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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Yes, as of today, Monday 6/11/18, we are full timers! So what makes it official??? Well that is a different answer for every full timer. It could be the day you close on your house, the day you retire, the first day you begin to live in your RV, or the day you drive out of your driveway for the last time. We have read many fulltime RV blogs and each of them had a different answer. For us, we have a couple qualifying reasons that add up to us declaring today as our first day as fulltimers. First off, it is the first work day that Rick and I are both retired. Rick's official last day was Friday and he has now joined me in the retired life. Secondly, this morning we signed the papers for the closing of our house, which will officially be on June 29th, however, we will be on the road in a different state. Finally, we drove out of the driveway for the last time. We packed everything up and have moved to our moochdocking location about a half hour away at my Dad's next to the barn. It was bittersweet, and a few tears were shed, but we are excited to see what the next chapter brings! After getting set up, Rick was off to a family fishing excursion on Lake Michigan. All of the kids went in on it for a Christmas present for his dad. Rick has many good memories of fishing on Lake Michigan with his dad when he was young so this was a great time for the family to get back out on the water together. It was a good time had by all and they caught a couple salmon and trout. After we spend a couple days here visiting with family, we are then off to our first camping spot at Harrington Beach and then making our way to SW MO to hold a mini Army reunion with Rick's buddies he was stationed with in Germany. SHOP AMAZON HERE
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!!! The last couple weeks have continued to be busy ones. It feels like the beginning of May was just last week! Alot of things have been happening to ready the house for closing. Our estate sale went well with just a couple hiccups, like the estate sale staff locking themselves out of the house one morning! Now I can look back and laugh, but then it was a bit of a panic moment to figure out how to get them into the house since our real estate agent was about to board a plane for Washington DC and I didn't have the latest lock box code. So how did the estate sale go? Would this be a route we would take again to liquidate all of our belongings? Great and oh YES!! When we last wrote, we had moved the boys and we moved into the RV in the driveway. On Tuesday, the estate sale staff began to set up and organize everything. This is the piece I dreaded doing myself the most. Although we have not hoarded items over the years, there was still a bunch of stuff in the storage room and work room, not to mention the garage and shed. I was absolutely amazed that by the end of Tuesday, almost everything was out on display. It was surreal to walk thru that evening and see everything you had acquired over the years set out for sale. And yes, there were things we forgot we even had. More than I care to mention! LOL Over the next two days, the staff organized and priced everything. This I think is the critical point for folks considering using an estate sale company to sell their belongings of any amount. Obviously, most of your belongings have a sentimental value as well as a dollar value to you. Let's face it, you used your hard earned money to buy all of this stuff and dang it, it has alot of value (to you). I purposely put that in parenthesis because it is true...what you may value your items is quite different than what someone looking to buy it, would value it. This is why I hired professionals. They do this day in and day out. Not only does this company hold estate sales but they also go all over the country buying at estate sales. They understand what prices an item will sell for. Prior to them pricing, we had a great conversation about this very topic. Let me demonstrate with our dining room set. This set was a beautiful tiger wood table with extension and 6 padded chairs, two of them being armed captains chairs. We bought this set in Georgia when we moved into our new home where we had a formal dining room. We wanted a statement piece and this beautiful tiger wood table was it. We paid over $3,000 for the set, which back then was alot for us. In talking with the estate sale staff, they asked, are you looking to get top dollar or are you looking to get rid of things. He said since they are constantly buying and selling things, he could price the set for top dollar and it probably would not sell at the estate sale, but he would then take it back to his warehouse and in the next year, could probably get a higher price for it. Or, the other option was to price it competitively to sell. He said some people have a very strong attachment to things and want top dollar and others want to get rid of things. We decided to be the latter. We had come to the state of mind that things are just that...things. We can get more "things" later if we want. For our purposes, we needed to get rid of everything and we were not about to come back after the sale only to find a house full of stuff because we were priced too high. So with those marching orders, the staff went to pricing everything to sell. EVERYTHING was for sale. From furniture down to copier paper and cleaning supplies and everything in between. The sale started Friday at 9am and was to run through Sunday. By the time Rick and I left the RV at 7am on Friday, there was already someone parked on the road and more coming in. Friday proved to be a super busy day, as was Saturday and Sunday for that matter. They stopped trying to count the number of people coming through and estimated a couple thousand. They said that Friday morning was like a Black Friday morning sale. People were running through the house looking for specific things that they wanted to claim. Many family and friends came to the sale, as well as neighbors, but what surprised us was when the sale staff called us to ask if the new owners of the house, who had just bought most of the furniture and wall hangings, could keep the items in the house rather than move them out and move them back in when the house closes. On the first day of the sale they bought over two thousand dollars worth of stuff, and then bought more on Saturday and again on Sunday. Yes, they came every day and continued to buy more, including that dining room set! I think they really like the house...and our belongings! Once it was all said and done, almost everything sold, including cleaning supplies, liquor and shelves of yard tools and fertilizer. We had some misc items left and we had family and friends come back through to take what they wanted. Most of the remaining will be donated. We did have the option to have them clean everything else up and take it to donate or throw out, but we felt that we would dispose of the rest and donate to get the tax write off. As of today, there is only a couple boxes to donate and the house is empty...except for the items the new homeowners bought. Looking back, I would absolutely hire an estate sale company again. They took care of everything, including advertising and all the hard core bargain hunters that wanted alot for nothing. We did not make a fortune, but we set our expectations low and were pleasantly surprised. Communication with the estate sale staff was great and I would highly recommend them to anyone in the greater Milwaukee area. Ford Bros. Trading Company 414-305-3865, http://fordbros.net. One highlight of the sale happened Saturday afternoon when we came back to the RV to get some items. The sale was still in process and there were many people mulling about, when we heard someone talking to their kids about the house and recounting some memories of when they lived there. We turned around to find the original owner/builder that we bought the house from. This house was a labor of love for him and it held alot of memories. He found out we were selling from his parents and came to show the kids the house, since they were very young when they sold it to us. We had a good time going through the house with him, showing him the upgrades we made and he said that if he knew we were selling he would have bought it back. His goal is to someday buy it back as his retirement home and he loved everything we did to it, which was a real compliment. Just then the estate sale folks said that if we would have been there 30 minutes earlier, we could have met the new homeowners and had all three owners there at once. All in all, it was a good weekend and we are glad to be past that point and now focusing on the closing and activities that go with it. We have a minor repair to make, a radon system to have installed and the well and septic testing. Everything else is on target to close on June 29th. Also during this time, we needed to help find a new (used) vehicle for our oldest son, since his current car was dying a slow death and would not pass emissions testing without alot of work. This turned out to be a quick and painless process and he now has a reliable vehicle he likes. We also got in a great camping trip to one of our favorite parks, Astico County park. We try to camp here once a year with family since it has nice big sites and is a great place to camp as a group. The weather was beautiful, in the high 60's, and we enjoyed celebrating our oldest's 21st birthday. The weekend was full of games, walks and campfires. We had hoped to get out in the kayak but that just did not pan out with everything else we wanted to do. I will say that the strangest thing was getting ready to leave for the campground. This was the first time we did not have to load food, clothes and all the misc into the RV for the camping trip like we usually do. Since we are now living in the RV, it was a matter of hooking up and leaving. That was really slick! We could get used to this! Here are a couple pictures from our camping weekend. SHOP AMAZON HERE
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!!! Hello from the frozen tundra...in spring!! Yes this picture was taken April 16! I saw a great comment on Facebook that sums up my thoughts as I look at all the snow... "I can't wait for summer this year. I sure hope it falls on a weekend." With 6+ inches of sleet and heavy wet snow on the ground and more snow on the way this week, I think our dreams of having lovely spring pictures for the house listing have been squashed. This weekend brought a very unnecessary late spring snowstorm. But I fear we brought it on ourselves. See, we sold our snowblower a couple weeks ago and took out the snow sticks. Dumb move we now regret. So today I am trying to find someone to come plow our driveway. It has been busy the last couple weeks, getting ready for the house to go up for sale, cleaning out and organizing stuff that the boys will keep, family wants or we will sell at the estate sale. There are some items we will take with us but that is minimal. We have also been working on cleaning around the house, storing excess furniture and putting personal items away for the pictures of the home. This is going to be a whirlwind week, and as family and friends know, I like to be organized and have a plan of attack. And I did. Until the snowstorm. So plans have had to be adjusted and will probably need more adjusting, but I think this is a good process for us, me especially, to go through because life on the road will certainly have wrenches thrown into the best laid plans and we will just have to roll with it. So as of today, this minute, the pictures and drone footage of the house will happen on Friday morning. We will need to pull the RV out of the driveway for those, but that means we have to dig it out first. The listing also goes live Friday and we are going camping, yes possibly in snow to escape the home showing chaos! Hopefully we will come back Sunday afternoon to an offer or two! Fingers crossed! This Thursday the Estate Sale folks come to take pictures of the items for the sale, so we have also been busy digging out the old Barbies, Lionel trains and Tonka trucks that they want to make sure to get a photo off. Then it is basically everything else in the house minus the items that family and friends want. The sale is set for the weekend of May 11-13, the same weekend of the annual rummage sale in town and I hope we pull a good bit of foot traffic in from that. Either way, get it sold! The rest will go to charity most likely. I just could not imagine having multiple rummage sales and the estate sale seems to be an easier route. I'll let you know when it is all over if it was worth it. Not looking to make a killing but perhaps enough for a nice dinner! Our plan is to move out the weekend before the sale so they can easily know that everything else can be sold. We will get the boys settled and whatever else we need to put in the RV and then move it to my dad's. Rick is excited for his last day to arrive soon. He even found a countdown app for his phone so he has the current remaining days, hours and minutes handy. June 8th cannot come fast enough. He did find out that his replacement has been hired so he will be busy showing the new manager the ropes in May. Hopefully that makes the month fly by. As I finish this, I see that a winter weather advisory has now been posted for tomorrow for an additional 2-4 inches, perhaps more locally in spots. Ohhh, spring where art thou?!?!?!?!?! Search Amazon Here
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