Catching Up

We've past our first week as "full timers," and we spent most of it catching up on much needed sleep.


After two weeks of frantic go go go we're both happy to be sitting here doing absolutely nothing. Read a paper, a BBQ, a bit of sleep, beating Bernie at Scrabble (once in awhile), whatever. Just some time to rest up a touch.

We went, thanks to Rob, and watched the Blue Bombers stomp the Eskimos last Friday night. Great game. For our American friends the Blue Bombers are our local CFL (like the NFL) club and the Eskimos are a competing team from Edmonton Alberta. The NFL is a little bigger :-) than the CFL but it's the same concept.

Colleen and Tim and their family arrived from Langley yesterday. We'll be spending some time driving to visit them at John and Leslie's place on Falcon Lake. Rob is coming out with his kids, & Brady is coming out with his girlfriend. Its will be a busy but fun week out there.

We took the truck to the bed builder on Friday so work can begin on the Smart car deck. They were more than a bit surprised when I told him we were OK if they kept it for a month or so. Most of their customers want things back in an hour or two so we're a pleasant switch for them. The bed build is going to be an interesting project. It has to be decent looking but we aren't prepared to spend 20k making look good. I'm more interested in function but Bernie and I both want it to be nice. It's going to take some work because many others have spent that kind of $. and more.


Some folks we've met online at a "full timers" website are coming into the area next month and are planning to come by for a few days at our campground. That will be a first. Good friends from our park in Texas have invited us to bring the rv to their place in Oklahoma in the fall for a few days on our way South which will be another first. Two different friends in the Kelowna area have invited us to stay on their acreages when we get there in the spring, another first. Sooooo many friends, so little time. What a great problem. Thank you all.

So, once again, thank you for reading our blog and please leave us a comment when you can.

Neal & Bernie

We're All In

Good morning,

So finally, after four months of hyper activity and many years of dreaming we're actually full time RV'ers.

When I say we're "All In," we really are. We're "All In" the RV, but we're "All In" physically as well. Trying to reduce our home to what we wanted in the RV and a 10' x 10' locker was a huge job all by itself. It's amazing how much stuff we had accumulated and how hard it is to find new homes for it. The MCC got a few loads, we sold some, the kids took some, and the trash can got quite a bit. I figure the kids owe us, we did a whole bunch of work they were going to have to do in a 20 or 30 years.

Sons, Brady and Rob, came over with Brady's truck and trailer to spend a few hours moving the big and heavy things for us which really, really, helped. Thanks guys.

We're staying in a small, but nice and clean, place just outside of Winnipeg called The Arrowhead RV Park www.arrowheadrvpark.ca .

There are still a multitude of things to get done before we head for Texas in October. All the little things like computer access, telephones, banking, mail, and on and on and on. We also have to get the truck finished, find a Smart car, sell our existing car, and win the lotto to pay for it all. No Problem.

We're thinking we'll drive to Texas via the South Dakota Badlands. Bernie and I have never been there, we'd like to see them, and of course we have to make a trip to Mount Rushmore at some time. This will be the first time we make the Texas trip without any kind of schedule. No schedule, ???????? I'm thinking I'll like it but after 40 years of meetings, appointments, and schedules who knows. I'll likely create some kind of a schedule before we get started and then PANIC if we get a day behind. Why change now?

We have reservations for a few days at Falcon Beach early next month. Colleen and her family are coming in from Langley to spend a week out there at John and Leslie's cabin. We made a reservation at the local campground but we're afraid the lots are too small and we won't fit. So we decided to take a day trip to the lake today to check it out. Once I see it we'll determine if we move the RV or stay here and commute for the week. It's an hour each way. Not bad, kind of like driving to work in Vancouver. To our friends on the West Coast, I think of you often, especially your commutes. :-)

Then it will be time to get to work on building the bed for the truck. There is a 50/50 chance we're going to get the motorcycle on there with the Smart car. It really is down to a matter of 2 or 3 inches and we won't know until the bed builder gets to work on it. I have the plan all laid out and it boils down to the build. He has to be able to make it strong, and I want it heavy, so there is no way it (bed and car) can come loose and move forward in the event we have an unexpected stop. That could sort of spoil our plans.

It would be pretty neat to have both of them up there and we could have some good fun with the bike. I really want to ride in the hills of San Francisco, and at some point I want to ride through Manhattan and Central Park. Riding those two spots is on my bucket list and it must be done. No I don't have brain damage, it just looks like it. Driving them in a Smart car just wouldn't be the same.

So that's it for now, I have to go and schedule :-) our trip to Falcon Beach.

Thanks for reading our blog and do leave a comment when you can.

Neal & Bernie

Home With Our NEW Home

It's Monday night and we have our new home back in Winnipeg.

It was quite the adventure. We were supposed to get away on Friday, which was delayed to Monday and ended up being late afternoon Tuesday. That didn't change the fact we had to be in Indiana on Thursday morning. It was a long hard drive in a new (to us) heavy duty truck. All in all it went very well but driving through downtown Chicago at 10:30 pm at about 70 MPH, on freeways under construction, is an experience I will never forget and will certainly NEVER duplicate. We got to Indiana a couple of hours late for our appointment but it still went very well.

If you are ever in the market for an RV let me recommend Earl and the team at The Outpost RV in Middlebury Indiana. I have had some experience with RV dealerships and I can safely say I have never seen service like we got from them. We had a wiring issue with our truck which could have, and probably should have, cost us a bunch of money. The owner of the dealership, Jim Wilson, came out to the truck and spent two hours reworking our wiring to get us going. When I asked him for the bill he said "no, send us a referral if you can." The sales team, the business manager, the service man, everyone was just first class. They even have three full service spots on their lot that buyers are encouraged to use for a day or two, or more, at no charge. They want to be sure everything is working right before you leave. I guess you can tell we were very impressed.

We took this first picture on their lot, where we stayed for two days and nights.

The Amish are huge in that area and we really enjoyed sitting in our rv hearing the horses clop clop as they went by. we drove a few miles of back roads around there which was huge fun. The Amish farms are pristine. Imagine a city lot landscaped to the extreme and then transfer it to a farmyard, with manicured lawns and gardens, painted barns, beautiful horses and clean clean clean. We hope to go back when we have more time and we can site see in something a tad smaller than our Freightliner.

We headed for home on Sat morning about 9 and were home Monday night at 9ish.

Thankfully it was fairly uneventful. Had a bit of trouble with the braking system that I was able to deal with and then we dropped the electric plug from the trailer to the truck. We pulled into a rest stop and bumped into a trucker who pointed it out to us. I took one look and went "we're toast." He said "no you ain't, I got all you need to fix it." He spent the next hour working with me fixing it up and getting us going again. A really neat guy, a Vietnam veteran who has been driving ever since, 37 years on the road. I tried to pay him and he refused, I tried to pay for his supplies and so forth and he said, "you can pay me by keeping this pretty lady safe, and helping out the next traveller you see in trouble." Just a really nice man who has some stories to tell but all he would say was that he was special ops in Vietnam and did some things he regrets.

We stayed at a couple of neat campgrounds on the way home. The first one "Boone County Fairgrounds" in Belvidere Wisconsin, had a horse show going on so we got to see some amazing animals and riders. The second night was at a place way off in the middle of nowhere Minnesota, where we found a neat spot with that challenged our driving skills getting up and down into it. Nice spot and very clean.

So now we're home and packing the rv. I had to spend the night on the Wall Mart lot last night because I couldn't get the rv on our lot at the condo. This morning I got it over here and we're packing it up. 6 days and we're officially homeless, "full time rv'ers."

Have to go and do some packing, thanks for reading our blog.

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning once again and all is quiet at our place.

It's been an exciting week to say the least. Passing the commercial licence driving test, spending an afternoon cleaning and polishing our truck, selling some more furniture, getting insurance on both the truck and trailer, and a ton of unusual small things. The fellow that bought our bedroom furniture, TV, and sound system is coming to pick them up today. Tonight we're on the floor but we still have the small TV in the bedroom and our alarm clock.

They should finish our truck tomorrow so we can leave on Monday. The people we bought from in Indiana were very helpful when I asked to change the pick up time so we have plans now to pick up the rv on Thursday morning. We'll spend Thursday, Friday, living in it at the dealership campground and then hit the road on Saturday. The two days there should uncover the bugs they ALWAYS have and get us back here for the 12th. We have permission to park it on the visitors lot for the 12th, 13th, 14th, so we can move our things into it and an rv park reservation for the 15th.

The only variable right now is whether or not they can get the truck finished on Monday. The shop came highly recommended but they seem to be really slow. I set it up so they would have more than enough time to do the job, based on what they told me, but they still have a huge days work to do Monday. We have a couple of days built in for variables, that always come up, but it irks me when people don't do what they say they will. Maybe my age is showing a bit.

So we'll be silent on here for this week, as we travel, but the next post should be fun with pictures of the 5th all hooked up to the truck.

It's all so close now only 16 days until we are official full timers.

Our Baby is Born

We got to spend a few hours washing and polishing our new baby this afternoon. She should be home on Monday all set for her maiden voyage to Indiana.