Time flies when your having... fun?

It has been close to a year since been started fulltime rv'ing in our friends front yard.  From a moving to Texas and becoming oil field gate guards to having to replace the rv unexpectantly in October and the recent birth of our granddaughter Aria, it has been quite the adventure.

Little did we know what challenges awaited, from generator problems to emptying the tanks without making a huge mess. getting sunburnt, freezing temperatures, tire blow outs and the occasional wild animal we have risen to the occasion each and every time.

One of the biggest lessons we have learned is that this lifestyle is definitely not for the weak hearted or the insecure.  This is not a vacation but rather a lifestyle choice, we work just as hard, if not harder than some to be able to enjoy the "perks." 

Another lesson learned was to slow down and enjoy the journey. Society has become so focused on goals and destinations we often forget that the journey itself is part of the adventure and many times we miss out on what happens along the way. We may not move long distances as often as some but in this line of work we move much more often than others.

As we had begin our second year a whole new set of challenges will need to be met.  We hope that the experience we have gained will make these mere speed bumps in our road.

Tablets, Generators and other dis-jointed thoughts.

Tablets.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, sometimes I think its just the opposite.  I usually post to the blog using my Acer Iconia Tab A200 and most of the time it does a wonderful job of doing so.  I have noticed a few issues with it.

Pop-up menus. For the most part are a huge pain. That reason alone is why I don't post more pictures on the blog.

Keyboard interface.  While the on-screen keyboard is larger than one on a phone, its less forgiving.

Status bar sensitivity. This is an operating system issue, Its way to easy to hit it while trying to type and change all kinds of things.

Other than these few issues and a few others it seems to be useful overall.  The Kindle App is awesome. I check Amazon every couple days to see what they have for free (it changes) and download anything that might spark my interest.  I have downloaded a whole bunch of cookbooks, Native American stories, The Art of War and other titles.  If you ever get the chance, check it out.

I am not writing this blog as a review, just my take on how it works for me.


Generators.

When we were placed on our current gate we had a serious issue with the company supplied generator. It seems that the voltage regulator had worked its way loose and fallen into the case and was dancing around in there causing some rather interesting issues with the power being delivered to our coach.  The Progressive Industries EMS PT30C did its job beautifully and cut the power as soon as the issue arose.  A quick call to our service person and a few houra later we were up and running again.

New Coach.

The "new to us" coach is working out beautifully, it is a 1997 Flair by Fleetwood that is 28 feet long.  We figure we have between 11 and 12 more feet of living space than the old one due to us using the sleeper as storage and the dinette as the bed. It also has a 4.0kw backup generator with only 403 hours on it, while the low hours look great, not running a generator can be harmful to it. Luckily, it has been ran recently and starts great.  I'm going to change the oil and plug though just to be safe.

Blogging

It's a funny thing, it sometimes is really difficult to come up with subject matter that a reader may find interesting.  Over the last few days I have re-coated the roof, our grandson visited for a few days and gone kayaking. 

The re-coat of the roof went pretty smoothly for the most part.  I used a product called Henry's Roof Coatings #287 and so far I am pleased with the results.  I saved a little so that I can do a little spot repair after we take the kayaks off the roof.  Not that I've put them up there yet, I'm waiting until we are ready to move the RV to put them up there.  Application is pretty easy, you can just roll it on and it's white so it reflects quite a bit of solar energy.  Which is much better than the black roofing tar that had been used previously to repair problems areas in the past.  While I was applying the coating I decided to remove the old non functioning TV antenna that no longer could be cranked up and down or rotated properly. The cradle it sat in will be used to hold the mast of our cell booster while the RV is under way.  I don't want to make our height requirements much higher than they already are. 

Our grandson's visit went well. Luckily its easy to entertain an almost 3 year old child and he has a real sweet disposition for his grandma.  The dog really enjoys these visits as well because he scores quite a bit of goodies.  We can always tell when he is sneaking stuff to the dog because he giggles when Moe takes it.

Kayaking today was absolutely wonderful. I haven't been able to do it since my hernia surgery and it felt great.  My left elbow started getting pretty sore after a bit, I think I may be developing a little arthritis there.  We paddled between 6 and 7 miles round trip on a place called Burris Ditch on Lake Odessa.  Its really shallow in that area right now so we didn't have to worry about the power boaters. At times we were in no more than 6 - 7 inches of water.  At one point I was screwing around paddling backwards and flipped my kayak.  As soon as I overbalanced I knew it and said to myself "well that was dumb". Luckily the water was only about 3 feet deep and I got it righted before I lost anything out of it. After bailing for awhile we moved myself and the kayak closer to shore so we could empty it of water and hand off some of the cargo I was carrying for our picnic lunch.  I can tell you that a half filled kayak is no fun to maneuver.   After a nice lunch we paddled back to the vehicles. If you have never tried it I highly recommend it.