A year ago on August 1, 2017, we moved from the house into the RV permanently starting this full-time RVing journey while we finished the last few days of cleaning and preparing to take photos of the house for the listing. We refer to this date as “the day Barb’s milk moved.” This was the day she realized it was really happening when she called Jason to find out where the fresh milk was and he said “in the RV,” where all of the new groceries were unpacked. A quick year has passed now in the RV, thus the RVanniversary. The preparation up to the departure and now the entire first year are just a blur of a memory.
In the spring of 2017 we purchased the new RV in anticipation of selling the house and using it as a staging for moving out. So now that RV is almost a year and a half old we are starting to encounter some needs for maintenance here and there. You can either drive yourself nuts trying to get a dealer to do the work or you can do it yourself. It is one thing to have someone come to your stick built home, but it is a completely different ordeal to take your home to someone with cats on board. Will they finish by the end of the day or anywhere on time? So Jason does what he can to make the minor repairs such as replacing caulking and fixing screws that pull out on the awning or water valves don’t close just right.
We used this 1-year RVnniversary as another opportunity to purge more things and we continue to look for the our desired Class B. We have negotiated with several dealers, but have not yet found that optimal deal on the camper van. We have now purged most of what we had in the basement storage so that we could get the factory provided table and dining chairs with us in case we do find that deal while out on the road. Jason also made some changes to the office arrangement, with assistance from Rico of course, to down size the space. The new arrangement gives Barb more flexibility during the day because his webcam is more contained and doesn’t cover the entire kitchen.
Hoffman Park is a great place to call home while Jason works in River Falls on-site during his 25% of the year there. It has one water fill station for fresh water and a dump station for the sewer. We have to make a weekly “big move” of packing up, dumping our waste tanks. filling up the fresh water and then back into our spot. Whether you are moving 500 feet or 500 miles the effort ends up being the same. Each of the sites have at least 30-amps of electrical and a few have 50-amps for those with more than one air conditioner. This year we saw many more big rigs than ever, we figure it is because the Twin Cities East Campground is now gone and becoming an apartment building on the site.
We have been asked, what fun things we do in the River Falls area? To be honest, not much because we keep the costs down and recharge our desire to get back onto the road. After returning from our summer travels out west we spent another nine weeks in River Falls. We visited the Hastings Creamery to enjoy their chocolate ice cream shakes, we tried (and failed) our hands at ukulele lessons at Brickhouse Music, stocked up on our craft root-beer supply at Jim’s Apple Orchard in Jordan, MN, and spent the day at the Chippewa Falls Oktoberfest.
The weather seemed to be turning to fall and we were ready to head out on October 1st. Jason needed to be in New Orleans, LA, for a work related event by October 5th, so we have headed out on October 1 for the winter.
Where Next?
New Orleans, LA; Morganza, LA; Natchez, MS; Pigeon Forge, TN; Atlanta, GA; Winter Garden, FL