Portland/Woodburn RV Park, Woodburn , Or

Still in Woodburn, OR. Planned on leaving for Grants Pass, OR near the Oregon - California border today. But, guess what? It's raining, again, yet, still, and windy. So, we're going to stay another day. Hopefully, leaving tomorrow.

Offut Lake Resort, Tenino, Wa

Monday, February 13th -  Well, we've finally made it onto the road. On Monday, we left the safety and boredom of Larkspur Landing Hotel in Factoria, WA and headed for the RV dealer in Sumner. It took awhile to leave the hotel because we had managed to, somehow, collect even more stuff while there. Once we got it loaded into the truck, we were off. We arrive in Sumner a little before noon and prepped the trailer for departure. We got a little bit of help from the dealer, but not all that much. Anyway, after hooking up and getting a little bit of guidance from the dealer we headed out with only a little over 50 miles to go to Offutt Lake. We didn't get more than a couple miles when we found that the trailer was swaying all over the place. So, Sue called the dealer and got them to come and give us some roadside assistance. Turns out that a couple of bolts on the hitch assembly weren't tightened down. Got that fixed and off we went again. 

The drive to Tenino wasn't too bad, although, the traffic was heavier than I had hoped for on my first attempt pulling the new trailer. It's about 1500 pounds heavier than the old one and 4 feet longer. I could tell too because the truck was working a lot harder. I did find that pulling it wasn't all that bad, just had to start getting used to it. Like I saw in a YouTube video, it's a lot more comfortable driving on two lane highways than on the interstate. Less worry about changing lanes and merging traffic. Traffic circles, though, are not fun. The only place along the way that was a little scary was when we had to go under a narrow railroad bridge that was 12'6", while our trailer is 11'7". We made it under OK and only had a couple miles to go to the campground. Once we got here, the owners helped us get into our site which, fortunately, is a pullthru. It took a good hour to get the trailer in the right position,  leveled, stabilized, water, sewer and power hookups and finally, the truck disconnected. 

Leveling the trailer was more challenging than expected because the one side was a bit higher than the other. I managed to do it completely backwards the first time and had to do it again. Also, the campsite slopes slightly from front to back and I found that the tongue jack wasn't long enough to get disconnected from the truck. So, now I know why rv'ers carry big wooden blocks around with them. In the end it all worked out fine and we were actually stationed at the first of many campgrounds on our long trip to Florida. We plan to stay here for a least a week, maybe two, depending on the weather. All the comforts of home except no cell service, minimal WiFi and minimal TV. I think Sue is going through withdrawal. 

Tuesday, February 14th, valentine's day - spent the morning getting organized in the trailer. Trying to figure out where to put clothes, medicine, cooking supplies, making up the bed (which was a bit of a challenge due to the tight confines) and just figuring out how to work the appliances on the trailer and figuring out where the light switches are. Had valentine's dinner at Lady of the Lake restaurant next to the campground. Lobster for both of us, very well prepared, nice environment. We may go back on Wednesday because they have $5 fish and chips. Sounds like a good deal. 

Wednesday, February 15 - woke up to rain and light wind. I can't figure out how to use the awning when it's windy and raining. I'd like to have it out a bit to keep the rain off the kitchen slideout, but I'm a little concerned about the wind whipping it around. 

Getting closer to our departure....

Well, Monday, the 6th of Feb. is our launch day..pray to God everything goes smoothly. Tomorrow is signing papers for our new little home, and the walk through....just like buying a home again, except its smaller and on wheels! Still things to do, but it will be so nice not having to live in a hotel any longer, however, it has kind of prepared us for living in small spaces.. :-) Saturday we will also be selling our 2nd car (I'm going to miss it a little) but we only need one car now. So things are finally starting to fall into place. I am looking forward to traveling and seeing the country...stay tune for future blogs!!

So many details

It's amazing how many things have to be taken care of when preparing to become even a temporary full-time RVer. Selling your home, downsizing all your stuff, deciding what to keep and what to throw away, what to do about the furniture, the list goes on and on. Once you move out of your permanent residence, technically, you don't actually live anywhere, so you have to think about things like: how do I get mail, what about doctors and prescriptions, where is the RV registered and the car or truck? What about insurance for the vehicles?

Fortunately, there are quite a few people that have done full-timing before and a number of businesses exist to help make the process easier. For mail, we're using the GoodSam mail forwarding service. We decided to use that one because it is located in Crestview FL and accepts any kind of mail or packages.

One of the bigger challenges is that banks and investment firms require a "normal" home address. You can't use the address of a mail forwarding service. This is due to the Patriot Act. Apparently, the only solution is to use the address of a relative or friend. Even this gets complicated because new credit cards are only sent to a "home" address, which means your friend has to forward them to you. Be sure to set up ebilling whenever possible so that there is no other mail from these organizations. As a matter of fact, set up ebill for anything you can.

I'm only going to touch on health insurance because I still haven't figured it out. Since you aren't staying in one place, you won't really be able to have a primary care provider and you have to be sure that the insurance provider operates in every state that you may visit. If you have an understanding doctor you may be able to get prescription refills while on the road. However, if tests are needed from time to time, the doctor will need to place an order in a location that you plan to be in. Also,  make sure that you use a national pharmacy so that you can get refills wherever you are located.

We're finally getting close to getting on the road. We pick up our new trailer in six days, so there are only a few more details to take care of. 

Annie's first thoughts

Hello Everyone!! This is Annie! (Susan)..a nickname by some of my family members. This is my first attempt at writing a blog, never even kept a diary as a young girl. So here goes. I wanted to start with some of the experiences we had with purchasing our first RV. We thought we did a lot of research and thought we knew exactly what we were looking for. Sometimes you don't realize it until you are actually in it a few times. What we ended up buying was a Minnie Winnie...

beautiful little trailer inside, bright, skylights, open concept. What we did find out is that it is not  constructed as well as we thought, not insulated as well as we hoped. So back to the drawing board! We realized seeing as though we are going to be traveling cross country and encountered a few different climates we decided we needed something with better insulation and also more storage! My God! downsizing is overrated..that was more difficult then I thought, but we did it! So, what we ended up doing was purchasing a different trailer... an Artic Fox 28F....about 4 FT longer and a lot more storage!! Now I know we will be a lot more comfortable in our new RV, if we are going to be living in this thing for at least 6 mos or more, might as well do it in comfort.....like my sons call our camping....Glampering! Well, this is it for now...stay tuned to our upcoming adventures!! Over and out!! :-)

An Introduction

Welcome, we're Susan and Myles. We've just, finally, reached the retirement point in our lives. We are about to embark on quite an adventure, for us anyway. We're leaving the Seattle area and heading south, most likely, to Florida. Doesn't sound like much does it? You see, we're not just moving all of our "stuff", like normal people. Nope, sold all the furniture and anything else that won't fit in a box. It's a travel trailer for us. Again, not very exciting. Lots and lots of people have trailers or RV's. What's different, at least a little bit, in our case, is that we're brand new to RVing.

So, this blog is going to be a record of our travels, our challenges, the places we like and don't like, the mistakes we make and, hopefully, the fun we have. Hopefully, you'll follow our travels and leave your comments. We'd love to hear from you.