Day 92 / 273

Saylorville Lake Sunshine 90 Degrees

“Let there be singing from the fruited plains!” Someone I worked with used to say that, much to my amusement, every time he received good news. It still cracks me up. Yesterday when Zack contacted me to tell me he had our AC Compressor Fan motor and would be down today to put it in I couldn’t help  hearing Jim's voice in my head.

Our adventure is going to take a turn beginning the middle of this month. Long story short after 15 years of chronic digestive issues that seem to puzzle the main stream medical community because they can’t fix me with their drugs, I launched into full-blown research mode with a literal fire in my belly, I decided to dive into the world of Paleo eating.  I am a research, plan, execute kind of person, who generally exhausts the people around me when I am in execute mode. What does this have to do with living full-time in the RV? Ironically, the fact that we are full-time makes it kind of cool, since at the root (pun intended) of hunter/ gatherer type eating is locally sourced, in-season foods.  With our nomadic lifestyle, I will enjoy a variety of foods on levels that those who live in-situ miss out on if they engage in this way of eating. I will eat like a modern-day nomadic cave woman!

[caption id="attachment_861" align="alignleft" width="300"] I will miss you![/caption]

I picked June 16^th  to start the initial 30 day meal plan to get the hang of it. "Why?",  you ask? Because my birthday is June 15^th and I want to say a final farewell to my beloved Stout Beer that I will have to give up, since all grains are off-limits. The cool part? I love vegetables and cook almost everything from scratch.  As I researched, I realized, I am already about 70% in compliance with the ideology . Champ is another story, he eats grains by the ton, but has agreed to go along with me for the first 30 days. I can see the righteous fear in his eyes as he listens to me talk about not eating things like Oreos,  bread and macaroni and cheese. With my powers of persuasion fully engaged, I have gently shown him pictures of the prepared meals, pointing out the similarities to what I currently set in front of him at dinner. There is even a way to make dessert for him.   I have shown him some data about why he may be experiencing chronic reflux and enlarged prostate symptoms. He hates taking pills and the thought of being able to possibly get off of both his meds is the proverbial carrot on the end of the stick (yep, another pun it’s that kind of day) that has convinced him to try without too much strong arming from me.

Don’t worry, I won’t muddle my blog with Paleo zeal. It’s just what is on my mind today as I write.  It has occurred to me I could probably launch a whole new blog on this topic, but I don’t have the energy for that. I have never been one to clog my Facebook news feed with pictures of my dinner, so if you get to this through FB don’t worry about that either. Back to my new cookbooks!

Until tomorrow…

Day 91 / 274 Annie & Buster

Saylorville Lake – Cloudy 85 Degrees

After some much-needed rain, we woke up to 67 degrees this morning. The coolest we have been in over 10 days. It will be a muggy 85 today but I’ll take it. The portable AC and two blowers should be pretty effective today. I’m hopeful the central air will be going again by the end of he week.

[caption id="attachment_273" align="alignleft" width="300"] Hanging out by the Arkansas River[/caption]

I haven’t written about the cats in a while. A lot of people ask how they are doing with our AC predicament during this early season heat wave. They’re uncomfortable, just like us but hanging in there. I am glad I have conditioned them to be comfortable being outside on a tether. The RV is at its hottest, which is to say you don’t have to turn on the pan to melt butter for cooking, from about 2pm – 8pm when the sun is high in the sky and beating down on the west side where all the big windows are. Thankfully our patio faces east, so by that time of day it is shaded. We move to the patio with a fan moving things around and the cats lounge in the grass and shade at the back of the lot. Like us they are drinking a lot of water and lying around like slugs but we’re all getting through it just fine.

They travel well these days. They have decided sitting in the stairwell while on the move is their safe place. I put a blanket on the bottom step for them thinking the soft padding would be more comfortable for them and they moved to the next step up! Cats, they’re so damned hard to please. They get their exercise these days running laps back and forth through the motor home at 3:30 in the morning. Like a fan running in the room,  their pre dawn romp is a sound we’ve gotten used to and we don’t usually wake up unless one of them runs across our face or stomach.

We would like to thing they are happy traveling with us, like yesterday when Buster narrowly missed catching a bird that made the mistake of landing within his tether radius. That would have made him happy. They act like they still love us, but maybe that’s just because they know they need our coveted thumbs to open their cat food container.

Until tomorrow…

Day 90 / 275 The Happiness Factor

Saylorville Lake - Partly Cloudy 91 Degrees

“It’s an island, babe. If you don’t bring it here, you won’t find it here.” Said Harrison Ford to Anne Heche, with his boyish wry smile in one of my favorite movies, Six Days and Seven Nights. If you’re thinking about doing ‘the full-time thing’ this is actually a very valid statement.

I am naturally curious about other people and spend a lot of time talking to people about their life. What makes them happy, where they come from, what they love, what they don’t. I find most people in this life are generally happy and relaxed. They also loved camping before they started do it full time. I have met a rare few who had never camped and are loving the adventure. I have met some who owned a camper for years before going full-time who seem less that thrilled with life as they know it. The more I talk to people the more I realize, the lifestyle, awesome as it is, isn’t what makes them happy. They already were. This life has a certain hazing period that seems to make or break people in the first year. The outcome seems to have no bearing on whether they were seasoned campers, but entirely affected by whether they were happy in their brick and mortar life.

Case in point. One of the most miserable human beings I have ever met, was a retired school teacher who was in her first year of traveling in her RV and volunteering. She was generally unhappy, difficult for everyone to deal with and generally unsociable. What little I did talk to her in the very beginning she shared she had been through a major life change, was burnt out from a career that she hated and was looking for happiness. No surprise she wasn’t finding it on the island of full-time RV living. I have met several people like this so far.  I read social media and watch people post one complaint after another whether they are part of my new full-time circle or from my old life. There are also the ones who are generally happy and share positive things regularly. Being a full-time RV’er doesn’t mean you’re blissfully happy, anymore than being in the trenches of your career or raising kids means your miserable.

Can living the full-time in your RV make you happy? Of course, it can, if it was your dream and if you already know how to find happiness. If you are a miserable person who thinks life is just one struggle after another and you can never get ahead, then think hard before you sell all your stuff and hit the road. My advice is find your happy place before you hit the road. Don’t expect the road to be a magic trick. Like taking the big vacation to ‘save’ your marriage or buying a nicer house to make you happier at home, this won’t work either. For all my gushing about how much fun we have (even now in a heat wave without AC) we have struggles and arguments, we have crappy days and good days, just like we always have. We’ve met miserable souls in this life and our old life. The island, that is this lifestyle, doesn’t have the answers one can only find in their own heart.

Until tomorrow…

Day 89 / 276

Saylorville Lake Sunny 82 at 9:00 a.m. on the way to 97

[caption id="attachment_852" align="alignright" width="225"] Foil Blanket Insulation for curtains[/caption]

Fifteen years from now I imagine Champ and I sitting here in Volunteer Village with younger volunteers just getting started in this remarkable life and talking about years past. The Memorial Weekend of 2018 is going to be one that we remember for the rest of our lives. I can see us sitting around telling war stories about being full time. We’ll bicker about exactly what year it was, but the story will go something like, the hottest Memorial Day on record and no AC. We’ll wonder how we got through it.

When the central air in the motor home started acting up in Texas we didn’t think too much of it. After all, the real heat in Iowa doesn’t normally show up till late June. We’ll have plenty of time to get it fixed. Hah! We are set to shatter a heat record today that has stood since 1895. A predicted high of 97 with heat indexes approaching 105+ and dew points around 70 we will wave at the 92-degree record by noon today. The hardest thing to believe is just 7 days ago we had the fireplace going to keep warm. Midwest weather was wild mood swings as anyone who has lived here knows all too well.

Like most difficult situations, when you realize it is going to happen you don’t know how you will cope. But humans are quite resilient. We seem to hunker down and adapt when life deals a blow. On Tuesday evening as Zack walked away with our burnt-up compressor fan motor, I thought to myself “We have three full days before the holiday weekend, there’s a sporting chance we’ll be okay by the time the heat gets bad.” On Friday afternoon I was watching the weather, and my phone, that never resulted in the much wanted call from Zach, saying the motor was ready, and resigning myself to the fact that this was really going to happen. Champs personality is one that will roll with most anything. Mine is to go down swinging. We have filled with big windows with insulated foil wrap, making our home on wheels look  like a space capsule. The portable AC unit that is on my corner table and 2 high velocity blowers are keeping the humidity out and the temp around the same as the outside instead of the 130 degrees it would likely be in here with no intervention. After all we live in a giant car. It is Monday and we’ve endured most of the weekend.  The last few days has been an ongoing layman’s experiment in thermo-dynamics. In retrospect we’ll remember with awe the weather pattern more reminiscent of Iowa State Fair weather in August, than Memorial Day Weekend weather. It will become part of our journey. With the exception of Friday, when I had a hot flash in the heat of the day and Champ agreed the portable AC unit was worth the money (after being on the receiving end of a hormone fueled meltdown) it has been uncomfortable but not, impossible.

Prairie Flower Campground’s power grid went down on Saturday leaving over 300 campers with no electricity for nearly 9 hours beginning mid-afternoon. I thank my lucky starts that we have electricity to run all the appliances that are keeping us from checking into a hotel with the cats, and the means to buy the things we needed to make this little adventure tolerable.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Until then…

Day 87 / 278

Saylorville Lake – Sunny 94 Degrees

The only thing that seems to be pleased with this early season heat wave in Iowa, are the second generation, Texas Blue Bonnets that I grow in a big pot and tote around with me everywhere. They are thriving! These temps typically don’t show up here till late June. When they do it’s generally for one day then it’s back to the 80’s that are normal for May. We’ll have 8-10 days of 90’s by the time this passes. So far the violent weather that tends to accompany early heat is only coming in the form of hail. No tornadoes, yet.

Memorial Day Weekend at Saylorville this year is a bit of a bummer for the visitors. The lake is a major boating destination in central Iowa and has 2 large beaches. This year with record heat occurring, the beaches are filled with debris instead of pasty white Iowans basking on the beach for the first time. They are still closed due to the carnage of recent flooding. The lake peaked at around 30’ above normal pool a couple of weeks ago and is dropping at a rate of around 18 inches a day making boating and swimming dangerous due to debris and submerged breakwaters. Only a couple of boat ramps are accessible. The lake looks inviting from a distance , but it is very hard to access this weekend. The cruel irony is that most Memorial Day Weekends in Iowa are too cool to enjoy the water. After the coldest April on record, we are having the warmest May on record, so the water temp is actually fit for swimming. The quality? Not so much.  Remember that aquarium you had to have once? Remember how it looked after a couple of weeks of neglect? That would be a tropical paradise compared to the muck that is Saylorville right now.

We attended a great nephews graduation today and have a quite weekend ahead to relax. While most are running to multiple graduations, family reunions and other events, we hit a quiet patch and are both happy for it.

When we imagined being full-timers we, like many, had a false notion that we would mostly avoid extreme weather. I’m realizing quickly it’s a myth that lives in the hearts of full-time dreamers. I do realize that we are doing just fine when I couldn’t find and ice scraper this past spring and our wardrobe consists of mostly summer clothes. I think we’re doing just fine.

Until tomorrow…

Day 86 / 279 Feed Your Soul

Saylorville Lake 85 Degrees on the way to 90 – Humid

Still no AC. Motorhome is a crisp 92 degrees now at 3:30 and the hot part of the day won’t arrive till around 7PM. Four fans are doing their best to keep the food from cooking itself in the pantry.

People I meet who dream of going full-time sometimes say, “I could never give up….” (activity) When you are thinking about going full-time a big consideration is how you will spend your time. Most of us have at least one hobby or passion. Mine is gardening. Champ’s is repair, modifying, fabricating building most anything. He gave up his shop and I gave up my yard and gardens. We talked at length about how we would continue to enjoy those activities. The solution for us was to seek out work camp jobs that allowed us to use those skills or engage in our favorite past times.

I get all kinds of gardening time these days. I have my little plots here at our summer digs at Saylorville and I grow a windshield full of potted plants, some of them food in the winter when we go south. Champ is constantly modifying something on the motor home or doing little jobs for people we know or whatever agency we’re volunteering for.

[caption id="attachment_842" align="alignleft" width="225"] Fixing a broken hose reel[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_843" align="alignright" width="225"] Planting Day at Joyce's[/caption]

Today is a perfect example of you we still ‘piddle around’ as Champ says it. My friend Joyce had a landscape designer come up with a plan for a portion of her yard. Joyce invited me along last week to meet with her, see the plan and purchase some of the plants that will go in over the season. Today after working on my own little plots here, we went out to her place.  I helped her start to bring the plan to life. You could easily say, my gardener’s soul is living vicariously through Joyce’s yard this summer. Champ went along and was presented with a honey-do list that he gladly worked on while we planted. I have plans to help my daughter with her yard on Sunday as well. I think it’s safe to say Neither Champ nor I miss our hobbies all that much.  Problem solved.

Think about your hobbies and imagine how you can do it, maybe on a smaller scale. We met a gentleman last winter who had a small woodworking shop set up in an enclosed trailer that he took with him. He built things for craft shows and made a little money on the side.  One of the more inventive ones I’ve seen, is a woman who is an avid quilter,  who bought a toy hauler simply to have a sewing room. Her toys are her sewing machines and big quilting tables. Now, that’s thinking outside the box if you ask me.

Where there’s a will there’s a way, as they say. Get creative and think about it, I’ll bet you’ll come up with something.

Until tomorrow…

Day 85 / 280

Saylorville Lake 85 Degrees Sunny

The down side of living in an RV is they aren’t insulated like a house. If the furnace quits you can start up the fireplace or put space heaters out. If the AC goes out, your screwed. There’s no polite way to say it. We are living one of those, “how bad could it get” scenarios. While we wait for a compressor fan motor to be rebuilt, (since the motor is a special order, nothing is easy with RV parts) we roast in our fiberglass and plastic box with only an inch of insulation and black glass windows on the west side. This is one of those days when I recall my childhood. Not that we were dirt poor or anything, but in the 70’s Air Conditioning was still considered something of a luxury. I grew up in a house equipped with air conditioning but my parents chose to spend their dollars on other things instead of cooling the house. I can count the number of times they actually turned it on, on one hand. As an adult my responce to that unpleasant memory has been to cool my home in the summer no matter what else I had to give up. I like summer and hot weather, but I like it a lot more when I can go inside, when I’ve had enough, and sit in my preferred 75 degree air. Don’t get me wrong 85 outside and 96 inside, as it is today, could be a lot worse in Iowa. It could be July and 105 degrees and god knows how hot inside with heat indexes overnight hovering in the upper 80’s. I’ve written before about liking the outdoors. It’s a good thing. We are spending most of our days and evenings outside in the shade. The saving grace is, it is getting into the 60’sat night so we start out each day about 70 inside.

[caption id="attachment_838" align="alignleft" width="200"] Judy and Bridget having a planting party with me[/caption]

I focus my thoughts on the fact that I love to be outside and it is quite comfortable here as I write. My other joy is that I spent yesterday morning planting my adopted bed in the Butterfly Garden at Saylorville and got to spend good time with a fellow volunteer Judy, who loves gardening as much as I do. After I finished my bed I helped her the rest of the morning working on other beds in the garden. Over two dozen, some adopted by local volunteers, some not. At any rate my green thumb is happy when I’m here in the summer and need to nurture my spirit growing beautiful things like flowers and witness the butterflies arrive and thrive in the gardens for the season.

Life is hot today, but it is good. It’s all a matter of attitude.

Until tomorrow…

Day 84 / 281 Let That Stuff Go

Saylorville Lake 82 Degrees Sunny

“You can’t take it with you.”  Since hitting the road I’ve talked with basically two types of people. Those who sold everything ( none of whom regretted it)  and those who put in all in storage only to have it decay, get infested with mice and basically become junk. All while they shell out good money for the storage unit. Some have, since I’ve known them got rid of it all anyway, saying they wish they’d sold it when it was still worth something.

How much stuff do you have? What will you do with it all? How attached are you too it, REALLY. Those are the $64,000 questions. I read many stories on other blogs about this subject before we went full-time. It was a huge emotional hurdle for me. The walls of my home were filled with my photography. A huge collection of pottery bought from local artists on dozens of trips and my shamefully large collection of shot glasses from everywhere I had travelled the past 25 years were displayed. I also had several pieces of antique furniture that I had been entrusted with from 2 generations before me. Like you, my stuff was mine, it meant something to me, it had history, my history, and I had to look deep and think hard about the unrelenting attachment we humans have with our stuff.

I wrote a post early on in my blog about the details of getting rid of everything. Now, nearly two years later, I can say I have rid myself of several things I thought I wanted with me and found I didn’t when we did our one-year anniversary purge. I have also repurchased a few things. Champ put much  thought into what we would take from his garage. Like most life long mechanics, he had a well-equipped shop. There are some tools he decided he still needed and repurchased. You won’t get it all right the first time. I can say though, that after 21 months we have what we want and no more.

At the beginning of our sale, which went on for 5 days as we sold everything to the walls, we both had some anxiety watching strangers cart our things off smiling broadly at the deal they just got.  By the end of the second day we were both feeling quite liberated for shedding the weight of having more than we needed. I would trade that anxiety for worrying about all my stuff across the country in a storage unit and paying the bill each month. The few moments of angst at the beginning of the sale beats the heck out of what I’ve seen people go through realizing their things got ruined sitting in boxes.

Sometimes I go in someone’s house and see something that used to be in mine and I smile, knowing it got a good home. My advice, in case you haven’t figured it out yet is an emphatic, “Let that stuff go!” The void it leaves will be small and quickly filled with all the great experiences you will have as you explore the world and sink your teeth into this awesome, minimalist way of life.

Until tomorrow…

 

Day 83/ 282 Internet The Full Time RV'ers Lifeline

Saylorville Lake Cloudy 80 degrees - humid

If you are considering going full-time, consider how much you do online now. Because you will do EVERYTHING online once you hit the road.

I have noticed that when it comes to couples, there seems to be one who is quite tech savvy and one who could care less and can barely send a text. In this lifestyle the Internet is quite literally a lifeline. I marvel at how people functioned from a financial and business standpoint 25 years ago when Wi-Fi and smartphones were the stuff of the future. People often ask how we manage everything. If they ask Champ he simply says, “Britt takes care of it all” he really has no clue and doesn’t want one. I do everything online, from finding our volunteer ‘jobs’, to all things money related, to about 1/3 of my shopping. The only thing we don’t do is stream TV and Music. I’m too cheap to pay for unlimited data.  8-gigs last me pretty well each month. DirecTV entertains us on the small screen most of the time.

I will say that Verizon is the way to go, as far as data goes. We were loyal US Cellular customers for 18 years and always happy. Our first winter south we had a lot of trouble with speed and being throttled. After several, increasingly heated calls to them I found out they don’t even offer data service south of the Texas/ OK border. They contract with Verizon to buy small amounts from their towers. People I know with AT&T have good service if they are on the beaten path but lose data strength quickly when they venture too far away from populated areas. We switched to Verizon and have had no trouble the past year, no matter how remote we were.

We get very little snail mail. We tried a mail forwarding service the first year and it was adequate, but we found that above the regular reasonable monthly cost, they nickel and dime you to death for everything else. We are fortunate that my daughter now handles our mail for us and sends it when I ask her. The down side is if you send me a Christmas Card I probably won’t look at it till spring when I return. If you send an invitation I will likely miss the event. I’m so wired these days and email, or text is really the best way to communicate. Or, do the old-fashioned thing and pick up the phone and call us! I really don’t care about fancy engraved invitations anymore. It’s not like I’m going to save it for sentimental reasons like the 3 boxes of that stuff I tossed when we purged.

All business is handled on-line. We even did a loan online last winter. You know those annoying checks the credit card companies send you weekly it seems? You can call them and opt out of all paper mail marketing. Some of them take a couple of times to get the message. If you threaten to close your account, they seem to be more compliant with your wishes.

If you worry about conducting business online, I’ll say the same thing here I used to say to my account holders in my banking days who didn’t “Do the Internet”.  Everyone you do business with (including your doctor) is conducting their business with you online. You can choose to take advantage or not, but your information isn’t any less secure by not using their online services. Breeches happen every day, fraud is a reality. Use strong passwords, change them periodically and make sure you are on your own secure connection. Monitor your accounts regularly.  No public Wi-Fi for anything you don’t want the whole world to see.

Some days I stop and think about how reliant the world is on electronic data transfer. While it makes life sail along smoothly and makes everything fast and convenient, a hiccup in the cyber world will stop everything dead in it’s tracks. That can be disconcerting when you are 1,000 miles away in some remote area. A small stash in the underwear drawer eases that anxiety.

If you are the techy try hard to get your travelling companion to at least watch you pay bills or see where the e-statements come from. Hopefully they will pay at least a little bit of attention. I feel sorry for my kids, if anything happens to me, they’ll be saddled with their lost Dad trying to sort out our online financial life. Or more likely doing it for him while he sits beside them looking like he’s trying to read Latin. Mine doesn’t even know how to open the email account. Venus/Mars again. Somehow it works for us.

Still no AC and hot weather looms in the very near future. Of all the things to be without in an RV, air conditioning is a tough one. Our guy is coming back tonight to narrow down the electrical issue either to a switch before the compressor or some kind of overload in the compressor. I wait anxiously, since the first will likely be fixed tonight and be cheap. The latter will be expensive, and we’ll be roasting in a couple of days. The fancy basement heat-pump is nice when it works but I long for a $700.00 rooftop air conditioner that Champ could have replaced by now.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about attachment to ‘stuff’

Until then...

Day 82 / 283 The Great Outdoors and Full Time RV Life

Saylorville Lake Cloudy 60 degrees

I’m watching the weather an anxiously hoping the AC is running again by mid-week when the temps are predicted to be upper 80’s and very humid.

How much time do you spend outside now? You can safely double that time when you go full time. I’ve written in the past about the patio becoming a multi-purpose living area. That is only part of the equation.

Think about the less pleasant aspects of being outdoors, like insects and rodents. Mice in compartments is an unavoidable reality. Sometimes they even find their way into the RV. Even with two cats living with us there is no guarantee. Same for insects. RV’s simply aren’t build like a house. No basements or thick stud walls behind the siding and insulation for them to live. They get in and are right there in the open. We spray frequently to keep them at bay. If you are squeamish about critters, think it through carefully. There's nothing like sitting inside watching TV with the breeze blowing in the screen door and seeing a raccoon looking in at you as if you may open the door and hand them your leftovers so they don't have to raid the dumpster! The battle will be ongoing. It’s part of the charm, as I say.

Another very important thing to ponder is the weather.  Does a good thunderstorm lull you to sleep? Or, does it trigger anxiety? If you have never spent the night in an RV during a storm, the first time will rattle even those who aren’t normally bothered by it. A heavy shower will sound like a downpour, with no attic space to dull the sound. Hail is a whole other world. While a hail storm may dent the siding or mess up some shingles on a home. It can total an RV. Plus, houses don’t rock back and forth in the wind like even the large RV’s do. I remember a 36’  5^th Wheel we owned several years ago jar me awake in the middle of the night, because it slammed back down on the jacks, after the wind lifted it up on one side.  Once you go full time, there is no sleeping in the nice finished basement if you aren’t sure what the weather will do. Shelter will be in the form of a pipe chase in a bathhouse, or maybe even the shower stall. Underground probably won’t be an option. If a storm alert on TV makes you reach for the Xanax now, think hard on this. Even for this Iowa girl, who used to sit outside and watch the storms come I’ve had some unsettled nights since going full time. It’s part of the package.

Even if you love the outdoors, consider the worst weather you have endured camping and plan on that happening regularly.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the Internet

Until then…

Day 81 / 284 How Do You Know It's For You?

Saylorville Lake Overcast – 63 degrees

I welcome the cool dreary weather today since our AC won’t be going again for a few days. We had a 3-year old grandson here last night and had an absolute blast with him. We went to our great-great nephews (that’s right two greats there, scared the crap out of me when I realized it myself) 1^st birthday party today. It’s been a weekend of kids and grandkids and I couldn’t be more content.  Now I’m back to pondering our weird life after spending the afternoon with extended family who are still getting used to the idea that we are basically gypsies.

There is so much to consider when you first get the idea in your head that being a full-time RV dweller is what you want to do. In our first two years we have met people in all phases of the life, from those who are still dipping their toe in to those who have been living full-time in the RV for 20 years or more. We have spent time at different work sites with those who still have homes locally and keep their RV at the volunteer site but are rarely there. Some people are wired for this life style some, not so much. The trick is figuring out which kind you are. Even if you launch and decide it’s not for you there’s no shame in trying. Just think of the experiences you will have for the short time you did it that will shape who you are! I am a tireless planner and borderline obsessive analyzer. In our case we talked about it and planned for over 5 years before we jumped off the cliff. Even then, we didn’t know for sure. The re-entry plan was in place, just in case. I read many blogs and gleaned a lot of insight from those who went before us. If I had a dollar for every person in the past 21 months who has said to me “That’s always been my dream” I would own the $450,000 unit I walked through, just for fun, when we were shopping for the motorhome we traded my beloved 5^th wheel for last fall. It all comes down to answering some pointed questions and being brutally honest with yourself. I could probably write a book on the subject. Instead I’ll write a series of posts over the next few days about some questions we considered carefully and observations I’ve made from talking to others who are either all-in or teetering on the wire of going back to the ‘old way’.

The bottom line is simply this. There are endless versions of being full time. People have varying sources of income to support the lifestyle. Some workcamp, some don’t. Some own their RV outright, some don’t. At the center of it all, there are some very fundamental issues that need to be reckoned before you go for it if you want to look back and be glad you did it. I’ll take one issue a day starting tomorrow.

• How much do you like to be outside?


• How comfortable are you with internet and e-business?


• How attached are you to your material possessions?


• How big is your current living space?


• If you will travel with a partner or spouse how much time to you spend alone together now?


• How do you spend your leisure time?

Until tomorrow…

Day 80 / 285

Saylorville Lake Raining 72 Degrees

One of my favorite sayings is " Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good." That applies today on several counts.

[caption id="attachment_823" align="alignright" width="225"] Working on my ball field tan[/caption]

We went to watch Hunter's baseball game this morning in beautiful 80 degree sunshine. His 10:00 am game was over by noon and long before the rain that is falling now was due to be here. it's cool to watch kids succeed at things when they are young. It's double cool to watch your kids watch their kids having success. I don't think there is a better feeling. Hunter had two RBI's this morning and fielded a ball at short stop and tagged a kid out at  second base.

 

 

[caption id="attachment_824" align="alignleft" width="225"] Isaac 'driving' grandpa to the store[/caption]

His little brother Isaac who is three is spending the night solo with us. We're getting some fun one-on-one with him the next 24 hours.

The other lucky thing is the weather is cooling off for the next few days. The guy came to look at our AC and we'll have it going again in a few days after he runs down a part. Some electrical bugaboo that I can't begin to understand and don't want to, I'll leave it to the experts to fix it. In the meantime I thank my lucky stars that we aren't in the middle of a spurt of 90 degree weather. Hot weather is in the forecast soon, so I'll cross my fingers that we have AC back by then.  Luck is on our side this week!

Until tomorrow...

Day 79 / 286

Saylorville Lake  Sunny 85 Degrees

It's a two steps forward one giant step back kind of day.

Last winter i had a flash drive with 6 years of family history. Over 2500 pictures gone, poof! On a long shot I took the flash drive to a computer repair place staffed by what looked like 12-year-old geniuses. I got word today that they were able to recover off of my files. I can take my newly purchased external hard drive in and they will copy them. I feel like they literally raised the dead. They said to me there are two kinds of people. "Those who back up and those who will start backing up." Redundancy is something I work hard to keep out of my life. I guess it's a good idea in the world of data and photo storage. Lesson learned.

[caption id="attachment_819" align="alignleft" width="225"] Looking like summer[/caption]

We also got the boat brought to our summer home, and I have my lettuce garden fenced in so I actually get to eat the lettuces instead of feeding the bunnies. I spent the morning with my friend Joyce getting to accompany her to the greenhouse and landscape designer who is helping her with an area of her yard. I watched in awe as they discussed what to plant where and we left with a back-end full of new perennials. Only a fraction of what she will plant over the summer.  I get to go help her put them in next week. My butterfly bed is also ready to plant over at the Butterfly Garden's here at the lake. My green thumb is singing this afternoon.

Then wha-wha- wha the damned AC  quit again. Full-timers like us can deal with most things, no AC in a fiberglass box sitting in the sun is something to fear.  I am waiting in angst for my former co-worker to get back to us and tell us when he can come back. We were fearful this would happen. When it doesn't fail for the repair guy they can't do much, which is what happened last month when he was out. It was cooling fine till it stopped today. Hot weather is coming and soon. So I wait and hope the compressor still has some life in it. To know me is to know I don't wait well.

Little Miss Nora will be here soon with her folks for a short visit after their day at the Des Moines Zoo. That should cheer me up. In the meantime my patio is much cooler than my livingroom. Looks like a nice evening outside is the plan because it's 82 in the shade out here with a breeze and 90 inside with air not moving much.

Until tomorrow...

Day 78 / 287

Saylorville Lake Sunny 84 Degrees

Last night Champ and I hosted the first get together of the season at Volunteer Village. Bob and Janice won’t arrive for a few more weeks but aside from them the we were only missing one couple. One of the things I knew I would miss giving up the brick and mortar home was hosting parties and big dinners with the family. I guess this is one of the ways I have figured out how to fill that void. I love to get people together to just relax and visit.

[caption id="attachment_816" align="alignleft" width="300"] 2018 Kickoff Happy Hour[/caption]

Last night reminded me of how close knit the workcamp community can become. It is reminiscent of the suburban neighborhoods of the 60’s when all the neighbors knew each other and looked out for each other and their kids. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in the movie The Sandlot, when the big block party was going on for the 4^th of July.

Potluck style light food for dinner and everyone’s beverage of choice. Perfect temperatures, no wind and very few bugs made for a wonderful evening of getting to know the new volunteers in the village. One couple arrived for the summer earlier in the day and we had a chance to get caught up with them.  Of course, there were some tales of years past being swapped by some of the veterans. Big storms, weird discoveries, unusual requests from visitors and a few fish tales. The loose time-frame of 6-8 PM turned into 10:15 before we knew what happened we were having such a good time.

I went to bed feeling very content and thankful for the great group we have here. It truly feels like home when we return. Hopefully some day we’ll be looking back on many years of coming here in the summer.

Until tomorrow…

 

Day 77 / 288

Saylorville Lake -Sunny 60 degrees on its way to 85 Degrees

Just like that, two days went by and I haven’t seen my blog homepage.  I wondered to myself when I decided to chronicle a year how many times this may happen. Normally I am doing this in the early evening. Today I am sitting here at 6am knowing the day is going to get away from me again.

[caption id="attachment_813" align="alignleft" width="236"] My week[/caption]

Sometimes the old life and mindset creeps back into our mostly relaxed lifestyle. This is one of those weeks. My contribution to Saylorville this season is writing the two newsletters that go out weekly. My deadline is noon each Wednesday.  I just turned in my third week last night. My routine is to go around the lake taking my pictures and interviewing people over the weekend. I spend Monday and Tuesday getting things put together and ready to go. This Monday after a very busy weekend, I was driving to my part-time job with my laptop in my bag anticipating a very quiet day in the retail world and time to work on it. Instead I got a text saying that they had hired a new person over the weekend and I would be training her this week. There went my well laid plans to keep my head above water with my writing commitments. Training is exhausting. I managed to get the newsletters done on time but the blog slipped off the plate for a couple of days.

I wonder if I can keep it interesting for a year. I do have some things to share and will do that beginning tomorrow. If you scroll down you can leave a comment, if you want to know something specific I can write about it. Or just leave a comment. Many follow me through their Facebook news feed. If you are shying away from Facebook like many are now, you can follow me below by leaving your email. You’ll get a notification when a new post is put up.

For now, please accept my tripping over my crowded schedule this week, I'll  get back on pace. As for me I am headed to the patio to do my morning yoga practice outside in the morning sunshine with the sounds of the timber behind us.    ~Namaste

Until tomorrow…. (I’ll be here)

 

Day 74 / 291 Mother's Day

Saylorville Lake - Rainy 62 degrees

It's Mother's Day today. When people travel a lot they miss many holidays with loved ones. We are no exception. Christmas, usually Easter and several winter birthdays happen in our absence from Iowa. Mother's Day is a deeply engrained tradition with our kids and is now a major event for us in terms of getting all the kids together, usually for the first time since our arrival from our southern winter digs.

Champ cooks for all of us. He always does a good job. For me being a gourmet cook and watching the process is about like if he had to watch me service the motor home. I have mechanical skills and could get the job done but he would lose his mind watching me muddle through the process and take approximately 12 times as long as he could do it in. It's the same experience for me watching him cook Mother's Day brunch for 24!  This morning I started a fire in the ring, took my Sunday NYT Crossword and went outside.

The kids and their spouses came with most of the grandkids and we feasted, visited, tended the fire and even came up with some Morrells from the timber behind us. The rain came again around 1 PM and we crowded inside, not unlike holidays at his parents small home many years ago.

The best part of this day was finding out that my oldest grandson, Cody and his girlfriend are getting married on my birthday next summer in the very same park where I married his grandpa 16 years ago. She asked if we would be here for it. Of course we will! I was thrilled! Of all the things we miss in this full-time life I am so glad we will be in Iowa for that one.

Today was for the kids. There are many women in my life who have shaped the woman I became and continue to influence me. I didn't see them but they were not far from my heart as I celebrated with my daughter, daughter's in-law, granddaughter-in-law to be and Jp's mother who I consider a friend. Happy Mother's Day to all across the miles.

Until tomorrow...

 

Day 73 / 292

Saylorville Lake Rainy 55 Degrees

After a lot of reflection on the impact of this life change we have embarked on I am having a busy few days. My friends store where I am working this summer is undergoing some staff turnover, so I’ve picked up some extra hours to help.

[caption id="attachment_804" align="alignleft" width="300"] Me & Hunter at the zoo[/caption]

In between shifts, I took a walk down a nostalgic path by joining my grandson Hunter on his Kindergarten trip to the Blank Park Zoo. I grew up just a few miles from it and marvel at how the zoo has grown over the years. For all the changes, the train is still there, one of my fond childhood memories. I spent Friday morning with my daughter and his friends in his class trekking through the zoo and reminiscing to myself about field trips with my

[caption id="attachment_805" align="alignright" width="225"] Champ rockin the pink lea, brother Steve and sister Kathy with Aunt Rosemary. The last of her generation.[/caption]

daughter at that age, a quarter century ago but just yesterday in my heart.

Today we went to Champ’s Aunt Rosemary’s 83^rd Birthday party. She is the last surviving sibling from my father in laws family of 11 kids. I take a lot of pictures of people in my life and I was reminded today that no matter how much they complain about having their picture taken or stick out their tongues at my camera I will relent in taking them. Aunt Rosemary had a volume of the 4 scrap books she has been keeping throughout her adult life. it was incredible to read through family history of old photographs, some from early 1900’s, newspaper clippings, obituaries, WWII military documents, marriage licenses etc. Her scrap books are a veritable time capsule of family history. I thumbed through them today and wondered to myself how I got so lucky to become a part of such a special family. Every time I am with Champ’s family I feel nothing but love and acceptance. Not something I was accustomed to before I met and married Champ, 16 years ago. As we left today, I wondered as I often do when I say ‘See you soon” to my most senior relatives, if I will see them again. We simply don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Until Tomorrow…

 

Day 72 / 293 The Change Part III

Saylorville Lake - Rainy 65 degrees

Another factor is the vastly different way we experience life. With it’s minimalistic theme we have learned to be quite content with very little in the way of material possessions. When I am inside my motor home cooking dinner or watching TV everything seems very much the same as before. But sometimes, when I am sitting outside I look at the RV and marvel at the notion that all I own and all I want to own is within that small space. Shedding the stuff opens your heart and mind to notice other things around you.  Without the energy required to maintain all the material things we once had, we have so much more time and energy to enjoy what we do have. I spend very little time in stores these days. I shop online more than ever, since I can’t always find the store I want in the area I’m at. The store lives in my computer.

I realize I pay attention to different things. Especially advertising. I don’t pay any attention to most print ads because I do not consume near the goods that I used to. It seems I was always buying a new piece of furniture or some sort of decoration when we owned our house. I couldn’t tell you if Homemakers Furniture is having a sale this week and I don’t care.   Oddly enough though,  I still have my credit card with them…just in case. When we travel,  instead of seeking out shops I seek out museums and local historical attractions. As a result, I take many more memories in the form if experience and photographs instead of shot glasses and coffee cups. I must remind myself that the stuff I had wasn’t that hard to let go of.  When we travel now my souvenirs are the people I meet who find a place in my heart. Can’t buy that for $7.95 in a shop, it comes free for taking the time to get to know them and I won’t have to part with it for pennies on the dollar someday if the motor home gets cluttered.

I have not decided if I donate or buy more from thrift and consignment stores. I think it’s a wash. My things rotate. I love a good deal. "One item in / one item out" is a strict rule in the full-time lifestyle unless you like replacing axles and tires from being overloaded.

I have found I have less stuff but feel much richer for the people and the experiences. With less monotony there is always something to look forward to. Life changes, planned or unplanned, always result in growth. But, this has been like taking a super charged growth pill this past 20 months. Hopefully, someday we’ll be sitting in front of our RV and reminiscing about 15 or 20 years of this.

Until tomorrow…

Day 71 / 294 The Change Part II

Saylorville Lake - Sunny 75 Degrees

Full-time RV living comes in many shapes and sizes. The way we prefer, is to volunteer at campgrounds in the area we want to spend time. Armed with our skill sets we find jobs quite easily. The things we have been able to take part in and the experiences during the first two seasons has resulted in growth for both of us.

Champ is quite skilled at all things mechanical and is a retired equipment operator. In terms of maintenance type positions his skill set is highly desired.  I tend more toward gardening and am strong in the public speaking and interpretive type positions at parks. Since we work together most of the time one of us is usually a little out of our comfort zone. With our skill sets as a foundation, the parks still give us tasks that sometimes stretch us both.

In two years Champ has become comfortable interacting with visitors coming to the park and giving directions or explaining different aspects of the park we are at. He has even gained a comfort level working with cash registers and POS systems. Not something he ever encountered during his working years, nor wanted to. A result of tagging along with me when we have an interpretive gig. He has also become quite the social butterfly around the campgrounds we stay in. Having spent about ½ of his career sitting in a glass box at the top of a crane he is used to being alone, but now craves social interaction on a level that is new to him. Not that he was reclusive before, but he seeks out social interaction more than he used to.

When we are doing a maintenance stint, I learn things all the time. I have always been handy and am comfortable running power tools. But now I have learned a bit of basic wiring having helped Champ with some electrical tasks. I can say now that I can wire a ceiling fan in my sleep after helping him do 9 of them at Goliad last winter. Even cooler was my opportunity to help net birds a couple of winters ago. To this day I think it was one of the most humbling experiences to hold a small bird in my hands and be able to observe it so closely and feel it's heart racing against my hand.

When you volunteer at the Refuges or big parks, you see things from a different angle, being involved in what’s going on behind the scenes to make it all work. Getting to participate in habitat restoration projects, wildlife management projects and coming into the wake of Hurricane Harvey in South Texas last winter has broadened us both in ways we didn’t realize while it was taking place.

[caption id="attachment_798" align="alignleft" width="300"] Planting Sweet Grass for the Deer[/caption]

This summer Champ is doing forestry and wildlife habitat projects for Saylorville and getting to learn how much work is going on to improve both the visitor experience, and  habitat for the animals that call Saylorville Lake home.  Our skill-set and experience broadens with each new engagement. As we continue on this path, we both look at parks differently, knowing more about what goes on behind the scenes. We visit with other volunteers who talk about the neat things they have been able to experience.  My friend Cathy got to be involved in the Sea Turtle rescue and release efforts in South Texas last winter when the cold spell threatened them. She’ll never forget it. Doing this work brings us closer to the natural world and the people who work so hard to maintain it in our industrial, polluted, synthetic world.

It’s a far cry from our careers, even though the skills we developed are the foundation. There is no chance we would do these things if we were not volunteering as our brand of being full-time. It’s a simple matter of access. As a visitor you are restricted to the public areas. As a volunteer you get to see the rest which is a bit like the iceberg below the surface.   We are growing with each new experience. The best part is we don’t know what will come to us from one job to the next. “Other Duties As Assigned”  the dreaded bullet point at the end of most job descriptions is now seen as an opportunity to do something new and cool! Unless it is painting. We both hate that job.

Until tomorrow...

Day 70 / 295 The Change- Part 1

Saylorville Lake Partly Cloudy 75 Degrees

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our new lifestyle has impacted the person that I am. At 52 years old, I am going through “The Change”. But, I am also undergoing another change, one without hot flashes, night sweats and the oh so fun mood swings.  Without a doubt I am not the same person I was 20 months ago when we pulled up roots and embarked on the full-time RV lifestyle. Champ and I as a couple are not the same either. I didn’t think it was possible to be connected more deeply than we already were. But, we are. Growth is inevitable both for the Rv’er and their family. Today I am going to share my thoughts on how people have contributed to my evolution over the past year and a half. I can safely say as a human being, a parent and a friend I have experienced something of a growth spurt these past many months.

When we were living our traditional, brick and mortar lifestyle we travelled quite a bit and saw many interesting places. But our view of the world was relatively narrow spending most of our days in the same town, seeing the same people day-to-day, loosely following the same routine. Every now and then you meet someone new, but everyone else is busy trying to keep up on their own treadmill.  Our decision to become more mobile has brought a depth and richness to our lives that we are just now beginning to realize. The extended stays of 90 days or more have given us time to really get to know the people that we meet and connect with. We experience the communities more as residents than as visitors. The lifestyle, thrusts us into new relationships with people who become a part of us. I have talked many times about how I marvel at the number of people we know and stay in touch with, over such a short time. My life is so much richer for knowing these people. They have lived their lives in a different part of the country and developed under the wing of cultures very different from the Midwest and have both striking similarities and differences in their perception of the world. Our differences mesh at the intersection we call friendship.

A perfect example is the immigration debate. In Iowa where we have industries that rely heavily on the immigrant population for their workforce we see the issue through a very different lens than south Texas does, where “the Wall’ is running through the middle of their town.  People in that culture have lived their lives experiencing Hispanic culture in a very different way than a Midwesterner has. Spending time there has given me a whole other way to think about the issue that I would not have had otherwise.

Being a parent has changed. Traveling forces us to watch our kids go through a rough patch from a distance.  They can call and talk or face-time with us, but we aren’t there to hug them or swoop in and help. We grow along with them as we let them cope without our physical presence. As the old saying goes, “Live your life and let your kids live theirs”. Easier said than done. We are all growing in that area. When we leave for part of the year and add to our experiences we savor our time in Iowa more than ever.  Opportunities to be involved with loved ones in Iowa don’t get squandered, they are savored. We experience people at home with more depth than before adding another facet to the process of growing. The complacency of a life lived in the same place everyday disappears when you ‘go full-time’.

I’ll talk more over the next couple of posts about other ways our lifestyle change has impacted my personhood. While the sacrifice of not being present sometimes seems daunting; in the big picture I have grown in unexpected ways. Every person you meet no matter what your lifestyle will change you. The difference is a simple matter of numbers. The full-time RV’er is constantly meeting new people and getting used to new places. The closest analogy I can think of would be a military family who uproots regularly.

Until tomorrow...

Day 69 / 296 Repurposing a Table Leg

Saylorville Lake Partly Cloudy 69 Degrees

I made good on my ambition to repurpose the extra table leg that was left after we modified our $20.00 used kitchen able find, to work in the motorhome.

[caption id="attachment_789" align="alignleft" width="225"] From 4 legs to 3[/caption]

Some of the scraps and leftovers from the table project and the modifications and rebuilding of the space where the new refrigerator went will be good kindling to start campfires. I couldn't bring myself to burn a beautiful piece of turned wood. It is now a reflection of my whimsical taste and part of the summer 'yard' .

I bought a can of bright pink spray paint at the craft store, bolted a plastic flower pot to the top and a 6" x 6" piece of 3/4" plywood to the bottom. Drilled two holes in the square base for stakes to hold it in place and viola! A new plant stand.

[caption id="attachment_790" align="alignleft" width="225"] From table leg to plant stand[/caption]

It's the little things, like a new yard ornament, and saving something from the landfill or burn pile that make me happiest.

Until  tomorrow...

Day 68 / 297

Saylorville Lake Sunny 81 Degrees

Some days you just need to keep it simple. This photograph I took this morning and my thought as I took it, sum up my day.



Until tomorrow...

Day 67 / 298

Saylorville Lake Sunny 80 Degrees

If you are a camper, think about how much time you spend outside relaxing, eating and entertaining. If you like that aspect of a camping weekend, then you have a good idea of what it is like to be a full-timer. Just like at your local weekend campground, there are some outlyers who spend most of their time in the great indoors, however most of us like to be outside, hence the lifestyle.

I have noticed a peculiarity among the full-time community. We tend to socialize outside. I haven’t quite figured it out. Champ and I are quite open people and are not bashful about inviting people inside our little dwelling. I do notice a strange air of hesitance of others to enter and just sit down and relax. I in turn feel the same strange hesitation when I go in someone’s camper. It is quite a peculiar thing. Maybe it is the small space, or perhaps fewer choices of places to sit than in a larger home. Maybe we are so used to being outside that we find ourselves most comfortable there. I can’t put my finger on it, but it does exist. When there is a knock on the door, the natural response seems to be to step outside rather than open the door and say "hey, come on in"  When I think about  how many people we know I realize many have never been inside, or if they have it’s just been in the doorway. I also have not been in theirs much. It seems to have nothing to do with how we feel about each other, it's just a weird quirk that seems to go with the lifestyle. We do socialize a lot and consider them friends but everything takes place outside. Even movie nights. There are a few people we know well who we spend time with indoors, but it is generally a rare event.

[caption id="attachment_782" align="alignleft" width="225"] Our favorite table[/caption]

Our patio is a multi-use space on a level not realized in a brick and mortar home and yard. It is a workshop for projects and power tools, an outdoor kitchen, the family room, a dining room more nights than not and of course it is the preferred place to entertain, both for the host and the guests. It is not uncommon to sweep away sawdust, set the table, light a candle and enjoy dinner after a day long project.

Maybe that is why most of don’t notice the compact space we live in. Yes, we get cooped up from time to time in inclement weather, but we don’t mind too much. This evening, like many days, after a day of planting, creating a new yard ornament as a repurposing project (stay tuned in a day or so) we brought out the grill, swept away the dirt from my gardening work today, wiped off the table and enjoyed our dinner while we worked on our spring tan and listened to the music accompanied by the birds.

Until tomorrow…

Day 66 / 299

Saylorville Lake Sunny 79 Degrees

There’s something about spring in the Midwest that is special. Maybe it is because is so hard to believe it will come after the brutality of winter here and usually, a long cold wet March and April. Spring is so hard to define by the calendar dates in this part of the country. On March 20^th the official start, it is rarely warm and snow storms, usually big ones, are quite common. On June 21^st, the official first day of summer, heat is well in place and it normally hasn't felt springlike in several weeks. Spring is fleeting at best, but oh so beautiful.

Spring in Texas is kind of like waking up from an afternoon nap. Things haven’t been asleep long if at all and after a few short weeks of cool weather everything goes back to normal. You barely notice anything has changed it is so subtle compared to a Midwest spring.

[caption id="attachment_777" align="alignleft" width="300"] Just Opened[/caption]

There are two things I really love about spring. My absolute favorite is the unique color of light, bright green the leaves of northern deciduous trees have when they first open. You don’t see that particular color anywhere else in nature and it only lasts a few days before the leaves start to darken. Put that against a brilliant blue sky on a clear spring day and it is the best color in the world. There is something pure and crisp and clean about it. Like spring weather, the condition is short-lived, so I savor it.

[caption id="attachment_778" align="alignleft" width="300"] Facing the camera, Hunter fielding the ball[/caption]

The other is baseball. It is the only sport I truly like to watch, and my daughter’s oldest boy started playing this year. I am going to love spending the summer going to little league games. I went to my first one today and had such a great time watching those little guys start to learn the game. Hunter is a natural athlete, and I look forward too watching him develop of the next several summers.

Today, is one of those days that sounds like a typical day of anyone else who has grandkids, likes to be outside and has time to savor life. Maybe the answer today is, “In a lot of ways, it’s not that much different from the old life”

Until tomorrow…

Day 65 / 300

Saylorville Lake Sunny 78 Degrees

The sun came up today and the universe feels a little more aligned than it has the past few days. The thing about unexpected repairs in this life is you create the same mess fixing the issue, but it occurs in a much smaller space. We got our new fridge this morning thanks to our son-in-law helping pick it up and get it into the motor home. Our site and the inside of the motor home looked like a bomb went off most of the day.

Today was mine and my friend Joyce’s day to go greenhouse hopping and lunch. What a glorious day it was to be at a greenhouse. Gardener’s with cabin fever and aching green thumbs were out in droves. All of us euphoric about finally getting  outside to ruin our manicure and start growing stuff! It is by far the happiest shopping experience that I engage in. Doing it with my good friend makes it all the sweeter.

When we returned to my site, that was looking a bit like a salvage yard with multiple projects incomplete, the new refrigerator was inside, Champ had just finished installing the ice maker and was getting ready to start modifying the space to fit this unit. We were on deck to pick up our grandson Hunter at school today so I left him again. I got to spend a couple of good one on one time with Hunter and then it was back to the homestead to a brand new refrigerator, making ice and all my food back in one place. As ambivalent as I was with the unexpected expense of buying a new one, I really love our new refrigerator. We had a nice residential refrigerator in our 5^th Wheel and I have missed it since buying the motor home. One less thing to miss about my beloved Montana.

[caption id="attachment_772" align="alignright" width="300"] Baltimore Orioles are back![/caption]

The day kept getting better, as we sat on the patio relaxing and having a beer before dinner, I heard the distinct song of the Baltimore Oriole adding another layer of complexity to the symphony of calls in the timber behind our site. I ran for the camera of course and got my binoculars out and let my beer get warm while I gawked at the Oriole serenading his mate and as a bonus saw my first Rose Breasted Grosbeak of the season.

[caption id="attachment_773" align="alignleft" width="300"] Rose Breasted Grosbeak[/caption]

Being a firm believer in the law of averages, the blissful day I had today, leveled the previous four days that have been trying, to say the least. In a world going crazy with extreme politics and madmen driving the crazy train, it is nice to just sit and listen to the birds and look at the woods awaken from the long Iowa winter.

Until tomorrow…

 

 

Day 64 / 301 Stormy Weather

Saylorville Lake – Cloudy Stormy 62 Degrees

[caption id="attachment_768" align="alignleft" width="225"] Annie keeping an eye on the ceiling. Buster annoyed with the noise of the rain on the roof.[/caption]

Another day of storms. Both climatological, emotional and political. Iowa passed a very controversial piece of legislation that has me up in arms along with most everyone. We are getting national attention in a form that is not desirable.  Some are elated, others like me are horrified. My home state is more divided today than I have ever seen it.

Our friend Beth, who is camping at Saylorville, came over to visit. It was so nice to see her! During our visit, we got time to gather with our fellow volunteers. It was an impromptu gathering when the tornado sirens went off, the Ranger called us to make sure we heard the sirens and everyone’s cell phone started pinging with weather alerts. We spent the better part of an hour standing under the canopy in front of the pipe chase, our designated severe weather shelter.  The dogs all came as well and got on splendidly!

[caption id="attachment_765" align="alignright" width="300"] Brownie in her safe zone[/caption]

One poor soul, Brownie is afraid of storms and went straight into the chase and huddled herself under a utility shelf. Probably the smartest one of all of us! It rained hard, but the severe weather didn’t materialize as it passed over us. It has been dangerous in other areas this evening, so we dodged a bullet.  The weather created an interesting opportunity for quality time to get to know the newly arrived volunteers. I am glad that our first gathering wasn’t a traumatic one huddled together in a pipe chase while tornadoes or straight line winds raged outside. I’ll take it. As I write tornadoes are touching down about 40 miles south of us.

We’ll have clear skies and sun beginning tomorrow. 80-degree temps should bring out the coveted Morrell mushrooms in the next few days. The pear and crab apple trees have bloomed and the tulips are up in time for the Pella Tulip Festival this weekend. It’s starting to feel like spring in Iowa. The storms in all forms will billow up over the next few weeks as summer heat and humidity settles in till September.

Until tomorrow...

Day 63 /302 Yes, Full-Time RV'ers Have Crappy Days Too

Saylorville Lake, Cloudy Stormy 65 Degrees

I often wonder if I can keep the daily posting interesting for a year.  What we are doing is foreign to most of the people we know at home, but very unordinary to the community of full-timers we meet along the way. Today is one for the books as they say. All the factors that people wonder if they could tolerate are being tested today. Let’s just say it isn’t always roses and unicorns in this world either.

Remember when I talked the other day about looking up mobile RV repair services when you land somewhere? It came up today for us. The lightning strike near the RV yesterday may or may not have anything to do with the fact that the refrigerator quit during the night. The insurance company will be more trouble than the $500 deductible and claim process is worth to try to prove or disprove it. After some trouble shooting around 7AM this morning Champ narrowed the problem down to the control board or the HTS board. Not something that he has access to parts for and in the gray area where we decide to call someone. I went to work today, he stayed back to address the eminent food spoilage. He left a voicemail to each of the numbers provided to us by a local dealer who told us they were mobile repair guys. I went to work thinking there would be some sort of solution or at least a plan, by the time he picked me up at 4:00.

[caption id="attachment_762" align="alignright" width="225"] The Interim[/caption]

Enter the Venus / Mars living in very small quarters scenario. If you are reading this and know us, you know we generally get along well despite our very different temperaments. I am a doer, usually at warp speed. He is painfully laid back (for me to watch anyway). At 4:00 when he picked me up I had arranged to borrow a small dorm fridge to help supplement the ice chest. (The freezer stuff is in one of our neighbors' freezer). All he had done all day is wait for the repair services to return his call which they had not and make a template for some corner shelves I want to build for the bedroom. He thought the shelf progress should make me happy, he was wrong.

As I fumed that he did no research on how to proceed, I called the Service help desk number on the front of the Norcold Manual and told them the situation and inquired about the price and availability of both boards, should we get someone to give a repair price, so I know if we’re getting screwed. At 4:30 we learned from that call that our 12-year-old fridge isn’t worth fixing. So much for waiting on the repair guy to call back!  More fuming on my part as I watched Champ keep a little more distance from me.

With the growing trend of putting residential refrigerators in RV’s the next step was to go to Lowes and pick out a new one that will fit in the space occupied by the Norcold. Why you ask? It’s simple math. A Norcold like the one in our RV is now $4,600.00 to replace. Not unlike the $675.00 kitchen table that we turned up our nose to last week. At 5:30 I was swiping a credit card for an 18 CFT stainless steel fridge with an ice maker from Lowes for $625.00. Remember, I said warp speed. The only hitch was they were a week out on delivery, not going to happen. We’ll borrow my daughters truck tomorrow and round up some help for cash or beer, depending on the help. With any luck we’ll have a new fridge tomorrow evening. Sometime before the end of summer Champ will wire it to the inverter to it will run while we roll on down the highway in November. I had the problem solved in 2 hours. He was more than willing to take all weekend to decide what to do.  Can you feel the tension in our little home on wheels? I'll forgive him because I love him and also because he has the ability to take out the RV fridge, bypass the duel fuel components that we wont need anymore and get the space ready for a non standard refrigerator. Like I said, we are very different but seem to be able to tolerate each others vastly different personalities. He's just happy I got logistics arranged and made the decision. Something he really hates doing.

Venus/Mars  - Oil / Water. Whatever we are it works, even in 300 square feet. And now for the best part, on the way home from Lowe’s after a failed attempt to watch a grandkids little league game that was called when the lightning started, we finally got a call back from one of the repair guys, some 12 hours after Champ left a message this morning. His reply? I can’t get parts for that model anymore . My thought was, 'Who cares, I went and bought I new one while we waited on you to call back!" 

Some days really suck.  This was one of them. Sometimes planning doesn’t save you. A good friend we worked with last winter is here at Saylorville. Getting her text this afternoon letting us know she was here, was the bright spot in my day.

Until tomorrow…

Day 62 / 303 Stormy Weather

Saylorville Lake – Stormy 65 Degrees

[caption id="attachment_758" align="alignright" width="200"] Lightning strike, blew limbs off and sent bark 50' away[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_757" align="alignright" width="200"] Lightning exit through trunk and out the bottom[/caption]

As I sat at my dining room table doing some computer work this morning a lightening strike louder than I’ve heard in years hit nearby. It shook the motor home. Both cats were sleeping peacefully on the floor nearby and both came straight off the floor then looked at me in the way only a cat can like “Do you mind keeping it down?” With that unexpected event, my topic today came to life.

What’s it like? Well, during stormy weather, it can be downright scary. Having grown up in the Midwest we are no strangers to severe thunderstorms, straight line winds, large hail and tornadoes. When you live in a house with a finished basement and the weather ticker at the bottom of the TV screen scrolls almost non-stop this time of year with weather warnings, one becomes very desensitized. A quick cure for that is to live in your RV during tornado season.

We are all vulnerable to severe weather. As a full-timer it becomes more important to scope out your closest shelter. It takes a lot of wind and force to tip over the big rigs of today, but they are still no place to ride out a bad storm.

I wouldn’t say I live in fear of the weather just because we don’t have a basement and footings to hold the house in the ground. We are a lot more vigilant, however, when we know weather is about to turn nasty. We pay more attention and make sure we know where to go if the situation calls for it. When we travel we watch the forecast closely.  This morning was a stark reminder that lightening can also be very dangerous when you live in a fiberglass box with miles of wire just a ½" behind the thin paneling that separates you from the elements. Stay safe out there!

Until tomorrow…