Friday, October 29, 2010

Happy Halloween RV Friends

Where did October go? This month has just flown by. My Pop’s once said if you think the first forty went by fast, just know the second forty is faster. Boy, was he ever right. I will be turning the big five-0 next month and I can’t believe how fast time has gone by.


I had so much on my To-Do List that I was going to complete in October. Needless to say, other things came up and the month has past in the blink of an eye. I have only a few days to get a lot done if I am going to get that list completed this month.

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN"

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Thank You for Your Comments

Welcome new followers; Kevin and Ruth (http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com ) Pepper and Me & My Dog (http://dewelldesigns.blogspot.com ).

Wow, we were just blown away by all the comments we received from our last post. This is just another fine example of what makes fulltiming RVers so wonderful. The willingness to help out when someone has a question and the responses came so quickly.

We really do appreciate all the recommendations. This makes our decision much easier and we feel more confident with recommendations made by people we trust. Thanks Again.

I also feel much better being after being told that my feeling are perfectly normal. I do believe that this is the first time in my life that I've been told that I'm normal! LOL.

Dawn stopped by the Verizon store yesterday to up the minutes on our cell phones. While she was there talking to the store manager she mentioned that she would soon be purchasing an air-card. The manager asked why she would need the air-card and she explained that we would be soon hitting the open road and wanted to be able to have internet access. She told him that we were going to buy a new laptop first. He told her that Verizon had a promotion that could provide us with a laptop with broadband. This way we wouldn’t need a separate air-card. The promotion was on its last days. They only had two laptops left at that store so Dawn snatched one up. We now have a HP Mini Mobile Broadband 10.1-Inch Netbook that cost us less than forty dollars because of the rebate. We are going to give it a try and see how well it works. We have thirty days to test drive it.

This week we haven’t done anything worth posting about. We’ve spent our evenings running errands. We’ve missed our weekly dumpster visit because we had other things to do. Next week we’ll have to get back on track. We’re planning another garage sale for this Saturday. It looks like we’re getting down to the last bit of STUFF to sale and that sure feels good. We’ll have one last big garage sale right before we hit the road to get rid of furniture that we’re currently using. I need to get back on track with moving boxes to the storage area of the RV garage. We’ve dedicated one corner for storage of our KEEP STUFF. I must say, I’m very proud of us for making so much progress in the last couple of months.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Need Help from the Fulltime Experts

We are both very excited that we will hopefully be able to start our RV fulltiming life real soon. We have spent the last year or so preparing. We need to have a few more garage sales and need to pack a few more things for storage. We’ve been so busy preparing that we’re just now getting to a point where we can slow down a bit.

Now that we’ve slowed down, reality is starting to set in. We’re really about to give up nice twenty-four hundred square foot brick house on two acres of land. We’re really going to move into a thirty-three foot fifth wheel and live all over these glorious United States. WOW, that is exciting and also a little scary.

We both love to travel and explore. We’ve worked so hard to get to this point and now that we’re getting closer to making it happen, I’m getting nervous about it. I suppose I am just worried about the unknown. But it is also the unknown that excites me. It is as if I’m excited and nervous to get started.

I suppose this is normal? I’m usually the one that says, it’ll be o.k. We can do this. Now Dawn is the one doing the coaching and reminding me that we can handle it.

I think part of the problem is that neither of us is very mechanically inclined. That means we will have to depend on others when we have mechanical problems. It is true that women really do get taken advantage of when it comes to mechanical repairs but, at the time I know that we’re not total idiots. Besides, I have a grown son that is very mechanical that we can call when we have questions and he’ll guide us in the right direction.

We have a list of things that need to be done before we can hit the road. Our list consist of the following;

Roadside Assistance Policy
We are going to purchase some kind of roadside assistance policy. We would love any kind of suggestions or recommendations.

Fulltimers Insurance Policy
We are going to purchase fulltimers insurance too. The more I read the more confused I get. We could use recommendations

Air Card for Computer
We will purchasing a new laptop before we hit the road and will need to have a good internet source. We could use recommendations.

Camping Clubs
We want to join a camping club that offers discount camping rates
We could use recommendations.

I don’t know what else we will need. We could use recommendations on that too.

We are just hoping that some of you that are already fulltimers can help us out with some recommendations and advice to what we may need that we haven’t thought about. We would greatly appreciate any free advise we could get.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Laid Back Weekend and Electric Fireplace ?

Hello new followers, Four Windows with a View, The Coleman's and Susan

Thursday evening we decided to sort through the lawn tools we have. We laid everything out in the middle of the floor. Wow, we have a lot of lawn tools. In the process we discovered we had 9 hoes, 13 shovels, 6 picks, 3 post hole diggers and 3 leaf rakes. We examined each one closely and narrowed our keep pile down to 3 hoes. We don’t use them for gardening, use them to kill snakes. We also kept I pick, 3 shovels, 1 leaf rake and 1 post hole digger. The others will be placed in the garage sale.

Friday evening we put the fifth wheel back in the garage and went out for dinner. Saturday we did laundry and stayed inside. We had off and on flash flooding rain. Dawn is experiencing the cluster headaches again. It is difficult for her to get involved in anything because the headaches come on sudden and last anywhere from five minutes to twenty minutes. There are days when she suffers almost one an hour. She has been dealing with this for about two weeks now and is hoping they will subside soon.

Sunday morning we got up and out early. We went to the grocery store and ran a few other errands. I mowed the lawn while Dawn coached some TV football.

We are trying to decide if we want to add an electric fireplace to the fifth wheel. We have seen some we really like but aren’t sure if they put out enough heat to be worth the money.

We would be interested to know if any of you have electric fireplaces and what you think about them.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

We're Motivated

Welcome Karen as a new follower of this sometimes boring blog.

We're MOTIVATED. One of the real motivating factors for us has been all our RV blog friends and their travel postings. We read their blogs religiously. Everyday someone post about an interesting place they are visiting and attach wonderful pictures too. We read the post and look at the pictures and want so bad to be out there seeing those places and taking our own pictures. That is our true motivation.

With all that motivation, we loaded the truck with boxes of trash and made another haul to the dumpster last night. Man that sure feels good! I would have never thought in a million years that a visit to the dumpster could feel so gratifying.

In the past, I just dreaded opening the RV garage door because of all the junk that was stacked up in there. Now, I get a real feeling of accomplishment every time I open that door and see how much better it looks. This is the way it is suppose to look. We just had so much STUFF to store and it just became overwhelming.

We have now gone from STUFF being stacked from floor to ceiling down both sides of the building to boxes and totes being placed neatly into one corner. We’ve defiantly made some real progress in the last few weeks. We’ve had some successful garage sales and many trips to the dumpster. We’ve also made a few trips to the local charity center too.

We plan to work in the garage again tonight.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Welcome New Followers

Just a shout out to our new followers, Rod & Connie, Julie, Barry & Linda, Dave & Betty, John & Carroll, Fred & Wilma and Ken & Nanette. We are impressed that anyone would want to read this blog.


I MUST WARN you that I do most of the postings and my grammar is not very good and my spelling is worse.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

New Kitchen Faucet

We had a very busy weekend. Saturday we had another garage sale. It was a slow day. We didn’t have many people stop by but we did sell many things.

After the garage sale we loaded up the car with STUFF and made a trip to our local Helping Hands Thrift Store and made a donation. We then went for Mexican food and ran some errands.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and did some laundry. I installed a new kitchen sink faucet in the fifth wheel. I am so proud of myself. I've never installed a faucet before and just thought I'd at least make an attempt before I asked for help.

It was kind of difficult getting up under the kitchen sink. first problem is the cabinet door opening in approximately eighteen inches wide and I am,  well let's just say a LOT wider than that.

I didn't have any real problem getting the old faucet out. The problem started when I slide my large upper body into this small opening and had to twist around to reach above my head to attach the new faucet. It took about twenty minutes to get everything fastened down before I could hook up all the water lines. OK, with that all done I had to somehow slide myself out of the rather small opening. Suddenly I felt like I had stuck my upper body in one of those Chinese finger traps. Yes, I slide in there fairly easy but it appears that sliding out was a different matter!


My back was really starting to hurt and so were my legs. My arms were numb from having them over my head in an awkward position for the past twenty or so minutes. Here I am, stuck under the kitchen sink and all alone. Dawn’s in the house doing something in the kitchen while coaching TV football. If I yell out she wouldn’t hear me. No, not a chance, when she’s coaching, the volume goes way up and I’m not just talking about the TV!

After a minute or so of resting my arms, I decided I would attempt to hook up the supply lines while I was under there. That only took a second. I than realized my legs were starting to quiver because of the twisted shape my body was in. I took a deep breath and slide my upper body out of the cabinet and when I thought I was free, I bumped my head on the cabinet facing. Luckily, I was moving slow so I didn’t hit it too hard!

I had to set there for a minute and let my muscles slowly untwist. I couldn’t believe I had it all connected.

As soon as I felt like I could stand, I was on my feet ready to turn on the water and see how well I had done.

I hooked up the hose and asked Dawn to assist me. I asked her to stand at the kitchen cabinet and watch for water leaking when I turned on the water. I slowly turned on the water and waited for her to yell out to turn off the water. I never heard her say anything. I walked back around to the door of the trailer as the water began to shoot out of the veggie sprayer into the living room. She quickly grabbed the veggie sprayer and aimed it towards the sink drain. The veggie sprayer would not shut off! I must have connected something wrong.

I looked under the sink and checked. It was all hooked up like the instructions stated. Dawn was steadily working with the veggie spray to get it to turn off when it occurred to me that the water lines were full of air too. The air in the lines might be causing the veggie spray to stay on. I asked Dawn to go into the bathroom and turn on the lavatory faucet and see if that helped relieve the air in the line. After a few seconds, the veggie sprayer stopped. I let the water to continue to run a few minutes. This allowed the air to pass through the lines. We tried the veggie sprayer again. It works, just like it’s intended to.

WOW! its working fine with no leaks!

Sunday afternoon we took a friend a birthday cake. I also had to change out a signal light bulb on the ION. That is the first bulb we’ve had to replace on that car. That went well.

We had dinner out and turned into bed early. I feel like I have been hit by a Mac truck. I am very much out of shape and all this lifting and moving STUFF is really getting to me.

We also did some reorganizing of our front basement compartment.  Things are easier to find now.

Monday, October 18, 2010

The Loss of Fellow RVers

Our hearts are heavy because of the sudden and tragic deaths of our fellow RV bloggers Bruce and Margie http://bruceandmargiesfulltimejourney.blogspot.com/  the following article tells the horrible story. http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/10/16/1330911/pismo-fatality-freeway-pedestrian.html

We will certainly miss reading about their RVing adventures. Our thoughts and prayers are with their family.

Friday, October 15, 2010

More Progress

We have spent several evenings this week out in the RV garage and have made some real progress. We have sorted, thrown out and boxed up a lot of STUFF. Once again, I’m proud to announce that our KEEP pile was the smallest of all the piles.

We are now placing our KEEP boxes in one small area of the RV garage. We will soon be moving everything out of the spare bedroom and placing it in the RV garage as well. Before long we will be repainting the interior of the house and it will be nice to do that without much furniture in the way. I love to paint so that is something that I am saving for the cold weather when we can’t work outdoors.

I just can’t express how excited I am that we have made this much progress. It has been a job well worth doing. We both agree we will never accumulate this much STUFF again. We found boxes of old paperwork from our bed and breakfast that we closed about ten years ago. Some of the boxes we found were empty.

We’ll be taking another truck load of trash to the dumpster next week. Can you imagine anyone having this much trash in their garage. I am ashamed. This got out of hand because we had so much going on at once and then we settled into life here and didn’t make any effort to go back and sort through all the STUFF.

This all started building up when Dawn’s mother passed away unexpectedly. Shortly thereafter her father’s health began to decline. So we closed our guest house and catering business and moved in with him. That meant we had to store some of our STUFF and some of his STUFF in order for us to have room in his house.

We put most of our STUFF in storage so that he was not overwhelmed too much when we moved in with him. His mind continued to slip and he died a few years later.

We liked being back in town and made the decision to remodel the house. We drew up our plans and found a contractor. The contractor had another job he was starting and we would have to wait a little while. That was fine with us, we had a lot of STUFF to sort and pack. Well, his other job kind of went south and he was able to start our remodel right away. That meant we just packed up everything and put it in storage.

When the house was finished we brought in some of our old STUFF and also bought some new. We got all settled in and started our catering businesses. Therefore a lot of STUFF remained in storage, untouched until now.

So now you see how we got into this mess! This year has been a year of playing catch up. We are now going through her STUFF, his STUFF and our STUFF. The good news is we are finally making progress and it’s really starting to show.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we may be able to hit the road sooner than expected, so we have to get it all done.

We will share details as soon as everything is a for sure thing.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Blogs and Forums

We check the blogs and the forum every day. We’ve learned so much about RVing just by reading the forum and blog posts. We have learned about the ups and downs of living full-time in an RV. We’ve read about some great places to visit and camp. We’ve also found some great RV modification ideas too.

We belong to an RVing Forum that we read on a regular basis. We have learned so much by reading the forum. The forum we read is RV-Dreams Community Forum ( http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?aBID=91511&p=1&a=45  ). It has a wealth of information and the best part is that the information comes from RVers. This forum has full-timers and wannabes.

One very important thing that we’ve learned is that RVers are the friendliest people. Most RVers are eager to share information and to help out when someone needs a helping hand. The RVing community is great and we’re very proud to be a part of it.

There is one thing you can say about us, “what ya see, is what ya get”. We are not pretentious people. We consider ourselves as friendly, outgoing and sometimes a little crazy. We enjoy the little things in life and are fascinated by the big things!

We like to eat out but prefer to cook our own meals. Meals always seem to taste better when prepared outdoors. We enjoy the simpler things in life. Things money can’t buy, things like being in the great outdoors enjoying a roaring fire and relaxing, being on top of a mountain and listening to the silence, driving the dirt roads to see what’s around the next bend, standing on the beach watching the waves roll in, setting at a sidewalk café people watching.

Our fifth wheel is not top-of-the-line but, it’s ours. We’ve made a few improvements to make it comfortable for us and we’re happy with it. We’re so grateful that we were able to retire at our age. We are so looking forward to getting out on the road exploring and making new friends. We look forward to making new friends with other full-time RVers.

We have friends that own RVs that we camp with. It’s always a lot of fun to meet up with them and spend a long weekend together. Those friends don’t share our desire to become full-timers. They say it sounds like fun but they wouldn’t want to actually do it.

We know of people that bought a new high-end motorhome so they could take extended trips. They only stayed in RV resorts that catered to high-end type rigs. Those people didn’t last long. They didn’t like the idea that they had to drive so much and had to deal with dumping they’re waste tanks. They said they liked flying better and really enjoyed having the room service they get when they stayed in hotels. In less than a year and after only a few trips they sold their high-end rig and took a real loss. What a shame!

We’ve encountered folks that think anything less than a high-end motorhome is well, just trashy. Needless to say those people are just acquaintances, not real friends!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

New Bedside Shelves

Here is the pics of the new bedside shelves I installed last weekend.


They measure 8"x4". They are small but will serve a purpose.



I think they turned out pretty good. But I have to confess something. I am not a wood worker. This was actually a larger shelf in its former life. It has been in the garage sale and no one seemed interested in it. I just walked by it and the ole light bulb lit up! That sure would make nice bedside shelves.

I just cut it in half and attached small blocks underneath and drilled pilot holes through the small blocks. I spray painted them a chocolate brown. I used screws through the pilot holes on the small blocks to attach them to the wall.

The only thing we bought was the paint. What a bargain! Theses are about the same size as the ones that came in our motorhome but they look a lot better.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Another Dumpster Visit

Last week was CRAZY! First of all, we have several friends and family members that were hospitalized last week. Our Neighbor, Great Uncle, Cousin and a good friend’s brother.


Friday evening we loaded the truck and made another dumpster visit. The RV garage is starting to look better. We did uncover a couple of boxes of STUFF that was left over from the estate sale we had a few years ago. That was a great find. The STUFF in the boxes already had prices on them!

On Saturday we did house work and laundry. We stayed close to home because we are dog sitting for some friends and needed to let the dogs out several times a day.

On Sunday I peddled around the house while Dawn coached TV football. She loves her football! I am not a big football fan. I took full advantage of the great weather. I worked outside and made a couple of bedside shelves for the bedroom on the fifth wheel. They will come in handy for holding a glass, eye glasses, remote and cell phone.

It took me several hours to cut the wood and paint and than a few minutes to hang them. I took pictures but for some reason they didn’t upload. Oh well, I‘ll post them later. I think they turn out really nice and I know they will come in handy.

We also drug a mattress and box springs out with the garage. The city allows us one bulk item per week to be picked up with our garbage. The neighbor is letting us put one at their garbage can too. What a deal! We now have two mattresses and one box springs left.

Yep, we are making progress.


We also would like to give our condolences to Tioga George ( http://blog.vagabonders-supreme.net/ ) for the passing of his son David.



Wednesday, October 6, 2010

New Blower/Mulcher/Vac

It was on sale and we ordered one. It is a Worx Tri-Vac. We don’t have slide-out covers on the fifth wheel like we did on the motorhome. Instead we are buying the Tri-Vac and see how well that works to remove debris from the top of the slide-outs.

Worx Tri-Vac is a three tools in one. It is blower/ mulcher/vac . It’s lightweight, approximately 8lb. They say you can use it with one hand.


They claim as a blower, it can produces an air speed of over 210 mph. As a yard vac, produces enough suction to vacuum 14 gallons of dry leaves in less than a minute. It has an air regulator that you can adjust.

They claim it is quieter than most blower/vacs so you won't bother your neighbors.

We also thought it might come in handy to clean up around the RV. We have stayed at some places that had a lot of debris on the ground around the picnic tables and parking pads. They claim it will also mulch trash too. We will find out just how good a product it really is! It will be in on Friday and I can’t wait to try it out!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Lots of STUFF Still

We had another garage sale this weekend. The weather was beautiful and we didn’t mind being outside. Our sale didn’t do very good this weekend. It might be because October is Texas State Fair Month here and this weekend was also First Monday Trades day in Canton. We know people would rather be at the Fair or Trades Day. We made about a hundred dollars and got rid of a few things. When I told a friend, It wasn't worth all the work we did dragging the STUFF out for the sale. She pointed out that we did manage to get rid of a few things and that was better than getting rid of nothing. That did make me feel better.  

Oh well, it wasn't a total waste, we had a few friends stopped by and visited with us most of the day and we all enjoyed the nice weather.



We did work in the RV garage and made some more progress. This is the RV garage.






This is the mess the RV garage is in now. It looks bad right now but believe me when I say it was a lot worse. We had STUFF stacked six feet tall on both sides. We have removed a lot of STUFF this past week and will continue for the next few weeks.



Until last week, I only had a foot of clearance on each side after I backed the fifth wheel in. We are making progress. One of the really great things about this whole process is that we know we will never have such a collection of STUFF to deal with again. We will live a much lighter existence!

After we retuned all the garage sale STUFF to the garage we treated ourselves the dinner and had some great mexican food. Sunday we did laundry and somethings around the house. We also ordered a WORX TriVac All-in-One Compact Blower/Mulcher/Vac. We have wanted one to take with us when we hit the road.  They were on sale at ACE Hardware but we had to order it.  Can't wait to get it Friday.   

Friday, October 1, 2010

Tie it Down

I was just reading a post that was written by Kevin and Evelyn (http://rvkhroniclesofkevelyn.blogspot.com/) about a near serious accident due to a ladder and a step stool that had fallen out on the interstate. Lucky for them they didn’t have a serious accident. They did however, have damage to their trailer.

It just blows my mind that people will throw anything in the back of a truck and jump on the freeway without tying it down. We spend a lot of time on the freeway and currently live on a two-lane state highway with a speed limit of 55 MPH and there are no shoulders.

I cannot tell you how often we have witnessed people hauling past our house with stuff blowing out of the back of their vehicles. Not long ago, someone lost a futon and it landed in the middle of the highway. We ran out and pulled it aside before it caused a serious accident. The driver never slowed down. I guess he didn’t realize it had flown out. I guess he will figure it out when he gets to his destination!

Someone else lost a beautiful antique china cabinet. The bed of his truck was full of antiques furniture. Nothing was tied down. He did stop and threw the pieces into the truck. You could tell he was very upset by it.

Another truck lost a yard swing and frame. He stopped, looked it over and drug it into the ditch in front of our house and left it!

Each week before we mow, we have to walk the ditch in front of our house to pick up trash. We pick up beer cans, beer and coke bottles, fast food containers, gloves, socks, feed sacks and paper.

We’ve driven down the interstate and have seen mattresses, ice chest, furniture, bags of clothes, boxes, tires, ladders, brooms, lifejackets, air mattresses, box springs and there was a large awning that fell off a RV. Recently we hit an icemaker box out of a refrigerator.

We don’t leave any kind of trash in the bed of our truck. We don’t want to litter. When we haul stuff we always tie it down. Sure, tying it down takes extra time, but we don’t want to lose anything in route.

I believe these people that have stuff in the bed of their trucks that are not tied down should not be allowed on the road. Not sure how we could enforce it. Stuff blowing out of trucks and cars can cause serious accidents and death.

Enough venting for now.

Making More Progress

In order to save a few dollars we decided to have our landline telephone disconnected. We use our cell phones most of the time anyway. We have been informing everyone for the past couple of weeks that as of October 1, 2010 we would no longer have a home phone. We know a lot of people that don’t have landline phones. It just seems like a waste of money to have our cells and a home phone. It does seem kind of strange not to have that phone number anymore. That number has been Dawn’s family phone number for forty plus years. We considered changing my cell phone number to that number but lately the majority of the calls we receive on that number have been solicitors. We will not miss them! We will not miss the many calls that we answer that are made by machines that play a prerecorded message. I can’t help but wonder if they will they miss us?

Disconnecting the landline is just another small step we have to make in order to move towards our fulltiming life. It is kind of like out with the old, In with the new.

We spent our evening working in the RV garage. We went through more boxes and filled the truck with junk to feed to the dumpster. We made three piles in the floor. One pile for the dumpster, one for the garage sale and one to keep. I was so proud when I noticed that our keep pile was the smallest of the three. We really are making progress! We cleared out an entire corner. Now that is real progress!!!!!

Some of those boxes were left from the house remodel. We had to pack up and move things pretty fast when we remodel the house. We had not yet gone through all of Dawn’s parents stuff. So needless to say, it was amazing the STUFF we found in those boxes last night. We found hearing aids, false teeth, lots of old eye glasses, pictures, record albums, books and old paper work. Dawn found a box of childhood dresses and the suit her father wore when he got married. Just last year Dawn gave her mother’s wedding dress to one of mother’s close friends. When I say her parents saved everything, I am not kidding!

Some of the STUFF we ran across made us laugh and some nearly brought us to tears. For example Dawn’s father, I always called him Pop’s, saved every card we gave him. We found lots of cards. We also found some china that didn’t get packed in the box it was suppose to.

We are planning another garage sale for Saturday so we have to restock our garage sale garage.

We are making PROGRESS!!!