Category: california

On the Road Again

Willie Nelson - On The Road Again (Official Audio)

Back in April when we last provided an update, we had been parked at the same RV park in southern California since the start of March, with plans of staying a few more weeks. With the daily high temperature starting to regularly climb into the mid-90s, we were happy to finally roll out on May 1. Our destination was Charlotte’s Grandma’s house in Omaha over 1,600 miles away.

Normally when we’re pulling our home and nearly all of our worldly possessions down the highway, we don’t like to rush. Drive times of four hours or less per day and multi-day stops between drives are what we prefer. But with a lot of coronavirus-related uncertainty still in the air, we decided our best course of action would be to get to Omaha as quickly as we dared. This meant five straight driving days with four overnight stops along the way.

Every morning, Charlotte and I would work to empty the tanks, unhook the RV from electricity, water, and sewer, prep a cooler lunch, gather lots of snacks, pack everything away securely so it doesn’t break, bring in the slides, remove the chocks, check the tires, check the hitch, and then hitch up the truck and trailer before we would hit the road. Of course, the whole process is reversed upon arriving at the destination for the evening. It made for some long days.

Still smiling half-way through the trip!
It got a little windy during the drive!

We were thankful though to be hauling a fully self-contained bathroom behind us. We could stop wherever there was room to park, and never had to use a public restroom. No catching the ‘rona from a dirty shared toilet for us!

We made it to Omaha tired, but in one piece, and were able to back our RV into Grandma’s driveway. We feel very lucky that we had a house to live in and a place to park our rig just outside. Grandma moved out back in March, so we had the place to ourselves. Living in a house brought some nice things back into our lives, like a dishwasher, a big fridge, and and even an extra fridge and freezer in the garage. We were able to shop at Costco again! We stocked up on all sorts of beverages and ice cream bars which we never had room for in the RV. At the same time though, we missed our RV and all the little things we had done in order to make it our home.

We bought a pool since we had a backyard to put it in. Izzy loved it.

We stayed in the house for over three months. While we were there, Izzy got to spend a lot of quality time with all of her grandparents, we threw a small family party for Izzy’s fourth birthday, we managed to arrange a few socially distanced backyard visits with friends, and we spent plenty of time working on the RV. Charlotte finished a lot of projects inside, putting up new decorations, coming up with better ways to organize and store our stuff, and prepping Izzy’s room and bed with the hope of actually getting her to sleep in there. Charlotte has promised to write her first blog post showing off all her hard work, hopefully sometime soon. I focused on maintenance items, like flushing out the water heater and re-greasing the trailer axle bearings.

Izzy helping to wash the rig.

Over the course of our stay in the house, we moved quite a bit of our stuff out of the RV and into the house. Moving back into the RV and cleaning up the house before we left was quite a chore and took much longer than we anticipated! Thanks again to my parents for helping out and keeping Izzy entertained and out of the way during the process.

We hit the road again on Sunday, August 9, heading for Forest City, Iowa, which is just a couple hours north of Des Moines. We stayed at a very nice RV park located on a small lake. The park has a single cabin available to rent, and we managed to book it for a few days so Charlotte’s parents could come out and join us. Izzy was excited to get to spend more time with her MorMor and Grandpa, and Charlotte and I were happy to finally share our RV lifestyle in-person.

While we were there we got in some fishing, some kayaking, some campfires, and caught a lot of gorgeous sunsets.

Reeling in her first catch.
Touch da fishy. A little hybrid striped bass.

We stayed at the park for another week after MorMor and Grandpa had to head home. One day we visited nearby Pilot Knob state park. We had a picnic lunch, went for a hike around rare Iowa bog, and climbed the tower located at the top of Pilot Knob (for some reason hills were called knobs back in the 1920s).

Pilot Knob tower.

That’s about the end of our time in Iowa, so I’d better wrap up this post. It feels good to be back out and about in the RV and to have adventures to share. I will try to keep updates coming a bit more frequently. But until then, we’ll see you down the road.

Categories: arizona california iowa kansas nebraska new mexico

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Corona Virus Update

I am getting behind in documenting our adventures, but with all the craziness going on right now, I thought I’d throw up a quick real-time update to let everyone know how we handling the pandemic.

Back in early March, we decided to go ahead with a three-week trip to Hawaii. At the time it seemed like it would have been overkill to cancel, or at least that’s what we convinced ourselves. We enjoyed our time there, and it was great to get to be with Charlotte’s family, but the virus looming put a damper on things. We mostly hung out at the pool or beaches, and cooked in nearly every night. As the news kept getting worse, we felt a lot of guilt, and things started shutting down. We were worried about getting sick, potentially spreading the virus, getting back to the mainland, getting the RV out of storage, and if we would be allowed into an RV park if we did make it back. We were softly kicked out of the resort we were at on Maui a few days before our scheduled departure. We then had to make numerous flight, hotel, and car rental changes, but eventually made it back to the mainland, then Los Angeles, then our RV.

We’re currently in our rig, parked at the Wilderness Lakes RV Resort in Menifee, CA. This park is part of the Thousand Trails RV park network, and Thousand Trails has been great to us, which we are very thankful for. They have remained open during the pandemic, and have allowed us to extend our stay through April so we can shelter in place. We have a membership with them that would normally allow us to stay of just two weeks at a time.

Our days have been spent mostly isolating in the RV. We try to find an excuse to go for a walk every day by taking out the recycling or picking up a package, but it has been tough this past week since it has been raining nearly nonstop since Monday.

Out for a walk during a brief break in the rain.

As a result, we’re all getting a lot of screen time. Charlotte has been working nearly double her normal hours, helping Nebraska Medicine prepare. I picked up a few new games for the Nintendo Switch and have been trying to teach Izzy about the joys of video gaming. Luckily, Amazon has also delivered some new activities and craft supplies, so we aren’t staring at the TV all day.

The Geoboard, one of Charlotte’s old favorites.
I’ve never beat her at Candyland.

We have ventured out a few times to buy essentials. The Menifee area has plenty of grocery stores and we’ve been able to keep our fridge and pantry well-stocked, even if our normal items might be unavailable. Charlotte was even able to find a couple of packs of toilet paper in the RV section at Walmart when we first got back.

So that’s about it. We have shelter, food, water, power, TP, and good enough internet to stream Disney+ (and Tiger King on Netflix if Izzy falls asleep). While I’m certainly envious of my friends with big houses and yards to isolate in, things don’t feel too cramped here (yet).

We’re going to try and ride out the worst of things here. Charlotte and I both have some family not too far away, and there is a group of full-time RV families at the park that we’re connected with, so we do have some folks we can ask for help if we have to.

Right now, we’re planning on staying put until May. If things look good then, we’ll probably start the long drive back to Nebraska. But who knows what things will look like in three weeks? Who even knows what tomorrow will bring? We’re doing our best to stay prepared, and staying thankful for our good health and continuing income. We know a lot of people aren’t so lucky.

Categories: california hawaii

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