Doggy Pen?

We now have a nice new portable doggy pen to carry with us on the road. I noticed the doggy pen that Rick & Paulette( http://rickpaulettervjournal.blogspot.com/) had and I sent them an email asking them about theirs and how well they liked it. They were kind enough to share information with us.

Last night we went out for dinner and decided afterwards we would stop by our PetSmart store and see if they had the portable doggy pens that Rick & Paulette have. Not only do they have the ones we wanted and they were on sale for $52.49. That’s a good price. I have been looking at them online and they're  expensive.

I asked the sales clerk why they were on sale, listed as discontinued and he said they're not going to carry the black coated style anymore. They were discounting them in order to make room for the other color. We don’t care if they’re black coated. We bought 2 of them. I was so excited about getting such a good deal.

When we got home I took them out of the boxes and set them up to see if we thought they would work well for us.

This exercise pen is made of Black E-Coat finish. It has a double latch gate. It’s easy to set up. No tools needed. It's very versatile as far as how you want to configure it. It also comes with ground anchors & corner stabilizers.

This will definitely work. We need at least one more set. We want to have enough of the doggy pen to go around the perimeter of our canopy. We want to be able to set inside the fenced area with our kids without it being too crowded. One more set and we’ll be fixed up.

This morning I got online and checked to see if by chance I could find one more that was a good price. Sure did! The CSN Store had them for $38.95 with free shipping!!!!!

Here is the website;  http://www.csnstores.com/Midwest-Pets-55-X-MDW1297.html?redir=55024dr+550+24dr++++exercise+pen+with+door+in+black+finish&rtype=1

I like that price even better. I ordered one more.

Now we have a nice portable doggy pen for our four legged kids to play in.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Surviving in a Small Space

Can we really survive comfortably in less than four-hundred square feet?

That is approximately two-thousand square feet less than we currently live in. I'm sure it can be done because we have many RVing friends that do it.

People have asked if we really think we can live in such a small space and feel comfortable. Our answer is, of course WE CAN. Even though we live in a nice size house, we currently occupy the same rooms at the same time and we don't feel crowded. As I took a minute to re-examine this thought, I suddenly realized that our living room has more total square feet then our entire fifth wheel has! As I looked around the room I realized we don't use half of our living room anyway.

In a stick-n-brick we heat and cool square footage that we really don't even use. For example, we have a nice size bedroom that we don't occupy. In that bedroom there is a large walk-in closet. In that closet we store junk. If we didn't have that closet we'd been force to do away with that junk sooner.

We have a breakfast area that doesn't have a table. We don't need a table because we use the bar to eat our meals. We have a open floor plan and the kitchen and living room are separated by a plate ledge that seats four. We have all our meals at the bar.

We have made every effort to make our fifth wheel as homey and comfortable as possible. We have spent a few bucks and little time redecorating our fifth wheel in order to make it feel more like a home and less like a fifth wheel. Neither of us likes having everything matchy – matchy.

We spent a little money on the furniture but we also made money by selling the furniture we removed.

We replaced the uncomfortable hid-abed love seat with a full size sofa with a reversible chaise.

We replaced the two over sized recliners with a sofa daybed. It is comfortable as a sofa and is makes a great little bed for guest.

We removed the carpet and found linoleum already on the floor. Removing the carpet will help with my allergies. We now have a cow hide throw rug.

We replaced the floor mounted dining table and four heavy chairs with our drop-leaf breakfast table and two chairs. We can pull the table out in the middle of the room instead of being crammed in the corner.

We replaced the desk chair with a portable electric fireplace. The fireplace weights less than the chair. The little fireplace will keep us warm on those cold nights and it is relaxing to look at too.

We also lightened our weight by changing out the furniture. We are estimating that we are now about a hundred and fifty pounds lighter, if not more.

We replaced the dual handle kitchen faucet with a single lever which came with a veggie sprayer.

We also did some cosmetic things as well. We removed the floral border that ran throughout the fifth wheel. We got rid of the floral bedspread and replaced it with a stripped quilt. We also hung small shelves on each side of the bed to act as night stands.

We recovered the window valances and headboard with faux punched leather. We also hung thermal curtains on all the windows. The curtains will help keep in the heat or the cool.

We have lived in a smaller motor home in the past and didn’t have any real problems. So we think we can live in our fifth wheel just fine. I guess time will tell!!!!!! 

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Weekend Stuff

We had a productive weekend. Friday night Dawn prepared a Cajun dinner. We had gumbo and cilantro shrimp cocktail with Baggett bread. Man O Man, it was a really great meal. Dawn is such a great cook and I’m not sure if it is a good thing or not. I’m thinking if she wasn’t a good cook, I might be a little thinner!

Saturday morning we got up and drove to Wal-Mart for a morning walk. Dawn does this daily. In the winter months she and a friend walk inside the local super Wal-Mart.

In the summer months they walk through a local park that has nice concrete walking trails.

Yes, I was up at six on a Saturday morning to go walking with her. After our walk we ran a few errands than went home. At home we packed a few more plastic storage totes and I hauled them out to the RV garage. We removed everything from the linen closet and packed it up. We’re making more progress.

Saturday night we had dinner with friends at Four Winds Steakhouse. The steak house is located off the beaten path on a ranch with 1,100 acres of beautiful large old oaks. The place is owned by former Dallas Cowboy Lee Roy Jordan. The steak house is a rustic looking ranch house with a large covered front porch. Inside was a huge rock fireplace. The Four Winds chef is Frank Rumoré.

Dawn and I had the House Made Mozzarella, Tomato, Onion and mixed greens salad with Basil Balsamic Vinaigrette. It was wonderful.

We had 6 oz.Filet Mignon with whipped potatoes and green beans. It was absolutely delicious.

Of course the best part of the meal was spending time with our very best friends. We talked, laughed and had a great time.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Steak N Shake. Cheese burgers for breakfast. Life is good! Ran a few errands and then back home to pack a few more boxes and totes.

By six p.m. I was worn out. I had to fight to keep awake until seven-thirty. I finally threw in the towel and went to bed.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Thanks a Million

We want to say “THANKS a MILLION” for all your comments and leads on the insurance information. We have compiled a list and started making phone calls. This fulltimers RV insurance is like a foreign language. We’re trying to learn all the insurance lingo. Good exercise for the brain!


We hope to have all our quotes together by the end of next week. Once we get all our quotes, we’ll be spending some time looking them over. We want to make sure we choose the insurance that best fit our needs.

We also really appreciate all the comments about the sewer tote too. Even though most of you said you didn’t have one and didn’t plan to get one, we ordered one.

We’re now the owners a Barker 32 Gallon Four Wheel RV Tote Tank. We ordered it from RV Parts Country on Tuesday afternoon and it was delivered Wednesday afternoon. WOW! That was fast. The tote tank is large but it’s exactly what we needed.

The reason we made the decision to buy it was because we enjoy staying in State Parks and Corp Parks. Our experience has been that most don’t have sewer hook ups. We plan on using this tote for our gray water only. I’m one of those people that have to take a shower in the morning and one at night. Now you see can surely understand why we might have a need for this tote. What can I say; I’m just a clean person! LOL

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

HELP! We Need Fulltimers Insurance!

We are stumped on what insuance company we need to go with. We need FULLTIME RV Insurance.

Seems it is not all that common. Who do you use? Have you had any claims? Are you happy with your current insurance company?

Thanks for your help

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Honey Wagon!?!

We need to buy a “Honey Wagon” How on earth did a sewer transporting devise ever get that name? I’m not sure I even want to know the answer to that question!

"Honey Wagon" is a term used to describe a vehicle that transports sewer from the holding tanks of RV to a dumping station when there is no sewer available at the campsite.

Anyway, we need to buy a sewer tote and don’t know anything about them. We are counting on our very knowledgeable RVing blog friends to help us out here.

After some of the experiences we have read and after many of our own uncomfortable experinces with empting the black tank, I have decided to purchase an outfit that is appropriate for the job.

Please let us know what you have and how well you like it.

Thanks in advance

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Boring Weekend

First of all, WELCOME new followers.

The weather here in north Texas was wet and cold this weekend. Dawn and I are not feeling a hundred percent yet. We are still fighting the coughing and congestion. It is however, much improved from the week before. Since we are still kind of dragging we didn’t do much this weekend.

Saturday we did laundry and a little house cleaning.

By the end of the day we decided to treat ourselves to dinner out. One of our favorite places to eat is Cheddars. The food is always great and portions are huge. Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves.


After dinner we took a walk through Target. We bought Dawn some ear phones for her Droid. She is very excited about the music apps on her new phone. We also picked up a package of quacking ducks (dog toys) for the kids.

Sunday morning we went to the grocery store and Sunday afternoon we spent on the sofa watching movies. Dawn cooked pot roast in the crock pot. Yum!

I can’t wait to feel better. We have so much we need to get boxed up. We also have STUFF we need to get rid of too. Maybe next weekend we can get back on track.


Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

New Phones

We got a text from Verizon that it’s time to upgrade our phones. Well, I’ll go for that because my phone battery is about shot and I have to put it in the charger every day. I use my phone to talk on and that’s it. My phone doesn’t even have a camera on it. I’m so old school!!!

Dawn on the other hand is always taking pictures, sending text and doing all kinds of other things with her phone. She is so up with the text lingo that when someone sends me a text she has to translate it for me! I know it’s SAD.

Anyway we were having dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant when we received the text about upgrading our phones. After dinner we stopped by the Verizon store. We were lucky enough to have a really nice patient young man show us all the phones and explain the differences. After explaining to him that I’m somewhat old school when it comes to using a cell phone, he showed us the Droid Incredible.

It is an interesting phone. He showed us the features and told me to play with it for a few minutes. I think that even I could learn this phone. Dawn said she liked it too.

It is buy one get one free! I like that even better. O.K, so now I am spending all my free time trying to learn how to use this Droid phone. It’s really easy to use and the sound is very clear.

The user Guide is two-hundred and six pages. The Guide doesn’t come with the phone. You have to download it from the internet.

Look Out World, I’m going high tech!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Feeling Better

We are starting to feel some what better. Neither of us have any energy. We take turns getting the four legged kids fed and preparing something for us to eat.


We're so fortunate to have some wonderful friends that have made homemade chicken noodle soup and delivered it to our back door. Our elderly neighbors were good enough to make us a large pot of stew and made a grocery store run for us.

The four legged kids have really enjoyed their mom's laying around. They are sticking to us like glue. Then on top of everything else, it snowed here all day yesterday. We have a good four inches on the ground. that is very unusual for north Texas. During the night we also were blessed with freezing drizzle. We spent the morning watching all the news about the snow ans the road conditions. were out on the roadways reporting all the traffic accidents and getting video of cars slipping and sliding around on the frozen roads.

We are grateful we aren't traveling in that mess.Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

We're Going to Make It!

Thanks for all your concerning comments.

After suffering almost a full week of fever, constant sinus drainage and uncontrollable coughing we decided we better see a doctor. We were convinced we were dying of the flu, since neither of us have gone for our flu shot.

The doctor says we're NOT going to die, we have a terrible case of the bacteria stuff that is going around. She gave us some antibiotics and cough meds and told us to go home and rest.  Rest! We have worn huge holes in the sofa and the recliner from all the resting we've been doing!

Maybe now we'll be able to get a full night sleep. It has been a very long week.

We should be back on our feet real soon.

Travel Safe  Dawn and Denise

We're Out of Commission

We haven't posted because we are both sick. Not sure if we have the flu or something eles.
This is the first time we have both been sick at the same time in a very long time. I spend my day laying on the sofa and Dawn is in her recliner.

Terrible burning chest cough, bones hurt, runny nose.

 I'm sure we will live!

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise