When we got Home

When we got home there were a few things we discovered about the differences between RV living and house living.

 

1. You can’t flush the toilet with your foot (well maybe you can)

2. You don’t have to lift on the handles to open the drawers.

3. There are no holding tank gauges on your bathroom wall.

4. You can run your microwave, toaster,coffee maker, etc. at the same time without blowing the breaker.

5. There is no steering wheel in your living room.

6. You look out your window and NOT find your neighbor 10 feet away.

7. Much fewer golf carts driving up and down in front of your house.

8. The whole neighborhood doesn’t get together every evening for happy hour.

9. You have the same neighbors all summer long.

10. Snow and ice is still possible.

11. Spring rains are on the way, as is the possibility of floods

12. You won’t need your A/C for several months.

13. People wonder how/where you got that tan.

14.That you have already started making plans to go back south next fall.

15. That the contents of your RV will surprisingly fill half the available space in your house, garage, and workshop. How did I fit all those clothes in the RV and why did I take them all? Where did all that stuff come from anyway?

16. It takes longer to clean the house than the RV.

17. Plus you have to mow the lawn, weed the flower beds, remember to put out the trash and recycling on certain days.  But the newspaper is delivered to you!

18. We can’t hear each other from opposite ends of the house.

We pulled into the driveway at about 1:30PM on Tuesday and we have not stopped since. We have been busy catching up with family and chores around the place.  On Wednesday we had a nice dinner with Heather, Kevin, Kolton, & Kooper at our favorite steakhouse (The Old Country Kitchen).  It was sure fun to see and visit with them.  Gloria saw her sisters and I had lunch with brother Bob.  Today we are going up to DuPont to see Dusty and Jedd’s new house, and go to dinner with them.  In between I have changed the oil in the lawn mowers and mowed everything.  There were no issues with the house and the hummingbirds were happy and well fed thanks to Bob and Annie who checked on the place and picked up our mail on a regular basis. The yard was in good shape thanks to Forrest and Gail who came over and mowed twice before we got home, it wasn’t too bad.  We want to thank everyone for all the help you gave us without you we wouldn’t have been able to live our dream life on the road, Thanks so Much! Maybe by October I’ll be caught up around here.  My intent is to publish this blog once or twice a week to let folks know what we are doing.

More Later, Rich

Almost Home

We expect to be home this afternoon.  The coach was serviced at Southern Oregon Diesel yesterday morning and it was after noon by the time we hit the road, we didn’t want to drive through Portland rush hour(s) traffic so we stopped at the Blue Ox RV park in Albany.  This is a nice, clean, quiet, & well kept park.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone and catching up on what’s been going on.

   We climbed up the hill behind the Seven Feathers Resort to get this picture.  This was taken after all the overnighters had left, believe it or not the place gets really full by evening, but one climb was enough for me (we are just to the left of the laundry/shower building) click on the picture to see a larger image.  I have also added another page to the blog that has our itinerary with links to most of the places we stayed at, it’s just above the weather sticky.

Keep looking at the blog I’ll post again after we get home.

It’s time to get ready to hit the road and it is pouring outside, figures doesn’t it.  We have mostly avoided driving in the rain but that just reminds us of the Northwest.  We are glad to be back in the green, but we did enjoy the sun and dry.

More Later, Rich

Holed up in Canyonville

We pulled in to the Seven Feathers RV Resort Friday afternoon.  It was a mostly uneventful drive.  We left Redding at about 10AM and with a fuel stop in Weed we went over the pass at about 1PM, all the frost on the road that we could see in the ODOT cameras had melted.  Jerry and Deb spent one night here with us then pushed on home Saturday morning.  We stayed again last night and will be moving on to the parking lot at Southern Oregon Diesel in N. Roseburg later this morning to wait for our 8:30AM appointment Monday to have our oil changed and have them look things over.  It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours then we will press on home.  We’ll likely lay over somewhere so we don’t have to negotiate Portland rush hour(s) traffic.

Keep reading the blog as I will post more about our return.

More Later, Rich

On the Road

We spent the Easter weekend in Bakersfield waiting for Jerry and Deb’s appointment at the Cat dealer.  The good news is that they said there wasn’t anything wrong, and on the drive north they did not have any issues.  We spent one night at Flag City RV Resort in Lodi, CA LINK, a nice place just off the I-5 freeway.  The last two nights we have been at JGW RV Park in Redding, CA LINK.  We decided to stay another night to let a storm on the pass go by.  So today we make the assault on the summit.  We are leaving here at 10AM so we hit the pass in the early afternoon and let the frost melt before we have to deal with it.

 

 

 

 

 

We have been enjoying the spring flowers along the way, although I expect there won’t be as many after today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is an interesting tree stump covered in ivy, looks like some creature out of a Dr. Seuss book.

We have had a good time playing cards, cooking some great meals, and spending time together.

Tonight we expect to be at the Seven Feathers RV Resort in Canyonville, OR. LINK, for a two night stay, because we have an appointment at Southern Oregon Diesel to have our rig serviced on Monday morning.  We expect we will be home on Tuesday afternoon.  We will have been gone for over 19 weeks and let me tell you time has flown by, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that much time away.  Now we are getting excited about seeing everyone as soon as possible.

Time to hit the road.

More Later, Rich

Adventures in Travel

We want thank everyone for being good sports about our April Fools joke.  It certainly had it’s desired effect, and some of you did a really good job getting back at us.  We laughed all day and I still have a grin on my face .

We spent the night at the Shady Lane RV Camp in Barstow, CA.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drive from Vegas to here wasn’t too bad even if it was a bit windy.  Jerry and Deb have developed some mechanical issues in their motorhome,  They keep losing air pressure to their air brakes (not a good thing).  This being a holiday weekend they can’t have it looked at until Monday.  So today we are going to the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield LINK , to wait for their Monday 7 AM appointment.  This will put us a couple of days behind in our homeward journey, but may be a good thing because maybe the winter storm heading for the Siskiyou pass will have passed by then. So we should have a report on Bakersfield soon.

More Later, Rich

We are NOT coming home

We have decided to become full timers, to live the life of vagabonds just traveling around the country.  We want to meet lots of new people, see places we have only dreamed of.  We don’t care if we sell our place for a loss, money and “things” are no longer important to us.  The weeds, lawn, home repairs are a thing of the past for us.  We knew this might be coming and put it off as long as we dared, but a life choice had to be made.  Of course we will visit the NW during the dry season to see you all, but the rest of the year we will follow the sun. 

April Fool

Actually we have been stuck in Las Vegas for the last two nights riding out a wind storm,  and blow it did.  The winds were about 45 MPH with gusts over 65, these high profile rigs don’t drive well in that kind of weather.  Today we are going to Barstow, CA and try to miss some snow that is in the forecast for the mountains.  We may have to wait out a storm going over the Siskyou’s (sp) or we may come up the coast.

Anyway we have to get ready to travel.

More Later, Rich