A few steps closer…
Hi all!! Welcome back for another read. Not a whole lot has really happened in our travels so far, but I figured it was time for another post here. We are well, and we hope you are too!
We have been moving around a bit since the last entry. But still in very familiar territory. We spent a week in Spokane at the Northern Quest RV Park. Then I stole our awesome new nomad house from Nicole to go to a yearly campout I have been going to for the last 5 or 6 years with old coworkers from my years as an X-ray tech. “Man Camp”, as we call it, is always a good time and this year was no exception. It was very fun to catch up with the guys and share our plans for travel, as well as share in some amazing meals, and just a tad bit of inebriation during a long four day weekend. It’s the one time a year (for the most part) that I will act like I’m not almost 50, and “tie one on”. I just don’t bounce back from those types of nights very quickly anymore, so I keep those experiences at a minimum. I surely hope we are in a place that allows for me to make it back for next year’s camp when the time arrives. It may involve a flight and a buddy to get me there, but I think I’ll be able to make it happen. It’s always a great time with awesome people.
After my yearly episode of excess with the boys, I traveled back to my beautiful bride and our crazy wiener dog. A couple more weeks were spent at Northern Quest, with a couple nights spent staring at the bright lights and sounds of a slot machine or two. We aren’t huge gamblers, but it is fun once in a while. The RV park there is very new with next to no tree cover, and the pool wasn’t open yet, and no hot tub. It was a bummer that they weren’t allowing the water at every site to be used, due to freezing overnight temps that were still happening. So we had to fill our fresh water tank at one of two specific sites, and use our pump. We had to ration our water a bit by using their showers and being frugal with our dishwashing. Otherwise we’d have to pack everything, hitch up, and pull the RV like 50 yards to refill half way through our stay. But, on the whole, it was a nice park with good space between sites and it is kept very clean.
After a couple more weeks at Northern Quest, we headed over to the Polster Event Center and RV Park, otherwise known as my Mom’s property. We spent two more weeks there working and getting some projects done on the RV. (I’ve said we would be sharing the ups AND the downs in our traveling lifestyle. And there have been some cosmetic issues with our RV, things I’ve added to it, and some minor breakage. I’ll tell a bit about these things at the end of this post.) This is another situation in which we have power, but only a regular 20 amp household outlet. We are without a constant water source, and we have no dump site for the sewer. So again, we had to be frugal, but it is good practice for when we are actually dry camping in the future. Thankfully, my Mom has us covered when we are there with things such as a place to do dishes, shower, and do laundry. We are very thankful that she has the space for the RV (or 3), power for us to be able to easily carry out our daily tele-commuting for work, AND a HOT TUB!! We spent our days working away, and our evenings catching up with family and friends. Our younger son Dylan is getting his feet solidly under him in his life. He’s all done with high school and college, and working full time as a mechanic, which has been his plan since midway through high school. He will soon be moving his life to Bozeman, MT where his wife is attending college. It was great catching up with Dylan and others. We are truly so very anxious to get to moving around, but it is still very bittersweet having to say goodbye to all of you.
After Mom’s, we made a trip down to Richland, WA to catch up with our older son Riley and his wife Victoria (Tori). We spent the week visiting some of their favorite restaurants in the Tri-Cities area, sitting around and sharing our recent life experiences, and playing a few fun games. We also got to go tour the “B Reactor” at the Hanford Reach nuclear area. This was a very fun tour for all of us, but Riley really dug it the most. He has training as a nuclear reactor operator from his years at WSU. We didn’t know it until Riley was a sophomore in high school, but WSU has had a nuclear reactor near their campus for decades. Riley learned this in high school, and always dreamed of getting involved with it. He spent a year as an intern there, and another as a paid reactor operator. He is currently waiting for job availability at various sites in the Hanford Reach. He still plays in symphonies with his French horn here and there. That is what his college degree is in, but the nuclear reactor operator thing is a huge passion for him, and will be a consistent job. We have a bunch of photos from the tour, and other sights we’ve been to in our recent months. I think I’ll post them up in the next blog entry with captions….
Now, another 100 miles west, and we are in the Yakima, WA area. Yakima is my home town, and where a large percentage of my family on my father’s side is located. We are in a little valley near Yakima next to the little town of Naches. Once again, we will be spending the week catching up, sharing our plans, showing off our amazing new rolling home “Doris” and truck “Bud”, and most definitely driving around a bit exploring a few of the campgrounds that inspired my love of the outdoors. I haven’t visited places like Rimrock Lake, Dog Lake, or Clear Lake or White Pass since the days in my youth when I spent days and nights there fishing, camping, snow skiing, and riding my BMX all over the place with my family. I cannot wait for that feeling, that thing in your core, whatever it is that lights you up inside when you revisit a place like this. A place that formed you in some slight way. Helped form you into who you are by providing an experience, thrill, moment of serenity, or sight for a profound conversation. This is the perfect stop for me, just as a stay in Montana may have been for Nicole, before we truly start exploring. I’ll be pointing out spots, recounting childhood memories, sharing parts of my life from even earlier than our many years together goes back. Just like she was able to do for me in Montana. The perfect stop to remember where my love of camping, RV’ing, and being in the outdoors all started. The perfect stop from which to start again, on a new chapter of life. Our grand adventure beckons!!!
We’re so very blessed to be taking this adventure. We are amazed at the way life has offered this opportunity to us. Amazed that we have the ability to work from anywhere, and explore as we do. We’re also very excited to share it all with you. Thanks so much for reading. I have started getting the Go-Pro out, and plan to start getting back into flying the drone. The next big hurdle will be learning how to make a video people will enjoy watching. The YouTube channel still lays bare. We’ll get there. Baby steps……
Now for the issues. RV/Nerd stuff. Feel free to skip this if you don’t have the interest. We have not had a whole lot to really complain about with the RV or the truck so far. But, there have been many little things that have happened along the way. To start from the start I guess, the first thing was a small water leak. Never a thing you want to find in an RV. But it was a simple fix. I had been into the utility area of the basement in the fifth wheel to install water detectors just a day or two earlier, and all of a sudden one day at my Mom’s (right after we got the RV), one of them started blaring. They are super loud. Getting into the utility area is not super quick the way that the RV is finished from the factory. First I had to empty the storage area in the belly. It’s full of all of our water toys and camping gear. Then, I had to unscrew four screws to remove a panel in the belly storage area to get in there. What I found was that at the valve body behind our wet-bay, a plastic nut at a connection was just a little loose. Tightened it up, and haven’t heard a peep from one of those detectors again. I also took the length of time I had to listen to one of those things scream as a lesson. I immediately went to the hardware store for some latches and some hinges. No more screws. That panel just opens like a door now. To my recollection, there were no other really major issues between that and our refrigerator failing on us in the cold of the Montana winter as I shared in the first post. We did have a couple wall panels that needed a few finish nails to secure them where the puny staples they use the factory had pulled out. And a couple pieces of wood trim were loose here and there. The only other things were travel related issues. On the way to Man Camp, the wash-boarded road broke the plastic closet rod cup in my side of the closet, and I opened it to clothes which were no longer hanging. I replaced them with metal ones. The end of the P-trap under the kitchen sink (slip joint with plastic nut) popped itself apart during our next move, which caused a nice puddle on the kitchen floor. Righty tighty, and that one was fixed. And our power distribution panel where the fuses and breakers are located decided to pop away from the wall on one side on our way to Richland. A couple sheetrock anchors pressed into the wall panel, and it tightened right back down.
As far as add-ons, I really haven’t done a whole lot yet. We added a Garmin RV 780 navigator for Bud. It has the capacity to take our entire setup’s numbers (overall length, length of Doris, length of Bud, height, width, weight) and give us the safest route knowing all of that. It also gets very up to date information on traffic, accidents, and road construction. It has the ability for outputting the image of wireless cameras as well. So, we have a rear camera mounted on the back of the Doris that we can see right above Bud’s built-in screen that shows our sides when we turn on a blinker. Pretty handy! Nothing else really, unless you consider Starlink an add-on. I have a telescoping pole mounted on our rear roof ladder that Starlink gets attached to. Starlink works great, as does our cellular hotspot which has Verizon and AT&T SIM cards in it. These are our lifelines for business, and how we are able to do what we’re doing. Thankfully they have yet to give us any issues at all other than the errant dropped call on our VOIP phones. I plan on adding solar and a better, more modern battery bank of Lithium Iron Phosphate cells in the future. I’m sure it’ll all get detailed for you as we start filming videos. That’s about it for this one folks. Again, thanks for spending your time with me reading along. Take care!