Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bats!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Yesterday was mostly sunny with the temperature around 80 degrees. The dew point was in the 50s which means the relative humidity was low. Today will be more of the same, maybe a little warmer. It’s sunny and 55 degrees as I write this at 7:30am.

Donna missed the beautiful weather as she left for New York City. Her driver arrived right on time and took her to the airport at 9am. She will return tonight around 9pm. So, I’m posting today without my editor! I’ll do my best to proofread before posting but a second set of eyes always helps.

I mapped a route to Eden Prairie to go to the Best Buy store. I needed to go there to pick up a new laptop for Donna. The route I chose worked out great. From the Dakotah Meadows RV park I went through Shakopee north to Chanhassen then directly east to Eden Prairie. This was an easy route to memorize and a nice ride on the scooter. The main routes in the area are wide, fast roads. Speed limits vary from 40mph to 55mph.

On the way back I saw a restaurant sign proclaiming “Chinese Cuisine”. That sounded good. I dropped off Donna’s laptop in the motorhome and went to the restaurant for lunch. Once seated there I looked over the menu. I had a sinking feeling when I saw another sign in the window that said “Chinese – American Food.” One of my restaurant rules is to avoid eating at a place that advertises “Chinese – American Food.”

I ordered the Kung Pao Chicken. It was quite good and came with fried rice and a spring roll. My only disappointment was the lack of soup. If they had served a cup of Hot and Sour Soup with it I would rate it 3.5 on a scale of 5.

While I was out, I stopped at an O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store. When I was checking tire pressures I lost one of the valve stem caps. I dropped the cap into the opening on the wheel and couldn’t retrieve it. I’m sure it bounced out of there once we drove away. So, I bought a set of steel valve stem caps with rubber seals. I like these because they can prevent the loss of air from the tire through a leaky Schrader valve. You never know, the valve may not seat properly and that can create a slow leak. Using a cap with a rubber seal is a second line of defense – a belt and suspenders approach.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty lazy. I sat outside and read a book. I went for a long walk and took a few pictures. I don’t know why I have a camera bag full of gear in the coach. I’ve been taking all of my pictures with my Samsung Galaxy G4 phone. They call it a smart phone but I rarely use it as a phone. I play games on it, I e-mail with it, I check Facebook on it and I take pictures with it.

View towards our site from across the pond

Last evening, I took another stroll through the park. I saw bats flying over the road behind our coach. Donna and I used to enjoy watching bats from our deck when we lived in Rochester Hills. There are more than 45 species of bats in the US. They can be found throughout the USA – and the world for that matter. They exist everywhere except for the Arctic, Antarctic and a few islands. About 70% of the bat species are insectivores. The rest are mostly fruit eaters. I like insectivores – anything that feeds on mosquitoes is okay, right?

Photo from Wikipedia

Today I’ll check and adjust the tire pressure. Now that I’ve weighed the coach I know I should increase the rear tire pressure from 90PSI to 95PSI. I have a small compressor that provides up to 150PSI. I plug it into the outlet in one of our basement compartments to fill the tires.

I also plan to re-arrange some of the items in the trailer. I want to move some of the heavier items rearward to increase the axle weight and decrease the tongue weight. I think I’ll also disconnect the hitch to inspect and grease the ball. The trailer hasn’t been disconnected for more than 2,200 miles. That’s how many miles we’ve covered since we left three weeks ago.

By the end of the day, I’ll have most of the stuff packed and ready for tomorrow’s travel. We’ll head to South Dakota tomorrow. Our original plan was to stay a few days near Madison – we have business to attend to there. Then we would move to Mitchell where we have an appointment next week. I’ve booked a week at Camp America Campground in Salem, South Dakota. We couldn’t get into the campground at Madison for more than one night. They’re completely booked for the weekend. As always, plans have a way of changing.

Salem is between Madison and Mitchell – roughly 30 miles southwest of Madison and 30 miles east of Mitchell. We’ll scooter to our appointments. I hope the beautiful weather holds up! The campground is in a rural area, it’s about a mile and a half north of I-90.

I don’t know how the internet access will be in that area. So far we’ve had 4G coverage with our Verizon Jetpack everywhere we’ve stopped. Here in Dakotah Meadows I’m using their wifi – we have a good connection and it’s fast most of the time.

Before we head out of here tomorrow, I want to use the RV wash. The coach and trailer have 2,200 miles of road grime. I’ll also gas up here. The Gas Buddy app shows this to be the cheapest gas in the area. In fact, it’ll be the cheapest we’ve seen at $3.33/gallon.

That’s about it. I don’t think I’ll post tomorrow morning before we leave.

RV wash and gas pumps

Inside the RV wash – catwalk to reach the upper areas of the RV

Hot Pink

In yesterday’s post I wrote about the Hormel mystery meat called Spam. Today I’ll open with a few words about the other kind of spam – the electronic type. We all get spam in our email inbox from time to time. Anyone with a blog or website knows they are also vulnerable to spam.

In my case, spammers hit my blog daily through the comments. I enjoy reading comments from people who actually read the blog and I wish I could allow people to post their comments freely. I can’t do this because of the spam. Therefore, all comments have to be approved before they are visible.

I can understand some of the spam I receive. Sometimes the spammer writes what appears to be a valid comment at first glance. Further reading reveals the product(s) the spammer is hawking. Other times the spam is trying to sell me software to “enhance” my blog. These spam entries usually contain links that I immediately delete – this is to protect my blog and to protect readers from clicking on potentially dangerous links.

There’s another type of spam I receive on a daily basis. These “comments” are pure gibberish. I don’t understand what these are about. It’s usually a series of hanzi or kanji characters (I’m not sure if they’re Chinese hanzi or Japanese kanji) followed by “words” that look something like “jjgrt kllpt”. What’s this all about? This is the most prevalent spam I have to screen out. End of rant.

Yesterday I unpacked Donna’s road bike. She went for a ride in the morning while I attended to some business. I rolled my 401k into an IRA. I did this because I want to set up a 72t (SEPP) distribution that will allow me to supplement my pension without paying a 10% penalty. The IRS has a rule, 72t, that allows this with certain restrictions if you are under 59 and a half years old.

My company’s 401k rules also had a provision for allowing withdrawals without penalty if you are separated from the company and over the age of 55. This provision requires a one time annual lump sum payment. I opted for the IRA with a 72t distribution because it allows me to dribble the money out of my account in monthly payments. I think this is a better way for me to take the money and allow the investments in equities and bonds to keep working. There are pros and cons to each method, but I think what I’m doing is right for me.

After Donna returned, we had lunch. She had conference calls to attend at 1pm and 2pm. I got out of her way by taking the scooter for a ride. I explored a bit and found the easiest route to Best Buy. After her conference calls, Donna wanted to go shopping for a new laptop. I came back and picked Donna up around 2:30pm. We rode to Best Buy. Donna found the laptop she wanted. It’s an ASUS with a hot pink shell!

Unfortunately, the Best Buy we were at only had it in green. We were told the Best Buy in Eden Prairie had it in hot pink. Donna wouldn’t settle for green. The route to the Eden Prairie store was complicated due to construction on I-169. I wasn’t too keen on scootering “two up” on the interstate anyway. So, we returned to the park. I looked up an alternate route online while Donna packed her bag for her trip to New York City.

We had a simple dinner. I grilled Wisconsin bratwurst and roasted corn on the cob. The Wisconsin bratwurst had cheese stuffed in the casing along with the sausage. It was a little on the salty side for my taste, but I enjoyed it.

Wisconsin Brats – that’s cheese oozing through the casing

This morning Donna will fly from Minneapolis to New York City for a job she has there tomorrow. Later I’ll take the scooter and go to Eden Prairie to pick up the hot pink ASUS laptop she wants. I don’t have much in the way of plans beyond that for today. I might laze in the outdoor recliner and read a book. Maybe I’ll get motivated and get my road bike out to bicycle the area. We’ll see.

I walked around the RV park and took pictures of a few million-dollar-plus coaches. These were all built on Prevost chassis and body. The three pictured started with the same chassis and body but the coach work was performed by different manufacturers.

Liberty coach built on a Prevost chassis

Marathon coach built on a Prevost chassis

Royale coach built on a Prevost chassis

Tomorrow I’ll wrap up a few more financial arrangements and start packing our coach before Donna returns. Then we’ll head west to South Dakota.

Across the Mighty Mississippi

Sunday morning, instead of cooking breakfast in the coach we ate at the campground pancake breakfast. This was more convenient than cooking and cleaning up before we broke camp and departed. Donna had the pancakes and brought her own syrup (pure maple) plus a hard-boiled egg. I chose the biscuits and gravy with sausage. I ate hearty but maybe not so healthy.

During breakfast the camp host couple talked to us about points of interest as we head west. They knew we were westward bound and leaving that morning. A family from Toronto at the next table overheard this and offered to give us their AAA Guides to the western states. They were on their way home and said they didn’t need the guides anymore. After breakfast Donna walked with them to their camp and returned with the guides.

It continued to rain as I made preparations to leave. I dumped and flushed the holding tanks while Donna prepped the interior. Once I had the shore power and water disconnected, I had her pull the slides in and retract the jacks. I was a little wet, but I was also glad that we packed the trailer, loaded the outdoor furniture and mats and put the awning in the night before.

I weighed the coach at the truck stop before we hit I-90 west. As I suspected, we are a little overweight. It’s not the total weight, it’s more of a weight distribution issue. Our rear axle is overloaded while the front axle and trailer are below capacity. I think I can relieve some of load by reorganizing the trailer again to reduce the tongue weight. I’m not sure how I can redistribute things in the coach. I’m not too worried about it.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi on I-90 and are arguably in the west. I really don’t consider Minnesota to be a western state. I’ll feel like we’re in the west when we reach the South Dakota Badlands. After we crossed the Mississippi, the rain stopped and the clouds thinned out. We continued on I-90 to Rochester where we turned north. Just before we left I-90 we stopped at a rest area. It was very clean and nicely landscaped with several picnic tables. Donna made tacos with leftover pork loin and avocado. We sat in the sun at a picnic table and enjoyed our lunch.

We considered detouring south to stop at the Spam museum in Austin, Minnesota. Austin is the home of Hormel foods – the maker of the mystery meat in a can. Roadside America rates the Spam museum as Major Fun. It features the history of Spam with humor.

Spam (the meat) always reminds me of Hawaii. They have the highest per capita consumption of Spam in the US there. It’s on the menu in many restaurants – eggs and Spam, Spam omelette with cheese. Grilled Spam and cheese sandwich. In Hawaii, McDonalds has Spam on the menu. In 2007, Burger King added Spam to the menu there to compete with McDonalds. Enough about Spam. We passed on the museum and stayed on our planned route.

At 3pm, we pulled into the Dakotah Meadows RV Park. As I mentioned previously, this park is owned and operated by the Shakopee Mdewankanton Sioux Community. It’s a large, fully paved and nicely landscaped park. We have a pullthough site near a pond that covers a couple of acres. The pond has an aerator sprayer – it looks like fountain spraying water in all directions from the center of the pond. Last night we slept with windows open and the aerator provided a soothing white noise. Otherwise it’s very quiet here.

The tribe operates this park to complement the casinos they have in the area. Free shuttle service from your campsite! I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I’m not too interested in the casino. The concept must work though. There are more high end motorhomes in this park than I’ve seen anywhere else. The shuttle came by several times. It doesn’t follow a schedule, you call for pick up. Including tax our paved, full hook-up 50amp pullthough site is under $30/night. The sites were graded fairly level before paving, so I didn’t have to do much adjustment of the jacks.

Today Donna wants to do some bicycling. We’ll also go laptop shopping – there’s a Best Buy a few miles from here. Then she’ll probably go to the casino resort for a manicure and pedicure. She has to fly to New York City tomorrow to do a national TV satellite media tour on Wednesday. She’ll fly back Wednesday night. I’ll be a bachelor for a couple of days.

The weather forecast calls for sunny skies, temps in the upper 70s with low relative humidity for the next few days. Not what I expected in Minnesota but I’m not complaining.

View of pond from our site this morning

Selling Everything

Donna here. Mike told me this morning that he wasn’t planning to write a post today, so I figured this would be a good time for me to make an appearance on the blog. As a cleaning and organizing expert, I’ll chime in from time to time on those subjects as well as general RV lifestyle topics such as cooking (it’s all about the food for me).

Anyway, I thought I’d share with you what it was like selling our home and everything in it in preparation to hit the road as full-time RVers. We made the decision to do this in late March and for the next four months, selling everything became my second job. I assured Mike that I would make it all disappear. As the author of How to Declutter and Make Money Now, I knew what I needed to do. But I didn’t realize how much work it would be, especially at the end.

I started by photographing some of the larger, pricier items and listing them on Craigslist. This resulted in the quick sale of our living room furniture, guest bed, gas grill, wicker patio furniture, lawn tractor, and other items. I also created a photo album called Moving Sale on my Facebook page and invited my friends to take a look. One of the items – a genuine black bear skin rug – sold to a friend in California who was willing to pay for the cost of shipping. Our washer and dryer also sold through Facebook to a friend’s son who was willing to wait on picking it up until the weekend before we left. Suh-weet. I sold books and a few other items on Amazon. Between Craigslist and Amazon and sales to friends, we made about $14,000.

Sold!

We took our motorcycles to a local BMW dealer to sell on consignment. When we first talked about becoming fulltime RVers, Mike said he was going to sell his bike and I burst into tears. He said, “You don’t have to sell yours!” We both had touring bikes and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we didn’t need bikes that big for our new lifestyle and we hadn’t ridden much in the last few years and probably wouldn’t ride much as fulltime RVers. It was time to sell them and get a scooter that would be big enough to carry both of us, but not too big for me to ride on my own. The funny thing is that way back when I told everyone I wanted to get a motorcycle, I didn’t realize that what I really wanted was a scooter! But we did have a lot of fun on our bikes over the years and I’ll always have those memories.

“What about your clothes?” my friends asked. I sold a lot of clothes at my favorite consignment shop. I ended up going through my closet about six times and every time, I was able to let go of more and more, especially once I decided against keeping any items that required ironing (so I could ditch the iron). And shoes? According to a survey by The Container Store, the average woman has 40 pairs of shoes. I am no longer average. My everyday shoes (mostly sandals) fit neatly in a 10x10x10-inch bin. I packed all of our dress shoes in a larger bin that we store in the basement of the coach. Rearrange as I might, I just couldn’t close the lid. So I decided to eliminate one last pair of pumps. Problem solved.

The next phase of our downsizing plan was to have an estate sale. I considered prepping and running the sale myself, but then decided to hire an estate sale company and I’m so glad I did. If you ever want to do this, be sure to book your sale well in advance. The first two companies I called had no availability prior to our departure date. But we found a company that did a great job for us. The gals from Kane’s Estate Sales spent three days at our house, pricing and setting up for the sale. They did a great job with marketing. And they had four people on site every day of the three-day sale. We could not have done what they did with everything else we had going on and we were happy to pay them their 35% commission. Our share was just over $7,200.

By the way, I kept a spreadsheet on what we sold, to whom, how, and for how much. Page two of that spreadsheet itemizes what we bought – everything from bedding, kitchen and bath items and organizing products to our new Kymco Downtown 300i scooter and a 10-foot cargo trailer that we use to haul it.

The final phase of our move from real estate to wheel estate was the hardest — what to do with everything that was left. I listed a couple of desks and a bookcase and some other items on Craigslist at rock bottom prices and they sold pretty quickly. I gave away some glass art and an antique side chair to a couple of friends who had admired those items. It felt good knowing that my stuff was going to good homes where it would be loved and appreciated. Mike gave two high-end guitar amps that he had built plus a 212 speaker cabinet to his friend Gerhard. We donated a whole bunch of stuff to two charities — an animal rescue organization and an organization that helps abused children. They came and picked it all up and gave us a tax receipt that we will use to offset our 2013 income taxes.

At that point, there was still quite a bit of stuff left, including just plain junk. I put it all in the garage and posted to Freecycle.org that I was giving away “Leftovers from Our Estate Sale” to anyone who would come and take it all. The first person to respond said they had a 19-foot trailer and would be happy to come and collect everything for a church yard sale to benefit their youth organization. I chose to believe them and we got our garage cleaned out for free.

And then the only stuff that was left was the stuff we had yet to pack into the basement of the RV and our trailer. Amazingly, it all fit. Barely. The crazy thing is that I am quite sure that we will downsize again down the road.

We have yet to miss anything (though we are still searching for Mike’s cordless power drill and charger). Are we bound to miss something eventually? Probably. Meanwhile, we have everything we want and need to live and work on the road — laptops and smartphones (and a Verizon JetPack for WiFi), printer/copier, my digital piano, Mike’s guitars and amps, hundreds of books on my Kindle reader, our bicycles, my hoola hoops, Vitamix, and other wouldn’t-want-to-live-without things.

We knew what we wanted to do – live the RV lifestyle. We knew what we had to do to get here – sell everything. We did it and now here we are enjoying a beautiful summer day at a campground in Wisconsin, getting ready to head to Minneapolis tomorrow morning – right after the pancake breakfast.

Closing the door to our sticks and bricks home

Opening the door to our new life

Cheeseheads

Yesterday I was up early and posted to the blog. After that I grabbed a breakfast sandwich and coffees at Subway and we hit the road. When we dry camp in a parking lot, it doesn’t take much preparation to drive away. I do a walkaround and make sure all of the compartments are secure, check the trailer and tires and that’s about it.

Speaking of the trailer, the owner’s manual recommends checking the torque on the lug nuts after the first 100 miles and every 1000 miles after that. I’ve read enough stories about lost wheels on various forums and blogs to believe this is a good idea. I’ve checked them a couple of times already. With the torque wrench set to the specified 100ft-lbs it just clicked with no movement of the lug nut, indicating the nuts were tight. Before we left Green Acres Lake Resort, I checked them again. To my surprise, three of the five lug nuts on the right side moved slightly before the torque wrench clicked. I don’t know what it is about trailer wheels that causes lugs to loosen.

Shortly after we started to drive up US30, I stopped for fuel and coffee at a Speedway gas station with lots of room around the pumps. As I pumped fuel, Donna went in to get coffee. She also signed us up for a Speedway rewards program. Donna’s always thinking. I pumped $168 worth of gas into the tank. At this rate, we should earn rewards! I also paid with my Chase Visa card. For the third quarter, July though September, it gives me 5% cash back on gasoline purchases!

I haven’t been looking at the map lately. Donna has taken over the navigation duties. This created an issue after an hour of driving. I had said to Donna that I didn’t want to be anywhere near Chicago. I should have stated this more clearly by saying something like I don’t want to be within a 100-mile radius of Chicago.

She saw US30 as a way to skirt past Chicago but she didn’t realize how much urban sprawl there is in the area. This route took us stoplight to stoplight through Chicago Heights. This would be a very bad place to have a breakdown! The police had surveillance cameras on the sidewalks. After a couple of hours, we’d only covered about 40 miles and finally got on I-80 west and got out of there.

From there we drove on country roads for a while. Our intention was to reach Madison, Wisconsin for another dry camp night and then on to Minneapolis for a week long stay. As always, flexibility is our motto as plans have a way of changing.

We stopped for lunch in a closed truck weigh station. I fired up the generator and charged my laptop, ran the roof AC while Donna heated up leftover chili in the microwave. We both took showers and Donna did a little work on the computer before we got back on our way. The stop took about an hour.

Once underway, Donna began looking for a campsite to book in Minneapolis. This is when we had to change our plan. This weekend there is a festival there and all of the campsites we wanted were booked. Donna booked us into our first choice campground Sunday through next Thursday. Then we had to figure out what to do until Sunday.

We decided to find a campground along the way and just relax for a few days. That brings us to our present location at the KOA in Oakdale, Wisconsin. This is a nice park, a little too close to I-90/94 for our taste but we have a long pullthrough site with full hookups including 50 amp service. I opted to purchase a KOA membership for $24 and got a $12 discount on our stay. If we stay a few more days in KOAs over the next year it will pay off.

They put us in site 2. When we pulled into the site, we both thought it was sub par. No shade and only one site away from the interstate noise. Before I hooked up, I reconnoitered the area. Sites 4 and 5 were superior with shade trees and farther away from the traffic noise. Donna went to the office and asked if we could change sites. They said okay so we are in site 5. We learned it doesn’t hurt to ask!

For dinner, I grilled garlic-rubbed flank steak with chimichurri sauce. As usual Donna did all the work. All I did was heat it and eat it. Yummy.

Grilled garlic-rubbed flank steak with chimichurri sauce

After dinner a Royale coach by Monaco, built on a Prevost chassis showed up and parked in the site we were originally in. This million-dollar luxury coach belongs to Steve “Doc” Hopkins. He and his daughter are top fuel motorcycle drag racers. He also owns the Harley Davidson dealership in Shawano County, Wisconsin. They are on their way back from the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. A coach like this is something I can only dream of.

Royale Coach by Monaco on a Prevost chassis

We crossed two state lines as we went from Indiana, through Illinois and into Wisconsin. Today I think we’ll scoot over to Humbird Cheese Mart. We are in Wisconsin so we might as well sample cheese! We’ll chill out here until Sunday and then move 200 miles to Prior Lake, just southwest of Minneapolis.

Doc’s trailer

A Day in the Life

Tuesday, August 6th was our first “working day.” Donna had things to do. She needed to complete a couple of projects. I stayed out of her way in the morning by hauling our laundry to the park’s laundromat. Donna says there’s nothing sexier than a man doing the dishes. I wonder if doing the laundry trumps that. I passed the time by reading a book while enjoying the view of the pond. I’m reading Covert by Bob Delaney – a book Donna’s brother-in-law, Tom lent me.

One of Donna’s projects was to complete her application to be a presenter at the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). The application required a short video segment. We set up in the motorhome and shot the video. I’ll link to it later in YouTube.

Donna had a visitor in the afternoon and they took a short hike around the campground. It seems like wherever we are, she knows someone. She is the queen of networking. This paid off in a big way when she was contacted yesterday via Facebook by our mail carrier back in Michigan to let us know that there’s a problem with forwarding our mail. I don’t understand how this happened. Donna submitted the online form and received confirmation via email and mail. And the letter carriers confirmed forwarding information in person. But somehow the post office has no record of our forwarding address. Our regular letter carrier, Betty, has been holding our mail and reached out to Donna yesterday. Donna went online and re-submitted the forwarding information (and paid the fees again).

I wish I could report something exciting about our stay at the Green Acres Lake RV park. It was just a day in the life. Yesterday we packed up. I filled our fresh water tank, stopped at the dump station and hit the road. Fresh water full and holding tanks empty – the only way to fly.

Donna studied the maps and navigated our route. I felt good and put in about 350 easy miles. This brought us to Walmart in Valparaiso, Indiana. 350 miles might not seem like much in your car, but in a rig like ours, it’s a long day. We crossed I-75 about 45 miles south of Toledo – which is 2 hours south of where we started two weeks ago! Getting to Walmart required faith in our GPS – we call her “Nally.” She directed us off US30 into a narrow tree lined street. No Walmart or houses – just trees. The she had us turn on another narrow street that looked like a road to nowhere. We rounded a curve and there it was. We entered the Walmart parking lot from the backside. This turned out to be the simplest way in, otherwise we would have had to exit US30 and do a series of U-turns to access the entrance.

Once we parked we went inside to seek permission for overnight parking. The customer service girls were a little confused by my request – they though I was a trucker parking an 18-wheeler and said it wasn’t allowed. Once they understood I was parking an RV, they told me where to park it. Donna and I took a stroll through the store. I wasn’t sure about the liquor laws in Indiana. I remembered going to a liquor store in Indianapolis before before but didn’t know if Walmart carried beer, wine or liquor.

There it was – a liquor aisle. Walmart sells liquor in Indiana and the price for bourbon is a fair bargain. They had a bourbon I’ve been wanting to sample, Bulleit Bourbon, for less than $30 for 750ml. Makers Mark was only $23. I bought both!

While we were in the store a thunder storm poured rain. It subsided quickly but the heat and humidity remained. It’s in the mid 80s and the humidity is unbearable. We went to a restaurant across the parking lot for an early dinner – made early by the fact we are now in the Central Time Zone. I left windows open and the fantastic fan running in our coach. After we ate, another thunder storm arrived and it rained hard. I was anxious to get back to our coach, I was wondering how much water was coming in through the open windows. The fantastic fan pulls air through a roof vent and it has a rain sensor to automatically shut the vent when it rains. After ten minutes or so the rain stopped, we returned to coach and found a little wetness but no big deal.

I sampled the bourbons (both are excellent) and we hit the sack early. Today we’ll drive through Illinois and into Wisconsin.

Westward Ho!

It’s 7am Tuesday morning as I write this. I’m sitting in a campground near Akron, Ohio. Here’s how we got here.

Sunday morning dawned clear and beautiful. We had a goal of leaving by 11am. Donna went for a hike on a trail in the Thompson’s Lake State Park where we were camped. I got started on packing the exterior and getting the coach ready for travel. When Donna returned from her hike she wanted to shower before packing the interior items that she usually handles. We were a little out of sync on the packing duties and I was impatient, wanting to hit the road.

We left the campground shortly after 11am and drove through Schoharie to I-88. The drive was very scenic but also on hilly, narrow roads. I made a wrong turn at one point but we managed to get our rig turned around by remaining calm and waiting for the right opportunity. In this case a school parking lot provided the room needed to get turned around.

I-88 is a nice section of Interstate – very scenic with a smooth road surface and very little traffic. Thunderstorms cropped up, we drove through squalls, sometimes with heavy rainfall and wind. The rain was variable but the wind was relentless.

We stopped a little past noon in Oneonta. Our plan was to go to Brooks BBQ, a local favorite. Donna’s dad had advised us to park in the Price Chopper parking lot down the street from Brooks. When we arrived it started raining again. From the Price Chopper it was a bit of a hike to Brooks so I passed by not wanting to walk that far in the rain. I pulled into the Brooks BBQ parking lot; it was jam packed with cars. I threaded the needle to get turned around and out of there.

Donna spotted a medical clinic next door which appeared to have a parking lot that wrapped around the building. I took a chance and pulled in there. If it didn’t actually wrap around I would be in a real tight spot trying to get out. It turned out to be fine although the lane wrapping around the back of the building was tight.

My choice of smoked pork short ribs was a little disappointing. I tried a taste of Donna’s chicken and realized I’d ordered the wrong dish. The chicken was very good and I recommend it if you ever get to Brooks BBQ in Oneonta, New York.

We were back on the road a little after 1pm. As we drove past the Price Chopper to get back on I-88 Donna spotted a wine and spirit shop. She said, “Why don’t you stop? There’s a big parking lot and you need to stock up.” I didn’t take her advice thinking we’d have opportunities later.

When we left that morning, we didn’t have a real destination – just more of a general direction. We knew we wanted to head down towards Williamsport, Pennsylavania. Then we could hit I-80 west. Donna studied the map (yes, a real paper map). I had her program way points in the GPS so we would have guidance with speed information. Our GPS is RV specific and also considers things like low clearance, weight limits and other restrictions when calculating a route.

Donna used the POI function on the GPS to locate RV friendly overnight parking. We decided to stop at a Walmart Supercenter in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. Donna could see the route on her map; we simply had to continue south on Rt 220 then west on Rt 6. The GPS had us deviate on PA 4014. We had a short debate over which way to go. I decided to follow the GPS. One thing bothered me though. The GPS was no longer talking to me. It was only displaying the directions without any sound.

As soon as I turned on PA 4014, I knew it was a mistake. The road was narrow and just 100 feet down the road was a sign that said “Rough Road – Construction Next 6 Miles.” There wasn’t any way to turn around so I pressed on. Again it was a very scenic route but also very demanding to drive. I didn’t take in much of the scenery. The road was a series of sharp curves punctuated by short, steep climbs and descents. Many of the little bridges on the route had 10-ton limits. We were over the limit and I couldn’t understand why the GPS routed us this way.

By the time we made it to Mansfield, I was worn out. We found an open area to park and went inside to seek permission for overnight parking. It wasn’t a problem. The next item on my list was finding cold beer. I searched the Walmart aisles and didn’t find any. I finally asked a store clerk and was told they can’t sell beer in Pennsylvania. She suggested that I try the little store across the street.

We walked across the street and again didn’t find any beer. I asked at the counter and a young man standing behind me told I had to go back into the town center to the beer distributor. I had a vague memory of strange alcohol laws in Pennsylvania when we came through a couple of years ago touring on our BMW motorcycles.

I was told it was a long walk – maybe 30 to 45 minutes each way. I was thinking about getting the scooter out of the trailer when the guy offered me a ride into town. I accepted and Donna went back to the motorhome.

It turned out to be a fairly long way. If I had opted to walk it would be over 3 miles each way. It was Sunday and the beer distributor was closed. Like me, the guy that offered me the ride was now on a mission. He was determined to find me a six-pack. He took me to a small Mexican restaurant/bar and said I should ask for take-out beer there. Sure enough, they sold me a six-pack of Yuengling to go. This might be the norm in Pennsylvania, but it’s just plain weird anywhere else.

Back at Walmart, Donna fixed us a salad for dinner. Another RV from Quebec parked right behind us. I checked our GPS settings and found the problem. Somehow the settings I had programmed were lost and the default factory settings were on. It listed a rig smaller than ours weighing 20,000 lbs. No wonder the GPS sent us down that road! I re-programmed our actual information and turned the sound back on.

After dinner we discussed our plans for the next day and decided we should stop somewhere with hook-ups. We needed to replenish our fresh water and also do some laundry. I searched on the internet and found a couple of options off of I-76 in Ohio. That would mean a nearly 300-mile day but it looked like a fairly easy route.

RVs overnight at Walmart

We planned to leave by 8am and actually hit the road at 8:05am. The route took us through the Allegheny Mountains. It was an easy drive although the road was almost never flat. It was constant climbs and descents. This is beautiful country and we enjoyed the ride. We stopped for gas and found a station with easy entry and exit. We crossed the highest point on I-80 east of the Mississippi in western Pennsylvania. It was only 2250′ above sea level. We’ll cross much higher summits out west.

We stopped to stretch and walk in a couple of rest areas. One of the RV parks I found on the internet was a Passport America affiliate (we have a membership). The other was a Good Sam affiliate (we have a membership with them also). To get the Passport America 50% discount, this park required a two-night minimum. We decided two nights would be okay. This would allow Donna to get some work done that she needed to do while I could take care of domestic chores.

Donna called ahead and booked a pullthrough site with 50 amp hook-up. When we arrived we found there was electricity and water on the site but no sewer. That means I’ll use the laundromat today and we’ll hit the dump station on the way out.

Our pullthrough site is long but close to the neighbor

After we were settled in, Donna and I walked down to the swimming pond. Donna swam and I headed back to the coach to shower. On the way I talked to a neighbor. He lives nearby and camps here to get some quiet time. I asked if there was a liquor store nearby. I wanted to re-stock the liquor cabinet with bourbon.

He told me of a couple of possibilities. I showered and then unloaded the scooter. I went to the first place he mentioned and found beer and wine only. I asked a guy in the parking lot and he said “You mean hard stuff like Johnny Walker?” He was skeptical but said I might find it a few miles down the road. I went into the store he told me about and found beer and wine again. I asked the clerk and he said, “Liquor? Around here?” Apparently it was an unusual request. He told me of a possibility that involved riding another 20 to 30 minutes. I gave up and came back to the park.

Next time Donna tells me there’s a wine and spirit shop with ample parking, I’m not passing it up.

Clambake

When we bought our motorhome in December 2012, we had no thoughts of going full-time in it. Our intention was to use it to visit friends and family. In January we planned to vacation in upstate New York to attend the Lake Placid Ironman event and visit Donna’s family and friends. That’s what we’ve been doing since we left Michigan.

As I’ve said many times, plans have a way of changing. We decided to move up my early retirement date and hit the road full time in our motorhome. We have a plan that will take us through the end of the year. Like most first-year full-timers, we will spend too much time and money traveling in the next couple of months.

Yesterday we had a friends and family day. Donna’s dad, Duke Connor, came to our campsite at Thompson’s Lake and picked us up a little after 1pm. We drove to his place in Quaker Street. On the way we stopped at a market in Delanson and picked up 200 Rhode Island littleneck clams that he had ordered.

When we arrived at his house, Donna’s friend from her college days, Lynne, was waiting out front. On the deck in back we found her mother, Lorraine, her aunt Margaret, her brother Mark and his wife and daughter, Miriam and Michelle.

Lynne, Donna and Mark

I did what I do best – that is, I sat back, relaxed and drank beer while Duke and Mark got the charcoal grill lit. There was a spread of hors d’oeuvres on the table. We snacked and talked. In due time, Mark and Duke had the clams steaming on the grill. More just picked local corn on the cob was cooking in the kitchen.

Duke and Lorraine Connor

I ate a dozen clams; they were delicious. I was a lightweight compared to Donna and Michelle. At last count Michelle was downing her 58th clam. Lynne drove us back to our site around 5:30pm. Donna gave her a tour of the coach and we visited for a while. Donna and Lynne met in England when they were foreign exchange students in college.

After Lynne left, we had more visitors. Donna’s friend, Joan, and her husband Art came out to see us. Donna and Joan worked together when they were in their 20s. We sat and talked for a couple of hours. Art is a chef so the conversation wasn’t all about reminiscing old times. Donna loves to cook and I like eating so we talked a lot about food. Art shared some interesting ideas including plans for cooking pumpkin leaves. Although they live nearby, Art hadn’t been to Thompson’s Lake before. I think he’ll be back today with his son to drown worms and maybe catch a fish or two.

Today marks the end of our planned “vacation.” From now on, we are really full timing. The vacation plan took us to the northeast. Now we will start to head west. We have a time schedule to meet in the next couple of months before we’ll be able to really settle in a place and live the full-time RV lifestyle as we should.

Our next destination is Minneapolis. I hope to be there by the end of the week. Donna will fly from Minneapolis to New York city for a media tour job. Donna does spokesperson work in addition to her work as an author. She also has family and friends in Minnesota that we hope to connect with. I’ll hang out near Minneapolis while she goes to New York for a couple of days.

From there we will go to South Dakota to establish our domicile. I’ll write about the reasons for choosing South Dakota in another post. Eventually we’ll end up in San Diego in time for my oldest daughter, Alana’s, wedding on September 19th.

With the road schedule ahead, I don’t know if I’ll be able to update the blog daily, but I’ll try. Time to pack up and head west!

Thompson’s Lake

I’m having a little trouble remembering what day of the week it is. I think this is a good thing. My days are no longer ruled by Microsoft Outlook and meetings on the calendar. Yesterday was Friday, I woke up around 8am. It was a move day so I had to get things done.

Donna packed up the interior while I took care of things outside. I dumped and flushed the holding tanks and we were ready to roll at 11:45am – a little later than I expected. The drive was uneventful except for a couple of traffic tie ups. The last 4 or 5 miles on Rt 156 were steep climbs. The road was narrow and the going was slow.

On the way we stopped at Hannafords supermarket for a few items. Donna bought a few groceries and I bought beer. Donna knew the store and assured me of a large parking lot that I could easily maneuver the coach and trailer in. I love it when she’s right.

Before we left Lake George, we off loaded an upholstered rocking chair and nightstand from the trailer. We hauled these from Michigan to give to Donna’s brother, Mark. They are family keepsakes from Donna’s grandmother. I packed them as carefully as I could considering the trailer was over loaded with stuff. I wrapped both items in furniture blankets, but Donna said there were some slight dings on the chair.

We checked in at Thompson’s Lake State Park and were directed to site 15. I thought I would have to drop the trailer as they said 40′ was their maximum length. When I saw the site I could tell we had more than 40′, so I backed the trailer in and fit our whole rig easily. Coach and trailer combined are about 50′ long. We haven’t dropped the trailer since leaving Michigan 11 days ago.

After I positioned our rig, I got out to check out the hook ups. The Reserve America site said we were reserving a site with 30 amp electricity and fresh water. I found neither in our site. I walked around and looked at a couple of other sites and didn’t see any hook ups. Donna phoned the office and was told there are no hook ups in the park, no electricity except for the public restrooms and no water other than a couple of faucets.

This was pretty disappointing for me. I left lake George with less than half a tank of fresh water – about 25 gallons. I would have filled up if I knew we were dry camping for the next few days. I guess I’m sugar coating it when I say disappointing, I was mad as hell. Donna had her usual calming influence though and we agreed it was just a small bump in the road. It gives us a chance to practice water conservation. No big thing.

The park is full with mostly families camping. Adjacent to our site is a basketball court and a volleyball net. I wondered how noisy it would be. There were kids and young adults playing, and other than a few people using our site as a shortcut to the courts it wasn’t a problem. Cutting through someone’s campsite is poor etiquette though, right?

Donna’s mother, Lorraine, drove out here for a visit. Donna’s parents live about 12 miles away from the park. Lorraine stayed for dinner. I grilled curried shrimp and corn on the cob. Donna and Lorraine took a walk down to the beach area. When they returned. they told me I had to have a look at what’s going on a few sites down from ours. At that site there were a few cars. Apparently the campers had visitors. A woman driving a Volvo pulled in to park there and didn’t realize there was a ditch between the road and campsite. She pulled in next to a car parked at the site entrance and drove right into the ditch! When I walked by there were 7 or 8 people standing around the car, arms crossed and scratching their chins looking at the front wheels dangling over the ditch. Later I saw the car had been extricated.

Today we’ll go visit Donna’s parents. Her brother, Mark and family will also be there.

Thompson’s Lake

A Day at the Races

Thursday morning we slept in. It was after 8am when I woke up. I’m getting used to retirement! Actually, Thursday was my first official day of retirement, I was using vacation time in July. First pension check deposited to my account!

I sat at the table and posted to the blog. We planned to go the horse races at Saratoga with Donna’s sister, Linda, and her husband Tom at 10am. Somehow the time got away from us and we were scrambling to get showered and dressed. We left around 10:20am. We were supposed to meet Donna’s brother, Mark, his wife Miriam and daughter Michelle at 11am. We made it on time thanks to Tom’s lead foot driving.

Thoroughbred racing has been going on in Saratoga Springs since 1863. The facility was built in 1864. It’s a great place. We had reserved seats in the clubhouse thanks to Mark.

With Donna at Saratoga

The first two races were steeplechase events. These are long races (2+miles) and involve the horse and rider jumping over fences. In the first race, a rider toppled from the horse on the back stretch. I hope he’s okay. I picked up the racing form and studied the expert advice. I’m not in the habit of going to horse racing. It’s been at least 20 years since I last attended a horse race. When I lived in San Diego, I would occasionally go to the races at Del Mar.

I played Exacta bets – this type of bet requires you to pick first and second place. I won the fourth race, but at the end of the day, I was just a contributor to the pari-mutuel pool. Donna introduced a new food to me – Montreal poutine. These are French fries with gravy and cheese curd. Very tasty. We also had Manhattan clam chowder.

There were beer gardens at the site and live music as well. Unfortunately shortly after we arrived it started to rain and the temperature dropped. Donna was cold and left with Tom and Linda after the 6th race. I stayed with Mark, Miriam and Michelle but we also decided to leave after the 7th race.

Back at the campground, I grilled Key West chicken and Tom roasted local corn on the cob. Tasty! They stopped at a bakery on the way back and picked up dessert – cannoli, eclairs and cookies.

It was a great way to kick off my retirement and I’m ready to get used to living like this.

Today we’ll move to Thompson Lake.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bats!

Hot Pink

Across the Mighty Mississippi

Selling Everything

Cheeseheads

A Day in the Life

Westward Ho!

Clambake

Thompson’s Lake

A Day at the Races

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