LINK TO NEW BLOG - LIVING LARGE

HERE IS A LINK TO MY NEW BLOG - STARTED JULY 2010

• LIVING LARGE

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

July 8/10

As you can guess, it’s been an incredibly busy week and I haven’t had much time to post a new story.  We took possession of the house on July 1 and moved the trailer over in the early afternoon after doing a pre-trip to do some cleaning and looking around.  We had only viewed the house twice for less than an hour each time and as we had people with us, we never got a chance to have a really good look at all the details.

We unloaded the items from our short term storage locker first, but didn’t have much to put in the house.  We spent that night in the trailer and just used the house for showers the next day.  The Big Steel Box (BSB) arrived on Friday, July 2 at noon and the delivery was just as slick as the pickup.  We had it put halfway between the house and the shop to make it easy to take things in either direction.  Stuart built temporary ramps on the front steps to the house for the dolly wheels.

 It was exciting to open the BSB and see all of our things again after 10 months of being on the road.  Everything was in excellent shape, very clean as the box is almost airtight and absolutely nothing was broken.  What an amazing way to pack your belongings!!

The unloading process was easier than loading and we took the time to assemble most of the furniture and other items when we put them in the house.  It gave us a break from the heavy lifting and carrying as well as time to think about where things would go.  We had our box spring and mattress near the front of the BSB and were able to set it up for sleeping in the house that night.  It took a couple of days to get to the dining room table so this is our makeshift table.

We worked long hours on Friday and Saturday but took most of the day off Sunday to go to church and had lunch out with people that we met there.  It was good to get a rest and we were back at it again on Monday and Tuesday.  We thoroughly enjoyed the unpacking as it was a lot like Christmas when you have all the presents under the tree to open.  Discovering favourite things was great but realizing just how much “stuff” we still had was not so great.  We have surplus items to sell and take to the thrift shop.  Being in the RV and living a simple life has given us an appreciation for that lifestyle, so we are getting rid of more clutter.

The scariest part of unpacking was Tuesday afternoon when we got the weight machine on the dolly and had to manoeuvre it up the stairs into the house, around a railing and past the kitchen counter, down 15 stairs, around a corner at the bottom and then straight into a room.  It was awkward and heavy and we had to lay the dolly almost flat down the stairs to clear the bulkhead.  

Good thing that Stuart is so strong!!  We made it without any damage or mishaps.  After that monster, the treadmill the next day was relatively easy although it was even heavier.

So the BSB is empty now, ready to be picked up and we have gone full circle on our adventure.  It is the end of the totally free RV lifestyle and the beginning of a part-time RV and home lifestyle.  We are both sad and glad about the changes but we love the house, shop and yard and are looking forward to this beginning at a fixed address.

Our story will continue as a new blog—as of yet, untitled.

FROM WHEELS TO A FOUNDATION

June 28/10

Only 3 more days of living on wheels and then we move into the new house.  We are very excited about the change and are trying to be patient during the days of waiting.  I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the things that we will miss about full time RV’ing and the things that we won’t miss.

WE WILL MISS:

Simplicity of life—the daily decisions are reduced to choosing what to do or where to go and are not tied to big obligations and responsibilities.  There are definitely fewer bills to pay, which is great.

Travelling and seeing new places—we love sightseeing and the thrill of discovering interesting towns, parks and attractions.

Challenge of the unknown—when we move on to a new location, we experience some anxiety about what it will be like and that uncertainty keeps the adrenaline flowing.

Quick housecleaning—it is easy to clean the inside of the trailer from stem to stern in less than an hour.  A house takes a lot more time and effort.

Courteous drivers—we generally found that US drivers are very courteous by allowing others to change lanes in front of them and will move over a lane for merging traffic.  Not so courteous in BC.

Playing with the GPS—it was great fun to use the GPS for travel routes, locating RV parks, grocery stores and other services.  We relied on it every single day and only had a few miscues where we were directed to the wrong location.


Uncrowded RV parks:

WE WON’T MISS:

Laundromats—the prices ranged from 50 cents a load to $1.75 a load and you weren’t sure if the spin cycle would work to drain the clothes, or if the dryer would dry everything completely.

Traffic noises at night—most RV parks are near a major road, highway or interstate so there was a constant hum both day and night with a few train whistles added to the mix.

Coin car washes—it was always a race to “get it done” in the allotted time and sometimes the pressure was so low, or the water was so bad, that the truck didn’t look much cleaner afterwards.

Funky restrooms—tiny shower stalls with nozzles that didn’t spray well, or toilet stall doors that wouldn’t stay shut.  In the US showers are free and in Canada, they usually cost $1or more.

Washing dishes by hand—I am getting tired of this “hobby” and look forward to an automatic dishwasher.

Barking dogs—most RV’ers have one or more dogs with them; some are well behaved, but most are not (owners as well as dogs!!)


Crowded RV parks:

There are pros and cons to any environment and we have learned to be adaptable.  However, we will enjoy our space and privacy at our new home.

GETTING STARTED ON THE MOVE

June 24/10

We made a very quick trip to Kamloops with a U-Haul trailer to pick up the motorcycle and other stuff and of course, it was another exciting event. We arrived at the locker at 3 p.m. and worked until 6 p.m. transferring our stuff from the 5’ x 10’ locker to the 5’ x 8’ trailer.

First, we backed out the bike and unloaded most of the locker, putting things on the ground around the locker. We measured the table saw and discovered that we had to take the legs and base off in order to fit it in the trailer with the bike. It was heavy to move but we did get it in place.

Loading the bike was a big challenge. The yard at the storage site is flat so we had to run the bike up a ramp into the trailer. The boards we put down weren't strong enough and broke in half as we got the bike part way up. Fortunately, they broke before we got too far up and nothing was damaged.

We doubled up the two broken pieces and that worked okay except we kept getting the bottom of the oil pan caught on the boards. We had to build up the ramp at the lower end with various small boards to change the angle of ascent and chalked the back wheel each time we inched the bike forward. We got most of the bike on the trailer and then the ramp boards collapsed. Yikes!! We had to use brute force to push it the rest of the way in. It was scary as the back tire was hanging off the end of the trailer and I was at the back end trying to push it on. We got it done--thanks to God for helping us out.

We filled up the trailer, the bed of the truck and the back seat of the truck and spent the night in Kamloops. We headed out early the next day and were back in Grand Forks by noon.

The unloading at this end was easy and we were able to back the trailer up to a high piece of ground at the RV Park and unload it with no fuss or fear. We unloaded the rest of the stuff into a storage locker here in town and we’re all done with moving things this week. Time to rest the muscles until next week when we start the big move.

THINGS HAPPEN QUICKLY

June 18/10

Grand Forks is a nice town and for years we’ve thought that it would be a great place to live. We’ve been monitoring the houses for sale in the area for the past couple of years and decided to spend some time doing drive by’s [without firearms] and doing some actual viewings. We drove past a dozen or more homes, and officially viewed 7 with a real estate agent.

WOULD YOU BUY THIS? [not one that we viewed]

The last one that we viewed on Saturday was almost a perfect match to our preferences (privacy, RV parking, newer construction, large yard, garage, large kitchen) so we made an offer and it was accepted within 1 day. The sellers wanted to close the deal at the end of June to avoid paying the HST on their real estate commission so we agreed to a possession date of July 1. Do you realize how soon that is?

PICS OF THE HOUSE

GUESS WHO’S GOING TO BE A HAPPY CHEF?

We’ve been busy the past few days making arrangements for utilities and services at the house, changing our address and arranging for the Big Steel Box to be delivered to our new place. That is all set to be done on July 2 so here we go again, playing Tetris in reverse. Now we’ll find out how well we packed everything.

We also need to get the motorcycle and the other things from our small storage locker, so we’ll be driving up to Kamloops next week to pick them up. We plan to rent a U-Haul trailer for the job and will get it done in a busy 2 days.

We are excited about buying a house and settling down for the next 4 months. We’re not giving up the RV lifestyle completely; we plan to be traditional snowbirds that spend the winter down south and the summer in the “motherland.”

Once we move into the house, the name of the blog won’t be applicable anymore so I may start a new one. Blogging has been a great way for us to keep all of our friends and relatives informed and, hopefully, entertained by our adventures.

END OF A CHAPTER

June 16/10

Well, our long distance travelling days are over for now and we are going to stay here in Grand Forks for a while. We checked out a few other RV locations in southern BC but so many of them are either too expensive, fully booked for July and August, or just not very attractive. We don’t enjoy being crammed into small spaces with lots of people, kids and dogs around us. That might sound a bit fussy, but everyone has their preferences and the freedom to choose what they do.

We thought it would be nice to provide a few stats on our trip for those of you who like numbers. We were on the road in the US for 100 days from March 2 to June 9 and travelled through 10 states—Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Montana. We drove a total of 14,633 km on the trip, with 9,700 km of that, towing the trailer and consumed 3043 litres of diesel. We stayed in 28 different RV parks at an average cost of $30 CDN per night.

Here is a map of the return leg of our journey back to BC.

So you might ask, what’s next for us? Well, check back in a few days and we’ll let you know.

BACK IN BC AGAIN

June 10/10

The drive to Grand Forks yesterday was pleasant without much traffic and the border crossing was a good experience.  We had listed all our purchases and provided the correct information, so the Customs Officer didn’t do any checking inside the truck or trailer.  After many border crossing stories we have heard from other snowbirds, it was nice to cross the border in both directions without any hassles.

We are settled in at the Riviera RV Park just east of Grand Forks.  It is a small park and the sites are quite close together, but we have one that backs onto the Kettle River and we have a green lawn space on one side of us and no one on the other side yet.  There are lots of trees here and we are well shaded so it seems dark after all the open sunny spaces we had further south.

OUR SITE AT THE RIVIERA RV PARK

KETTLE RIVER—HIGH WATER

We’re here for a week and then we’ll decide what to do and where to go after that.  The weather is cool and unsettled here—hope the summer sunshine is on its way.

DOUBLE POOL DAY

June 8/10

We stayed in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for 3 nights and found enough to keep us busy. We went to Lake City Church on Sunday and it was good; similar to the large Legacy church in Albuquerque, New Mexico only on a smaller scale. Yesterday, we went to the theatre to see Ironman 2 and it was quite spectacular. We love to see movies with great special effects.

Today, we drove all of 57 miles to Deer Park, Washington which is about 20 miles north of Spokane on Hwy 395.

GREEN FIELDS NORTH OF SPOKANE

There is a wonderful RV resort here with long concrete sites, green grass, some trees and a golf course. We are only here for one night so we won’t be golfing, but it’s definitely a place that we would like to come back to.

OUR SITE

The weather improved from clouds and showers the past few days to sunny with a few clouds and the daytime high temperature was 73F (23C) with no wind. After settling in and topping up the fuel in the truck, we went to the pool and had a couple of swims and sunning for an hour and a half. It felt so good—we have been missing the warm weather that we had in the southern states.

This resort has a clubhouse with a pool table and we are looking forward to a couple of games after supper. We’ve really enjoyed playing pool on this trip and we qualify as pool sharks – in a small pond, only.

So this is our last night in the USA on this trip and we will be driving up to Grand Forks tomorrow. Here’s hoping the “Federales” don’t detain us at the border for a lengthy check!!

THE LAST HURRAH

June 5/10

Yesterday we drove to Deer Lodge, Montana and it was a dark and gloomy drive.  It rained a little bit at times but the roads never got really wet.  The scenery was great, going from flat farmland in Idaho to mountains and forests in Montana.

IDAHO FIELDS

WHO NEEDS A BILLBOARD FOR ADVERTISING?

MONTANA MOUNTAINS

Today we drove from Deer Lodge to Coeur d’Alene which is in the Idaho panhandle and went through our last time change (to Pacific Time now).  This was a good drive, although we had to climb up and down a couple of mountain passes that reminded us of passes in BC.  The nice thing here is that you always have 2 lanes in each direction on the interstates, so you can set your own pace without inconveniencing anyone else.  We drive at about 67 mph, which is the same as the transport trucks, but cars often drive the posted maximum which is usually 75 mph.

We are staying at Blackwell Island RV Park which is on the Spokane River where it drains out of Lake Coeur d’Alene. 

It’s a big park with 182 sites and is only one third full so far today.  We plan to stay for 2 nights and then decide when we’re ready to head back into BC.  We’ve been having such a wonderful time exploring the US and would love to keep going, but we do have a time limit.  However, we will continue the adventure in BC.

OUR SITE AT BLACKWELL ISLAND

GETTING THROUGH UTAH

June 3/10

The drive through the Salt Lake City (SLC) and area was an exercise in concentration and perseverance for 2 solid hours. It is a busy traffic area from Provo in the south through various cities all the way through SLC to Ogden at the north end. The traffic lanes went from 2 each, north and south, to 6 at times, with traffic going at 75 mph (121 kph) on both sides of us and people merging on and off at every ramp. They also had road construction that narrowed the lanes considerably in many areas with concrete curbs close to the lane edge. We only had one slow down for a couple of minutes but traffic in the southbound lanes ground to a halt a few times.

SLOW TRAFFIC

The roads through Utah were good most of the time, but a few of the stretches are made of concrete sections and there is a bump at every seam. At times, it sounded like we were driving over cobblestones. When we crossed into Idaho, the road surfaces were much better.

IDAHO IS GREEN

We’re in Pocatello, Idaho—a university town with a population of about 51,000. We’re staying 2 nights to get a break from driving and will have time to look around town today. Hey, they have a Costco here and we haven’t been into a Costco since early April in Phoenix. Exciting times!!

AT HOME IN POCATELLO

LEAVING THE PALM TREES BEHIND

June 1/10

Our last day in Mesquite was a hot and sunny day (96F/36C) and we spent a good part of the afternoon soaking up the sunshine and cooling off in the pool.  We had to use the air conditioner for a while in the late afternoon and it was warm again this morning at 77F/25C at 6 a.m.

We drove from Mesquite Nevada through a corner of Arizona called the Arizona Strip.  http://www.arizonaexpeditions.com/aboutstrip.htm  It is a section of the state that is completely north of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon and the main access to the area is through Nevada or Utah.  The interstate cuts through a gorge along the Virgin River in the Virgin Mountains to St. George, Utah.  Spectacular scenery:

Our travel days are only about 4 to 5 hours long [400 km] so we chose a place called Nephi, Utah to stop for the night.  It’s a small town about an hour south of Salt Lake City and it’s a lot cooler here with 62F at 8 p.m.  We’ve changed time zones again and are back on Mountain Time for the next little while.

Off again tomorrow through Salt Lake City into Idaho on I-15.

VALLEY OF FIRE STATE PARK

May 30/10

Staying here in Mesquite, Nevada for a week was a good decision.  We’ve found plenty of interesting things to do in addition to some quiet times.  We played golf at the Palms Golf course a few days ago and really enjoyed the round.  It was a challenging course with beautiful views and we both had some excellent shots during the round.  Here are a couple of photos:

The round of golf included 2 coupons for a buffet lunch at the Virgin River Casino so we used them the next day.  It wasn’t as nice as the lunch buffet in Laughlin but hey, for almost free, it was good.

Yesterday, we drove to the Valley of Fire State Park about 50 miles away and spent the day hiking and sightseeing throughout the park.  What an amazing place!!  The rock formations were sandstone and the colours ranged from shades of red, pink, yellow, white and black.  We went on 3 hikes in different areas—each hike was just over a mile long.  We spent most of the day there and took lots of photos.  Here are a couple of the best ones:

You can view more photos in our slideshow at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/HelloStuartLinda/ValleyOfFireStateParkNevada#slideshow/5477077943601654754

Our time here is up on Tuesday, June 1, so we’ll be on the road again heading north through Utah.

NEW LOCATION FURTHER NORTH

May 26/10

We enjoyed our week in Kingman, AZ even though the weather turned cool and windy on Saturday and Sunday.  We adapted by spending less time at the pool and instead, went to the theatre to see “Robin Hood.”  It was a great movie and there were only 3 of us in the theatre for the showing.

Yesterday, we left Kingman and drove northwest on US 93 and drove over the Hoover Dam from the south side.  They have security checkpoints on both sides of the dam and wanted to see inside our trailer and in the storage compartments.  No big deal and we were on our way in 10 minutes.  The traffic was light at the dam this time and we could see that they had finished another section of the Colorado River Bridge and it now spans the gorge.

March view

May view

We got through Las Vegas quicker and easier this time even with a stop at Camping World on the way.  Most RV’ers shop at Camping World’s whenever they can, as the selection is great and the prices are good.

We had an interesting time finding the Desert Skies RV Resort with our GPS.  We entered the address as 350 Hwy 91 in Mesquite, Nevada and the GPS directed us to a school.  We had to ask for directions and found out that the true location was 350 Hwy 91 in Littlefield, Arizona which is about 10 blocks away.  The two towns are right beside each other with most businesses and services in Mesquite.  We didn’t know that the GPS relies on the town name as well as the other address information to pick the right spot.  Anyway, we found it with a bit of work and no official U-turn although there was a short drive through a subdivision.

The RV resort is very nice and not very busy at this time of year.  It has all the amenities such as heated pool, spa, laundry, library, fitness room, billiards room, etc.  The weather has warmed up to 88F today so the pool is again part of our daily routine along with the evening billiards games.  Oh, what a relaxed life.

VIEW FROM OUR BACK WINDOW

AT HOME IN KINGMAN ARIZONA

May 22/10 

It’s very nice to stay in one place for a while and not be moving on every few days.  We’ve found plenty of things to do in Kingman, Arizona and the weather has been warm and sunny with some wind yesterday and today.

We played golf on Thursday at Cerbat Cliffs golf course which is nestled in between the rocky desert, a subdivision and the interstate.  We played by ourselves and had a really good time although the greens were challenging.  The last time we played was in April back in Benson, Arizona—seems like a really long time ago.  Here are some photos of Cerbat Cliffs course:

Yesterday, we drove west on highway 68 about 30 miles to Bullhead City, AZ and Laughlin, NV.  The two towns are on opposite banks of the Colorado River with all the businesses and services on the Arizona side and all the casinos and hotels on the Nevada side.  We explored both of them and Stuart spent $5 on the penny slots.  Somewhat entertaining, if you like watching the little wheels spin around and your credit drop at a fairly steady pace.  We splurged on a buffet brunch at the Aquarius casino and certainly got our money’s worth.  We ate so much that we weren’t hungry at supper time—glad we don’t do that very often.

The Colorado River has a dam just north of the towns and behind it is the Mojave Lake.  It’s a popular spot for boaters and jet skiers who also like to run up and down the river.  The lake looks so inviting amidst all the dry countryside and with a temperature of 98F yesterday, it was tempting to go for a swim.

Today is a home day and Stuart spent a couple of hours lubricating the trailer axles.  They have an ez-lube system where you jack up the wheels (one at a time) and insert the grease with a gun into the bearing while you spin the wheel.  An interesting process and well worth it since they seemed to take on quite a bit of grease.  Need to keep those wheels rolling smoothly.

Here is a photo of RV storage in the subdivision by the golf course: