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One year ago today was the last day and night we were to spend at our property and head out for the open road. 1 week before heading out, we purchased an Thousand Trails Zone Pass over the phone, so that we'd have somewhere to go.
We got a late start on the 20th and it turned out that the trailer brakes were engaged due to faulty wiring by a well meaning friend. We ended up in a strip mall parking lot overnight until Don could fix it the next morning.
We finally arrived at our first destination on June 21, 2018, the first day of Summer: Mount Vernon RV Campground in Bow, Washington.
July 4th we purchased a Thousand Trails Basic Elite membership so we could stay at parks for 21 days and go park to park without having to ever be out of the system.
We spent the summer bouncing between Thousand Trails' Mount Vernon and La Conner reserves and then between Tunderbird (Monroe) and Tall Chief (Fall City).
We met an RV repair guy at the La Conner preserve who diagnosed the problem with our water heater. Turned out to be that we needed to hit the reset button. I have learned to set a 20 minute timer and then turn off the heater to prevent the thermostat from tripping.
We arrived at the Chehalis preserve in October. 1 week after being there, I tripped and ended up with a multiple fracture of the 5th metatarsul of my left foot. 2 Months later, I ended up with a fracture in the 4th and 3rd as well, with no clue how that happened. We ened up having to edure one of the harsest winters we have ever had here, in an RV not built for cold weather. We bounced between Mount Vernon and La Conner all winter.
Then the microwave oven died. We ended up finding a dorm style refrigerator on Craigslist that has a microwave on top. The dead microwave is acting as a storage cabinet for the coffee supplies until we can replace it with a toaster-oven. We gave the fridge we were using to a friend whose fridge also died. The original dead Norcold that's still in the cabinet is being used as a pantry/spice cabinet.
Spring finally returned. As soon as it did, we headed south to bounce between the Chehalis and Paradise preserves until the weather got warmer when we could head to the ocean.
We bought a portable waste tank. Using public facilities in the cold/chilly weather really sucks. With the portable tank, I can shower in the RV without worrying about overflowing the gray tank. Naturally, we now get full hook up sites and have, yet, to use it. Looks like we purchased a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.
We got to meet Eric Jacobs (Nomadic Fanatic) and his cat Jax at the Paradise perserve in May. We moved my bed and desk to the front of the trailer and Don built a couch-bed frame for his mattress in the back of the trailer.
It's now the end of Spring and the first day of Summer, our one year full time RV anniversary, is right around the corner.
We survived. We actually survived. They say that if you can make it through the first year, you'll be okay. Looks like we'll be okay, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.
What's planned for our second year? Our landlords invited us up for the July 4th holiday at our home base and to house-sit while they go on vacation for a couple of weeks, so we'll just spend the entire month there. We'll be making improvements to the RV, going through another purge and organizing the van. I want to finish decorating the interior of the RV. We want to cut Don's mattress in half so that we can make it into a couch. I'll be doing a lot of sewing as well, taking advantage of the space in the house to do it.
In August we plan to head back to the Paradise preserve for a little while and continue on to the Long Beach preserve which is on the ocean. By mid-September, we hope to be at Seaside in Oregon and follow the weather down the coast. From there it's anyone's guess as we'll be taking it a day at a time. Hopefully we can fulfill our dream and be in Arizona by Christmas.
We hope you follow along with us via our social media links located on the home page. Stay tuned because, even if I have to crawl there, we will be heading south for the winter!
