A Few New Bumps In Our Journey….

 

For readers who have followed along our path, what I’m about to report will come as no surprise … Kaka happens. 

Merde. 

Poop…..you know...sh!t!

Full-time Rving is really about a constant process of solving challenges; where to stay, how long to stay, how to get important mail, tank maintenance, battery maintenance, repairing all the high-quality, American-made stuff falling off the trailer. Along with planning routes, calling campgrounds to ensure their policies and prices are as advertised on the internet (and let us tell ya…they rarely are), every day is met with some challenge. 

Some difficult, some perplexing.

Full-timing is an exercise in what est seminar training (of which I am a 1980 graduate) called, “Be Here Now.” If ever you choose to follow this lifestyle, even over the course of a couple of weeks, you will discover precisely how much, how fast, and how well you can think on your feet.

It must be working: we’ve lost a combined 220 pounds! 😂

We arrived at our wintering grounds, near Yuma, Arizona, on October 22nd. As is our norm, we got into our set-up routine: I readied the trailer to get unhooked from The Beast, set out the orange ‘feet,’ under the jacks, got the trailer level, which set in motion Renee's tasks.

The trailer, situated so we can get optimal solar, at Imperial Dam.

She checks the insides, to ensure nothing is in the way of the slides, then gets them deployed. That allows me to commence either hooking up to shore power, or deploying and setting up the portable generator.

Given we are at a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) LTVA (Long-term Visitor's Area), it’s essentially an enhanced boondocking site: there is access to a central dump station, and potable water, but out here, you park wherever you want (within reason: one does not try to park in close proximity to others), and you are on your own for electricity. to that end, we unloaded our new, MUCH quieter generator.

The generator—or genset—we used all the rest of the time on the road was a large, open-cage style generator. I purposely oversized it, relative to our wattage needs, plus, it happened to be the least-expensive one at the time.

But...it is LOUD! 

As is the way of these things, the quieter the genset, the more expensive it is. One of the quietest is a Honda, but at the size we need, they are pushing $3000!

During these past six months I discovered we could use a smaller wattage genset (the old one is 9500w), and that made it a bit easier to find an affordable smaller, quieter one (6000w). We found one that fit the bill for $700, and also has the benefit that Renee and I can load it onto the back of The Beast by ourselves: the old one needed a hoist to get it on and off.

I get the genset up and going, not only to charge the batteries (they did not seem to be charging adequately via solar: more merde to report, later), but also to get the AC running…in Yuma, in October, it still reaches the 90s (for my overseas readers, that’s in the 30s).

Next, so that we have decent cellular service, I got the Starlink set up. Here is where the merde begins…

It’s usually a fast, easy set-up: put out the dish, hook the cable in to the  router, plug in the router, and in a few minutes, no matter where we are, we get stable, lightning-fast internet.

Not this time…? 

It worked less than 2 hours!

I go through the troubleshooting, ensure there’s juice to the router, triple-check the cabling, and...bupkis. So, I put in a trouble ticket to Starlink...oops…remember needing decent cell service?

Unfortunately, we don’t have great service here. At best, you can get one bar of LTE, and that’s if you find the sweet spot. 

I finally get a message to Starlink.

Then I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait…for three days!

We are both getting a bit…shall we say, peeved?… given the fact of this being  near-new equipment (the old Starlink router gave up the ghost about a month ago, and no new bits are sold to support it), plus the fact the monthly charge is...not cheap.

After three days, of bad cell service, no Roku TV (I know, I know..1st-world problems!), and not being able to upload anything to the blog, I receive a call from a friendly Starlink representative. She quickly diagnoses the problem being  likely a bad cable, and tells me they’ll send one right way!

Right away = it arrives on the 30th of October.

Long story made short, we’re back in the Internet business.

Remember the issue with the solar? Well, I had already envisaged a greater charging capacity for the system, and that took the form of four 250w, flexible solar panels. I had them set up at Quartzsite, back in February/March, but wasn’t impressed with how much extra oomph the array provided. This, that, and the other thing kept me from building a support rack and setting the panels up for a more propitious angle, to capture the sun’s energy. It’s a fairly involved process, one I didn't want to tackle for the relatively short stays we had, before getting to Imperial Dam.

I bought some PVC pipe, a bag full of fittings, and fashioned a rack to hold the panels…

Then, I got the panels out of the traveling spot, inside the trailer, and attached them to the rack…

After hooking them into the wiring harness, up on the roof, and knowing there was some issue with the rooftop panels, I hooked the ground array to the system, without the rooftop panels in circuit, and VOILA! We were getting charged! That confirmed there was some issue with the rooftop unit.

A day or two later—when the winds stopped—I got up and began troubleshooting the rooftop array, and found a major problem: one panel had shorted out, and fried its feed cabling! That interrupted the circuit for the remaining 5 panels, rendering them useless. I took the bad panel out of circuit, and for the time being, we're back to having reasonably-powered charging. One problem, sorta solved.

But wait! There’s more!

Thanks to the inability of our current leaders to, ya know, actually lead, we found out that Renee’s ACA-subsidized insurance is nearly doubling. This chucks a bit of a hammer into our travel plans: she will be eligible for Medicare, which will be considerably less-expensive, but…doesn't become eligible till next July.

Recall that part, about solving challenges on the fly?

We will: the plan is, we’ll stay here at Imperial Dam right up to end of LTVA season, which is April 15th, then hustle our way back to the tree row in Oklahoma, where it doesn't cost us a cent to ‘rent’ our spot, until late June/early July, then we can more easily afford to get back on the road.

Would we go back to a sticks-n-bricks? Would we trade our adventures, the new sights, the people, the sunrises and sunsets for all this?

Yours truly, at Kitt Peak!

Guard tower, Yuma Territorial Prison

Cloud Museum, home of more old Fords than I’d ever seen!

Renee, by this precious little church, right in the middle of farm fields near Yuma

Merde, NO! 😋

This song kinda sums it up...

https://youtu.be/soKl1OLsk6s

We’ll seeya along the road!

The Great Maple Syrup Incident….!

 RVing is a sport of many challenges; finding short-term accommodations, not necessarily easy with a rig 63 feet in length; keeping tanks up to snuff, and empty of contents; making sure important housekeeping tasks are done within range of appropriate places to do so (laundry, aforementioned tank service, any mechanical issues that might need periodic attention, groceries, to name but a few), and…making sure stuff stays where it’s supposed to!

Imagine, if you will, towing your home down bumpy roads: All your glassware, all your dishes, all your tschotkes, every dish, every glass, your pills, your razor, your shampoo—you get the drift!—will find the worst place to fall. We thought we’d foresaw most of these future pitfalls..and we did.

Most.

Clothes, normally quite stable on hangers, will leap off their bar, and end up piled on the closet floor. Your neatly arranged medicine cabinet will seem to have been put in a blender, and not-so-gently stirred into a Tetris pile of stuff, ALL of which will fall out when you open the cabinets. Dishes will be disarranged; forks, knives, spoons, all will be blended into a maelstrom of metallic objects, one of which will undoubted keep you from opening the drawer, till you pushitinpullitoutpushitinpullitout, till the offending utensil finally stops laughing at you, and gravity allows it to fall!

Luckily, socks, shorts, and other clothing items, once stowed in a drawer, ride out the rolling, bouncing storm, seemingly unaffected by the road. 

Probably learned to do that in the dryer….

You quickly learn that everything, and I mean E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G, has to be put in small baskets, or bundled together, or stashed in sacks. 

Books much be tightly stacked up, such that there is no wiggle room between the tomes. Ever wonder why pill bottles are often stuffed with cotton? Wonder no more: travel a few thousand miles, with bottles uncottoned, and you will end up with pill powder. Likewise, tools, games, books, DVDs, and food items…more on this, in a bit.

RV refrifgerators have door locks, and you’d think that’d be all you need…you’d be wrong! You have to use what I call, ’squeezy bars” across the shelves.

The two white horizontal bars, holding the milk in: Squeezy bars.

This leads us to…the maple syrup.

Now, we thought we were being pretty clever, minimizing the use of glass containers—for obvious reasons—and so we bought our maple syrup in this nifty little plastic jug, with a snap-on top. Worked fine, for about 17,000 of the 20,000 miles we’ve traveled, this year.

Until it didn’t.

About two weeks ago, we were engaging in what we call “Mission Slideout,” which is exactly as you might think. . Get to the spot we’re staying at, check the level of the trailer (VERY important: slides will not operate unless/until the trailer is balanced side-to-side).

In this instance, we weren't setting up for the night, but just stopping to put some stuff in the fridgeThat requires we open the door, drop down the stairs, and inspect the inside for any—WHAT THE @#$%&! is that???

When I get to the top of the stairs, I see a thick, viscous brown liquid, dripping out the bottom of the fridge, running down, and making a river along the base of the cabinets, and around the cabinet to the stairs to the bedroom. It’s late, we’re tired, and I disgustingly announce we’ll deal with it when we get to the campground.

By the time we got there, most of the liquid had disappeared to places God only knows, under the sills of the cabinets. When we open up the fridge, what had happened was the “RV-approved” fridge had shaken the shelves OFF their ridiculously-tiny ledges, and dumped their contents to the bottom of the fridge. All landed well, nothing broken…except the  nearly-full QUART of maple syrup had turned upside down, and the nifty little snap lid…had become unsnapped.

Maybe about a pint remained in the bottom of the fridge under the rotter drawers (often called, ‘crispers,’ but we know THAT’S a lie), and it was quite thick, being refrigerated. 

Great fun ensued, cleaning it up. a couple of tubs of hot water, an entire roll of paper towels, a few cuss words, and most had been cleaned up.

Except for the n to the unknownth  amount that had drained into the basement…..

That led to me devising a better method to make damn good and sure the shelves don't come off their ridiculously-small ledges. You’d think a refrigerator, used in an RV, would be designed to already have that handy feature.  

You'd be wrong.

And you know what? We STILL love this journey! 

We’ve seen so much, conquered so many challenges, met so many wonderful people, that the occasional spilled syrup, the sometimes-jangled up clothes closet, the shaking of soda as you drive, are small potatoes. 

1st-world problems. 

We have discovered the depths of our love for one another, and grown so accustomed to being in close proximity, almost 24/7, that it’d be hard to imagine the larger confines of a stick-and-bricks.

(PRO TIP: Do NOT open a fizzy drink until your rig has been sitting still for about an hour. You're welcome.)

As we near our wintering grounds of Imperial Dam, nearly a year into this amazing, astounding, challenging, and joyful nomadism…we wouldn't change a thing. Except, put tape over the top of the maple syrup!

Here’s a smattering of places and things we’ve seen!

An emu. In Arizona. On the loose.

The Beast and Harvey

One of thousands of saguaro cacti, around Lake Pleasant

A gorgeous Carefree sunset!

Yrs trly by cacti and elephantii, in Carefree

We hope you enjoy reading this blog, and we will continue to keep all of our fans—all TEN!—up-to-date, for 2026.

A Few Housekeeping bits!

 Just a late note, and apology: I only now got around to moderating comments, but will do so, MUCH more contemportaneously, in the future!

Please leave respectful comments, and I promise to add them!

We are now in our downhill run to our wintering spot, outside Yuma, AZ. I’ll have an updated essay soon. In the meantime, a few happy snaps of some of the gorgeous venues we’ve seen.

Montezuma’s Castle

Jerome, through which I accidentally drove the rig!

Gorgeous Sedona, AZ

Not something you see often, in Arizona...

The rig near Peoria, AZ

Sonoran Sunset and a harvest moon!

Enjoy this beautiful fall!