Sometimes you go into something with high hopes and a positive attitude but you soon realize it just wasn't going to work. No, we are not talking about our RV life! We are talking about our latest workamping gig. We signed up and interviewed for our latest workamping gig way back in March when we were in Mesa, AZ. We had a virtual face to face interview with the local Lifetouch leadership team that we would be working with in WI and came away from that interview with a really good feeling that this would be a good fit for us, and it was...except for the fact that because of past surgeries and medical issues, my body did not agree! We started with training and shadowing on a Monday and by Wednesday it was very apparent that I was not going to make it. We felt really bad not being able to finish out our assignment but we finished out the week and left our company paid campground spot on Labor Day.
For anyone considering workamping with Lifetouch, your benefits are great! You get your FHU campsite, every hour paid, pay for travel time, mileage and a gas card as well as company shirts to wear. The job itself is taking school and ID pictures for Pre-K thru 12 but we mostly had Pre-K through 8. We were split between two markets so our travel times were going to be longer, but we were paid for that time. We had lots of training and shadowing to set up the lights/camera and backdrops and props. This would be a great workamping position for someone who can stand for a good amount of time, set up the kits and work with children. We met a couple other workampers and they really enjoyed it! From there we headed back up to our favorite family moochdocking spot at my Dad's and are spending the month of September there. The peaceful setting gives us time to relax and visit with family, getting lots of hand and foot card games in!
We also had a going away party for my sister and her boyfriend who are moving to CA for a couple years while he finishes his studies at Stanford. Always good to see extended family!
We also got to see the nearly finished resto-mod 1938 Lincoln Zephyr my dad has been restoring. It is a far cry from the state he bought it in. Really a beauty!
We took a day to go explore a beautiful park in Fond du Lac nearby. Lakeside Park is located on the shores of Lake Winnebago. This 400 acre park is a real gem! There is a marina, lighthouse, ball diamonds, petting zoo, fountains, playgrounds, picnic areas, kayak rentals and a meandering river through the park with several bridges. The landscaping is beautiful and well cared for. We were there on a Sunday and volunteers were busy deadheading plants and picking up trash.
While we are in the area, we also started giving the boys their Christmas presents. This year is all about "experience" presents. Our youngest, Brady, has always loved Hamilton, knows every single song and has always wanted to go see the Broadway production in NY. Well we did the next best thing and took the boys to see the Broadway production in Chicago. It was an amazing show, with seats in the first row center of the first balcony, we had a great view of the stage! The CIBC theatre is a beautiful, historic theatre dating back to the gilded age. The show was amazing and had you laughing and crying. Yes grown men were wiping their eyes! After the show, we went to The Italian Village, one block over for a wonderful italian meal. This restaurant dates back to 1927 and is still family owned. What a great way to spend a Sunday in Chicago! Nicholas' "experience" Christmas gift will be later this year in TX. Again, something he has always wanted to do.
We also were fortunate enough to get 4 free tickets to the Milwaukee Brewers game through VetTix. If you are a military service member and have not looked into this program, it is awesome and you need to! Companies and individuals donate tickets to things like sporting events, shows, concerts, etc. for these military members to use. We have mentioned this in prior posts and cannot say enough good things about it! We took Brady and my Dad, since Nicholas had to work.
Rick has also had time to put together a little invention he has been thinking about that will help him dump tanks with the macerator with relative ease. For the macerator to work, it needs 12 volt power and having the truck right near the macerator to power off the truck battery isn't always going to be possible, so Rick made a hook up cord to solve for that. Some folks do mount a power receptacle in the RV bay or power off the RV battery, but Rick liked this solution for greater flexibility. He used a 25 ft, softer rubber coated, 14 gauge ext cord, cut off the end and wired in battery clamps attached to a battery tender cord, that wired into the extension cord. He did cut the battery tender cord as well to wire in a 12 volt switch where he can easily turn power on/off to the macerator. On the other end of the extension cord he wired in 12 volt, male/female connectors that attached to the connectors on the macerator. On tip on this wiring configuration is to keep black battery clamp to black wire all the way through the line. This set up works really slick and we are now able to dump tanks just about anywhere, giving us greater flexibility in the locations we camp.
He also replaced thecabin filter in our F350 truck and a missing clip on the outside refrigerator vent. We are wrapping up our time here in WI and will soon be making our way south. As luck would have it, now that we are no longer committed to a workamping gig for October, we have been able to sign up for TWO Grand Design rallies in Arkansas and Texas. We are super excited to see some Grand Design owners we met at a previous rally and meet some new ones! We are also meeting up with friends in MO on our way to the rallies.
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Wow, we still cannot believe an entire year has gone by since Rick retired, we sold the house and everything in it and hit the road! We are now a month into our second year and we can both confidently and passionately say that we love it and have no regrets!! Has every day been rainbows and unicorns? Hello no, but what lifestyle is? Life is a rollercoaster and we take the ups with the downs but we love this full time RV rollercoaster. Cruisin down the road in our rolling earthquake! We always are checking the truck and RV to ensure we are staying on top of any issues and fixing them as they come up. Thank goodness Rick is very handy and we are not left to waste away at a RV dealership while we wait for them to fix something. So let's start there... What have we fixed or updated this year?? Upgrades --We have replaced the micro/conv oven...twice. We had internal circuits and fuses blow. The first time Grand Design shipped us a new one to where we were workamping and the second time we went and bought a nicer Samsung residential unit that fit in our space with an extended warranty. We are currently working with Grand Design on a possible reimbursement. --We replaced our TV's with all Samsung Smart TV's. We also installed a TV in our front bay so we can watch sports and movies outside. The Samsung's also give us the ability to mirror off of our Samsung phones. We have an AT&T unlimited plan and with that, we got a mini Directv Now package that gives us some cable channels and we download channel and sports apps to mirror shows onto our TV screen. That has worked really well and we don't pay for any satellite or other TV packages. --As you can see in the picture, we also installed Snap Pads on our jacks. They are made from recycled materials and really give a nice big foot pad and in parks that require something under your jacks, these fit the bill. Super easy to put on! --Early on we were faced with no cell or internet service so we needed to solve for that one quickly. We had no Verizon or AT&T...ohh the horror! LOL We invested in a WeBoost cell booster were able to boost the almost non existent signal we had to something we could use. This baby is not cheap but saved our bacon several times and since I now do some online work as we travel, it is really now a necessity to have a good connection. --Decorating...or shall we say lack of. I have not done much of anything in this area. I am not sure I want a bunch of stuff that I need to put away and set up again every time we move. We have come to like the simplicity and the quick cleaning around the RV, so we may not do too much decorating. One thing I did want were some pictures. We found a great solution for a family picture wall. We use WallPops frames. Think of them like FatHead stick on/peel off which hold pictures and you can easily switch out pictures. We also then ordered a cute custom family name wall decal on to complete the grouping. --In the area of comfort, we decided to take the leap and upgrade our RV mattress. We did a good bit of research and went with a Tuft & Needle mattress. We really liked that it had cooling features and a 100 day sleep guarantee. Another plus was that we bought it while in Mesa and it just so happened they had a storefront where you can go and try out the mattresses, hassle free. Super duper bonus, they offered a military discount! After 6 months, we can confidently say that it provides the needed support and for me with my joint replacements, it cradles my hip and shoulder nicely. --One thing we loved from our previous camper that we immediately did in our new home was to upgrade our showerhead with an Oxygenix showerhead. It really does give you the feel of more water pressure with less water! Finally, we added an On the Go portable water softener as we find ourself in areas with hard water often. It really is a nice unit that is easy to regen and set up. Whew...that's alot of stuff, not to mention several are pricey investments, but in the end, that is what they are, investments for our home on wheels. And first year ones at that. The first year is always the most expensive. So from here, we should hopefully have less upgrades...well umm, except for the big one we just had done in Elkhart, but more to come on that in another post coming soon! Repairs We would be lying if we said the rig was perfect and had no issues. However, as rolling earthquakes go, we have been fortunate to have had some minor things that we could repair, besides our one ooops. --While at our first workamping gig at Peninsula State Park in WI, we had a stuck gray dump valve. You can read about how Rick fixed it here. --As we left our first workamping gig , we bent the back left jack and foot. Fortunately we were on our way to the Grand Design rally in Elkhart, IN and they replaced that free of charge for us! They also fixed a couple other minor things for us as well. Read about the repairs and our first rally here. --When we arrived at our second workamping job in S. IN, we noticed that the living room AC was not operating as well anymore. Rick found the issue with the divider baffle and then tapes all the vents, greatly improving the output. Read about that here. --During our stay here we also found the electric side of the hot water heater was not working. Rick talked with one of the GD techs online and was able to fix it by replacing the electric side thermostat. --For the rest of 2018 into 2019 we were doing well with just regular maintenance such as servicing the generator for the first time, flushing the water heater and replacing water filters. We even made it across the country on the very bumpy I-10 to AZ without any issues. --March 1st, as we got ready to move from one RV park to another down the street, we uncovered the RV tires to find a flat tire that we must have picked up a nail in AZ somewhere. This was our first time changing a tire on the RV and working with the spare. Read about it here. --While we wandered around northern AZ, we picked up a stone that cracked the windshield on the truck and had to have that replaced while we were visiting the Grand Canyon. Looking back over the year and recounting our repairs, we really did not have that many issues. Nothing we couldn't take care of. Thankfully!!! I think some of that comes with the anal vigilance we have in checking everything on every move and throughout our travels. Here's hoping our future years are as good as our year one shakedown!! Up next, our first year numbers, where we've been, what we saw and where we worked. Thanks for stopping by!!! 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Would you like to help support our blog and keep these updates coming? It is easy to help, just do your Amazon shopping through the link above. You still get all your Amazon Prime benefits and the prices are the same. Since we are in the Amazon affiliate program, any shopping you do through our link, provides a little kickback to support this blog. Thank you for stopping by!!!! Our time with family camping in Door County was short as the weather decided not to cooperate, but it was still great to see everyone and spend a little time at the campfire and playing games. After leaving Door County after a month and a half, we headed south to do a night of moochdocking at my Dad's, get some laundry done and visit with the boys and my mom quick before we needed to head south to Goshen, Indiana for our first RV rally. We got to Elkhart just at 4pm…um, Central time, ie. 5pm Eastern Elkhart time, which is too late to check in for the rally. We headed over to the Elkhart campground to spend the night. We weren’t alone though because there were several other Grand Design RV’s doing the same thing. We were planning on spending the night at our first boondocking site at a casino, however, with temps being well over 90, we would be running the generator all night long and it just didn’t make sense to burn through propane, when we could get closer to the rally site and have FHU pull-thru site with a Good Sam discount. We got a good nights sleep and were up early and over to the rally shortly after they opened at 10am to check in. The Elkhart County fairgrounds is a gem of a fairground in every way. It is huge, has beautiful grounds and can accommodate around 500 RV’s. There are numerous FHU sites with 50amp, numerous more 30amp with water and the ability to create many more temporary sites with 30amp and water. Being that we were coming in the second day for arrival, we were escorted to a temporary 30amp and water site. Holy RV campground! It was a bit overwhelming to see over 375 RV’s and over 800 people milling around. The Grand Design rally started Tuesday with a hilarious “presidential” entry by the CEO of Grand Design and wrapped up Friday with an arial shot of all the participants surrounded by Grand Design RV’s, followed by a concert at one of the stages. This rally far exceeded our expectations and the organizers really did a great job organizing the events, meals, seminars, excursions, creating an amazing swag bag and just plain herding cats, i.e. attendees! Every day started with a full breakfast and announcements and then the day wrapped up with a full meal and fun event such as line dancing, campfire stories, concert and S’Mores. We, however, did not take part in all of the evening events as we met many new friends that we just plain hung out with at our RV’s and got to know one another. It was a very casual environment, with more folks stopping by to say hey or pull up a chair and sit awhile. We signed up for the Amish Brown Bag excursion and spent the day touring Amish sites, with stops at a woodworking shop, buggy shop, quilt shop, E&S wholesale, bulk foods and a bakery. At each stop we received a gift for our brown bag. We scored Amish pretzels, popcorn, jam, and cinnamon rolls. We also attended an Amish Threshers dinner at an Amish families homestead. This was followed by a very interesting Q&A session with the owners on Amish life. Very interesting! One of the benefits of coming to the rally is having the ability to choose 3 things you would like to have fixed while at the rally. Being that our RV is relatively new, we choose a couple minor things that we could think of at the time, which was 4 months ago. Additionally, they added our bent hydraulic jack to our list that we damaged in Door County. When we arrived we checked in with service to ensure they had all of our requests, including the jack and to let them know we were there. Within 3 hours we had a knock on the door from the tech and he was ready to take care of our items. He did a great job fixing those items as well as checking out a couple other items we inquired about. He also let us know that he would check to make sure the tech who would be installing the jack knew we were there. He came by the following day to install the new jack right at our site. Strangely enough, the last day of the rally, I went to open the microwave and it sparked and went dead. Dead as a door nail. Rick went over to the service desk and because it was the last day of the rally, they were unable to get a new microwave to the rally, so they will ship s a new one to our next destination. While there, Rick also got a couple packages of LED light strips for the outside lighting. Did I mention that all of this was FREE?!?!?!?! We were one of almost 400 RV’s there and just about everyone submitted a list of repairs of varying degrees, from minor things to larger items like awnings, leaf springs, jacks, etc. All were taken care of and then some. I can’t even tell you how many techs were there from Grand Design and Lippert, a major supplier of RV parts. Grand Design has a company motto, “We strive for nothing less than customers for life.” I think they definitely have a few! In addition to Grand Design and Lippert booths, there were numerous other RV parts, supply and product vendors set up with booths and conducting seminars. We went to several seminars where we learned some new things and affirmed some things as well. We also visited the vendor booths (insert large amounts of dollars leaving the wallet here). First, we found a fellow RV’er selling sink cover storage racks for an Amish gentleman who makes them and stains them to match the RV wood décor. They were very well made, including backer braces and I am always playing move the sink cover, while doing dishes, so this was something that would help to organize the kitchen area and reduce the clutter. Next up was a extension pole and microfiber, double-sided mop heads for the wonderful Wash and Wax All I had bought Rick for Christmas. This stuff is amazing and allows you to wash and wax your rig in one step without water. Soo many RV parks today do not allow you to wash your rig with water in their park and with a Beacon wash running well over a hundred bucks a shot for truck and RV, this was a wise investment. Rick got to work on Sunday washing half of the RV. It works amazing and the mop heads clean up easily in the wash. We then came upon the sign vendor that creates any type of vinyl monogram of sayings or pictures to put on anything, including your RV. We had talked about getting something for the back of our rig and after seeing all of the other great things they were producing, we succumbed to ordering ours. It really turned out nice and we put that on Sunday as well while we were washing the RV. Watcha think? On Saturday morning we said goodbye to all of our newly made friends and as luck would have it, we will be visiting next week with one of the couples who are staying for a couple weeks, just 20 miles south of us when we get to our next workamping gig in Hanover, IN. We will meet up with another one of the couples when we get to our workcamping gig in Mesa, AZ next spring and will possibly be crossing paths with a couple others as we move to different areas and try to fit in some of the smaller Grand Design rallies held across the nation. Grand Design is definitely like family, everyone from GD staff, to techs, to fellow GD owners. An amazing experience! We stayed at the campground through the weekend to avoid the mass exodus of RV’s and enjoyed a couple quiet days taking in the horse show and racing events. We were able to get most of the RV washed, our new rally acquisitions installed things organized and stowed for our travels. During our time in the greater Elkhart area, we also had time to visit the RV Hall of Fame and Museum, some local eateries, the laundromat and of course Walmart. We also stopped at the Goshen Chamber of Commerce and picked up a CD driving tour of the area, including the Amish countryside. We split the CD’s up into two days and really enjoyed the wonderful things we learned about the area. We left the fairgrounds Monday morning and made our way south to Hardy Lake State Park. This location puts us close to our next workamping gig, which we will travel to on Tuesday. This park is quiet with most of the campers checking out to get back to the daily grind after the holiday weekend. The campground here, as well as the park, is very well kept, clean bath houses and we even scored a 60ft paved site with 50amp electric. Rick was able to get the rest of the RV washed in the shaded area of the site, which was good because the heat index was 100! A quiet dinner and a relaxing night of TV was in order, followed by a good night sleep so we are fresh for our next big adventure on Tuesday. SHOP AMAZON HERE
Have any Amazon shopping to do?? Do it from our Amazon link! We participate in the Amazon affiliate program and we appreciate you using our Amazon link above to make your Amazon purchases. It does not cost you anything additional and helps us to support our blog. You can even save our link as a favorite and use that whenever you need to make an Amazon purchase. Thank you!!! Holy smokes is it HOT!!! We are on our first road trip with The Grand Beauty, pulled by the Beast. Overall the trip has gone well, but long and HOT. We started off the trip at Harrington Beach State Park in Belgium with family. We had a great time relaxing and trying to keep warm. Yes you heard that right! Thursday night got into the very low 50's and with all the windows open, it did get pretty chilly! My cousin, Kassi, was a trooper and braved it out in a tent...with layers of clothes, a blanket and a sleeping bag. But we lived to enjoy another day at Harrington Beach on Lake Michigan. Friday after a little bit of rain, Rick, Kassi, our son Nicholas and I went for a nice long walk through the park. They do have some great picturesque trails on the lake, through the woods and around an old quarry which is now a lake. We even saw a couple deer who are not afraid of people or the pictures you take of them. Later in the afternoon, the rest of the family showed up and we had 7 sites in the non-electric section of the campground. We celebrated some birthdays and had a great night at the campfire, except for the darn hollow log that just wouldn't cooperate. Saturday morning we packed up early as it started to get warm and steamy. This is where the hot, hot begins! After saying our goodbyes and emptying tanks, we were on our way south. The drive through Milwaukee was uneventful, except for the bumpy roads that were pretty jarring at times. I wonder if I-10 across the south is really worse than these roads! Our first day was the longest drive from Belgium, WI to Springfield, IL. We left at 11am and arrived at the IL State Fairgrounds campground a little after 6pm. With 7 hours of driving, we were both exhausted and hot. It was 96 degrees when we arrived and very humid. We opted for full hookups with 50amp so we could run both air conditioners. Unfortunately, those sites were in the blacktop parking area. After setting up, Rick looked like a drowned rat! By the time we were done and the rv was cooled to a steamy 88 degrees, we decided to go get a quick dinner out. Way too hot to cook. We found a cool, hole in the wall gyro shop and had a relaxing dinner. When we got back to the RV, it had cooled considerably and we crawled right into bed, exhausted from the long hot day. Sunday we were up early, as it was going to be another hot day, with temps hitting 100. We went out for a Fathers Day breakfast and a quick fuel up at Walmart along with some needed items. We had originally planned to stop at Lincoln's home Sunday morning before leaving, but decided to forego that and get packed up before the heat of the day set in. We were hooked up and on the road by 11am. It was already in the low 90's and humid. Today was going to be another long day, with us looking to make it to Lebanon, MO where we had reservations at Happy Trails RV Park. Southern IL roads were in better shape and we sailed along. The landscape began to get a bit more hilly and trees were dotting the landscape rather than the flat, farm landscape of Central IL. Hitting St Louis proved to be a bit more challenging. We were wanting to go around STL on I-255, but due to construction and very confusing road signs, we missed that exit and ended up going straight through STL where even more confusing signage continued. When you are in a big truck pulling 42 feet of heavy metal behind you, it is almost impossible to make quick moves, much less change lanes on a dime like the other little cars were doing in front of us. Oh, and let's not forget the semi that decided he did not want to get on I-65 and cut back in front of us. Luckily, Rick saw he hesitated and gave him a bit of room to course correct. I think that proved to be the longest and most frustrating part of the trip thus far. Although, one other frustrating detail that proved to complicate things is that the new Tire Pressure Monitoring System(TPMS) for the RV continued to malfunction both days. This is a separate system from the trucks TPMS system and is monitored on a cellphone app. When working correctly, it is really cool and continuously monitors the temperature and pressure of each RV tire and alerts you to any abnormalities. The past two days however, it has continued to loose connection to two of the tire transmitters and then throws off an alarm on the app. Each transmitter has a flat, watch-like battery and initially we attributed it to the batteries going dead prematurely, so we changed them out with new ones that were sent with the unit. We soon ran out of fresh batteries and were getting pretty frustrated with it. Rick then decided to take the batteries out and let them sit when we hit a rest area, re-installing them before we left and that seemed to work for a bit, but then re-alarmed again further down the road. Our last ditch effort was to move the two alarming transmitters to different tires. We will see what happens there. We do have a communication into the company and an order for free replacement batteries. Perhaps it is faulty transmitters. If it is, we will need to wait to get those installed until we are back in WI. We arrived at Happy Trails RV Park around 4pm, which made for a 5 hour drive day. Many Fulltime Rv'ers stick to a firm rule of 3 hours of drive time or be off the road and set up by 3pm. I now can completely understand and appreciate that way of thinking! If we were not needing to be at our destination by Monday, I would not be pushing the drive time soo hard. After these two days of 5 to 7 hours of driving, not to mention in this heat, we are beat! Hopefully a good night sleep and only 3 hours of driving to our final destination tomorrow will be better. I will leave you with some pictures of our lovely full hook up site by the pond. SHOP AMAZON HERE
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