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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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
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
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!!! Winter has flown by...and it hasn't. The calendar is moving but I wish the weather here in WI would play along. We were teased with a day in the 50's and now headed back to the 30's. Come on Mother Nature, we have alot of work to do outside to get the house ready for selling in mid-April! Plus green grass would be nice for the real estate pictures! Drab brown with no leaves and no flowers blooming is just, well, drab!
We have been busy with inside work and the sorting through of everything! Even though we have moved a couple times over our married lives, we have still managed to accumulate stuff. Stuff that I am getting excited to get rid of and live more simply. Just the other day I was going through all of my office stuff and found a landline phone we used way back when we were first married...why??? To all my UnitedHealthcare peeps, I finally shredded the manual for the conversion to the new Facets claims payment system, well new back in 2011!!! LOL It just shows that we hang on to alot of stuff over the years that we never refer back to or use again. It really has been liberating to see large stacks of paper be eaten by the shredder and things we no longer use or will use in the future be put in the sale pile. I know we will get to stuff like the things the boys made growing up and such, that will require a box of Kleenex or two to get through, but I figure we can take picture of the precious things and they can keep what they want. We have been interviewing estate sale companies and have had three stop by to look at what we have. We have narrowed it down to two and should be making a decision this week. We will have the sale three weeks after the house goes on the market, in mid-May, as it coincides with the annual village wide rummage sale here. Hopefully this will allow enough time to get an accepted offer based on the recent sales trend in the neighborhood, which have all been less than a week. We have been receiving weekly updates from Burlington RV on the status of our upgrades and repairs and we are down to waiting on two parts to come in and be installed. We will be going to look everything over on Saturday and our hope is to bring her home Good Friday. Then the task of starting to pack everything in begins; optimizing the just over 400 sq feet of space and basement storage in our Solitude. I must say our basement storage is probably some of THE best for a 5th wheel and you would think we could pack it to the hilt with everything and anything BUT there is one tiny thing we need to keep in mind, and that is WEIGHT. The frame and suspension of the RV is rated for soo many pounds of additional cargo. Our Unloaded Vehicle Weight (UVW) is 14,200 and our Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) is 16,500. This leaves us 2,300 pounds to play with. That means all of our belongings AND water and propane cannot exceed that. It may sound like alot but when you start to add up all of your clothes, food, dishes, computer, kayak, tools, camping accessories, etc. , not to mention that a gallon of water weighs just over 8 pounds and we have a 93 gallon fresh water tank on board, it can add up quickly. This means that the cast iron pans we love to use on the campfire will be limited to one and the awesome heavy duty Calphalon pans we use at home will need to find a new home. Bringing items along that are lightweight or multipurpose is the name of the game now. In fact, I found an all in one printer/fax/copier that alot of folks use on the road and it weighs 5 pounds, whereas the one I have at home is over 26 pounds! I even thought I could help the cause so I am loosing weight too! LOL If we do pick up the RV on March 30th, that gives us two weeks to get it packed and move it off site for the house to be ready for real estate pictures and listing. My dad and stepmom are putting in a 50 amp plug for us on their property just north of us, so that we will be able to hang out there in between our camping this spring and summer and when we return to WI to visit family & friends. It is good to know we will have a place to land, that can accommodate our 42 feet of home when we are in WI. Thanks guys! We also have been working on getting all of the medical/dental/vision squared away as well. I just had the PRK laser eye surgery done as a f/u to the Lasik I had done many years ago so I should be good for vision for awhile until I have to break down and get cheaters. Rick is scheduled for his eye exam and the boys are getting all their vision checks too. Dr visits are underway, prescriptions refilled and discussion with Dr's for refills down the road. Dental visits scheduled and poor Rick needs a root canal before we go, perhaps two. Ouchh!! As we get more acclimated to the full-time lifestyle, we will probably look into the dental and pharmacy benefits to be had in Mexico. I have read many blogs on their dental tourism and how wonderful it is and how cheap too. That is all for now and I suspect our next update will be when we bring the RV home. Til then, Happy Easter! |
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