Getting noticed!

Just a quick note to acknowledge eight new followers to my humble blog.  Welcome to Joe and Betty, Nan, Merikay, Susan and Bob, John and Ellen, Russ Krecklow, Michelle (my daughter) and Michael Ultra.  Thank you for signing on.  

I have read a good portion of each of your blogs and look forward to many more.  It appears that RV Full Timer blogging is a great social network for meeting interesting people with similar interests.  I think it would be great to meet all of you at some time in the future if our travel paths should cross.

Nothing new to report on our preparedness journey except our meeting with a realtor.  We should be putting the house on the market in February.

Update time.

It has been awhile since I wrote anything.  That is because not much is happening yet.  I would say we are “hibernating” here in the Idaho winter, but the fact is that it is 42 degrees today and there is almost no snow on the ground.  Very little snow and/or cold weather in the 8 day forecast either.  This is not really hibernating weather.  Global Warming maybe?

Got over to the rig yesterday and Tim (my new RV repair shop friend) measured the camper for new carpet.  I need to get a remnant 12’ wide and 33’ long, plus the same amount of high density padding.  Rosie and I will do some shopping over the next couple of weeks and we plan to get started on the recarpeting project in March.  I will post before, during and after pictures of the carpet project.  I also gave Tim some data on 2 Xantrax 600 watt inverters and a 125 watt solar panel I found on the internet.  I already have a smaller solar panel a long time friend gave to me years ago and we will include that in the project.  I also purchased a  XM Satellite radio and installed it in the truck.  Now all I have to do is get another car docking kit and install it in the RV and we will have satellite radio on the road and in the rig.

A friend who is a Realtor is coming over tomorrow to talk about listing the house, so that aspect of the plan will be taking shape.  We have packed up most of the personal collections, photo albums, and other memorabilia and stacked it in the basement.  A 5’ by 5’ storage space is going to be more than adequate for all that stuff.  We still have a couple of large paintings we want to keep so I will need to find some “mirror boxes” for them.

Trying to you informed of our progress.

Reflections!

Deciding to enter full time RV living is only the first step.  Now the work begins. 

We are in the process of sorting, selecting and packing.  We are keeping only those things that cannot be replaced; such as photo albums, personal collections (my extensive collection of shot glasses, for instance), art items, gifts from family and friends that are important to us, etc.  We have checked out storage places and discovered that the smallest space available is 5’ by 5’ by 10’ tall.  So I have marked out a 5’ by 5’ area on the floor in the basement and we are placing packing boxes in that area.  It appears that a 5’ by 5’ area will be plenty adequate.  I had a box full of video tapes transferred to DVD’s.   About 25 tapes reduces to 6 DVD’s in a small case about 3/8” thick; our life from about 1985 to about 2003 reduced to a very small space.  Rosie and I have been watching some of the video and we marvel at how many places we have been and how many activities we have enjoyed.  We have also been throwing out stuff that has no resale value, is too big to take along and hasn’t been used by us for years.  I had 2 boxes of 3.5” floppy disks; how long has it been since those have been in use?  We are keeping only 3 items of antique furniture; a table from Grandma Sathe; a chest of drawers from Grandma Doering, and a child’s rocking chair that was mine as a toddler.  Everything else will be sold in a giant moving sale in May.  Anything left over will either go the our church for their annual rummage sale; or get hauled to the dump.  Rosie decided that she really didn’t need to keep her car, so that will be sold; one thing less to worry about storing.  I really admire her for that decision.  Her car was an important symbol of independence for her.

Other decisions have been made as needed.  We are going to maintain Idaho as our State of Residence.  We will get a mailing “address” at the local UPS Store.  I checked with the DMV and we can use that address on our Drivers Licenses.  They said something about an “RV” stamp on the license to identify us as resident RVers (seems a little odd).  The local court system will hold us accountable for jury duty, but if we are called, we can self determine a specific week in the upcoming 12 months when we would be available to show up for jury duty.  We are getting dental work scheduled before we leave that perhaps could have been put off for longer.  E-mail and phone contact on the road will be readily handled by Verizon.  They have a smaller version of an I-Pad that is also a mini-WiFi spot; so we can access both of our laptops to that WiFi and both be on the internet at the same time.

I have been researching Government campgrounds and private campgrounds in the western US.  It is amazing how much BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and Forest Service land is out there where camping is either very low cost or outright free.  Then there are State Parks, County Parks and City Parks that have low cost to free camping.  Anyone interested in those web sites, e-mail me at jimsathe@msn.com and I will send you the links.  Most of the really free or low cost campgrounds don’t have electrical hookups; so we are looking at installing a solar panel system with a partial inverter system to power our electronics, like TV and laptops.  We have a generator and a bank of 4 batteries, so we shouldn’t run out of power and still have a comfortable lifestyle.  We have already redecorated the interior of our camper with new paint, a chair rail wallpaper border and new trim.  We plan to replace the carpeting in March.  We met some new friends that own an RV Service and Repair Shop.  We are really happy to find someone that will do good work on our future home at a reasonable cost.

There is a local private campground that has sites with full hookups for a monthly rate of $425.  We plan to move into a space there in mid-May.  It will take about 4 weeks to leisurely sell all of our stuff and clean up the house before departing stick house living.  That will be an interesting, and probably emotional, experience.  So around mid-June we should start wandering our way east.  I have already made reservations for 6 nights in Custer State Park near Rapid City, SD; which will include the 4th of July Holiday.  July 5th, we will travel from Custer State Park to the family reunion in Colome, SD.   June, July and most of August will be spent in South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado.  We will return to Idaho Falls area for 3 weeks or so in early September before we head for the Oregon Coast and ultimately wend our way to Ventura County in So. California for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays.  After that, we want to experience Quartzsite, AZ for the annual gathering of RV people.  Then who knows where we will go.

Life is good.

One More Time

I was resigned to putting the camper away for winter storage last week. Then, out of the blue, Rosie says “Let’s go camping one more time before winter”.  She is so persuasive!  It took her about 2 seconds to convince me to hook up and head out. 

We decided to make our last trip this year to the place where we made our first trip last year (are you following this?).  So here we are at Ririe Reservoir about 15 map miles from home, but is seems like another world.  This is a County Campground with full hookups for $16 a night for us Golden Age folks.  It is set high on a bluff overlooking a man made reservoir.  The sites are large and paved.  The site we wanted was the one we stayed in last year, but it was taken.  There is dirt moving work going on adjacent to Loop B.  It appears that the campground is being expanded.   It looked like all of the other campers were construction workers staying near the job site.  We got here on Monday and on Tuesday, our desired site was vacated.  So we moved into it today, Wednesday.  We took the pups for a walk on a trail leading out from the site.  When we returned, Rosie spotted a snake near the back of the trailer.  When I took a look at it, I discovered it was a baby rattlesnake about 6 inches long and the thickness of a pencil.  It was actually coiled up in striking position.  I hate snakes.   I really hate poisonous snakes.  So I killed it with my mighty axe.  Yuk.  I don’t like to kill natures critters, but I make an exception for insects and reptiles.

Since we returned from our 6 week reunion trip to South Dakota, we have been working hard on the camper getting it in shape for going full time next summer.  We washed down the walls and ceiling inside; then painted the walls a very light tan color.  We put in a wallpaper border at chair rail height.  The biggest part of the project was adding wood trim to the top and sides of the slide outs.   Here are some pictures:
   
We think the bathroom really turned out pretty nice.  In the spring, we are going to replace the carpet with a light beige color.  That will really finish off the redecorating project in a nice way.

The plan for this winter is to pack up boxes with the stuff (albums, books, collectibles, etc.) we want to put into storage.  In late May, we will have the packed boxes and the furniture in our bedroom and the guest bedroom put into long term storage.   At that point, we will move into the camper and set it up at a local campground while we clear out the house.  The first weekend in June we plan to have a “We are moving into our RV; everything must go sale.”  That should be interesting, selling off most of the “stuff” we have accumulated over the years.  Whatever is left, we will either trash or donate to Goodwill.  We will keep Idaho Falls as our base by getting a mailbox mailing address at the local UPS store.  We can call them and go over the mail by phone at any time and they will forward the mail we want to where ever we are.  I checked with the DMV and we can change our driver’s licenses to the UPS address.  If all goes well, we should hit the highways and byways in mid June.  My family reunion is moving up from mid August to July 6th next year. so we will head towards South Dakota first.  Not sure where we will go after that.  We plan to be near Simi Valley for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  Then off to the California and Arizona deserts for the winter.  

This week we have been “pretending” to be full timing; just to try to get the feel of what it will be like to not have a “home” to go back to.  We really feel comfortable with the space in the camper.  It feels good.  We think of it as having a small home, but a really big yard; and we don’t have to maintain the landscaping.  We really feel like this will be a final “adventure” in our lives.  Hopefully our health will hold out and we will enjoy many years before we have to to give it up and move into an apartment or condo somewhere.   So this will be my last post until next year.  I plan to keep on writing about our travel adventures.  We hope you will follow along and enjoy it with us.