It was really cold last night......the bad news is 40 degrees in not really that cold, but I'm from Southern California where we put on ski jackets when it gets that cold...LOL! It will be much colder than that in the next few days as we wend our way northwest from our current location of South Jordan, UT (about 10 miles south of Salt Lake City). The temps will dip to under 30 tonight, so I am plugged in at my brother's (Dwyer) house and the water bay electric heater is turned on.

But I get to far ahead of myself.....we awoke in St. George, UT this morning around 6am.....I jumped out of bed, hit the generator switch (we have 3 of them, and one is in the bedroom) and then turned on all 5 heaters (2 electric, and 3 gas furnaces) plus the block heater. It took about 10 minutes for the coach to warm up enough to get out of the covers and get dressed....what wimps we are!

Since we right behind the Cracker Barrel we went in for breakfast....they have the best coffee! I had oatmeal, bacon and a big blueberry muffin.

We left St. George in our rear view mirror just before 8am, and continued north on I-15.....what a beautiful day (the picture above was taken about 100 miles south of where we are right now). We started out with the chassis heater up front on high, but I was not getting warm enough so I turned on the defoggers, and the defrost (don't ask what the difference is, but I have 3 different switches for these defrosters/defoggers), and I was just comfortable. When we stopped for coffee about 190 miles into the day I discovered the bathroom, and shower ceiling vents where open and that was why it never got warm inside. Once those were closed I stayed warm with just the chassis heater on......doh!

We arrived in South Jordan around 2pm, and are have a blast catching up with my brother and his wife. We'll hit the road again the morning headed for Idaho Falls. Tom McCloud, a Newell friend from Mesa, AZ has recommended an RV park there owned by a neighbor of his near the Snake River!

St. George here we come.....

We got out of town around 10:40am.....hadn't planned on leaving until around Noon....so we've go that going for us! The weather has been wonderful for the first 350 miles. We just took our time.....had lunch at the In 'n Out Burger in Barstow. We jumped off I-15 in Vegas to fuel up at the local Rebel Gas Station, which had the best price we will see the rest of the trip at $2.65/gallon. The stretch of I-15 between Las Vegas and St. George is really some of the nicest Interstate I have driven on. All of the construction that was in progess the last time we came through Las Vegas in June of 2008 is done, and we were the beneficiaries of that work!

Right now we are parked behind the Cracker Barrel for the night. Elaine whipped up some beef barley soup and a couple pieces of squaw bread toast for me.....she's not hungry. I'm chasing the soup with a bottle of Black Butte beer. The temps were in the 60's most of the way, and right now ayt 6:50pm it's around 50 degrees and dropping.

So far our adventure has been uneventful, which is what we prefer. We will be in South Jordan, UT tomorrow afternoon at my brother's home...about 290 miles from our current location.

See a video of the first four days on the road!

The Countdown.......

In about 26 hours we will point our Newell northbound on Interstate 15 for our longest trip (time wise) to date. We will be gone exactly 3 weeks (November 20th to December 11th). The first 1400 miles we will cover in 5 days.....not exactly the Indy 500, but certainly more miles per day than I like to cover in that short a period of time. After that the final 2200 miles of our trip we will take in very small bites....a 50-100 miles at a time over a 2 week span.

I don't know about "you", but 3, or 4 days before departure on a long trip such as this I awake around 3am thinking about the adventure that awaits. I wonder what mechanical issues may challenge us, what new places await exploration, and what interesting people we will cross paths with. We have made no reservations. The first leg of our trip will find us dry camping at Flying J's, or Cracker Barrels, with an occasional courtesy parking arrangement (including an electrical umbilical cord) at the homes of friends, relatives, and acquaintances in Utah, Montana, and Washington.

No trip ever goes "as planned". Most of the time the twists and turns are minor deflections from the "general plan", but sometimes a trip can take on the appearance of a clown car with wheels, bumpers, and doors exploding off the vehicle. There is one memorable trip we took with 2 other couples many years ago to Lake Tahoe for a week of camping. Two of us towed tent trailers, and one couple towed their Hobie Cat. We dreamed of days of sailing on the lake, sitting on the beach reading, swimming, and nights by the campfire. Since two of the couples (us being one) had young children, we came up with the grand idea of leaving at midnight, arriving at the campground late the next morning with the kids having slept most of the way. We wouldn't hear the plaintive query "Are we almost there yet?", or the desperate "I have to go to the bathroom", or the annoyed "he's touching me!!" coming from the nether regions of the mini-van. HOWEVER, before we even left our street my friend with the Suburban had a minor electrical issue, which took about 15 minutes to solve. We departed around 12:15am. Before we even hit the 40 mile mark my friend with the Suburban called out over the CB channel...."I have a flat"....we pulled over and quickly changed the flat....another 30 minutes lost. Before we hit the 90 mile mark the CB crackled again...."I have another flat" said my Suburban friend.....the tread on a second tire had now separated.....we were about 10 miles from Kramer Junction which basically consists of 4 gas stations and truck stop that were all open 24/7. Since the spare had just been used a 40 miles earlier my other friend (towing the Hobie Cat) offered to drive Suburban friend down to Kramer Junction to see if they could find a couple of tires at 2am in the morning.....we sat there for several hours watching the twinkling lights of Kramer Junction in the distance....I dozed off for what seemed to be a short time, awakening suddenly to the rising sun! We should have been near our breakfast stop, and here we were less than 90 miles into a 500 mile slog....uugghh! The tale of the tire acquisition is another story for another time....that is really quite hilarious, even 15 years after the fact. To make a very long story a little shorter my Suburban friend ended up replacing all 4 tires during the course of the entire trip, as well as both tires on the tent trailer, and as we approached his home in Fontana the spare tire on the trailer fell off! We arrived at the campround at 5pm.....an 11 hour trip turned into a 17 hour nightmare. Our first day on the beach was marred by a tremendous hail storm, the melting ice in my trailer ice box overflowed and got all of MY clothes wet, which were hanging out drying while we were at the beach in the hail storm, which meant all my clothes were still wet when we returned to camp. The wind died for 4 days, so almost NO sailing, and our firewood never quite dried out, so our campfires were very smokey. The memories of uneventful vacations eventually all blend together, while the memories of vacations where the "wheels" come off are still vivid years later.

Well, we will head into the still as yet uknown adventures that lie before us, whose stories are yet to be written, full of anticipation, excitement, and wonderment as to what twists and turns will come into view over each new horizon.

User Groups

A number of years ago, the early 90's, the insurance brokerage I worked for purchased an "agency management system". We put computers on everyone's desk and networked them together forming a LAN (local area network). Well, "we" didn't network them, we hired a guy who "knew" about this stuff, and he did the work, and we paid him, and paid him, and paid him....for several years. A by product of this new software was that we were invited to join a users group. The user group was made up of other insurance agents who were trying their best to figure out how to use this expensive software for more than advance word processing. I was volunteered to be our agency's representative, and to be the system manager for our office. My qualification, you ask? I had actually seen a computer before....LOL! I attended the first user group meeting reluctantly thinking it would be a waste of time. To my surprise I met a lot of interesting people, some of whom became friends. We learned a lot from each other about our system. We met quarterly down near the Long Beach Airport. Each member was assigned a topic to make a presentation out of for the next get together. In hind sight it is obvious that this user group created a sort of accountability for each of us to learn to use the software to its maximum capacity.

Fast forward to 2008........when I purchased my 1982 Newell I decided to join another users group called Newellclassic.com. By becoming involved on the website, and taking time to meet members when possible my learning curve has been shortened considerably. I still learn new things about about my Newell and its many systems almost daily through this amazing users group. In addition to the knowledge gained, Elaine and I have made some really good friends thorugh this users group....people we would like regardless of the common bond of Newell ownership.

Users groups aren't for everyone.......well, let me restate that....user groups are for everyone, but not everyone wants to be bothered with joining, or participating in a users group. Frankly, I like the people who do take the time to join. After all, it is the people that make the RV lifestyle so rewarding, and enjoyable.

So, here is my unsolicited advice......regardless of what kind of RV you own, find a users group that meets your needs. It may be a large umbrella group such as Good Sam, or Family Motor Coach Association, or a regional group, or a specific group dedicated to the particular manufacturer of your RV. The thing is, JOIN....you will make friends who will add to the texture, and richness of the new lifestyle you are pursuing!

Recession Proof?

I've been in the insurance business as an independent agent/broker for 38 years. Specifically in the "Property and Casualty" end of the business. In all those years my business has been pretty much recession proof. Well, with this current recession/depression that has changed. The suddeness, and severity of this down turn caught a number of my commercial busines owners by surprise, and they were unable to adjust quickly enough. As a result, they have gone out of business, and, consequently, I have lost that income. It's not serious....maybe about a 10% reduction this year. A lot of that disposable income I enjoyed disposing has evaporated.

Another consequence of the recession/depression is that a good portion of that equity on paper I had in my home.....equity I was expecting to be there in a couple of years when we retire.....is gone. We hope it's not gone forever, and that we will recover some of it as the economy and property values begin to rebound in the next 2 years, but who knows. I know our Federal Government doesn't know.....they haven't got a clue. They have flushed a couple of trillion greenbacks down the proverbial drain, and are talking about another $2, or $3 trillion to help us save money on our healthcare.

At any rate, we're being more cautious about spending and I'm working a little harder. Fortunately, my IRA has been in a straight interest bearing account for the past few years.....I decided it was time to be cautious a few years ago, and that was a good decision. When I switched it over I was a little unhappy with the guaranteed interest offered at that time, but now I am really happy I did it. Compared to what banks are paying on savings accounts right now my guaranteed rate is looking pretty good!

The good news is that we are still on track to simplify our lives dramatically in less than two years from today! We are starting to divest ourselves of a lot of "stuff", and feeling more free by the day.

Which route do we take?

We've been planning one of our "long" trips for the better part of a year ever since we found out my sister and her family were moving to Spokane, WA. She invited all of the family to meet at their new home in Spokane for Thanksgiving 2009. We jumped at the opportunity to take a long trip in the Newell, and to do a couple of weeks of exploring after Thanksgiving of some areas we have not yet seen, including the Olympic Penninsula. As the time for departure has come into view it has occurred to me, and Elaine that the weather may have an impact on our trip plans. After all, this is the Pacific Northwest, which is known for a lot of rain and snow in late November, early December. Our route to Spokane was originally to hop on Interstate 15 (less than a mile from our home) and head north through Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, continuing north through a corner of Idaho, into Montana where we would pick up Interstate 90 near Butte, MT and head west to Spokane. Well......it has been snowing/raining on and off for the past 10 days from Butte to Missoula, with low's into the 20's some nights, and highs in the high 30's to 40's during the day. While I do not "fear" the cold, I'm not going to deliberately head into freezing temperatures, and snow, so now we are contemplating taking Interstate 84 northeast out of Salt Lake City thru Boise, Idaho through southeast Washington to Spokane where the temperature and weather forecasts are much more moderate with lows in the mid to high 30's and daily temps in the high 50's....still cold, but more pleasant to contemplate.

One of the complicating factors is that there is a Newell owner (Jennifer Stackpole) living in Missoula, MT, along our original route, and we would like to stop and visit with her and see her Newell Classic...I think it's a 1988. It appears that Missoula is at a lower elevation (some where in the 3,000' range) and should have a little more moderate weather than say Butte, or other towns east of Missoula on Interstate 90. So, what route we ultimately follow will be determined closer to our departure date depending on current and projected weather conditions.

The route home will have to be made up as we go depending on current weather, and forecasts. I hope we can follow Highway 1 down through the Olympic Peninsula into Astoria, OR, but we will not know how that will work until it's time to leave Spokane.

Wishing we were already fulltiming

It's Thursday morning, and I sit here reading online journals of people who have escaped the gravitational pull of the work week world, and are living and travelling fulltime in their RV's. Elaine and I are a little less than 2 years away from realizing our dream to do the same. We've spent countless evening hours sitting by our outdoor fireplace planning, and talking about fulltiming.

Six years ago we were not evening thinking in these terms. We had not owned an RV for 23 years, and our only camping experience during those 23 years was tent camping. When we travelled to our favorite vacation destinations we stayed in timeshares. We have owned a timeshare week in Palm Desert, CA for about 23 years that we have transferred that week to many other places such as Kau'ai, June Lake, Lake Tahoe, Washington, etc. In the Spring of 2002 my son and his wife had purchased their first travel trailer. He and I share an insurance brokerage office together, and he would come into the office every few weeks telling me about their latest weekend trip in their trailer. We owned a 26 foot Columbia sailboat at the time, and had owned it for 11 years at that point. That sailboat was our weekend getaway, but it was always in the same marina. The idea of being able to go anywhere we wished began to appeal to us more and more, and a year later Elaine and I purchased our first motorhome, a 1987 Fleetwood Tioga 26' Class C on a Ford E350 chassis. It needed a lot of work, but we bought it with that knowledge. Over the next 4 years we travelled all over California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington taking several 2-3 week trips per year. We just completely fell in love with the RV life. Ultimately we decided that the Tioga was not big enough to live in full time and began to talk about what our next motorhome would be.

About 3 years ago our son, who owned the travel trailer, bought a Fleetwood Expedition diesel pusher with 4 slides, which he still owns to this day. We love his motorhome, but buying something like that would require us to take out a loan, but we didn't want to add a monthly payment to our budget. We wanted to buy something for which we could pay cash. Based on our price range we felt we could afford a 10-12 year old diesel pusher, so we began to look in ernest for something in that price range.

We spent a day at the 2008 RV Show at the L.A. Fairgrounds in Pomona looking at the various manufacturers to get an idea of who was making the kind of coach we wanted. We liked Country Coach, Monaco, and Safarai, so we began looking at used coaches made by those manufacturers. These coaches look great new, but after about 10-12 years they begin to look pretty threadbare. In most cases the wood cabinets, flooring needed refinishing. The upholstery was worn out. Quite by accident I stumbled across a 1982 Newell on Craigslist in the Palm Springs area. It was way older than I wanted, but the pictures really caught our "eye". We were planning on attending a wedding that weekend in the Palm Springs area,(February 2008) so made an appointment with the owner to "just take a look". I had never heard of the Newell brand before, but found a few articles on the web about the founder, and an owners forum that impressed me.


Well, stopped by the storage facility where Fred Hornbacher, the "current owner" stored it, and he proceeded to give Elaine and I an hour and a half tour of the coach inside and out. Well, as I have written elsewhere on this blog, we bought that 1982 Newell 36' coach, and have never looked back. The picture at the right is the exact picture used in the Craigslist ad.

We now spend time trying to divest ourselves of a lot of "stuff" that we don't need. I have been selling some of my bike "stuff" on Ebay, and have made some good money getting rid of the excess stuff. We will eventually tackle the stuff in the attic that has not seen the light of day for 10 years and get rid of "it". It's a long process, and even though I have made the adjustment in my mind to living in a smaller space, and living more simply, the actual execution of that will be a little more difficult, but we will get there. I am blessed being married to someone who is very flexible, and willing, no wanting to live more simply, so we will each have the other to cheer us on toward the finish line. Really, the finish line will the the starting line for our new mobile, simplified life on the road. I can hardly wait.