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Downsizing Home, empty nesters, freedom, Roadtrips, rv living, travel, Uncategorized, usa travel

A FEW IMPORTANT THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED IN OUR FIRST FEW WEEKS FULL TIME RV’ING – PART TWO

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Linsley and I are so glad that we stayed put in South Carolina for the winter, we have learned so much in this very short time.  We have also had a chance to learn about all the systems on our RV.  The following is part two of a three part insight into the things that Linsley and I have learned over the last 4 months of full time RVing that we didn’t know about before taking on this lifestyle.  We had done a lot of research before we made the leap into full timing, but we have learned so much more than we imagined in the few weeks since we started.  This may be only the tip of the iceberg in our learning curve, but for anyone thinking of starting full-timing, maybe it will be of value:

  

  1. THINGS TO BRING WITH YOU AS YOU START YOUR RV LIVING:

Bring with you the things that you will need.  We were under the impression that while traveling, everything had to be stowed away in cabinets, so a lot of the camping and cooking equipment we had, we sold off in the estate sale we had.  Now we find that we could have brought it and we are buying a lot of that equipment again.  We have found out that the luxuries you believe go with brick and mortar living can also be part of an RV lifestyle.  We were under the impression that we could only bring bare essentials with us, so that is what we did.  Don’t do the same thing.  If you think you will need a piece of equipment, bring it, we have met people whose RV is filled with plastic bins full of equipment for cooking etc, that once they get to a site, is all unpacked and left outside, around and under their RV and awnings.  This is the part that we didn’t know.  We do now!

  1. With winter coming on, temperatures started to drop and we realized that we didn’t know how or even if our heating worked in the RV. We knew it was gas heating, but weren’t sure how to turn it on.  Our new friend Doug (who has been such a fantastic help to us) came over and showed us exactly how to get the furnace started.  Looking back, it was so easy, I felt pretty stupid that we hadn’t worked it out ourselves.  You basically open the outside furnace and turn the switch to ON, then switch over to heat mode on the thermostat, turn it all the way up until the heating kicks on.  Once the furnace is blowing warm air, you can then set the temperature on the thermostat.

At the worst possible time this winter, our heating gave out and would run for a little while and then stop blowing warm air and revert to stone cold.  Our friend Doug (my hero), took the gas valve apart and replaced it with a new one we bought, we tried it and it worked for a short while and then the gas turned off again,  Doug took it apart again and checked the gas pipes had no blockages.  This is where I have to stress to you… DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF GNATS!  The gas pipe had about 6 dead gnats in it, but this was enough to restrict the flow of gas and cut the heating off.  We cleaned out the pipes and the heating has worked like a champ ever since.

3.   With storage at a premium, I decided to store canned foods (and well packaged foods that could withstand it), pots and pans, and various drinks in a plastic storage bin with a lid, which can easily be stored underneath the RV when we are parked at a campground, easily accessed when we need to get something from one of the bins, and quickly and easily lifted into the RV when we are traveling. This has made my life much easier inside the RV and given me so much more storage for things that need to be inside.  We don’t have big storage bins built into our RV as it is an older model, so the storage bins (from the dollar store) are ideal.  I found a few storage bins that are waterproof, and was able to put dried foods such as rice, pasta, even sugar (without it clogging), and they were relatively inexpensive from Walmart, which has made a huge difference in the amount of storage available in the kitchen area now.  I was able to fit them into one of our storage cubbies underneath the RV, so they are totally protected from the weather at all times.  I would highly recommend these bins for anything that wouldn’t stand up to any type of dampness.

  1.  MEMBERSHIPS

You can pay a fortune, and spend hours finding and booking campgrounds to stay at, but we have found that by having a few memberships, this process becomes much easier.  Not only does it help finding the campgrounds, but it also can save you a lot of money along the way.  We travel about 200-250 miles a week and then camp at a campground for the week, moving on to the next place on a Saturday morning, this gives us a very relaxed travel schedule and allows us time to explore the area we are staying at.  We find that this suits us very well, and our older RV thanks us for not trying to drive huge distances all in one go.

Passport America:  We joined Passport America and they have a great website where you can look up campgrounds all over the United States, get an overview of those campgrounds, and get their website, plan your route, and also in many instances enjoy 50% off the normal nightly rate at a campground that is affiliated with Passport America.  Now the 50% discount doesn’t always work in high season, but so far, we have received the 50%, so we can only rave about how great Passport America is.  Also, our friends joined passport America and because we referred them, they, and we received a 7 month free extension to our membership.

Escapees:  Escapees help with finding campground locations, route planning, they provide some discounts, but they also have a mail forwarding service, roadside assistance, and in order to be able to vote and renew your drivers license etc, they can provide a domicile address in a state that is full time RVer friendly (which most states are not), which enables you to travel further afield without the necessity to keep driving back to the state you are domiciled in to renew tags, licenses, voter registration, etc.  Escapees also list campgrounds which are owned by Escapees members (Co-Ops).  These campgrounds are renouned for being very comfortable, and because they are owned by people who RV full time, are very well set up to address the needs of full time RVers.

Good Sam:  We joined Good Sam for a few reasons, the main reason for us was that they provide great roadside assistance services.  Should we get stuck with a flat tire etc. in the middle of nowhere, they will actually bring a tire to where we are or tow us to somewhere we can have a new tire fitted.  It is important to have great roadside assistance and towing when you are full time RVing because when you think about it, your vehicle is your home, and has so many things that can go wrong at any time, you need to have a plan that will cover most, if not all eventualities.

These are the memberships that we have, it may be in the future, that we will join more RVing clubs, but for now, we feel we are well covered between these three.

 

freedom, Roadtrips, rv living, travel, Uncategorized, usa travel

SOUTH CAROLINA AWESOMENESS

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            Traveling to South Carolina, we didn’t know what to expect in terms of scenery.  We decided to take a trip to the mountains to see the fall colors, so we went to Ceasars Head State Park. 

            Unfortunately, the colors weren’t at their best when we went, leaves change color here slightly differently than they did where we came from, so we got there at the wrong time to see the full fall color.  That didn’t  detract from the beauty of the scenery we saw.  We could see for miles and miles and we were so lucky with the weather, it was sunny, but not hot which made it easy to walk around and take in the beauty of the whole place.           

Caesars Head State Park

We went with the friends we made here at the campground, and had a wonderful day.  We did a little hiking, took a lot of pictures, and when we went home to the campground, we all sat around a campfire and had a great impromptu dinner.

Caesars Head State Park
Caesars Head State Park
Caesars Head State Park
Caesars Head State Park

We feel so lucky to be able to travel around the country and see such amazing sights. If we didn’t become full time RVers, we would never have the chance to see this amazing beauty.

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Our New BEAUTIFUL RV

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My one reservation with all this downsizing, selling the house and heading out in an RV was that we didn’t own an RV yet . I had this vision of us destitute, no home, no belongings and in dire straights! Sleeping on a park bench, or worse!

We had been searching all avenues for an RV, but as we were looking for an older model that we could buy outright, as soon as they came on the market, they were gone, or they were out in California (there are not too many good used RV’s for sale in North Carolina), or there was something majorly wrong with them.

Then, by chance, one day, when I was angry with Linsley because he had refused to go look at an RV which was 5 hours drive away in Virginia, I started looking at Craigslist, even though I had sworn I wouldn’t look until he apologized! Well, there was an ad which had been placed by the son of a couple who were selling their RV. We had almost been burned before with a scenario like this, so I was very dubious, but thought what harm can a phone call do? So, courage in hand, I made the call and got voicemail! I was ground to a screaming HALT! I left a message, not expecting to actually hear back from a real person, I was sure it was going to be a scam.

Half an hour later, our phone rang and it was from the same number I had called. On the other end of the line was Ada, a wonderfully lovely lady, who confirmed that her son had placed the ad for her and her husband because they were not tech savvy! We had a lovely chat and she told me about their RV, which they had bought brand new and loved so much. From the pictures that were posted, you could tell that this RV had been loved over the years. The great surprise for us, was that it had a new engine and transmission and many other new parts in recent years.

We arranged to drive the 3.5 hours to see it, we also made sure to take the money with us because if it was as good as we thought, we intended to buy it. Sure enough, this beauty was everything that Ada and her lovely husband, Billy, had told us it was, and we were very happy to buy this well loved RV. She is a Four Winds Hurricane, 1996, but the inside looks almost like it did when it was brand new. No wear, no stains, just lovely! The only thing that we need to do to it, is to replace or add our names on the outside where Ada and Billy’s names appear.

We weren’t able to take it with us the day we saw it, because it was a Sunday and we couldn’t find a notary public to take care of the title transfer, so we agreed to come back the following weekend. We put a good deposit on it and left for home.

The following week, we headed back down to Ada and Billy’s home to seal the deal and have the title transferred over to us and we drove home in our new home, this beauty!

I will always be very grateful to Ada and Billy for taking such great care of her, and we will stay in touch with them and keep them updated on our travels and adventures. We couldn’t have hoped to find a better RV or such a lovely couple to buy it from. Thank goodness Ada and Billy didn’t suffer any great damage from Hurricane Dorian that just passed them by.

Since we bought her, our RV has been great, I cleaned her from top to bottom (more because I am anal about that) and she is now packed up with all our belongings, ready for us to hit the road as soon as the estate sale is completed. Our neighbors have been wondering what we are doing, having the house prettied up and then an RV arriving on the front, so we talked to them and explained what we are doing, and to our surprise, none of them thought we were crazy!

Some friends sent a big sticker for the side of the RV, (we must find a name for her!) and we stuck it on her this Saturday. It looks great and Linsley was very happy with the fact that the colors matched perfectly with the original stripes on the RV.

Everything is coming together now and although neither one of us has any regrets about our decision, we are nervous/anxious/scared/freaking out because it is all very imminent now. We will be moved into the RV in 6 days from now, and then all our belongings will be sold, and we will be officially full timers! Very exciting, but also pretty scary!

Although we paired everything down to bare essentials, the RV is packed to the gills, and we figure that along the way, we will realize that there are things that really aren’t essentials once we get used to living free of material possessions, and when that happens, we will have a second pairing down and unload some of the things we now feel are essential. The one thing that our two eldest sons asked us to keep for them….. their childhood teddy bears! So they are just a couple of things that will always be carried with us, at least until they visit and take them. They both live overseas, so that won’t be any time in the next few months.

When we move into the RV next week, we will be staying on the driveway for a few days, then we will move to the campground around the corner from our house at the lake, and this will be our first real test of all the systems and our first real taste of what life on the road will be like. If you weren’t already aware, this will be Linsley and my first time in an RV, we have been camping (or more like glamping) for a few years, but this will be our first experience with RVing. We are anxious to work out how everything works and get used to all the systems on it. Fortunately, Billy gave us all the original books and manuals on everything, so we have a big advantage there.

My next post will be from the lake, I may even post a picture of Linsley emptying the waste tanks for the first time! (That should be hysterical!) He is absolutely dreading it! LOL

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THE DOWNSIZING PROCESS……….

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Have you ever stopped, looked around your house, and really seen all the “stuff” you have accumulated over the years?

That is exactly what Linsley and I had to do, and the thought of sorting through it all was daunting, overwhelming, ridiculous, I can think of at least another good few words to describe how I felt at the prospect of going through everything in our home……. The reality was every bit as overwhelming as the thought of it.

Well, we found out from the Estate Sales company we hired, that we basically had to remove anything we wanted to keep, and everything of a personal nature. So I set to work going through every drawer and cabinet in the house. I have to say that once you start this process, it is totally amazing just how much personal stuff you find that needs to be removed. Old letters that Linsley had used as bookmarks etc. so it’s not only going through the obvious places but EVERYWHERE! I have had a few chuckles over the things I have discovered that I had either forgotten about or thought were long gone!  A few nice surprises, a love letter that was written when we first started dating a million years ago….. hospital wrist bands from when the boys were born, and a few other gems that had been buried in our memories for years.

During this purge, we also had a handiman working on the outside of the house giving it some much needed curb appeal and as you can see from the picture (above), it now looks bright, cheerful and welcoming. Living in the same house for years, you tend to forget about the curb appeal, and I have to admit, we had been guilty of that, but with a good lick of paint and some pressure washing, she looks like a whole new house!

After weeks of combing through everything inside the house, deciding what we really couldn’t part with, we were both amazed at how easily we were getting through it all. It all just told us that we were doing the right thing and showed us that although there were ahhh moments, none of the “stuff” mattered to us more than our happiness. If someone had told me two years ago that all the “stuff” we had accumulated over the years would be this easy to part with, I would have marked them down as insane! Funny how that change of mindset happens when you’re not looking!

It was crazy that some things we had bought for the house right before making the decision were still in their boxes and we were now looking at selling them in the estate sale. I guess that’s how life happens though, you live each day and a decision made one day can affect all the decisions made for months, even years prior to that. This is where having a crystal ball would have been really handy! LOL

I have to say that the mess created by going through everything in the house was a little much for me. I am one of these very organized people, and it drove me crazy to have all our belongings pulled out from their storage places and within sight.  I had to talk myself off the ledge many times as I tried to clean around the insane clutter!  It also occurred to me in the middle of all this mess “who on earth would want to buy our old stuff?” The estate sale guy talked me down from that one, bringing in furniture specialists to assess the worth of the hand-made furniture I had brought from England with me years ago.  It turns out, however much you are used to the furniture you have lived with for years, it will appeal to someone…. We were told that although we lived in the furniture capital of the world here in North Carolina, our furniture was “different” and therefore very appealing to many of the dealers around here.  I guess time will tell on that one!

I did find a rhythm to all the madness.  I designated a big plastic tote for collecting like things…. Office supplies, toys, shoes, etc. and that helped me deal with the mess.  Having said that, I am two weeks away from the estate sale now and I feel totally burned out…

I know that I will keep going, and I realize that although this is a hard process to go through, the only way to come out the other end to freedom is to keep going!  We are close now and soon I will be able to sit here with a totally empty house, a glass of wine in my hand and breathe a huge sigh of relief that it is over.  I also know that one day, I will look back on this time and laugh about it all.  Just not right now…… hahaha