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Been There Doing That

Our RV Adventures

Feb 12

5

Road Trip to Colorado

By Gayla & Robert
Filed Under Full-timing, Working in RV | Tagged With: , , , , | | 1 Comment»

It was Thursday morning and we needed to hit the road.  We really weren’t too anxious as we hadn’t even really started securing things down to have an early departure.  The weather forcast was calling for heavy rain in KS and snow in Denver.  We studied the map and weather predictions and decided to take a southern route through OK, TX, and NM. 

Between doing some things for work and getting the coach ready for travel, we were ready to pull out of Springfield at about 2:30 p.m.  We were in need of a dump station and wanted to fill up with fuel before we got too far, so we decided to stop in Joplin, MO.  I needed to finish up some loose ends for work, so we hung out at the Flying J for a couple of hours until I could get the immediate tasks complete.

We got back on the road to make our way through OK.  We tried to get some sleep on the west side of Tulsa at about 9p.m., but couldn’t sleep so we thought we’d press on.  We finally pulled over at a truck stop in El Reno, OK for the night at about midnight.  Just after we stopped and let the dogs out, the rain came pouring down. 

We had a wonderful night’s rest and left the truck stop Friday morning at about 8.  Before we left, we made sure to take a walk around the coach and to make sure everything was fine for travel.  It turned out the wind was so swift the night before that the awning above our living room slide out was wrinkled.  We extended the slide out to re-roll the awning and nothing seemed damaged. 

We made sure to take our time, not speeding and stopping whenever we felt we wanted to.  We kept watch of the weather systems on our phones.  What wonderful technology.  We knew when we we may be hitting any weather and we could decide if we wanted to press forward or simply stay put until it passed.  Mostly we kept watch of what the weather was in CO as they appeared to be getting pummeled with snow.  Ideally I wanted to be at the office on Monday morning, but we decided that we weren’t going to push it, if we needed to stay a day somewhere to let the system pass, we would do that.  It was only Friday, so we felt we had plenty of time. 

We rolled into NM at about 2p.m. and stopped by Russell’s Travel Center in San Jon.  Cute little place with an antique car museum.  The owner has quite the collection of cars and memoribela.  What a nice break. 

Russell’s Truck Stop, St. Jon NM

We stayed on I40 until we were past Santa Rosa, NM then connected with HWY 84 N. We connected with I25 in Las Vegas, NM and decided to call it an evening. Even though it was about 6p.m. and we really weren’t that tired, we decided it would be best to just pull over and not risk traveling after dark just in case we would encounter snow or ice. We thought it would be better to see what we were getting into.

That night was COLD! We woke up to 13 degree temeratures with wind chill -1. Our little Florida doggies weren’t used to that at all. After I fixed us some eggs and toast for breakfast, we were back on the road by 7a.m. According to the weather forecasts, all the snow hit the Denver area on Friday.  Since it was Saturday and we were still in NM, we really felt by the time we got there, the road crews would have cleared off the major roads anyway. We looked up the road conditions on the web and they didn’t seem that bad, but still we decided, if we needed to pull over we would. Afterall it is just Saturday, we still had plenty of time before our arrival time goal of Sunday evening. 

Travel on I25 was fine for the most part.  Once we crossed into CO, there were some warnings to go slow.  We traveled about 25mph through those mountains like the semi trucks were. The roads were clear, with just a few slick spots.  We didn’t want to risk it going down such steep grades.  Once we were out of the mountain pass, the roads seemed dry and clear for most of the way.  We ended up getting to the Denver area by 1:30ish.  The roads were wet, but cleared off.  We were delighted to pull into St. Vrain State Park near Longmont at about 2:30p.m. We made it and could get comfortable and have all day Sunday to unwind before I needed to get into the office on Monday morning.

The miles may have been longer going the southern route vs. going through KS, but we certainly thought it was worth it to avoid the severe weather they had.  We also met our goal of not having to call CoachNet because we were broken down somewhere.  That was a wonderful feeling.

View of Bald Eagle Lake outside our window at St. Vrain State Park

Feb 12

1

Change In Plans

By Gayla & Robert
Filed Under Full-timing, Working in RV | Tagged With: , , , , , | | No Comments»

We have been in Missouri for the month of January for a well overdue visit with family and friends.   The time seemed short and very busy.  Between work and our visiting schedule, it seemed as though we didn’t have a moment to breath.  Whether we would stay for a week or a month, it seems we wouldn’t have the opportunity to see everyone or to do everything we wanted, but we had wonderful time with everyone.

Our plan was to head back south on the first of February.  Just a week or so prior to our anticipated departure date, I get some calls from the office I manage in Colorado.  It seems as though my staff of almost ten years were making life changes and had decided to term their employment.  It is a small office, so when one or two folks decide to quit, it is a big deal.  This office is also undergoing ownership changes, so with the task of hiring new staff in front of me, my project just got bigger. 

Robert and I discussed all the events going on at that Colorado office.  I explained that I didn’t feel I could do be an effective manager from a long distance right now.  Neither one of us really wanted to go to Colorado in February.  Spring or summer was fine, but February wasn’t exciting us.  Mainly we are concerned about how the RV will hold up in the cold.  However, we both agreed that Robert’s job is much more flexible and I’m being paid to do a job and we have to go where I’m needed. 

Breaking the news to our Florida friends was hard.  Robert has a great following with his music and we certainly hate disappointing his fellow band member friends.  He is a regular at Mahuffer’s a little bar in Indian Shores and we didn’t want to disappoint the owner as he not only is Robert’s boss, but also a dear friend.  It was like ripping off a Band-Aid, Robert made his phone calls and everyone was very understanding.  Unfortunately we couldn’t tell our friends exactly when we are headed back, because I have no idea how long my job will take to get that office back on track.

We prepared the coach as best as we could by adding more insulation to fill in any gaps.  Robert’s dad had several strands of heat tape that we installed and a wonderful space heater to borrow.  Since we’ve been in Florida for so long, our winter wear supply is quite small, but I think we’ll manage.  We’ll just shop for a few things here and there as needed.

So we are off to Colorado and we’ll make the best of it.  We’ll be around the Boulder area and neither one of us has been there in the winter for any length of time.  It will give us an opportunity to photograph new subjects and explore different areas.   At every opportunity that I’m not working, we’ll play tourist and explore.  I know winter boots and gloves are the first things on our list to buy.

Dec 11

29

Beautiful Sunrise

By Gayla & Robert
Filed Under Around Home | Tagged With: , , , , | | No Comments»

 

This morning we woke up to see a beautiful sunrise, too bad the city is in the way.  Decided to take a couple of shots because in a blink the colors were gone.

We can’t wait to be somewhere to see the sunrises unobstructed by city.  Soon…

Dec 11

17

Insulating the Water Lines

By Gayla & Robert
Filed Under Around Home, Full-timing, Tips | Tagged With: , , , , , | | 1 Comment»

I’m sure our Florida neighbors think we are crazy, but we are preparing for winter.  With weather in the mid to upper 70s during the day and upper 50s at night, why on earth think about insulating the water lines?  While most RVers go to warmer climate during the winter, we are going north.  We will be in Missouri for the month of January visiting family and we want to prepare as much as possible.  After all, winter in Missouri could be freezing or could be 60 degrees.  We don’t want our trip to be dampened by being caught off guard and it ends up being zero and have frozen and busted water lines.

We picked up some self-sealing pipe foam insulation and foil back pipe wrap insulation to go around as many water lines as we can get to.  The exposed lines are under our slide out in the storage bay.  First, we cut the self-sealing pipe foam insulation to fit around the exposed water lines.  Then we cut strips of the foil back pipe wrap insulation for a second layer.  We wrapped it in such a way to have about ¼ inch overlap.  We secured it with foil tape.  Last, we secured the insulated lines with zip ties.

 

 

 

Dec 11

15

RV Bath

By Gayla & Robert
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Having a white vehicle is a pain.  It seems to get grimy quickly.  The last time Robert gave the RV a good bath was when we were still living at our rental house.  We are parked under a couple of live oak trees and those tiny leaves get everywhere.  He has swept  the roof several times since we’ve parked here, but the grime streaks were really beginning to bothering us.

Robert wanted a hose that he could use just for the purpose of washing vehicles, so off to Lowe’s we went to pick out a simple 50′ light duty garden hose and Simple Green detergent.  I can’t be for certain, but it seemed as though Robert was excited about cleaning the RV.  To me, it seems like a overwhelming task, but to him, I think he was going to have fun because he seemed gitty.

Yesterday, while I was working in my home office all day, Robert was outside scrubbing.  We took some before photos, but the photograph really doesn’t do it justice on how dirty it really was.  I know some folks wait longer to wash than we did and you think their white vehicle is really brown, but we want to make sure that we don’t have too much build up of the sap from the trees. 

It took Robert practically all day, but he completed his project.  It looks wonderful.  He got in all the nooks and crannies.  He plans to do a quick touch up cleaning right before we leave for Missouri in a couple of weeks.  I can see why some people would pay to get this service done.  It is certainly a lot of hard work.

Oct 11

24

Washer Woes — Part 2

By Gayla & Robert
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It didn’t take long for our $52 part to come.  I happened to be out running errands for work when the delivery arrived.  Robert was so anxious to get in installed, it was done before I came home.  What a wonderful surprise, but I was hoping that he would have taken pictures of the repair to post.  Oh well, it is amazing to have our washer working again.

It’s amazing how much easier the installation is with instructions.  I’m glad that we pretty much were able to open and remove the door without damaging anything before the instructions arrived.  The main thing that we should have done that we didn’t was UNPLUG the power cord from the outlet.  Probably good advice for anyone, and we just happened to not be thinking at the time.

Robert did figure out how to open the door by wedging a flat head screwdriver into the gap between the broken handle and the door hook.  He was able to push on the screwdriver to loosen the door while I held the door and pulled it open.  Then he removed the door by removing the screws in the hinge.  We did this all the night of my unfortunate accident.

When the new door handle came in, all he had to do was remove the door pin out of the handle by rocking needle nose pliers back and forth.  Then he assembled the new handle by placing the latch in the handle and rest the spring on the latch.  Then he lowered the door ring onto the new handle.  He aligned the ring, the spring, and the latch, then drove the pin through the latch.  He then used a small screwdriver to align the latch, spring and ring on the other side and drove the pin the rest of the way through.  He then reattached the door ring to the rest of the door assembly and reattached the door to the machine.

We’d have to say, we had a good experience with the Splendide company and are very pleased that we could do the repair ourselves.  I’d be curious to know about any of your experiences with do-it-yourself repair on your washer.  Did you have good luck with the company?  How was their customer service?

Now every time I use the washer, Robert reminds me about the sticker he put on the washer (came with the repair kit) that reads: “IMPORTANT  This door locks DURING ALL CYCLES and STAYS LOCKED up to 2 minutes after the cycle ends.  DO NOT attempt to open this door until the Status/Door Lock lamp blinks SLOWLY.”

I think I’ve learned my lesson, but I guess I still have several weeks of teasing from Robert left.

Oct 11

19

Wiener Run

By Gayla & Robert
Filed Under Around Home, Full-timing, Wiener Tales | Tagged With: , , , , , | | No Comments»

The last few days, the poor wiener dogs have been couped up.  Robert and I were out for several hours both last Friday and Saturday night.  Then Sunday through Tuesday, we haven’t had much of a chance to get the dogs out but just walks around the RV park. 

When we lived in a house, the dogs had it made, all we had to do was open the door and they had their run of the fenced in backyard.  They would spend hours in the yard, chasing each other, or just soaking up the sun.

I feel bad for them that they always have to be on a leash and they don’t have the freedom they used to.  Since we’ve moved into our RV at the first of October, Robert and I try to get them out of the house several times a day.  I think we walk those dogs more than anyone else walks their dogs in the neighborhood.  It’s not only good for them to get out and walk, but it is also good for us. 

Today the weather finally turned cooler and Robert and I knew the dogs needed a nice long walk.  At about 6 p.m., we loaded the three dogs into the Jeep and was off.  We ended up on the outer road of the Courtney Campbell Causeway.  The dogs and I were off for our walk.  Those guys were so excited and just kept pulling me along.  I let them so that they could get worn out.  Robert took a few pictures then he drove the Jeep to meet up with us.  I let him pull out in front of us and the dogs kept pulling harder, so I started jogging.  Oh my, I am not a runner.  Those dogs probably could have ran a mile or more at full speed, which is saying a lot for their little legs.  Me, on the other hand, no way.

They were so cute, their tails up and noses going.  Now, back at home, they are nice and tired.  Robert and I enjoy these outings so much better when the heat and humidity isn’t so oppressive.  No matter what though, it is important to plan many more outings that include the dogs when you live in such a small space.

Sunset walk on Courtney Campbell Causeway

Oct 11

17

Washer Woes – Part 1

By Gayla & Robert
Filed Under Around Home, Full-timing | Tagged With: , , , , | | 1 Comment»

The other night, Robert went off to work and I planned to do some office work and hang out with the dogs.  I decided to do a load of laundry while I worked.  All was fine and dandy, the washer was doing it’s thing.  I had set it not to dry as I was going to take the load to the RV Park’s laundry to dry faster.  The Splendide washer/dryer combo units are wonderful to have in the RV, but the cycles seem to take forever, especially drying heavier fabrics like jeans.  The wash cycle was done and that was when things went sour.

I was sure the cycle was done, but apparently not…as I tried to open the door, the lock was still engaged and off came the handle!  I was just standing there staring at the washer with the broken handle in my hand.  How on earth was I going to get the laundry out?  Oh, no…how on earth was I going to tell Robert?  After all, we haven’t even lived in the RV full-time a month yet and I’ve already broken something. 

I just felt sick. My stomach was in knots.  I was angry with myself more than anything.  I went ahead and set the dryer setting so that the wet clothes could have a chance to dry.  I hated to have wet clothes just sit in there just in case it would be a few days before we could get them out.   I did my office work and tried not to beat myself up over it. 

Robert finally came home at about midnight after a good gig at Indian Shores.  After he had a chance to relax a bit, I broke the news to him.  He didn’t get angry at all; he simply looked at the situation and was puzzled at how to get the clothes out.  After assessing the situation a bit, with a screwdriver in hand and some elbow grease, success…the door was opened.  The door face was held together with just a few screws, so he went ahead and removed them so that we wouldn’t have to worry about the door locking again.  He had to remove the glass window in the process, but the door back is still on the hinges.

Ring on door removed showing broken door handle.

 
 

Door face and glass have been removed.

He got online and found everything he needed to know about the machine on Splendide.com.  He figured out the part number and the following day we called the service center.  Fifty-two dollars later, we have a new little plastic handle on its way.  When we get it I’ll post how we install it.

Oct 11

12

Little Friend

By Gayla & Robert
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Our little friend hung out with us while Robert cooked on the grill.

 
 
While enjoying the evening and sitting outside, this little fella hopped up on our table and stayed with us for quite a while as Robert cooked on the little Coleman grill just a few feet away.

Oct 11

10

Oscar, what did you do?

By Gayla & Robert
Filed Under Wiener Tales | Tagged With: , , , , , , , | | 1 Comment»

Oscar looking innocent in his sleep.

 

Traveling with dogs, you want to be careful that they don’t push any buttons or mess with any knobs.  When we first got our RV, I was concerned about the air brake button.  It’s located just above the driver’s side arm rest and to release the brake, you push down.  I was convinced that the dogs would somehow push it down if they got excited and got up there to look out the window.  We set out to look for something to cover the button.  We ended up getting a PVC pipe end cap.  It works perfectly.  Problem solved.

What we overlooked was the other buttons around that area.  Most are harmless like the visor controls, so we didn’t think much of it.  Just the other day, I had taken Tucker and Lucy out to the dog area at the RV park.  I left Oscar in the RV for just a moment because he had just been out.   The pet area is very close to our lot, so I wasn’t far from the RV nor was I gone for long.  After Tucker and Lucy did their business, we all were walking toward the RV when I noticed a wisp of smoke from the front end.  For a moment I paused and it dawned on me…Oscar had started the generator!

The two dogs and I quickly ran the short distance back to the RV where we found Oscar in the driver’s seat laying down calmly.  What a sight. 

You’d think we would learn and immediately cover the area up, but no.  We thought it was just because he was left alone for a minute and he was just trying to see where we went through the window.  Typically when we leave, the dogs go in the kennel, so we don’t worry about them getting into things.  Just the following night, at about 3 a.m. I guess Oscar wanted to leave the bedroom and wander around.  In my semi-awakened state, I hear him up near the front of the coach, then it happened again…he poked the generator button AGAIN!  We’ve learned our lesson.  We placed a little lap desk over the buttons so at least none of the dogs can push any buttons if they hop up and walk in that area.  So far it’s only been Oscar interested in hopping up there and making his way to the dash, but now we’ve learned our lesson so if the other two become curious and hop there, they won’t cause harm.

 

Controls by driver's side window

 
 

Covered Controls

 
 

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