. The toilet has it's own, separate holding tank called a black water tank. So I got the gray water tanks drained and decided to fill the tanks and drain them again just to sort of flush them out. No idea how long the trailer sat before we bought it. I started running water into the two tanks by turning on the water faucets in the kitchen and bathroom. I figured it would take a while to fill and I went into the house to get some things. I don't think I was gone more than 10 minutes and when I came back outside I immediately noticed water pouring out underneath like rain in a downpour. Panic!! I ran inside to shut off the faucets and was glad to see there wasn't any water inside the trailer. I went back outside and looked under. The entire under side is enclosed with panels. Darn, now I'll have to remove a panel to see how much water is underneath. Oh, well. I was going to pull a panel anyway to run wiring for the new macerator pump I bought (That will be another post). Since the water had stopped pouring out I didn't feel compelled to immediately remove a panel so I let it go for the night. The next day I got underneath and started removing screws to cautiously lower one side of the panel to see if any water was still up there. Wouldn't you know, the propane piping is right there and I had to remove all the clamps holding it in place in order to gently pry it out of the way to lower the edge of the panel. The panels are flexible so it was pretty easy to get it back and out from under the propane piping. Fortunately, the water had all drained out and everything was dry. I'm guessing the kitchen gray water tank, which is only 28 gallons, overflowed through it's vent. After that episode there hasn't been any further mishaps.

AC/DC Distribution Panel

2009-09-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone.

Last week’s project was installing a new AC/DC distribution panel and DC to AC converter with a built-in battery charger. For those of you not familiar with the terms AC is like the electricity in your house and DC is what you get from batteries. RV's have both types of electrical systems so if you are not somewhere where you can plug into house electrical (AC) you can use battery power (DC). Up to a point.

Some things you just still need AC for and that's where the DC to AC converter comes in. It takes
DC (battery power or 12 volts) and converts it to AC (house power or 110 volts) for those things
that you just have to have such as an electric coffee maker, hairdryer, etc.

As is typical with most projects it took longer than I anticipated. Whereas the new unit fit in the same place as the old one the mounting holes were different, the places in the housing where the wiring went through were in different places and I was reminded yet again that my memory isn't as sharp as it once was so that when I got to the last couple of wires I'm scratching my head wondering "now where did these go". A little further investigating and reading the installation guide and voila, it's all done.

Now for the moment of truth. Turn the battery shut off back on. So far so good. Now plug the AC 110 volt back in.......yes! it works!

Nothing blew, everything works as it did before. Sometimes I amaze even myself. Even after 30+ years of marriage Betsy is still amazed at times. Her father who was a doctor was challenged by your typical household maintenance problems and they always called a professional when anything went haywire so she still has that in the back of her mind when ever I say "I can do that myself and save us a bunch of money". Not that she hasn't had cause to roll her eyes a time or two, but that will have to be another story.

K/M Resorts

2009-09-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

The offices of K/M Resorts is about a mile from Camping World in Fife, Washington. http://www.kmresorts.com/

So a little back story before I continue. My mom and dad had a long time membership with NACO/Thousand Trails. I'm not sure how that happened as my parents were not campers. My dad liked to fish, but otherwise you were more likely to find him inside reading than outside doing anything else. I'm guessing my mom played the fishing card to get him to agree to the membership. Sadly, he never had a chance to use the membership before he passed away. My mom did use the resorts once a year to prepare her income taxes (no phones, no TV - this was before cell phones and satellite TV) and occasionally to take the grandkids camping for a weekend. She only used the rental trailers that were on-site at the reserves. When my mom's health deteriorated, she gave her membership over to me. By this time, our kids were over 18, and both Kim and I were busy working most of the time. I did a lot of traveling. We just never got around to using the membership. I knew we would, at some point, be buying a rig and traveling around the US and Canada, so I hung on to it, paying the approximately $500 dues each year. It's been 5 years now.

Once we knew we were definitely buying a rig, I called NACO/Thousand Trails about what resorts/reserves were available to us, and other details about full time RVing. Imagine my surprise to find out, that if you read the fine print, if you buy or are gifted a membership from another party, after 3 years, the membership reverts back to a bare minimum basic account. I had access to only the original NACO resorts. No access to Thousand Trails. No access to Leisure Time Resorts. And when I asked to talk to someone at NACO about options, there was no one available to answer my questions. I was told there were meetings about upgrading memberships that were held from time to time. I was peeved that I should have to upgrade a membership that was already at the highest level when it was purchased. It losts its level because it was given to me. I'll admit it was in the fine print, but it was never mentioned when my mom called to inquire about transfer of membership. Why was that?

We sat down at the offices of K/M Resorts with Kevin Bibeau. Long story short, after describing all the benefits and resort affiliates available through K/M Resorts, and answering my many questions, we got down to talking about money and costs. We did receive the $2000 credit for purchasing our 5th wheel from Poulsbo RV, and we were offered a very fair trade in value for the limited NACO membership. Kim and I asked for a few moments to confer, and after some very quick cost comparisons we figured the membership would pay for itself within 6 months. Yes, there will be annual dues, but I was already paying more than K/M Resort dues to NACO for far less benefits.

So we took a deep breath, and wrote out a check. Now normally, I don't spend that kind of money without taking a day to think about it. And I will say that Kevin did not use the high pressure "This is a one time only offer. Sign today or the deal's off" tactic. If he had, I would have walked out the door. This sales experience was very low key. The facts were laid out. All my questions and concerns were answered. (Thanks to NACO, I knew some appropriate questions to ask). Did we make the right decision? I think so. I'm very happy with the investment.

If you are looking at an RV Resort Membership, we'd like to refer you to Kevin Bibeau at K/M Resorts. Phone number is 800.392.5722. The K/M Resort website is http://www.kmresorts.com/ Tell Kevin that Kim and Betsy Brown referred you. We do get some credit for referrals. For every referral that attends a presentation, we receive a $25 gift certificate to Olive Garden. If memberships are purchased from those presentations, we receive a $100 cash for the first referral, $200 cash for the second referral, and our Dues Waived For Life for the third referral. I'm aiming for the Dues Waived For Life level. It will take the sour taste about NACO, and all the dues I paid to them, away I'm sure!

So give Kevin a call and listen to what he has to say. We were extremely pleased with his service!

What's Next? A Trip to Camping World

2009-09-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, we drove down to Camping World in Fife, Washington. (I'm doing blog catch up this weekend). I've seen the store from the freeway everytime we drive through Fife, and have always wanted to go in and see what they had. Why? I have no idea. We were not campers, although the idea of camping was appealing. Kind of like the idea of having a farm is appealing. With farming, there is a lot of work involved and I recognize that the farming lifestyle is probably not for me. For one thing, I'm pretty lazy. But camping, on the other hand, sounds like much more my style.

Anyway, back to Camping World. http://www.campingworld.com/stores/stores.cfm?store=45 Heading south down I-5, we took the first Fife Exit by the Poodle Dog Restaurant. Now if that brings smiles to your face, I'm guessing you are getting close to retirement age. The Poodle Dog Restaurant was a landmark in 1950s and 1960s, and honestly, I was surprised to see it was still there. We drove up and down Pacific Highway South, and just couldn't find where Camping World was. Lesson learned - print up directions before you leave so you know where you are going. Just because you can see it from the freeway, doesn't mean you can see if from the surface streets.

In need of a restroom, we finally stopped at a Dairy Queen, used the facilities, had lunch and Kim asked a gal waiting in the drive-through line if she knew where Camping World was. Thank You Universe for all the nice people on earth. This gal worked for the local Harley Davidson dealer, and people often stopped in and ask how to get to Camping World. She told us that the cross street is Willows. Incidently, there are no signs that say Camping World with arrows (a shout out the folks a Camping World - signs would be helpful!). Even driving down Willows, there was no sign showing which driveway to turn into. We ended up just following the line of motor homes turning into a driveway. Yay, we finally made it to Camping World.

Now, neither Kim nor I are shoppers. I enjoy wondering the aisles at the grocery store, and I'm not sure Kim enjoys wondering aisles anywhere, including hardware or automotive stores. I was surprised when Kim agreed to walk up and down all the aisles with me. You just never know what you might find. Oh, we found plenty. We found RV Camping books, we found wheel chocks, a dish drainer that fits in one of the sinks, domed food covers, an interesting ice cube bottle, an inline water filter, and some watermelon licorice (the last one being for the our pregnant daughter).

As we were leaving, we stopped to chat with a gal from K/M Resorts. We were laughing because we found brochures up at Poulsbo RV that were promoting a give away of a "brand new 2006 Jeep Cherokee". We asked how many miles this new 2006 Jeep had on it, or if it had just been stored for 3 years. During our chat, she asked us if we had a rig, and we shared that we had just bought one from Poulsbo RV. She asked if we received our $2000 one year free membership to K/M Resorts. Nope, didn't recall that. Then the next thing I knew we were following her to the offices of K/M Resorts to get this free membership.

PS: I wonder what would have happened if we had gone to the Camping World in Burlington, Washington, which is actually closer to where we are currently parked in Snohomish. I didn't know there was a Camping World in Burlington at the time of our visit, but apparently Kim did. Sheesh!

Getting Set Up

2009-09-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

Ah, here we are, at our 'home park' - aka the driveway of our house in Snohomish. Our daughter, Erin, and her family moved into our house when we moved to Hawaii in January. We didn't plan to move back into the house completely, so we took over the spare bedroom. Now we are moving out of the spare bedroom and into the 5th wheel. With all 3 tipouts out, we just fit. With the stairs down, we can either hop sideways onto the pavement, or out a bit and onto the grass, avoiding the flower beds that line the driveway.

It was late in the afternoon when we got back, and I had promised to make meatloaf for dinner. Erin is pregnant with her first child, and she thought meatloaf sounded good. Anxious to keep the little mama happy, I took off for the kitchen, leaving Kim to do the set up.

I am not a mechanical person. I was barely listening when we did the walk through at Poulsbo RV. Kim and Jerry (the RV Tech) talked the same language. It would have added 3 hours to the process for them to dummy down the conversation so I had a clue. At some point, Kim will have to walk me through all the how-to's. In the meantime, I know the switches for the hotwater tank, how to flush the toliet, how to move the slides in and out, and which switches go to which lights, and which lights don't have switches. Oh, and I can raise and lower the shades and the windows, open and close drawers, as well as the refrigerator and freezer. Did I mention I was an RV Virgin? Did I mention I can count the number of times I've been camping on the fingers of one hand? Just when I thought I knew something - like lifting up on the drawers to pull them out - things change. In this RV, you just pull straight out - hard. If you lift it up, you pull if off the tracks.

While I have very minimal experience with trailers, 5th wheels and motor homes, I do have plenty of experience in moving. And I know the very first thing I wanted to do was make the bed up. That way, when I knew I was pooped and about to fall asleep, I didn't have to stop to make the bed first. I didn't, however, know where we had packed our sheets and comforter. Oh well, I just stripped the ones off the bed we used in the spare bedroom, and used those for the time being.

We actually watched a movie on the dvd, and then it was lights out. Day one complete.

Picking Up The 5th Wheel and the Drive Home

2009-09-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

Betsy and I went to Poulsbo RV in Everett, WA last Saturday to pick up our new-to-us 5th wheel trailer. It’s a HitchHiker II LS 32.5 UKTG (UK= U shaped kitchen/ TG= triple glides or slide outs). It’s 33 feet long and didn’t look quite so big until we backed the truck up to the hitch. Compared to the truck it’s pretty big.

The tech at Poulsbo RV gave us an hour and a half orientation on how everything works and then we were ready to go. I guess. Betsy remembered the tech showing us how to put one of the glides out about a foot or so so we could get to the back window to tape on our temporary license and asked me about it just before I was going to pull out. We looked and sure enough, no license. We tracked down our salesman and he said he was sure it had one, it was good until 2010. We went to look and he asked the tech where the license went. It was out of state and they took it off. We ended up getting new WA state license for free.

Pulling out of Poulsbo RV you have to cross Evergreen Way, a four lane street with center turn lane and, of course I needed to turn left. Fortunately, traffic was pretty light that day and I easily got across and headed in the right direction. Thankfully the diesel engine in the Ford F250 has plenty of pulling power and it was no problem keeping up with traffic. Staying inside the white lines was another matter but no one honked so I guess I was ok. Just before we got on the freeway I noticed in the rear view mirror that one of the storage doors was open so I found a nice wide shoulder to pull over on and secured it and gave everything else the once over and away we went. Again the diesel engine quickly and easily got us up to speed and everything was hunky dory, that is until I hit a stretch of road that had grooves worn in the pavement from years of use. The truck’s steering is a little sloppy and I over-corrected a couple of times before it settled down and was tracking straight again. Still managed to stay in my lane and hopefully didn’t freak out the other drivers too much.

I did a Google search about the steering problem and learned it has been a problem with Ford trucks for several years running now and no fix in sight. Ford is apparently adopting the “if you ignore it maybe it will go away” method for correcting their design flaw. We’ll see once we start traveling. There’s lots of Fords on the highway so maybe it’s just a matter of getting used to the quirks.

RETURN TO THE MAINLAND

2009-08-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Four months went by in a flash. July 28th was here before I knew it. We were headed home. Our plan was to stay with our daughter and her family for a few months. We had given ourselves that amount of time to search for an RV we could afford, and make our travel plans. We planned to explore the area between our hometown of Snohomish, WA and Phoenix, AZ, where a number of Kim’s family members lived. We figured it would take 2-3 months to find the motor-home we wanted.

Well, let me tell you, when the Universe supports your intentions, boom - things happen. The first day we went window shopping for an RV, we found one we really liked. We had started looking at Class A Motor Homes. We saw a number we really liked, but we out of our budget range. Kim had once talked about getting a 5th wheel, but I said no. I wanted to have a small tow vehicle.

Well, never say never. We were looking at various options at Poulsbo RV, in Everett, Washington. http://www.poulsoborv.com/ Bob Anderson was the salesman we were dealing with. He patiently showed us a number of options, and just as we were narrowing things down, I thought it would be a good idea to look at 5th wheels just in case. I hadn’t been in a 5th wheel rig in about 20 years, and let me tell you, things have changed.

So it was back to square one. I much preferred the feeling of a 5th wheel. We found one we liked at the Everett location. It was brand new and really maxed out our budget allotment. Bob looked online and found one he thought we’d like up at the Mount Vernon store. We took a drive up there, looked at it, and knew it was the one. The ceilings were higher, and it had a more spacious layout. It felt more like a home. A much littler home than I was used to, but a home nonetheless.

Next stop, a truck to pull it with. We made a few calls, checked a few websites, and found a Ford F-250 Super Cab LB SRW truck at Bickford Motors, right in our home town. http://www.bickford.net/ Our salesman was Dan Hudson, and before I knew it, we were the proud owners of a new (to us) truck.

A quick trip to the bank for two cashier’s checks, and we had our rig or rigs. I’m learning the lingo here. Apparently the 5th wheel is a rig. The truck itself is a rig. And together in combination the truck and 5th wheel trailer is a rig. If Kim’s Aunt Maria and Uncle Bill were travelling with us in their motor home, we would then have a traveling caravan of rigs – I guess. Like I say, I'm still learning the lingo.

And to top it all off, I knew the Universe and Angels were with us because the truck color (Arizona Beige Metallic) matched the trim on the 5th Wheel , which by the way is a NuWa Hitchhiker II 32.5 UKTG LS – translated for other virigins means it is made by NuWa, the model is Hitchhiker II and it is 32.5 feet long with a U shaped kitchen and triple glides. Glides apparently are the same thing as slide outs. We have two in the ‘living room’ and one in the ‘bedroom’.

The process of finding and purchasing the rig, which we thought would take a few months, took less than 2 weeks, from “We’ll take it” to “Holy crap – we have to drive this home now?” I actually suggested that they deliver it for us, but apparently that wasn’t in the cards. It was a matter of just jumping in and doing it. Or rather for Kim to jump in and do it, and for Betsy to follow behind in the little Ford Focus thinking there is no way in hell she will ever be driving that thing!

THE HISTORY

2009-08-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

In late 2008, my husband Kim and I decided to try living in Hawaii. At that time, I was the Program Administrator for Angel Therapy Inc/Doreen Virtue LLC. There were a number of classes being held in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii the next year, and it appeared I would be traveling from the Seattle area to Kona almost monthly in 2009. Our children were grown and on their own. There were no grandchildren on the horizon, and we weren’t expecting any for 1-2 years. Kim, who had retired from the commercial fishing industry, and was currently working as a photocopy repair technician, left his job to come with me to Hawaii. Sounds like a dream, right? We packed up our household belongings and put them in storage. Our daughter and her family moved into our house, and we hopped a plane to Kailua-Kona, off on a new adventure.

The only thing certain in life, aside from death and taxes, is change. Two months later, change happened. I parted ways with the company I had worked for. Kim and I found ourselves scratching our heads and thinking, “Okay, what’s next?” We knew we did not want to go back to working traditional jobs. We discovered we liked the warmth and sunshine of Hawaii. The tradewinds – yes; the humidity – not so much. We had four months left on our condo lease, so we took the time to talk about our next step. Kim had always wanted to travel and see the US and Canada. I found that I didn’t like being so far away from our family and friends. After crunching some numbers, we discovered we could afford to buy a motor home and travel for a few years. Kim set about researching the full time RV lifestyle online. I primarily sat on my butt and let him. I had a number of writing projects floating around in my head, and I used my time to get some of them down on paper. After all, we still had four months to do all this planning.