Category Archives: RV

Double Digits Down: A 10-Month Report on the Ups & Downs of Camper Life

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Howdy. It’s the 14th of the month and you know what that means…blog time!

As of today, it’s been 10 months of camper life. Lots of things are happening, and lots of other things are becoming clearer with more time on the road.

A while back, I went on a frenzy of following other full-time campers’ blogs and got obsessed with virtually relating to others living a similar lifestyle. But now it’s newsfeed overload to the point of making life on the road feel way too ordinary and uninteresting. Pretty much everyone says the same cliche things and comes to the same lame and nostalgic conclusions. My perspective feels different, and I can no longer relate. I haven’t exactly figured out why or how to put it in words. So for now, I’m another cog in the wheel. Let’s keep turning the wheel ’til I figure it out.

Places We Were: Month #9

Last month began by wrapping up our time in Santa Barbara, which has still been one of my very favorite places of the entire trip. I loved the size of the town…not overwhelming but still plenty of stuff to do. The weather rocked and the area offered so many of the things that I love to do on a regular basis: kayaking, hiking, biking, beach, museums, breweries, vineyards, etc. If it weren’t so damn expensive to live in a place like that, I could totally plop down in SB for a while. But maybe that’s not a deal breaker after all, so who knows.

Then we moved onto Lake Isabella, which started out as a total bust. We couldn’t access the Sequoia National Forest because of snowed in roads, which was basically the whole point of moving here. Kayaking was also a bust, and the tiny towns of a couple thousand people each offered little-to-nothing to do. But after wallowing in some self-pity, we made the most of it and embraced the dramatic scenery in full-force.

Finally, we moved to Oceano, California in the San Luis Obispo area. This stay is still in progress, and while the initial reaction was not so great, this area is really starting to grow on me. The campground itself is claustrophobic and overpriced. But we’re right next to the sand dunes with the ocean on the other side, there are fresh farm stands on non-trafficy roads, and lots of local theater stuff nearby.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of “homes on the road”:

Santa Barbara, California: Home on the Road #37

  • Highlights: Santa Ynez breweries nearby, cute Danish town of Solvang, getting an Easter visit from our friend and her baby in Illinois, visiting an ostrich farm, self-guided mission tour, biking to the beach, chill breweries, quirky shops, uncrowded hikes, incredible flowers and succulents
  • Lowlights: Camping 30+ minutes away from town, weird lake regulations that prohibited SUPing, campground laundry facilities broken & useless, loud and annoying Easter campground crowds

And now…some photos to go with those words:

Lake Isabella, California: Home on the Road #38

  • Highlights: Amazing scenery in every form, fast and free campground WiFi, getting to use the snowshoes that we’ve been toting around in the RV, driving a BOAT, beating (barely) my husband in golf on our first game on an actual course, the surprisingly well-preserved Silver City ghost town in Bodfish
  • Lowlights: Didn’t get to see any sequoia trees, didn’t get to kayak, small towns didn’t have anything to do, realizing how badly out of biking shape I am on moderate hills, hikes that were ended abruptly due to impassable waters

Here are some of my favorite photos…

Oceana, California: Home on the Road #39 (in progress)

  • Highlights: Sand dunes right behind our campground to play on, SLEDDING IN SAND, lots of local theater stuff nearby, Bishop’s Peak hike, horseback riding on the beach (June was the most chill horse ever), wandering around San Luis Obsipo, our wedding anniversary is tomorrow!

  • Lowlights: Probably THE most claustrophobic campground we’ve ever stayed in + the most expensive one = worst combination EVER, 20+ mile winds every day

Realizations & Ramblings from Month #9

In no particular order, these are some random thoughts that came to me during the past month on the road.

  • I’m sick of other campers. I feel like puking every time I read another full-time RVers blog about how “fun” it is to meet other people on the road. This will likely be the thing that drives me away from this lifestyle. Or maybe my niche is how to travel/RV full-time with an introverted/anti-social personality. But who’d read that, right?! Everyone wants to romanticize this lifestyle, and that goes against the grain. Still, I stand firm on my belief that there are many other (and better) benefits to travel besides meeting people (how about. trying new things, learning about yourself, disconnecting from the bullshit, or figuring out the type of place you’d be happy in someday?) To me, these things are far more valuable than mindless and repetitive chit-chat with annoying strangers I’ll never see again. I’d welcome another scheduled meetup like we did in Yuma with Sara & Mike, but those positive encounters seem very few and far between. If it sounds like life on the road is making me jaded, that’s because it is. However, jaded is part of my natural state of mind wherever I’m at. Hmmm maybe I should buy a piece of jade jewelry. That’d be pretty.

  • On that note, we are semi-seriously talking about buying a piece of property “somewhere” that’s sorta kinda in the middle of nowhere to put the RV on it and get it all hooked up to water/electric/sewer. With a possible consideration of building our own house on it in the future. My husband is more gung-ho on this idea than I am because I get caught up in the logistics and commitment. But I’m still way interested in this idea over “giving up” and just getting a lame apartment in a suburb. The big question though is “where”?

  • I stumbled across a travel log that I wrote from a trip to Montana/Wyoming/South Dakota trip in April 2013. My writing was 100% better and more interesting. These days, I just rush through this blog to say I did it and to help myself remember things. It feels more like an obligation than a pleasure, which is sad and pathetic. I’m also so burnt out with writing 8-10 hours for work every day that I have nothing else interesting to say at the end of the day. Poor me, boo freaking hoo. Anyway, everything I read myself write these days is disappointing, and I should do better.
  • I’m learning about plants! I’m tired of going on hikes and not knowing what I’m looking at, so I bought a textbook. Plants are hard…but I’m trying.

  • Last month we killed a TON of bugs in the RV. It got to a point of keeping a personal tally to see who killed more at the end of the day. I remember getting up to 6 on one particularly crappy day.
  • It was really easy for me to get used to having less stuff in the beginning when we had a tiny pop-up camper. But these days, it’s been harder to resist buying more stuff since we have more room in the RV. Especially when Amazon delivers right to your RV park. RESIST THE STUFF…resist!
  • I don’t have popular goals like climbing Everest or hiking the PCT. Those are someone else’s goals, not mine. I should probably put more thought into what mine actually are though.
  • I made my first cupcakes in the tiny RV convection oven/microwave! After three batches and two semi-failed attempts, I found that the magic recipe was 350-degrees at 23 minutes.

  • Flavored whiskey is wonderful. Honey and apple…yum.
  • Longer days of sunlight are equally wonderful.
  • I have a hard time respecting full-time RVers with Amazon charity links and who regularly ask strangers for money to support their lifestyle. I built my own freelance writing business on my own from the ground up 4+ years ago. I didn’t get lucky. I figured it out and bust my ass every day. You should too.
  • I totally don’t understand the point of Instagram. I only care to comment on this because I’ve recently been hired to do “community management” for a client, which basically entails just liking and commenting on behalf of the brand on Instagram. I’ve used Facebook as my one and only social media outlet since the beginning of time because the format and features make sense to me. But I can’t wrap my head around why anyone would use Instagram. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? As a professional writer who values content and context, I can’t see any value in sterile and staged photos followed by generic comments with zero substance. I understand that the average person can’t manage to read more than a couple-word caption on a photo. But for me, a picture doesn’t equal 1,000 words. It equals a picture. And as someone who gets paid by the word, each and every one of them matters. Maybe I’m just outdated and one of those rare non-visual learners. Help a 33-year-old out?

Looking Ahead to Month #10

As month #10 continues, we’ll be in Oceano for a bit more and celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary here! We don’t put a whole lot of stock in that court-issued piece of paper, but we made a random pact to celebrate wedding anniversaries at the beach, so here we are. Certainly could we worse! Next, we’re headed up to Fresno and Gilroy to experience some of the lesser-famous parts of Cali.

Hopefully reading this month’s post wasn’t a total downer. There are still plenty of things that I enjoy about camper life, like the easy access to nature and having new places to explore. Yet other parts are wearing me down, and I’m sure that’s bleeding through in my monthly reports. I’m still searching for my voice in all of this to express how my RV experience differs from the “masses”. If it comes to me anytime soon, you’ll be the first to know.

9 Months Later…Yup, We’re Still on the Road!

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Howdy, and thanks for keeping up with my journey over the last NINE MONTHS! Month #9 has been entirely spent in SoCal, and yes, there’s been plenty of sunshine and lovely weather.

I’ve been practicing driving our new RV because I’ll be damned if we’ll turn into that stereotypical old couple where the guy drives everywhere while his lady passively sits in the passenger seat. As a self-sufficient and stubborn feminist, I’m determined to learn every little thing about how this baby works.

Work has been going well – not overwhelmed, but certainly not underwhelmed either. Here’s a typical work day scene in the RV: back-to-back laptops in the dinette-turned-office, old college t-shirt, messy hair, cucumber & cheese snack plate.

During month #9, we wrapped up “home on the road #34” in San Diego. Before hitting the road again, we hit up a driving range…

…checked out Old Town San Diego with its historic park and festive nightlife scene…
…squeezed in some stand-up paddleboarding in Mission Bay in absolutely perfect wind/weather conditions……spent some time at the dog-friendly portion of the beach at Imperial Beach……and felt bummed to leave the San Diego area because it was pretty much ideal in every way.

As we transitioned from San Diego to our next destination, Banning, we also embarked on our first DIY project for the new RV. Now that I have my sewing machine with me in the RV, I’ve been dying to start a new craft project. I kinda missed doing projects since hitting the road, but with all this newfound space and storage, I figured that now’s the time to get back into it.

The curtains aren’t gorgeous by any means, and certainly not perfect. But they’re homemade and a hell of a lot easier to operate than those cheap and impossible blinds.

Read all about it: Our First DIY RV Project: Homemade Curtains

Places We Were in Month #8

After San Diego, we relocated to Banning, California. We originally tried (very hard) to stay at a campground in Palm Springs and found it impossible due to high nightly rates, pit bull bans, 55+ restrictions, and lack of internet reception. There really is nothing to do in Banning, but it provided a somewhat conveniently home base for the places we wanted to visit in the region: Joshua Tree National Park, Palm Springs, Salton Sea, Slab City, Idyllwild, etc.

Then came the Los Angeles area. We stayed near Simi Valley and hit up everywhere from Burbank to Malibu, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and so on. Most recently, we’ve plopped down in Santa Barbara and are just getting settled into this new area.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of “homes on the road”:

Banning, California: Home on the Road #35

  • Highlights: Chill campground, cable TV hookup that allowed us to binge on Forensic Files, local brewery called Brew Revolution with lightning fast Wi-Fi, hiking a tiny part of the PCT, seeing gnomes in Idyllwild, amazing wildflowers, hiking through an oasis, epic found art at Slab City, hitting up a local bouldering gym
  • Lowlights: Abysmal service at Gastronome (a gnome-themed restaurant in Idyllwild), crazy high winds like all the time, being discouraged by the Palm Springs visitors center that there is “nothing” to do in town with a dog

And now…a slew of photos to go with those words! I was lucky enough to access some lightning-fast Wi-Fi at a couple breweries and cafes, so photos are aplenty in this blog post.

Los Angeles Area (Tapo Canyon) California: Home on the Road #36

  • Highlights: My parents flying out to visit us for a long weekend, doing all the Hollywood touristy stuff for the first time, archery at our campground, meeting up with my longest client of 4+ years and founder of Inside Philanthropy in the hippie mountain town of Topanga.
  • Lowlights: Not much to do outdoors or otherwise near the tiny Tapo Canyon Regional Park, crazy flying insects started coming in our camper and continue to do so – I have no idea what they are

Cue the mass of Los Angeles photos! Tapo Canyon felt like a million miles away from Los Angeles, but it’s only actually about 45.

I loved giving my parents the “grand tour” of our new home. Anyone want to book a tour in advance with me – spots are (not actually at all) filling up fast.I’m learning all about movie sets and whatnot on the Warner Brothers film studio tour here.Oh Rodeo Drive…how I cannot afford thee! Archery randomly happened at our campground Saturday morning…why not?! It’s pretty fun actually, and I’d love to pick up a bow more often. Paramount Ranch was a pretty cool place to walk around to see where some western movies and shows were filmed. I’ve gotten more into westerns after living in the west. There was a wedding happening here the day we stopped by. Malibu was gorgeous, as expected. We took a tour of the Adamson House and saw the most intricate and beautiful tile decor all throughout the historic home…totally worth the $7.Here’s a panoramic scene of the goings-on at Venice Beach on a Sunday afternoon.
Hollywood was essential to visit, but alas, it was time to move on. But not before Monkey posed with her favorite Walk of Fame star. She has no idea who The Monkees are, but neither do any of the other young whipper-snappers walking by. So, she gets a pass.

I’m actually going to save Home on the Road #37 for next month since we’ve only been here a couple days and haven’t experience enough of the area to really write about it yet. So far, our regional park campground is pretty sweet and we’ve got lots of fun things planned around work for the next week and a half.

Realizations & Ramblings from Month #8

In no particular order, these are some random thoughts that came to me over the course of month #8 on the road.

  • Less wasted time walking back and forth to the bathroom and to do dishes has meant less time to listen to podcasts. I’ve had to find other times of day to satisfy my podcast obsession, like while doing push-ups and squats in the RV. I plowed through all the episodes of S-Town last month.
  • I love working outside. Bright sunshine makes my laptop die at times, but I will continue forcing it out into the outdoors whenever possible.

Trying to navigate super-sharp shells and dead fish parts to take a dip in Salton Sea. OUCH!

  • We’re still working on training strategies to get Monkey not to pull so badly on the leash. It really makes hiking miserable, and we’ve tried all sorts of leashes and tactics. We’re trying a Halti harness/easy-walk type thing right now. Lately, we’ve been using tiny pieces of cheese as training treats and walking in front of her to stop her from passing us. Anyone else have an obsessive leash puller on their hands?
  • Camping with (what we at least think is) a pit bull in California continues to be a huge challenge. This state has a stereotype of being full of liberal and inclusive hippies, but clearly that mindset doesn’t apply to dogs. My latest strategy for campground booking is to answer the question “What breed of dog are you bringing?” is “She’s a rescue dog, so a mix.” After all, we don’t honestly know what she is besides a “mix”, and everyone loves rescue dogs, right? This strategy has worked a couple times for me already actually for upcoming stays.

  • Staying in a small town with not much to do (like Banning) really takes the pressure off of daily travel planning. Sometimes it’s nice not having so many options so that you can just be lazy instead of feeling obligated to see and do everything you’re “supposed” to.
  • It’s totally possible to feel stuck in a rut even when you’re moving to a new place every two weeks. Finding joy in the little things is a challenge no matter where you are or what you’re living in.

  • Sweetwater Regional Park campground outside of San Diego was one of my all-time favorite campgrounds so far. I love the onsite trails for running, the green space between sites, and the chill atmosphere. Lake Cachuma in Santa Barbara is right up there too, especially since it has disc golf and a place to kayak.
  • I am STILL struggling with how to dress myself in the west/in the desert. When I go out for the day, I always end up either sweating through my shirt with pit stains or shivering cold and miserable. To remedy this, I’ve started packing a tote bag with multiple outfit changes anytime I leave the RV. It’s overkill, but I’m determined to understand how people in this part of the world dress themselves.

Looking Ahead to Month #9

As the next month on the road begins, we’ll be in Santa Barbara for a little while longer. So I’ll have more updates about SB next month. After this, we’re heading to Kernville and then to San Luis Obispo – staying on the outskirts of both towns to explore the regions. Our pace has settled into at least two weeks per place, which seems to be working well right now.

Life feels comfortable, which is something that’s easy to take for granted but I keep reminding myself not to. Being able to get to know the various personalities of California continues to be fascinating, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of this massive state. Thanks for following along 🙂

Catch up with the journey:

Our First DIY RV Project: Homemade Curtains

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It’s been almost a year since I pulled out my trusty sewing machine and settled down with a new project. While living in the pop-up camper for 7+ months, there was never any consideration of bringing it along for the ride. Space used to be so limited, but not anymore with our new RV!

On our recent side trip from Yuma to Atlanta, we eliminated our storage unit and brought back with us a few key things. This stash included skis, a snowboard, snowshoes, kitchenware, and yes, my sewing machine.

But the first order of business wasn’t a new skirt or handbag. It was something much more practical: curtains.

You might wonder why a brand-new RV would need any sort of upgrade so soon, but the window coverings have been pissing us off since day one. You’re probably familiar with the type of blinds I’m complaining about here…the cheap roller shades that look like this.

But that malfunction with every use and only go up about this far (if you’re lucky) after a dozen attempts.
One of my favorite things about the new RV is how many windows there are and how much natural light comes in. Every morning when I wake up, I love to open the blinds and look out at the view for a few moments before getting up to start the daily routine of yoga/breakfast/work. Mornings would be even more pleasant if those impossible blinds were replaced by user-friendly curtains that added some character to our new home as well.

While sewing is “my thing,” creating patterns is not. My spatial skills are subpar, and I have an incredibly difficult time figuring out how to come up with a pattern from scratch. The husband, on the other hand, excels at these sorts of things and never fails to remind me about it. He has also finally accepted the fact that I don’t do “sewing speak” and prefer terms like “loopy bits” and “holdy bits” over stuffy technical terms.

Here are the patterns he came up with to design curtains for our office and living room.
The next step was to shop for materials. Convenient fabric stores were very limited in the area we were camped in while attempting this project, so we had to make the best of what we found.

I wasn’t terribly excited about this fabric (plain, light blue, cotton blend), but it was the best option available without making a big hassle over it. Besides, who knew if the curtains’ first attempt would even turn out? It was also a challenge to find something that wouldn’t clash with the overhanging interior fabric that came with the RV.
The next step was to make the curtain rod. We picked up a cheap wooded stick at Home Depot and sawed it off to size. This was one of the husband’s part of the project. He also bought a fancy new drill to drill the hardware into the rod to hang it in the window frame. There’s no such thing as a workbench while living on the road, so he made do with a picnic table.
After measuring out the fabric, it was cutting time. Again, large tables are in short supply in camper life. The largest clean space in the RV was the bed. So we placed an X-ACTO mat that we’d also retrieved from the storage unit onto the comforter and started whacking away.
Fortunately, I’d also remembered to grab the fancy iron that my mom gifted me with last Christmas from the storage unit to bring along on our journey. Initially, I used a fleece blanket between the curtain fabric and the X-ACTO mat. But that was a stupid choice because the fleece got stuck to the iron when it touched the edges and had to be scraped off after cooling.

The next time around, I just put down a bath towel as makeshift protection. It’s not ideal and any real seamstress would just die seeing this, but I got a couple hard creases out didn’t start any fires!
Next came the pinning stage to create hems around the curtains. I flipped on the bedroom television for some pinning entertainment and tuned into dramatic soap opera on the one Spanish channel that was coming in through the antennae.
Now here’s where the real fun began. None of the table/chair surfaces in the RV are very conducive to sitting down with a sewing machine, so I decided to stand. I used the little table between the driver and passenger seats as my base and hunched over to make it work. Fortunately, my back hasn’t yet suffered the effects of aging. But this may be the thing that takes it over the edge!
Of course, the sewing machine jammed a few times and I had to use a seam ripper to fix my mistakes. Sewing is never easy, and it’s even more challenging when you’re out of practice.

In addition to sewing the big rectangles, there were also the loopy bits that go around the curtain rod, the hangy bits that tie the curtains back, the Velcro to make that stay, and the border at the bottom.
Although the color and style of these curtains is not the least bit exciting, my favorite part of these curtains was the bottom trim. I picked out this owl border because it matched and because creatures are fun. My mom used to collect owls, so I think she’ll get a kick out of seeing this when she visits us soon.
Ultimately, we decided that loopy bits around a curtain rod were not ideal because they wouldn’t scoot across well. So instead, we picked up key chain rings at a craft store and attached them with grommets. This gave the curtains a shower curtain-feel, but none of that actually shows up anyway the top. And besides, the grommet/ring strategy meant easier scooting and less sewing for me!

The process of making new curtains took several hours on a few different days, which was longer than I ever expected it all to take. In the end, the curtains certainly aren’t perfect (somehow the living room curtains ended up too short?) but they are DONE, and they are thick enough to block the sun and deter peeping toms. That’s really the whole point, right? Thankfully, I’m no perfectionist.
The office curtains ended up being just the right length though. Here’s a shot of them pulled back with the Velcro ties.
After all this work, I’m in no rush to tackle the bedroom windows. But maybe someday.

Even with all the hassles and headaches of working on arts and crafts, these types of projects take my mind away from the routines of work and travel planning. Crafting doesn’t come naturally to me, and it’s always an uphill battle. But after the projects are done, I can appreciate the way they make my brain work and laugh about the finished project, while feeling a little bit accomplished at the same time.

With my sewing machine now back by my side, I also feel a bit more grounded…like I’m living a “normal” life instead of a transient one on the road. There’s a balance there that touches on pursuing hobbies without standing still. I never seriously considered putting much DIY work into our old pop-up camper. I loved it, but it always felt a bit temporary. Meanwhile, this new place of ours feels like home.

I’m not sure what my next DIY RV project or craft idea will be, but you’d better bet it’ll be moderately crappy, terribly frustrating, and absolutely awesome.

Camper Life Month #8 in Dragoon-A-Saurus Rex de la Mantequilla

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Well month #8 kicked off with a bang because this is when we traded in our old pop-up for a 33-foot RV. As I wrote in my “upgrade post,” this one decision turned our February upside down, for the better and worse.

Related: We Upgraded! How Our New RV is Making Life More Awesome…and Complicated

Before I get started with my monthly recap, I suppose I should explain the title a bit. We’ve been trying to come up with a name for our new RV, which is no easy task. You see, it has to be incredibly random, relevant, and packed with inside jokes…all at the same time. For instance, my Jeep’s name is Chief Surfs with Manatees.

Well, at least for now, we’ve settled on a name: Dragoon-A-Saurus Rex de la Mantequilla. It roughly translates to “a large mounted infantry that has been threatened and coerced into the mountains to be named the king of butter.” He/she will go by “Dragoon” for short.

Anyway…

Places We’ve Been: Month #8

Month #8 can largely be summed up by one phrase: “Stuck in Yuma.” It’s funny, because we never actually intended to go to Yuma, Arizona at all. We actually had a campground booked in the Palm Springs area of California back in mid-January but were scared away by excessive rain and flooding. Yuma was a backup plan, and we stayed there in one way or another for over a month and a half.

We stayed at two different campgrounds in Yuma, and then decided to take a trip to Mexico for a week of pure vacation. While in Mexico, we settled on the idea of upgrading our camper and bought a new one in Yuma. This decision sent us on a side trip all the way back to Atlanta, Georgia to take care of a slew of logistical nightmares. I couldn’t stand to go back to our old Yuma campground with the new RV, so we switched to another one. Then after a long-cross country drive back to Yuma, we finally got unstuck and made our way to San Diego.

Here’s a quick recap of this past month’s batch of “homes on the road”:

Yuma, Arizona: Home on the Road #31

  • Highlights: Switched campgrounds for one with more space and fewer annoying people, first few days in our new RV!

For less than 24 hours, all of our worldly possessions were in one place at the same time: RV, Jeep, 5×8 U-Haul

  • Lowlights: We are STILL in Yuma?!, new campground is out in the middle of lemon fields – kinda nice but so far to get to anything

Yuma to Atlanta Side Trip

  • Highlights: Seeing my best friend and meeting her one-month-old baby girl, drinking bubble tea, an awesome AirBnB in Chamblee, GA, donating lots of lots of stuff to Goodwill, squeezing in a hike at Rockhound State Park in Deming, New Mexico on our last day of driving

Best AirBnB (studio apartment) I’ve ever stayed at

10+ donation loads later…

Nice to see mountains and cacti again after a trip back east…missed New Mexico.

  • Lowlights: Driving 30 or so hours each way, having to leave our new camper behind because it’s a gas-guzzler and doesn’t make financial sense for a quick cross-country trip, dozens of logistical nightmares, DMV license and registration issues for the RV and Jeep, cleaning out and totally eliminating a 10’x12′ storage unit, being exhausted all the time and never sleeping, getting bug bites from cheap motels

San Diego, California: Home on the Road #34

  • Highlights: Amazing campground (Sweetwater Summit Regional Park), successfully towing our Jeep here with no issues, incredible weather, trails for running, greenery and wildflowers everywhere you look outside, pedaling the Bayshore Bikeway, kayaking in the fog from the Chula Vista Marina, cute “island” town of Coronado, Gaslamp Quarter outing in downtown SD, surprisingly no traffic anywhere, sitting outside in the sunshine to work

Yep, Monkey’s in the trailer!

  • Lowlights: No Wi-Fi but not a big deal, lots of bunnies outside that drive Monkey (and therefore, us) crazy

Yep, Monkey’s in that kayak with me too. Nice to have the boats back with us again. She’s an old pro at boating.

Realizations & Ramblings: Month #8

In no particular order, these are some random thoughts that came to me over the course of month #8 on the road.

  • During month #8, I started to understand why people DON’T full-time travel and just plop down in a house instead with occasional trips here and there. The logistics of making this work really get to you and can make the whole thing feel totally not worth it at times. Society is not designed for people like us and seems to just wait for us to fail and fall in line. I felt like this a lot in month #8. However, I know that if I just gave up and plopped down somewhere, I’d have nothing but regrets.
  • We upgraded to the new RV at the absolute perfect time. We were both getting a bit burnt out on the lifestyle for various reasons, and this new home on wheels has totally recharged us and reminded us why we’re doing this.

Only in Texas.

  • My anxiety levels were at an all-time high in month #8 due to all the hassles of trying to beat the system for the sake of keeping the lifestyle going.
  • But in the last week, things have slowed down and we have more time to relax because of simple time-sucks that aren’t an issue anymore (walking across a campground to use the bathroom, do dishes, etc.). With the extra time, I’ve found myself starting to play guitar again, organizing drawers, and catching up on shows (recently added Big Love to my mix).
  • Exercise-wise, I’ve finally worked up to doing 100 push-ups, squats, and various ab crunches per day. We retrieved some resistance bands from storage, so I’m looking to add these to the mix in Month #9.
  • Dealing with the sewage system in the RV isn’t as bad as I expected it to be.

My go-to road trip fare: egg, avocado & veggies on flatbread.

  • Camping with a pit bull mix has been getting increasingly difficult. We have run into blanket dog breed bans the most in Grand Junction, CO and Palm Springs, CA. Some campground owners are idiots and flat-out tell you that your dog is unsafe and unwelcome there just because of who it was born to. Other owners are apologetic and make excuses about their insurance policies and safety clauses, but it doesn’t make it much easier to accept. And it’s not just pit bulls either…doberman pinschers, rottweilers, and others are being discriminated against as well. Everyone who meets Monkey loves her. She is obsessed with people, getting petted, and rolling over to get better petting angles. If these assholes would simply meet her and give her a chance, they could have had our business. Pit bulls and pit bull mixes have enough trouble getting adopted from shelters as it is. If people knew about these types of hassles caused by faulty perceptions, it might be even harder. It all just makes me really sad and angry.
  • Totally unrelated to all that, we’ve also been trying to train Monkey to not pull on the leash. It really makes walking and hiking miserable, and it’s gone on for too long. The current strategy is using cheese as a non-pulling bribe, AKA “cheese therapy.” We’ve tried other things in the past, but we’ll see how this goes.

On a positive note, Monkey is starting to take to our new RV and loves staring out her very own window 🙂

  • We are literally spending hours looking for campgrounds that meet our needs lately. And honestly, our needs aren’t that unreasonable: internet and phone service in one way or another, campers under 55 allowed, pit bull mixes allowed. So much time wasted by the inefficiency of this industry’s searching and booking systems. I’ve heard about some tech-savvy people trying to improve this process and bring it up to 2017, but an industry disruption needs to happen sooner than later.
  • We downsized our storage unit in Atlanta (10’x12′ for $200/month) to a much smaller unit in Yuma (5’x5′ for $41/month). Not only is this helping us become more minimalist and cut the waste, but it’ll also make RV loan payments easier, keep the adventure going for longer, and save our extra things on the side of the country we’ll likely plop down on someday!
  • The San Diego area seems pretty ideal as a potential plopping spot, but damn it’s pricey.

  • We are now “those people” you love to hate on the highway…RVers with a really long towing set-up cruising at 66 max. On our last full day in Yuma, we got a tow bar installed on the Jeep. Five hours and $1,300 later, we are totally “those people.”
  • We have a checklist of probably 50+ items that are part of our new RV take-down process. This includes everything from draining the sewage to locking the outside storage cabinets and raising the jacks. I’m learning a lot, and it’s actually not as intimidating as I thought it might be. It involves less manual labor than the old pop-up did, but perhaps more brain power. Of course, it’ll all get quicker and easier each time we do it.

Looking Ahead to Month #9

We finally made it to California, nearly two months late, so we’re planning to stay here for a while. We’ve only been here a bit so far, but we’re already VERY familiar with all the issues of camping in California:

  • Private campgrounds are freaking expensive
  • Limited internet and phone reception in state/regional parks – an issue for full-time work
  • Discriminatory bans against pit bulls and other dog breeds
  • Silly 55+ age restrictions

However, we’ve gotten our next couple places lined up in the Banning, Burbank, and Santa Barbara areas of California. In fact, I’ve arranged for my parents to come out to Burbank to meet us for a long weekend! They’ve never been to SoCal before, so we’re planning to do some Hollywood/L.A. touristy stuff, and I think they’ll get a kick out of seeing our new RV.

If anyone reading this that I know is in these areas and interested in possibly meeting up or sharing some must-see tips, comment here or email me please! We’ll make the best out of you yet, California. It took 8 months to get here, and there’s no turning back now.

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Catch up with the journey: