So we now have spring break, summer, and Christmas all planned out (or sort of planned out).

Spring break we’re hoping to spend in San Diego with my friend, Jon, who has offered to fly us out.  We’ll have to kennel the animals and leave the RV behind because I only have five days, and that’s not nearly enough time for a cross-country trip.  Neither of us has ever been to San Diego, so this will be quite a treat should it all pan out.  If it doesn’t, you can bet I’m going to be going SOMEWHERE, whether in the RV or in the tent.  It’s starting to be far too pretty outside to stay put for long.

I’ve got summer all mapped out.  We’re leaving in mid-June and heading first to Atlanta.  We’ll spend a week in the area before heading down to New Orleans where we’ll stay for another week.  Finally, we’ll head to San Antonio, arrive on July 4 and stay there for the balance of the summer.  I had hoped to make a trip through New Mexico before heading back East, but I don’t think that’s going to happen this year.  We’ll save it for another time.  This way, though, we’ll have five weeks plus some  in Texas.  Lex will spend it working in the San Antonio office of her company.  During the weeks, I’ll be teaching online and visiting with friends locally.  On weekends, I’m hoping we’ll get to take short trips to see family and friends who are in the outlying areas.

We’ll head back mid-August.  We plan to take the fast way back across Tennessee, just stopping to sleep overnight before moving on.  We should get home just in time for me to return to school for the start of the meetings that precede the fall term.

Once Christmas week finally rolls around (seems we just finished up with the holidays, doesn’t it?), we’re going to hitch up the rig and head South for nine days.  Unfortunately, Lex won’t have enough time off for us to go all the way to Florida like I hoped we would.  Instead, we’re headed to Charleston, South Carolina, where we will get to visit with one of Lex’s friends, see the sights, maybe take a side trip to Savannah, and generally have a grand old time in the Grand Old South.  I’m hoping a friend of mine and her daughter will be able to join us on the trip, too.

Here’s hoping it all works out!  If it doesn’t, I had a great time planning the trip anyway.  Daydreaming is the only thing saving me from going completely mad right now.  Spring, hurry up!  We need you now!

Of course, we’re not in the market to buy, so it was all strictly window shopping.  I expected to walk away feeling envious of all the shiny new things, perhaps deprived because I didn’t have some cool gizmo that the new ones have.  I have to tell you, though, that I didn’t see a single RV that has a layout that I like more than mine.  I saw ones that were much more expensive, had fancier fixtures, full-size refrigerator/freezers,  nicer cabinetry, etc., but not a one of them had the things I like best about my RV all in one unit: the galley-style kitchen, the big living room slide that we were able to convert into an office, huge picture window in the rear, a pass-through bathroom with a utility closet and hamper, and the big dresser in the bedroom.

And I know I paid less for all of these things than any of those buyers at the RV show did because I bought used.  Their shiny new RVs will depreciate up to 35% the second they are driven off the grounds.  The previous owner of the Big Blue Beast took that hit for me.

I did see some pretty interesting stuff, though:

Fancy bathroom sink fixtures

So pretty!  These are the bathroom sinks in an up-market fifth-wheel RV.  The entire rig was quite elegant.  I can’t imagine anyone wanting to track mud and snow inside or trying to gut a fish in the kitchen sink.  The rig did not scream “camping” to me.  It really is more for fulltimers or seasonals.

Who's the genius who designed this rig?

I don’t think I’d be comfortable using the restroom in this rig.  This one and a few others like it had outer doors opening right onto the throne room.  What if the wind blew your door open or someone popped in at an inopportune time?  I guess it might be a good idea if you plan on spending a lot of time outside and don’t want to track mud through the entire RV in order to make it to the toilet.  Plus you have to admit, you’d never have to light a match again.  You just open the door and air out the place.

If I can fit, anyone can!

Thanks to a passing couple, I got this picture of me sitting inside a Little Guy 5-wide teardrop trailer.  I am in love with teardrops.  Most weigh in at well under 1000 pounds so can be towed by just about anything on four wheels and by a few things on two.  There is a surprising amount of space inside, enough for a queen-sized bed, cabinets, light fixtures, 110V and 12V outlets, and, in the rear, a galley and bumper-mounted grill.  And this one happens to be decked out in Ravens purple.  I would love one of these to take out on weekend trips.

This is by far the coolest rig I saw at the show!

This is a Rockwood Roo hybrid trailer with a built-in deck.  How awesome is that?  The beds pop up like a regular folding camper, but the trailer itself is full size.  The deck is what gets me.  It’s so unique!

All in all, a fun day.  If you see an RV show advertised near you, plunk down a few dollars for a ticket and go.  Show season is February/March and September/October. Who knows?  Maybe you’ll end up becoming an RVer yourself.

1. The thing that might bug most folks about living in an RV, the limited storage and living space, is one of the things I like best. I still marvel at the cleverness of the designers who really take that whole “a place for everything and everything in its place” philosophy to heart. I dig the challenge of figuring out where to put our stuff. I even like our teensy kitchen (which is massive by RV standards), our very cozy bedroom, and our little restroom (honestly I’ve had smaller). I think we’ve done a great job of adapting to the amount of space that we have without giving up the things we enjoy most – our computers, television and movies, reading, cooking, knitting and spinning, and our pets.

2. Lex says she really appreciates not having noisy neighbors tramping across the ceiling, not listening to screaming children bounce their balls on the floors, and not having to hear couples fighting every payday. We also enjoy the absence of mice, though we realize that could become a problem again should they decide to take up residence in our basement storage.

3. The view is terrific. I’ve posted plenty of photos of Bear Creek and its environs, so may already know this to be true. Lex particularly enjoys the sights just outside her window since she has to spend so much time in the RV working and attending online courses. She spends hours watching the creek the wildlife. I think that our site – while a pain in the butt during inclement weather- is actually quite pretty.

4. I take a kind of twisted pleasure in the people’s reactions when they find out how we live. Some are shocked, some think it’s pretty cool, and some are just confused. At any rate, it’s a real conversation starter. When we lived in an apartment, no one ever asked us how we used the toilet. During this winter, we’ve had a number of friends and family concerned about our well-being. While I’m grateful, I don’t have the heart to tell them that in truly dire circumstances we are probably better off than they are since we have backup power, water, and heat.

5. I really enjoy being so close to my job that I can walk to campus if I want to. I’ve never been able to do that before in my life! I really should walk every day; heavens knows I need the exercise. I’m going to make a commitment to try and walk in at least once a week this semester if the weather permits.

6. There’s a bit of the pioneer spirit required to live this life, and I like to think I possess at least some of that. I’m not out chopping wood or plowing the fields, but I do have to manage things that most folks never think about like dumping my sewage and not running out of propane. I have to be hyper-aware of the weather so we don’t get caught in floods or tornadoes. I have to be a little handier than when we lived in an apartment and had management to fix things for us. Part of me can’t help but that think that if my dad was still alive, being the tough-as-nails cowboy that we was, he would be proud of me, even if he might think I was a little crazy.

So that’s the short list. The long list would include loftier items like generating a smaller carbon footprint, avoiding conspicuous consumption, and defying societal expectations. Truthfully it’s the little joys, not the environmental and ethical considerations, that keep me from getting so frustrated with the hard parts of fulltiming that I throw in the towel altogether.

Those are the smart ways to go.  Naturally, we didn’t take either route.

We didn’t own a house when we got into this.  As I’ve said before, we were renters.  One reason we chose fulltiming was that we weren’t prepared to buy a house.  We didn’t have the downpayment nor the creditworthiness, and neither of us was really interested in being locked into home ownership in an uncertain housing and job market, especially given the high cost of real estate and property taxes here on the East Coast.  We didn’t want to become another statistic in the foreclosure fiasco, but we were also sick and tired of apartment living.

So what we did was save enough money for downpayments on the RV and the truck and finance them both.  We don’t own the land on which we park, so that means we also have monthly site rent, rent which also includes our water, power, sewage, and trash.  We pay for our own propane and cable/internet/cell phones.  All in all, the cost for living month to month is similar to (even a little more than) apartment dwelling.

Let me break it down:

Monthly fulltiming costs:

Trailer note: $327
Truck note: $589 (keep in mind we had a car note before in the amount of $425 a month, so the expense was increased by $164)
Car note: $267 (we have a second vehicle, so this cost has not changed.  What will change is that we will add a storage cost when we leave during the summer, so that will add about $50)
Vehicle insurance:  $216 (for a truck, a car, and the RV)
Site rent: $795
Propane (in winter): $120-$150
Cable/internet/cell phone:  $200 (this has not changed from when we were apartment dwellers)
Diesel: $100 (we aren’t currently traveling; this will increase monumentally this summer when $100 might be what we spend in a day)
Our groceries, credit cards, student loans, vet bills, and entertainment costs haven’t really changed at all, and frankly they make up the bulk of our expenditures at around $1700 per month.

Total costs: $4344.00

You begin to see why we have to keep our day jobs, no?

Monthly apartment dwelling costs:

Rent: $950
Renter’s insurance: $20
Utilities: $300 (why it was so much we could never figure out; we lived in a 600 sq. ft. apartment!)
Car notes for both vehicles: $692
Vehicle insurance: $183 (for the two cars)
Gas: $100 (about the same because although the Nissan was more efficient, I commuted a longer distance)
Cable/internet/cell phones: $200 (same)
Groceries, student loans, credit cards, vet bills, entertainment: $1700 (same)

Total costs: $4145.00

So you can see that this lifestyle — at least the way we do it — isn’t really saving us anything.  In fact, there are costs I haven’t detailed here such as maintenance and repair.  We have a four-year extended warranty that was rolled into our note, so whenever something breaks, we can have it repaired for a copay of $100 as long as it’s covered.  So far we’ve been lucky and most repairs have either been covered by our vehicle insurance or by our extended warranty.  Even so, the $100 outlay each time (more upfront because we are actually reimbursed by our warranty provider) takes a cut out of the budget.  There are also tags and inspections, but we’re good for another year on both of those.

We also had to pay a lot out of pocket for things we never had to buy before like drinking water hoses, winterizing materials, sewer hoses, wheel chocks, special 12V light bulbs, de-flapper clamps for our awning, little bars to put in our fridge and cabinet to keep things from jiggling around when we move the RV, a ladder so we can get to our slides and roof to clean and inspect them, a back-up generator, a power inverter, a portable propane heater for emergency heat, an outdoor carpet for under our awning, a rack for drying our clothes indoors, a special washer/dryer that works on 110 power … the list goes on.  All these things have meant me teaching quite a few extra classes this past year so we could afford them.  Of course, most of these are one-time expenses, but some of them aren’t, like the special light bulbs, the chemicals we use to keep our holding tanks functional, and the in-line filters for our drinking water.

All this adds up, so much in fact that we’ve discovered there’s not much left over for travel.  I’ve had to work hard to put away a little each paycheck to save toward our summer trip.  Last fall, a big chunk of that got spent on repairs and most of these items I’ve just listed.  That meant our much-anticipated winter trip to visit new friends in Florida was canceled. We could have really used that break from the weather and the day-to-day.

Our summer trip WILL NOT be canceled, however.  I’m saving money from my tax refund and from my regular wages so we can make the trip to Texas and parts West.  The campsite fees won’t be much of a problem because we’ll be trading our whopping $795 a month site fee for whatever costs we incur while on the road.  I have to say that in other parts of the country campsite fees are MUCH less than they are here.  We’ll be able to park for a month in San Antonio for less than $400, half of what we pay now.

So why not move back to Texas and save a tremendous amount of money?  Well, I have a great job here, and my partner’s family is here, so for the time being, here we are, snow and all.  Admittedly, it seems we’re doing it backwards and we should be living up here in the summer and down South the rest of the year, but such is not to be right now.

You might wonder why we’re doing it at all if we aren’t traveling as much as we hoped and if it costs so much.  Well, in the midst of this punishing winter, we’ve found ourselves asking that same question from time to time.  Honestly, we can’t afford to make a different choice at this point.  We’re pretty much locked into this lifestyle for a while.  We couldn’t afford to store the RV, pay the note and insurance on it and on the truck, PLUS pay rent on a house or apartment.  That’s just not viable.

For now, though, I’m still kind of enjoying this life.   It can be tedious wrestling propane tanks in and out for refills and dumping holding tanks, but I do like not having a commute to speak of, a quiet spot to live with no noisy neighbors, and the satisfaction of knowing that this trailer really is ours and if worse comes to worse, we can, in fact, move the RV should one of us have to take another job or if we need a site that better fits our needs.  That would be much harder to do living in an apartment or a house where we would be committed to a long-term lease or mortgage.  Mind you, I don’t necessarily speak for Alexis who is a bit more reliant on her creature comforts than I am and gets frustrated when they are compromised in some way.  Even so, she’s been a pretty terrific sport throughout this entire experiment.

One step we’re taking this year to make this life a more affordable and enjoyable one is reducing our debt load.  Both of us are planning to pay off all or most of our credit cards in the next few months.  If we manage that feat and don’t run the cards up again, that will save us a tidy $600 a month, and that money will allow us to save for more trips and let us have more emergency funds should something dire happen to us, the rig, or our animals.

Will we continue to do this forever?  Who knows?  What I do know is that we are committed to doing it for the time being.  When it finally becomes much more hassle than it is worth, I imagine we’ll reassess, but for now, we’re just meeting the challenges as they come.

In my next post, I’m going to take a break from telling you all about what’s difficult and expensive about this life and focus on something more positive.

We knew these two storms were coming, thanks to Foot’s Forecast, so last Friday morning before storm #2 began, I went out, had the propane tanks filled, stocked up on groceries, drinking water, beer (gotta have the essentials), and made it back home as the first flakes fell. Storm #2 raged through Friday and Saturday, leaving 26-30″ of snow on top of the 2″ already on the ground.

It took us three days to dig out, so on Monday I was able to take our back-up propane tanks, exchange them for full ones, and get more groceries. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, storm #3 began. We’re at the peak of that blizzard right now. Before it’s all done later this evening, we’re expecting another 12″-20″ of snow and gusts up to 55 mph.

We’re not done with it yet, obviously, but we’re learning the hard way how to weather the worst of the worst. Here are my top ten tips for fulltiming in a snowstorm:

1) Have back-ups for your back-ups.

We have two 20 lb. propane  tanks (the type you can exchange at the grocery store) ready to go should our two 30 lb. tanks run out. We’ve got two electric space heaters to supplement our forced-air propane furnace, and we’ve also got a small, portable propane heater and a case of 1 lb. bottles just in case we lose power and can run neither the furnace or the space heaters.

We also bought several bottles of drinking water, and I filled up a number of containers of water in case our water supply freezes over. I can’t use my fresh water holding tank right now because there’s a problem with the plumbing that I never got around to fixing. If I had, then water would be no real concern.

I’ve also got battery powered and rechargeable lanterns, flashlights, and radios in case we lose shore power AND run our house battery down. In addition, I’ve got a small,  gas-powered generator that can run one small appliance (like a space heater), and I’ve got a small inverter that I can hook up to my car battery if all else fails.

We even have a backup if our cable/Internet fails. We can still get over-the-air TV channels, and we both have iPhones which allow us to connect to the internet, get phone calls, send and receive e-mail, etc.

2) Keep your electronics charged.

We’re keeping laptops, cell phones, and all other rechargeables plugged in at all times in the event that we lose shore power. Should we lose shore power, be forced to rely on the battery power, and lose that, we’ve got car chargers for most items, so we could plug them into our vehicles.I’ve also got some rechargeable AA batteries that I’m keeping charged up and handy should the alkalines in the flashlights fail.

3) Get a good snow shovel (preferably more than one).

When we moved into the RV, I got rid of our very nice snow shovel because I didn’t think I had room for it and wouldn’t really need it for a while anyway (hard to think about blizzards in July). Well, I should have made room. Storm #1 caught us unawares, and we had NO shovel at all. We were digging out with a five-gallon bucket (by the way, get a five-gallon bucket, too, if you don’t have one.  They have many uses) and a regular shovel borrowed from the neighbors. Shortly before Storm #2, I went out and got a shovel, the lone shovel left at the store. It’s cheap and flimsy, and there’s only one, so that means only one person can shovel at a time, doubling the amount of time it takes to get anything done. Snow shovels tend to be lightweight, so if you plan to RV in the winter, get a decent one (or two), and stow it away. You won’t be sorry.

4) Whenever the snow stops, dig out as much as you can.

With back-to-back storms, it’s been important to remove as much of the snow as possible before the next storm hits. If you don’t, then the melting and refreezing makes the snow difficult to move plus the next layer of snow just makes it all that much harder to clear out once the weather breaks. We dug out both our vehicles, cleared paths, and dug out our utility pole (water, power, internet, dump hoses). Of course, all that good work is being obliterated today, but we’ll be at the shoveling again tomorrow. And we’ll have to because there’s a chance of snow this coming Monday. It’s not over yet!

5) Keep an eye on the forecast.

As kids, we learned from GI Joe that “knowing is half the battle.” If you know when the snow is coming, how much you can expect, how long the storms will last, and whether you can expect ice/sleet/rain with it, you can plan appropriately. Don’t get caught unawares.

6) Keep heat on your water supply and dump valves.

I’ve got a shop light hanging on my main dump valve to keep it thawed, and back in November I wrapped my drinking water hose with heat tape and pipe insulation. I’ve also discovered how handy a hair dryer can be. When the valves have frozen, I just aimed the hair dryer at them until they loosened up. The dryer is also handy when you have to be outside digging for long periods of time; it allows you to keep your fingers from becoming numb. I also find that the furnace exhaust by my front door is useful in this regard as well.

Dump your tanks frequently. I use my washer/dryer, so I don’t have much of a choice but to dump the tanks nearly every day.  Even if I didn’t, dumping the tanks often means that should our dump valves freeze over and I can’t get them unstuck, we will be okay for a couple of days if we conserve water. It also means that it’s easier for my tank heaters to keep the tanks warm.

7) Don’t get sick, and if you do, make sure you’ve stocked the proper supplies.

As luck would have it, Lex got a cold late last week, and I now have the flu. Ironically, I had BOTH flu shots this year, and I don’t normally get them. Looks like they didn’t help. I found some new strain, probably at school. It’s been no fun at all having fever, aches, chills, and congestion during all this, especially since the shoveling has to happen regardless.

Between storms #2 & #3, I managed to get out and stock up on Nyquil, Kleenex, juice, and all those things that make colds and flu more bearable. I’m trying to sleep as much as possible (what else is there to do?), stay hydrated, and keep the fever down. I wouldn’t want to have something more serious at this point as I’m not sure how we’d get to the hospital, so if I can keep it under control, then all the better.

8 ) Wear proper clothing.

Wearing layers indoors lets you keep your thermostat down thereby saving propane. Good socks are key. If the feet are cold, everything is cold!
When you go outside in the snow, try to stay dry. Jeans and sweats get waterlogged fast. If you have rain pants or wind pants you can wear over your clothes, that’d be a great idea. If you do get wet, change as soon as you come back in and dry the wet clothes out.

I’m keeping a set of “outside clothes,” a pair of sweats and a hoodie, that I just slip over my pjs (why get dressed in street clothes?) when I go out. They get hung up to dry as soon as I come back in. Waterproof gloves, snow boots, and something to cover your head are critical, too. If you are exerting yourself shoveling, it’s easy to lose track of how long you’ve been outside and how wet and cold you might really be. That can be dangerous.

9) Be able to entertain yourself while you are stuck inside.

For us, it’s been mostly movies, TV, books and knitting. Of course, if we lose power, then we’ll have to resort to other forms of entertainment like board games, radio, and, god forbid, the art of conversation. I have to say that I’ve also been texting friends around the city and county, checking in with them to see how they are faring, and I’ve had phone calls from family in other parts of the country who are concerned about me because they’ve seen the rather terrifying weather reports.

It’s easy to start feeling like the Omega Man in situations like this, so it helps to be able to stay connected to the outside world in whatever way you can. The local newscasts are staying on the air all the day with weather reports, and I tend to leave it on in the background because I find it oddly comforting. This being the era of social networking, I’m also keeping an eye on my friends’ Facebook updates. Seeing their photos and hearing about what they are up to makes me feel less isolated.

Of course, I’m lucky to be snowed in with someone I love and our three pets, so there’s always a snuggle companion. Our pets have been surprisingly well behaved throughout this despite the fact that they aren’t able to take nice, long walks. They are limited to the little paths we’ve dug through the snow. Like me, they’ve been doing lots of sleeping.

10) Keep your sense of humor.

If you can’t laugh at yourself and at Mother Nature in hard times, then you’ll just cry your eyes out. It’s easy enough to develop cabin fever, to get depressed or develop a sense of hopelessness. Stay busy, watch some comedies, read a funny book, and laugh in the face of hardship. There’s nothing we can do about any of this, so we might as well sit back and be amused at the ridiculousness of all this snow. Bring on the global warming, baby!

Not surprisingly, when I woke up at 6 a.m., there was no water. I bundled up in three layers of clothes and ventured outside in the still-brutal wind and cold to see if I could resolve the problem. With hair dryer in one hand and hammer in the other, I chipped away the ice that had collected around the city water faucet. Apparently, there was a leak, and the water source had frozen solid.

After about an hour, I got the water running again and managed to fill up a couple of buckets at the faucet so that we would have water to flush the toilet, wash hands, etc. I then removed our water pressure regulator and y-adapter having determined that they were the source of the problem leak and headed off to the RV aisle at Wal Mart to pick up new parts. I found the parts, came home, and once again braved the elements (our temps never got out of the 20s today, and the high winds never subsided) to see if I could once and for all fix the water issue.

I have to tell you that it is difficult working with plumbing when water freezes as soon as it contacts the air. I have a whole new respect for plumbers who do this sort of work every single day, regardless of the weather. I had a pair of waterproof gloves on but had to remove them so I would have the dexterity to screw the regulator, adapter, hose, and outlet all together. Of course, my hands kept getting wet, especially as I STILL had a leak somewher, so I had to stop every five minutes to blow the hair dryer onto my digits to keep them moving.

After slicing a finger open, cursing a blue streak, and nearly bursting into tears (I would have, but they would have frozen to my face), I figured out that the problem was actually with the hose. I suppose that last night water froze in and around the connections, causing the metal to expand just enough to start the leak.

Okay, replace the hose. Easy fix, especially since I have a spare drinking water hose, right? Wrong. A month or so ago I winterized said hose by using electrical tape to bind a length of heat tape to the hose itself and then attached a layer of foam insulation to the outside of the house. So to replace the hose, I would have to remove all that, toss the hose, and winterize the new hose all over again, this time making sure the heat tape came in contact with the hose connections as well as the hose itself.

I was out of electrical tape and patience and had lost feeling in my face and toes, so I turned off the water and went back inside where I just sat in front of the space heater for an hour so I could thaw out. Since Lex had gone and gotten us drinking water earlier in the afternoon, and I had gone to the Y early in the morning to get a shower (thank god we kept up our membership there), I decided to say screw it and just take a nap. The hose will still be leaking in the morning.

We have power and heat, so  we’ll weather the night just fine.  There just won’t be showers or loads of laundry. I have to go to school tomorrow morning, but in the afternoon, I’ll go to Home Depot and pick up more electrical tape and foam insulation and then wrap up the new hose (which I will actually check for leaks BEFOREHAND this time).

Temperatures are supposed to get above freezing tomorrow during the day, but we’re also supposed to get a little snow. I hope once I get everything back together, there are no leaks and the hose holds up for a while. I really don’t want to wrestle with this every time the temperatures fall below 25 degrees. After spending most of the afternoon out in the cold, I’m rethinking that winter camping trip. Brrr!

The Ten Best Fulltiming Moments of 2009:

1) The decision to go fulltime was in and of itself exhilarating.  Just realizing that living in an RV was actually an option opened us up to a whole new way of thinking about our choices and gave us an entirely new set of opportunities.

2) Finally signing the financing contract for my RV was a thrill.  Of course, we didn’t end up getting our first choice of RV, and we ended up paying a higher APR than we thought, but we got it!  It was a scary few weeks wondering if, in these difficult economic times when banks have been tightening up lending guidelines, we’d even be approved for a loan.

3) Finding an appropriate tow vehicle was a challenge, but we did it!  We really lucked out, got a fabulous truck with loads of options for a ridiculously reasonable price.

4) The toughest part was actually finding a site to park our RV.  This was critical since we aren’t typical fulltimers.  We will be parked most of the year instead of on the road.  This meant that the site had to meet a number of criteria: roomy, pets allowed, affordable rent, good maintenance, cable, 50 amp, utilities paid, reasonably close to my work.  We got all of those.  I can’t speak to affordability.  There are NO affordable RV sites in Maryland.  Trust me, I looked.  I really looked.  Finding a site, therefore, was all the sweeter, especially as it was such a happy coincidence.

We’ve discovered our site has some downsides such as horrific mosquitoes in the summer and poor drainage during wet periods, but we’ve also been blessed by being right on a tributary of the Chesapeake.  The creek has given us idyllic views, daily sightings of waterfowl, the flashes of silver from the fish jumping.  We’ve reconnected with nature.  For the first time in my life, I’ve had the opportunity to become attuned to the rise and fall of the tides.  We’ve enjoyed watching summer become fall and fall become winter, and now I’m looking forward to seeing what life on the Chesapeake is like in the spring.

5)  Getting rid of all the stuff was SO liberating.  I’ve written quite a bit about this, so I won’t say more except that I’ve learned that I still have plenty I need to unload even now.  We really have done more with less.

6) The reaction of our friends and families has been priceless.  We’ve gotten everything from “Oh my God!  I’m so jealous!  I wish I could do that!” to  the highly skeptical “Are you sure about this?” Everyone who has visited has commented on how much more space we actually have than they imagined we would.

7) Finding places to put things is never easy, but I’ve had fun trying.  I learned that velcroing the remote controls to the wall keeps me from hunting for the damned things and is mighty convenient for travel.  I’ve discovered things like collapsible mixing bowls and colanders, the glories of adhesive hooks and battery-powered “spot” lights, and how to use a shower stall as a make-do cooler during partytime.

Speaking of partytime, our trailerwarming was a definite highlight.  We had friends, family (both mine and Alexis’), and coworkers here.  It was a perfect summer day, not too hot, games, food, drinks, and just a grand old time.  It marked the first time that any of my family had met any of Lex’s.  It took eight years, but it finally happened!

9) The blizzard was a real test for us.  Would we stay warm?  Would our pipes freeze?  Would anything start leaking?  We weathered it all beautifully, snug and cozy inside.  My winterizing of the outside of the RV held, so we had fresh water and were able to flush our tanks.  Plus, the snow was just beautiful.

10) Our new puppy, Ivy, has brought us a great deal of joy since we got her in October.  She has kept our older dog, Otis, company and has been a regular snugglemonkey.  She’s my first small dog in a number of years, and, like most small dogs, she’s chock full of personality.  She doesn’t seem to think there’s anything odd in living in an RV and has adapted beautifully to this small space, as have Otis and our cat, Motor.  The animals have gotten good at staying out of the way and finding all sorts of nooks and crannies in which to curl up and snooze.  We don’t have children, so our animals help round out our little family, giving us a reason to get up and go even on days when we don’t feel like it.

The Ten Lowest Fulltiming Moments of 2009:

1) The worst loss we suffered this year was that of our dear friend, Crystal.  She was a genuine light and died in April, just as we made the decision to go fulltime and had started searching for RVs.  We abandoned our search to drive back home to Texas and attend her funeral.  The bittersweet aspect of every funeral I’ve attended is that in the midst of our grief, we find great joy and comfort in being with friends and family we haven’t seen in quite some time.  I was so grateful to be reunited with so many wonderful people.  Our circle of friends, in fact, is the finest part of Crystal’s legacy.  She was the one who constantly drew us together for meals, parties, celebrations of all types.  Even in death, she is the  glue that has continued to bind us to one another.

2) We had another great loss this year, my greyhound mix, Baxter.  He developed excruciatingly painful bone cancer, so we had to euthanize him in June, just a week or two before we moved into the RV.  It was a mixed blessing, I suppose.  We missed him terribly, but that big, leggy dog would have felt pretty confined in this small space, I think, especially since he would have had to share his space with another sizeable dog.

3) After those two deaths, all other low moments pale in comparison, but if I’m forced to choose, the worst moment during our fulltiming experiences thus far was the loss of our awning in a sudden windstorm. I’ve written a lot about that as well as the drama that ensued (and continues to be unresolved).  Dealing with the awning, the insurance company, and the dealer in the aftermath was a real lesson for both of us.  We’ve since found a repair service we trust much more, and we plan to have him install new slideout awnings in 2010.

4)  Having our front yard flooded with sewage anytime we’ve had big rains or snowmelt hasn’t been pleasant, especially since our maintenance man continues to deny that the puddles are actually comprised of sewage.  He must not have much of a sense of smell.

5) The mosquitoes from hell kept us confined to the RV during the warm months much more than I would have liked.  I envisioned lots of outside grilling, lazy days under the awning in lawn chairs watching the world go by, reading a good book.  Instead, we waged a constant war against the tiny pests, buying bug zappers and a variety of repellents to try to ward them off, all to no avail.  We spent most nights swatting the bugs that followed us in each time we opened and closed the front door.  The skeeters are the price we pay for the fabulous view of the creek, I suppose.

6) I learned the hard way what the capacity of our grey water tank is when the wastewater backed up into our shower, overflowed onto the bathroom floor, and drained down to our basement.  Ugh!  What a mess!  I’m much more careful now and drain that tank frequently.

7) The battle of the water filters was an exhausting one.  I’m so thrilled I finally resolved that issue and we now have normal water pressure.  I don’t miss being outside in the basement battling with wrenches and screwdrivers, trying to swap out filters every three weeks.

8)  We spent about two weeks with only three of our ten 110V outlets in the RV functional.  This is a particular challenge as we are “high tech” RVers, with four computers, two TVs, a TiVo, two iPhones, and an xBox all under one very small roof. It was tricky to keep all these things running without tripping the breakers.  We were especially angered to find that the cause of our electrical problems was  damage done to the RV by the dealership that replaced our awning.

9) Since the cold months began, I’ve been learning through trial and error about propane usage.  The most anxiety-producing crisis came just last night as I was in the middle of preparing for a New Year’s Eve party and ran out of gas.  The filling station that we use was already closed for the holiday, so I was forced to go drop a ridiculous sum of money on one of those Blue Rhino tanks so we could continue cooking and have heat.  Tragedy averted, but I’m hoping to get better at this so we don’t run out of gas at a critical moment.

10) I put this at the bottom of the list, but I suppose it is one of my foremost frustrations right now, and that is that even though we entered into this arrangement with high hopes for frequent travel, we have actually only taken the RV out one time.  What a disappointment.  The truth is that we’ve spent so much money, time, and energy repairing the RV that we’ve had little to nothing left to go anywhere.  Plus, when we’re paying $800 a month for a site, it seems crazy to go somewhere and spend another $50 a night for another site.  We’ve also learned that it’s not worthwhile to take this monster out for weekends, something I hadn’t really anticipated.  I’m looking forward to this coming summer when we will finally be able to hit the road and take a REAL, two-month trip! I’m hoping that nothing catastrophic happens between then and now to prevent that journey from taking place.   I’m also going to work to find a way to take little weekend trips without the RV, perhaps investing in decent tent camping gear that will allow me to spend the cooler months outdoors, even though I’ll probably be making those trips alone since Lex isn’t keen on “roughing it.”

My Top Ten RV Hopes for 2010:

1) Travel more.  Seen #10 above.  ‘Nuf said.

2) Avoid more costly repairs.  We’ve already dropped over $2000 in repairs to the RV in the six months we’ve had it.  Given that the RV itself only cost $18,000, that’s significant.

3) Replace our slideout awnings.  They are tattered and, as such, contribute to mounding of snow on top of the slideouts.  Plus, the noisy flapping isn’t fun, either.  I don’t want the slideouts to start leaking, especially since most of our electronics are located inside of one of them.  Have to protect the assets!

4) If I can scare up the funds, I’d like to invest in a screen room for under the awning.  I’ve seen some really nice ones, and I think having one would not only encourage us to spend more time outside, but would also provide a buffer against the weather between the world and our front door.  The extra storage space wouldn’t hurt, either.

5) Have a skirt installed around the fifth wheel (not the whole thing, just the bedroom portion).  When they are on sale, these skirts aren’t expensive, and I imagine the repairman wouldn’t charge much to have one put on.  This would help better insulate our bedroom and it would also allow us to stash things out of sight that we don’t want to have to dig out of the basement every time we use them (like lawn chairs and whatnot).

6) Become handier.  I’d like to learn more about our electrical and plumbing systems and become more capable of performing more of our repairs, thereby saving the $100 it costs each time our repair guy makes an appearance.

7) Do more decluttering. As I mentioned above, despite all the downsizing we did when we moved in here, we still are toting around things we don’t need.  I don’t want to end up having to rent a storage space because I can’t carry all my crap with me when I hit the road.

Join a group of some sort.  Whether a knitting, spinning, crocheting guild, a book club, or whatever, I want to get out of the house more often, be more sociable.  We joined the Y this past year, but I’ve not been going regularly.  That needs to change.  I need the exercise, and I think I’d better appreciate life in the RV if I can avoid “cabin fever.”

9) Speaking of hobbies, I want to do more fibercrafting this year.  As we prepared to move, we stopped doing a lot of things that we used to really enjoy.  Spinning, especially, is very relaxing, so I need to work on incorporating more of it into my daily routine.

10)  Prepare healthier meals in our little RV kitchen.  We’ve come to rely too much on convenience foods and fast food.  The nicest feature of our RV is our galley-style kitchen.  We have an unusual amount of counter and cabinet space, relatively speaking, so I need to make the most of it and get back to preparing more fresh foods.  I want to get back to going to the farmer’s markets on a regular basis.  I do have room for a sprouting jar, so I can grow “microgreens,” and I need to figure out how to install a mini herb garden in my kitchen.

So, that’s it, the year in retrospect.  I’m looking forward to a happy, healthy fulltiming life in 2010.  I wish you all the same.

I called them yesterday and asked to speak to the owner.  As usual, he wasn’t available.  I spoke with his wife who claimed they were coming to fix the awning next weekend.  Uh huh.  I don’t even want them to touch my camper again.  They screwed up the awning twice, left a bunch of holes in my house, and caused me to have to get $500 in repairs to my electrical system!

If we ever do get the awning issue sorted out, I can guarantee you that I will never, ever, ever deal with them again for any reason.

I’m so glad that Patrick got the power back on when he did.  We were down to only three working outlets which were overloaded with appliances.  Now we’re back to having them distributed more evening across the breakers and I feel a bit better about it all.

Hopefully we can weather this winter storm without losing power altogether.

This morning, we went out and swept snow off the slideouts.  Lex didn’t want to pull in the living room or kitchen slide out because when those are in, there isn’t much room to move around inside the house.  We did bring in the bedroom slideout.  It doesn’t disrupt movement very much (except to make it impossible to get into the dresser drawers), and having it in should keep the bedroom a little warmer, I hope.

I’ve managed to get the water and sewer hoses up off the ground, and I have a light bulb hanging right by the main holding tank valve so it won’t freeze shut.  The lights in the basement are on (they add a little warmth), and the tank heaters are on.

The furnace is going and we have two electrical space heaters.  If the power goes out and we run out of propane, I bought a small, portable indoor/outdoor propane heater, the kind that uses the screw-in 1lb propane cylinders.  It works nicely, but I’m saving it for backup purposes.

I put aside a few containers of water in case the line ends up freezing or going out.  I think we’re going to be okay, though we will have to go out a few times today to sweep that snow off the slideouts again.

Winds are picking up and will be gusting up to 30 mph later today.  By the time it’s all over, we may end up with 20-24″ of snow.  I know that those of you who are from places further north might think that’s nothing, but Baltimore is paralyzed by even just a couple of inches.  The governor has actually declared a state of emergency, so you can tell we get a little panicked around here.

My small dog does NOT care for all this snow, but the big one with the heavy coat LOVES it!  I let him off the leash so he could tear around for a little while this morning.  Now he’s happily snoozing on the sofa.

Our car and truck are snowed in.  The snowplow came and pushed up a mountain of snow at the end of our driveway, so there’s no getting out of here anytime soon.  That is a little distressing.  Fortunately, we’re within walking distance of a couple of convenience stores, so if we get desperate, we can still hike out and get some supplies.

I have one more set of papers to grade for the semester, so this is the perfect opportunity to do that.  We’ve got lots of movies, too.  I’m hoping we’ll be okay tonight and tomorrow.

My rice cooker is perhaps my favorite electronic appliance.  Some years ago, Lex bought me a Zojirushi fuzzy logic cooker with a 5.5 cup capcity, and I use it all the time.  Yes, we eat a lot of rice, but we can make all sorts of things in it and do.

I’m glad I kept it, but I have found that it takes up an inordinate amount of counter space, so I recently purchased a used Sanyo cooker that holds 3.5 cups and has a significantly smaller footprint.  It’s good though not quite as fancy as the Zojirushi.  There’s no cute little tune that plays when it starts and stops, and there’s no cake setting.  Ah, well…a tradeoff, but at least it fits on my countertop. If anyone is interested in buying my old Zojirushi, I’ve got it posted on Craigslist.  Drop me a mail!

My favorite non-electric kitchen gadget is my Manttra nonstick pressure cooker. When I bought it online a few years ago, I discovered a whole new way to cook food faster.  Apparently, the pressure cooker is the microwave oven of the third world.  Americans don’t use them as much as they used to, probably because they got a bad reputation decades ago for blowing up, burning folks, making huge messes.  There have been technological advances since then, and now they are very safe to use.  I’ve had my Indian-made cooker for over two years and love it.  I can make a pot of stew or chili in half an hour, a pot of beans in 45 minutes.  I can even stick frozen meats in it and have them cook up in short order.  Everything comes out tender and luscious.  It’s sort of the opposite of owning a Crock Pot.  It cooks everything to falling-of-the-bone tenderness, too, but it does it in minutes instead of hours.

Because I had to get rid of my large cooking pots, the pressure cooker also doubles as a regular stock pot when I remove the special pressurized lid and replace it with the regular glass lid that also came with it.  I heartily recommend pressure cooking to everyone, whether or not they live in an RV.  We have a propane stove, and the beauty of using one of these things that it cuts cooking times down to a third of what they usually are, thus saving significant quantities of fuel, something I don’t take for granted when I find myself wrestling those propane tanks out of their racks to carry them to the filling station.

A few years ago, on a lark, we bought a Soda Club Edition 1.  The Soda Club allows the user to make his/her own club soda or seltzer.  The company ships the CO2 cylinders to customers at about $30 each, and we find that we can use a single cylinder for 6 months or more.  We no longer buy sugar-laden commercially-produced sodas.  Six months’ worth of soda costs more than $30 given that a 12 pack of cans can cost $4.00. Instead, we make our own custom flavors with juices and syrups.  Cranberry juice + seltzer + a squeeze of lime = refreshing! Grape Kool-Aid + seltzer = Grape Crush!  The Soda Club is a tall, slender item that takes up very little space on the counter.

While Lex loves her badass Kitchen Aid mixer, it’s heavy as it can be and takes up a lot of room on the counter.  Plus, there’s no cabinet big enough in which to store it, so when we move the RV, it would be difficult to protect the machine from bumps and falls.  Lex couldn’t let go of it, though, since it’s what helps her make her award-winning poundcake, so instead of selling it, we asked a couple of friends to store it for us.  Now Lex can go pick it up and “borrow” it back whenever she needs to use it, but we don’t have to make room for it.

Instead of keeping a stand mixer in the RV, we kept our Braun Multiquick Professional hand blender.  This blender isn’t one of the wimpy ones, oh, no!  It’s a tough customer.  I’ve had it for a long time.  I burned out the motor about two years ago and found a reconditioned one online for about $30, and it’s been going strong ever since.  I can use it as a food processor, a mixer, an ice crusher, a smoothie maker, a spice/coffee grinder, you name it.  It takes up very little room in the cabinet over my sink and weighs next to nothing.  It can survive a beating and is easy to clean, too.  I have to say that I’m a big fan.

I picked up this little battery-powered Handy Can Opener at Tuesday Morning for ten bucks.  We haven’t owned a regular electric can opener for a long time and were using the manual-crank ones instead.  Those work fine, but they only seem to last about six months before they wear out.  I’ve had this opener for nearly a year, and it still works as well as the day I bought it, plus I haven’t had to change the batteries in all that time.  The coolest thing about it is that it doesn’t leave a sharp edge when the lid is removed from the can.  Plus, I don’t have to hold the can or the opener while it works.  I just put the opener on top of the can, fit the lip of the can into the opener, press the button, and let it go.  The opener rotates around the top of the can, removes the lid, and then stops on its own when it’s finished.  The other great thing about it is that it is compact enough to fit in my kitchen utensil drawer just like my old manual crank one did.

The last appliance I kept was my Melitta Express Kettle. Sure, I could have kept a regular tea kettle or I could just heat water in the microwave, but nothing heats water faster than this electric kettle.  This is one item I’m still debating the value of, despite the fact that we use it so much.  On the upside, we don’t have to use our propane to heat water.  On the downside, it draws down our power in a big way.  I can’t use it and the microwave or the electric heater at the same time without tripping a breaker.  But when Lex runs out of hot water while she’s washing dishes or when I want to make tea, nothing can beat it.  If I trade it in for a traditional stovetop kettle, the regular kettle wouldn’t take up any less space or weigh any less than the electric one, though, so I’m not yet ready to get rid of the Melitta, especially not in the winter when hot cocoa or tea really hits the spot.

I’ve got everything I need in my tiny kitchen to make the same goodies that I did before we moved into the RV.  The only things I can’t do here are can and dye, two things I miss very much. Even so, I’m enjoying learning how to be an inventive cook all over again like I used to be in the days when all I had to cook with were a hot plate, toaster oven, and microwave.  Here I at least have a traditional cooktop and oven plus the microwave.  I have to say that I wish I had a toaster, but we can’t afford the huge power draw or the counter space.  Instead, we toast bread on the cast iron griddle that we use for making tortillas and other goodies.  We kept the griddle in lieu of our three heavy cast-iron skillets.  When we need a skillet, we have some lightweight aluminum ones that do the job just fine.

Tonight I’m making rice in the Sanyo cooker and beans in the pressure cooker.  Maybe I can talk Alexis into making us some tortillas to go with it.

Happy RV cooking!