It's Official

I've read numerous times where full time RV'ers after selling and closing on their houses say "Houseless but not Homeless". Well we joined the ranks today. Had our closing at 10 am and deposited the check. That makes it OFFICIAL. We are now truly full time RV'ers. Of course since I still have, according to the countdown clock, 37 more days at work we are still stationary. I think it is a little harder for Glenda to come to the realization that this is our only residence but it has more to do with where we are at right now. We seem to be getting used to the constant drone of the traffic on the interstate right behind our site. Fortunately the traffic does let up some during the night so sleeping isn't too difficulty. Glenda and I have been talking about how anxious we are now to get moving on down the road.

The next milestone will be getting our South Dakota drivers licenses and attending the RV-Dreams Rally in Goshen, IN. Once that is accomplished we begin our trek to AZ for the winter. I'm at somewhat of a loss for words right now trying to let this all sink in. It's been a long process to get to this stage. Is this real? Did we just do this? We'll give it some time but I know this is the right thing to do at this time in our lives. That's about all I have right now. Tomorrow we go to Streamwood to see our daughter, SIL and Aiden. Next month we go to Indiana to celebrate the four August birthdays in the family and then my retirement at the end of August. Sigh of relief right now but also some uncertainty. We'll take some time and let it all soak in. Thank you again to all the fellow full timers that are willing to share their experiences and help those of us that are moving toward our dream. We're on our way and there's no turning back.

Serendipity

Serendipity means a "fortunate happenstance" or "pleasant surprise".

Well I've been reading RV blogs for the last 3-4 years since we started RVing and have learned a lot reading blogs of those that are already full time RV'ers. I first started reading RV-Dreams(Howard and Linda Payne) near the beginning of my search for RV information. I have continued to read their daily posts and enjoyed getting to know other RV'ers virtually through their site. One of the reasons I wanted to begin full time RV'ing was to meet other like minded folks. So yesterday I was reading Howard's post about their trip to Knoxville, TN to get some work done on their rig. In that post, On to Knoxville, meeting new full timers Howard had a photo of two women(Peg and Michelle) that were just beginning their full time lives and had just purchased a new Heartland Landmark from RVs4Less, owned by Butch and Karen. I haven't met them yet but feel like I already know them from Howard's posts.

Anyway, here we are in a small RV park right off of I-74 near a little town called Carlock in Illinois until I retire on Sept 1. I decided to wash my truck before coming home to the RV park. Once I got back, I noticed my windows were still sort of smudged so I was over by my truck cleaning the inside and outside of the windows when I saw two women walking over by the office. They looked like they were in search of someone there. As they walked away, I took a second look and thought "they look very familiar". To preface this, earlier we noticed a beautiful Heartland Landmark pull into the RV park with a nice matching silver Dually pulling it.

We didn't think any thing more about it other than "hey another Heartland 5th wheel in the park". Cool. So as I took that second look and thought they looked familiar, I remembered Howard's post yesterday and it dawned on me that they looked a lot like the women in the photo. Well if you know me, I can be a little bold at times so I went up to them and asked "do you know Howard and Linda Payne?" They looked at me with a somewhat shocked expression and said "yes we do". I said "I think I saw you on their blog yesterday, was that you two?" and we all started laughing.                   

 

SERENDIPITY 

 I'm not sure whether it was Peg or Michelle that said it but.... How in the world do you explain it other than that? How did they just happen to take a route that Linda had recommended and end up at the same RV park we are in and I just saw their photo the day before and then recognized them. A pleasant surprise indeed. We started talking and right away it was like we had known each other for some time. This is what I was hoping for when I decided to consider full time RV'ing. Meeting like minded folks and feeling like they are already your friends. We stood near the parking lot talking for a while and I invited them to come to our site, meet Glenda and maybe take a look at our rig. After I introduced Glenda and we talked some more they came into our rig and looked at the similarities of the Heartland products.

We showed them some of the modifications and we had a great time talking about our experiences so far. They are very new to RV'ing and had great instruction at RVs4less. Now their on their way home to pack and organize as they begin their RV adventure. It was so great meeting Peg and Michelle and I hope we get the opportunity to meet again this fall. Maybe at the fall RV-Dreams Rally in Goshen, IN. We're looking forward to renewing the new friendship.  Safe travels Peg and Michelle. I will keep working to retirement and it won't be long.

Fulltimers...finally but stationary

Sunday we made the move to the Bighorn with loads of clothing, housewares, food and misc items that we think we will need for our fulltime life. Glenda has already taken back out some of her clothing due to the limited space and re-consideration of what she really needs. I think we will be going through this alot. So far the transition is going smoothly. We have everything out of the bedrooms at the house so the upstairs is empty. We brought everything down to the main floor and once we take the left over items to Goodwill all we should have left next week is selling the remaining furniture.

The Radon mitigation was done yesterday but no word on when another test will be done before closing. Sunday and Monday was very hot and humid so we ran the A/C for the first time. We can set the desired temp digitally but found out that the fan runs continuously after the desired temp is achieved. That makes it difficult to hear the TV when we have the main A/C on. So we found out that once we have the main area at the temp we want, we can turn it off and run the bedroom A/C to maintain the temp. That makes it much quieter in the main area. We did run the A/C on Sunday night in the bedroom all night which helped with the road noise due to the proximity of I-74 to the south of the campground.

On Monday night a thunderstorm rolled through which kept us up a little longer with the rain on the roof and higher winds. Fortunately the campground sits on a little lower ground and is somewhat protected. It's going to take some getting used to the new sounds compared with the house. I had to get on the roof last night to check the surface for debris and possible breaches in the the rubber rood material. We are sitting under a tree and I did find a couple small dead branches that fell off with the winds. I also noticed alot of bird droppings and the birds like berries. Going to be a big cleaning once we are ready to move on. Thankfully no tears in the roof.

Yesterday was a beautiful day after the storms with much lower humidity and sun to dry things out. We even opened the windows and had to pull up the covers a little last night as the temps dipped into the upper 50's. A welcome relief. Glenda has been working her tail off getting the new home organized. Sometimes it's hard to find a place for everything. I'm sure there will be more purging before we take off in Sept.

I will be taking the afternoon off today from work so we can load the truck with a couple of dressers, mattress and box springs and a few totes to take to our daughters house in Indiana for July 4th to store for us. She has tomorrow and Friday off so we will get to see the grandkids and store the items we don't need. In addition to that her birthday is the 4th of July so we get to celebrate with her. She certainly has been our firecracker child. :-) Saturday we will be coming back home to continue the transition and we will be bringing back our youngest granddaughter with us so she can spend some time with her other grandma in Decatur, IL. We will get to have our time later this summer as we travel to Indiana for the RV-Dreams Rally in Sept.

Feeling good about our decision to go fulltime so far. Feel so comfortable in the rig. Looking forward to getting on the move but for now fulltiming but stationary works too. The clock keep ticking and retirement is right around the corner and it won't be long. I don't have to say retirement and fulltiming any more since we're half way there. The photo below the blog title is our site at Kamp Komfort. We are grateful to the owner for assigning us this site with no one on the awning side and a big yard. Nice for a private campground. Have a great Fourth of July everyone.

Garage Sale 2014 part 2

We were very tired last night but very much relieved at our success from the first day of our garage sale. The piles were much smaller today when we opened for business. Yesterday was sunny, hot and humid but today we started with clouds, a nice breeze and a little less humidity. We even had a few folks come back today to see if we had anything new that they couldn't live without. Fortunately, we did. Some lamps, TV, more clothing, clocks, pictures and miscellaneous housewares. I think it helped that people knew we were in a mood to sell today. We were at the point of "make me an offer". And they did and more stuff flew out the door. Traffic was a little slower today and it did start to get more sunny and humid as the day went on but we persevered and fruits of our labor paid off. Once we closed we got the leftovers boxed up for Goodwill or the local mission. We may take some to both places. Now we are pretty much down to the large furniture I spoke about in the last post.

Compare yesterday

 

To today...and this was in the morning before we opened.

 

I forgot to get a photo of the end of the sale today but we only have about 6-8 bags of "stuff" to send to the local charities. The garage looks so much better. We can even get the car in the garage today.

 

Tomorrow is the "BIG" day. We move in to the Bighorn. Very excited. We filled some totes with things we will be taking onboard and cleaning out some of the cabinets in the kitchen. The tired I feel today is a very good tired. We have been up at 5:45 am the last two days so tomorrow we will be sleeping in and preparing for the move. People have been so generous to buy our things, we are so grateful. Thank you for the comments and encouragement. As I always say, it won't be long. 

Garage Sale has begun and Full timing soon

Time is moving on...We sold the house and now it's time to purge. Garage Sale today and tomorrow. This is most of the things we plan to sell other than the furniture which will be sold individually at a slightly later date. We decided not to put the larger furniture in the sale since you typically don't get the kind of prices we think our "good" furniture deserved. So once the sale is over I will take photos of the "good" stuff and post on the company website and Craigslist.

I can't believe even after taking some things to our daughter's a few weeks ago we still have this much stuff. The photos shows what it looked like at 8 am as we opened for business. We had a good day and actually had some fun. It was interesting as folks asked where we were going once we closed on the house that we were going to be fulltime RV'ers. Most folks thought it was great. Other's said they couldn't do that and others told us stories of their parents or grandparents that were full timers at one point in their lives. It's amazing the great responses and the great help we got in selling our "stuff.

Tomorrow we have some additional items that hopefully will bring some people back. The house is looking less cluttered and hopefully after tomorrow there won't be too much to take to Goodwill or The ReStore.

Since we will have sold most everything in the house that would make it still live able we decided to move the rig over to the RV park a coupled days earlier than we planned to go on July 1. So Sunday June 29, 2014  marks a big milestone, we will be full timers but stationary. We will be half way to our RV Dream. I got my MiFi modem from Millenicom yesterday so we will have internet connection once we move but we're not sure if we will sign up for satellite TV right away.

We found out the woman buying our house did get her loan approved so as far as we know it is still a go for closing on July 25. Will keep you posted on the progress of the sale tomorrow and as I continue to work to retirement and it won't be long.

$9.50 equals $119.50

Glenda and I knew we were going to be busy in the coming few weeks with a garage sale and moving the Bighorn out to Kamp Komfort campground July 1. So on the spur of the moment last Friday we thought a local trip to Comlara Park campground at Lake Evergreen near Hudson, IL would be fun and relaxing. We decided on site #3. It has a couple of trees on the awning side to help with the afternoon sun and it was a pretty level site too.

The sites are nicely spaces

 



We paid for 4 nights and planned on leaving on Tuesday. We rode our bikes and walked the campground several time over the weekend. However on Saturday we had some rain start in the afternoon and didn't end for about 7 hours. It wasn't a hard rain just a steady rain. It was enough to curb our outdoor activities for a while. So we watched TV(local channels - we don't have satellite yet) but were entertained enough. We found out that you have to turn the volume up on the TV when the rain is coming down a little harder. This was a good trial run for full timing since I know there will be those days where indoor activity is mandatory. Sunday was a very nice sunny day and felt great after the long rain period on Saturday. We decided to go to the boat launch and see if we could check out a kayak and get some exercise. They happened to have a 2 person sit on kayak so we rented it for 1 hour. We had a great paddle along the lake shore and could see where our rig was parked.

There were many fisherman in their boats and we even saw a nice sailboat toward the middle of the lake.

 

 

We could really feel our back and arm muscles which were not exactly in shape for this activity. However it was great to be on the water. I know we will be purchasing an inflatable kayak once we get going on the road. That night we had a nice fire and it was hard for me to think about going back to work the next day and knowing Glenda would be enjoying the campground without out me.

 

After I got off work on Monday, Glenda and I started talking and decided we would pay for the rest of the week and go dump the tanks since they were getting pretty full and we would need the capacity for the next few days. We were able to extend our stay until today. With Father's Day weekend this weekend our site had already been reserved for the weekend.

 

We started to close and secure enough of the rig to go to the dump station and come back and set up again for the rest of the week. I get out the remote to close the awning and it won't work so I go to the panel and close the awning there. Then I try the slide out.. I hear a short moan and then NOTHING. Uh Oh....Houston we have a problem. I then go check the auto leveling system and it says low voltage. WHAT??? The panel monitor says it is full. With my inexperience I get out the owners manual and begin reading about the electrical system. I check the breakers in the coach. I check the fuses and I see nothing. I am freaking out now. How incredibly fortunate we were that we could secure our site for 4 more days. We had no idea we had this problem when we extended our stay. How would be have gotten off the site for someone else?

 

So Tuesday I call my dealership but they don't get back to me. I call the Heartland EV company Customer Service number and I get Scott on the line. Scott is a tech and I explained the problem to him and he right away assures me that he will be able to find a mobile RV tech near our town. About an hour later he calls me back with a name and number to call Green Acres RV parts and RV repair in Clinton, IL about 30 miles south of our location. I called the number and Danny answers and tells me he can come out on Wednesday to look at the problem. I am beginning to breath easier again.

 

Danny called me on Wednesday about 11:30 am and says he is on his way to the campground so I alert Glenda and I leave work and drive the 25 minutes to the campground for my work location.  When I arrive Danny is already there and under the front overhang and in the front compartment. I get out and he says go in and try your slide out. I go to the panel and push the button to bring the slide in and IT WORKS. I am dumbfounded. I go out and ask Danny what the problem was and he said you have a bad 50 amp relay(circuit breaker).

 

The row of breakers is just to the left of the black hose from the battery box

 

This is an area I had no idea where a circuit breaker was. I thought they were on the inside by the door where all the fuses and individual breakers were. He goes right to work and replaces the bad breaker and reconnects the wires. We check the leveling system it's working too. Danny explains that if the battery power goes below a certain level the hydraulics and motors won't have enough power to run. The breaker affected the converter and it wouldn't charge the battery while connected to shore power. So the 12v lights and other systems were draining the battery but not re charging it.

 

I thanked Danny for the explanation and for helping us out so quickly. Danny got started on writing up the bill. Service charge - $80, Labor - $30 and the Breaker???? Well it was only $9.50 however the total bill came to $119.50. So you see $9.50 does equal $119.50. We paid Danny and I faxed the bill to Heartland for repayment. Heartland Customer Service is the best. Not too expensive of a lesson but a good one. My next purchase will be a good quality Voltmeter. Probably something I should have had a long time ago and learned how to use it. I took some of Danny's business cards and gave a couple to the campground hosts in case other campers have a problem that needs mobile assistance. Anyway, we had a great rest of the week. Glenda enjoyed continued organizing, riding her bike and walking the campground loops. Then when I got home from work we did it all again. We had some pizza one night and left over turkeyburgers another. We rented a couple of movies and enjoyed those too. All in all it was a great weekend and week . The Bighorn is back at the storage lot for a couple more weeks and then on to Kamp Komfort. It feels so good to start calling our rig our home. The countdown continues and it won't be long.

 



Short update on progress

We signed the official contract a 2-3 weeks ago. Had our home inspection and passed with flying colors. We however did not pass the Radon test so we have to pay for mitigation about $750. We got our appraisal and have not heard the official results yet. I guess if it were not good, our realtor would be calling us. So we are in the final process of purging. The garage sale is at the end of June and we move the Bighorn to the campground on July 1. I guess that would make us full timers but stationary for now. Getting some camping in at our local county park this last week. Had an issue with the slides and leveling system due to a failed circuit breaker(relay) but got in touch with Heartland Company Customer Service and they got us in touch with a Moblie RV tech. Problem solved. More details when I have some time in the next few days. The countdown continues and it won't be long.