Due to some new family obligations, our RV wheels haven't been in motion. That means we’ve been doing more RV daydreaming than day tripping.

However, that hasn’t stopped us from getting things in order to make upcoming trips more enjoyable and functional.

When we were fulltimers back in 2002-03, we had one laptop and one cell phone with Sprint service. Back then, we mostly used libraries to access the internet. We eventually upgraded to SnapDialer software that allowed our cell phone to be used as a modem, getting something like a whopping 14.4 kb speed. It was excruciatingly slow. But, with patience, we could access our emails and surf the web.

Our friends used PocketMail to send their emails out. They would type their messages into a little contraption and then take it to a payphone, dial a number and hold it up to the phone and the emails would be sent like magic. I never did figure out how that worked!

My, how things have changed! Mobile technology has improved significantly since then. Being a full timer right now must be so much fun with all the options for communicating.

We’ve been in upgrade mode and have made some new purchases, all with the mobile lifestyle in mind.

1) New laptop

We recently purchased the MSi Wind netbook. Weighing in at only 2.6 lbs, it's an ideal netbook to take on RV trips.



We purchased the one with the 6 cell battery for less than $400 online. The 3 cell battery version is available for under $300, but we liked the idea of a 5+ hour battery life. The MSi Wind comes with a webcam, 160G hard drive, 3 USB ports, 1.6ghz Intel Atom processor. And a big plus, it's on XP.

Oh, and it even came with its own darling little leather laptop carrying case.

The keyboard is just big enough to make typing not just possible, but pleasurable. We tried out the smaller netbooks but had issues with typing. The only strange thing is that the function and control buttons are swapped on the lower left part of the keyboard.

So far, it's been great for checking email, Tweeting, word processing and watching videos online.

And it will be the perfect, mobile laptop for traveling.

2) New phones
We’re on the Sprint network. And while I like the idea of lots of bells and whistles, I don’t normally use everything that a gadget is for, so I ended up going “flashy” and got the Samsung Instinct. I check my emails, take photos and video, listen to music, use the notepad, and, of course, talk on mine. Web surfing is still tricky.

Boy Bird opted for the bells and whistles with the Blackberry Curve 8330. In fact, he’s kind of addicted to it. He takes it everywhere with him and uses it for listening to podcasts, checking email, the news and the weather, putting dates in the calendar, watching pixilated Sprint TV, taking photos and video and sending word documents. He rarely uses it for talking.


One thing we didn’t worry about when it came to these phones was whether they were WIFI enabled. We figured that we could get the phones we really had our eyes on because we got the MSi Wind.

We also upgraded our Sprint Aircard that we use to access the internet on our laptop. Our previous Aircard was two years old, and this one, theoretically, should work better.

Soon, we will get to put these in action. Until then, we’ll get to have fun planning it all!

Longing for the Simple Life

It’s been awhile since we’ve created a new post. Since there were no traveling tales to speak of, I guess you could say that writer’s block set in. Instead, we’ve been spending some time on Twitter, building community. There are so many other travel folks out there leading exciting lives. It’s very inspiring! From U.S. bound RVers to globe trekking travelers, it’s fun to see all the tweets from people around the world.

Watching the news reports on the state of the economy and witnessing our plummeting retirement account makes us long for the days we spent in the desert in Arizona back in 2003. For several months, we boondocked with other RVers out on BLM land. Our cell phones didn’t work, we had no television reception. Just some books, our guitars, our bikes and lots of hiking. Since we had no TV, we really didn’t know what was happening in the rest of the world until we went into town. Also, since we were boondocking, we lived really cheaply. One month we got by on less than 400 dollars. And, we didn't even feel deprived of anything!

I bet there are folks living out on that BLM land right now who are totally unaffected by what is going with the economy. And I’m sure it’s a liberating feeling. We feel secure knowing that if we had to, we could go back to living that way. And it would be just as much of an adventure as it was the first time around.

That’s when we really learned about living green.

Our tiny household mostly ran on one 50 watt solar panel hooked to a house battery. We filled up our 40 gallon holding tank once a week along with about 10-12 gallon jugs of water. The sun heated our water for the most part (except on freaky cold and windy days, then we boiled some water on the propane stove). Meals were planned for an entire week, and we didn’t go over our budget or waste any food. We became very conscious of our resources.

Life was simple then. The exact opposite of the more complex world we have now created for ourselves. We’ve spent the past few years constructing our lives so that we can spend quality time in both worlds. We believe that each has so many positive attributes and we don’t want to be left out of either. Each has its own lifestyle and qualities, attracts certain people. And through having a foot in both worlds, we feel whole, balanced.

So we continue tweaking and adjusting our life and goals to figure out how we can travel on our own schedule while working--but without overworking, so we have time to enjoy our adventures and be able to afford both lives. All the while being mindful of our career goals, to ensure maximum happiness in that world too. Small sacrifices are made on both sides, but we feel that it gets us closer to our happy medium.

As long we keep our wheels moving forward, we’re heading in the right direction.

The Howling Winds

Last year at this time, we were anxiously headed south to Quartzsite. We left on a windy, frigid day and made it to Medford, Oregon where we stayed the night in a rest stop. Luckily, we both got a good night’s sleep. We had no idea that the following day was going to be as stressful as it was. We drove in snowy, icy, treacherous road conditions until we made it to flatter land in Redding, California.

It was then that we decided we never wanted to be that far north in January again.

Well, here we are, another January, and firmly planted. To say that I’m jealous of all the folks who are sitting in some warm, sunny climate right now would be an understatement. I would take even barely warm.

So naturally, we don’t have an abundance of RV tales to share. Except this one. That lovely, sturdy RV cover that we bought back in September at Camping World couldn’t take the winds. In the past few months, there have been many windy days. The RV cover would rip, and we would dutifully patch up the holes. However, this last week the winds blew steadily for seven days. Several of those days boasted 30 plus mph sustained winds with up to 75 mph gusts.

So it was no surprise to us when we woke up one morning to find the RV cover as below.



It was ripped in half with no way of salvaging it. So much for RV covers in this crazy winter climate!

Peaceful Holidays

While many of our friends and family have been spending the holidays at festive gatherings, the Little Snowbirds have been, aghast, snowed in during the worst winter storm that’s hit Portland in 30 years. On the plus side, we’ve had our first white Christmas here. In my last post, I noted how sad our rig looked, all wrapped up like a mummy. It’s now surrounded by almost five foot tall snow drifts.





So what do "literally snowed in" Snowbirds do with all that free time? Why they research all the sunny, warm locations they want to be in. Baja sounds and looks pretty good right now. They also check out what else is going on in the RV world. One of my favorite vacation spots is getting ready to be filled with excitement. All the fun in Quartzsite is getting ready to start next month! Show dates are as follows:

• The 26th annual Quartzsite Sports, Vacation & RV Show is being held from January 17-25.
• The 12th annual Quartzsite Hobby, Craft & Gem Show is being held from January 28 - February 1.
• And let’s not forget the 11th Annual Quartzsite Rock & Roll Classic Car Show is being held from January 31st - February 1st.

Gotta love Quartzsite at this time of year. For more information on the festivities, visit www.quartzsitervshow.com.

Also, I often peruse RV.net. I just found an article recently posted their site regarding one of my favorite subjects, Green RVing! A new study was released that showed RV vacationers left a smaller carbon footprint than traditional vacations. Hurray for us! Visit the RV.Net Blog for more information. Read the article and then make sure to click on the link that will lead you out to the press release posted on the www.RVIA.com website.

Also, I like to visit other RV peeps blogs to find out what they are up to. I have a list of a few of the ones we follow to the right.

The Joys of Winterizing

We began to winterize the rig while at the RV Park, but there were still a few chores left. We still needed to wash the exterior before we put the cover on. Well, our week got busy, but two days ago we made a break in our schedule in order to finish the job. The forecast called for sun and temperatures in the 50s.

Well, there was no sign of sun, but the weather held out, so we still chose to proceed. We began cleaning the outside of the rig, but our pressure washer was being temperamental. In an effort to get the job done quickly, we drove up to the closest car wash and spent $10 in the wash bay. Driving it home helped it air dry and we anxiously pulled up to the side of the house to do the last chore--get the cover on. The only issue was a steady 18 mph wind with 27 mph gusts occurring at regular intervals.

Ever tried to put an RV cover on in the wind? It’s not fun. Trust me.

While Boy Bird climbed on top of the rig to pull the cover towards the front, I stayed below, doing my best to guide the cover up, keep it from hitting the neighbor’s truck and getting ripped on the fence. As I stood below, surrounded in the billowing silver fabric, I realized it was a lost cause. I moved to the back of the RV to move the fabric from getting caught on the ladder when Boy Bird, who was still on top, yelled down for me to get the cover off of the fence.

As I tried to walk over to remedy the situation, I discovered my feet were caught in the fabric. I couldn’t move forward without hopping. After hopping twice to the fence, and releasing the fabric before it caused any major damage, I yelled up that we would have to give it up.

This frustrating experience created one of those lovely RV moments that we all like to forget. You know the kind. We used to get them often when it was late, and we were tired, and we had to pull into a campsite late at night and set up when tempers were flaring.

This time, tempers were flaring because our window of opportunity to finish this task was supposedly very small. The weather report called for rain for the next several days.

The fence did end up ripping our cover in three places. My only regret is there are no photos documenting this experience. I wish I had been in the right mind to take some photos of that experience.

Today though, our luck changed. With no wind, and only slight remnants of the rain, we were able to put the cover on. It’s a sad sight really, our rig all wrapped up like a mummy on the side of the house.

Urban RV Staycation

OK, so we planned to head to a state park, but instead decided on more of an urban RV escape. We ended up at the Jantzen Beach RV Park located just north of downtown Portland off Interstate I-5.



Jantzen Beach is home to the Jantzen Beach SuperCenter and a large shopping complex with stores like Best Buy, The Home Depot, Old Navy, Pier One Imports, and Circuit City, to name a few. It also has a few restaurants to choose from. We packed a little food, some toiletries and a few clothes, hopped in the rig early on Friday to beat the rush hour traffic and were set up in our site before 3 p.m.

The park is located on the Columbia River with views of Vancouver, Washington and Mount Hood.



It’s in a prime location as it is close to all the above mentioned food and shopping, plus, it’s just a short trip to either Portland or Vancouver. It’s also a great place for airplane sightings as planes pass overhead all day long and well into the night.

The park boasts several outdoor pools which were closed for the season. There was also a small fitness center…



And small recreation room with a pool and ping pong table.



The RV spaces are large, and vary between really shady sites and full sun sites. Each site includes full hookups and cable.



Another perk could have been the free WIFI access at each site; however, the NomadISP.com WIFI service has not been reliable. I was able to access it yesterday for about 20 minutes, and then started getting booted off, and then was unable to connect at all. I’ve done all the suggested troubleshooting techniques and still have been unable to connect again today although it says I’m connected to their network.

Thank goodness for our backup Sprint Aircard. We’ve had many problems in the past while vacationing and having spotty access to WIFI at RV Parks and hotels where we’ve stayed. That’s why we’re afraid to rely solely on that. We’re still in research mode for internet satellite and will report back on that at some point.

In the meantime, we’ve been enjoying our stay, the weather has been sunny and in the mid 50’s. Tomorrow we will begin to winterize the rig. That’s going to be sad.

For two nights, the fee for our stay was $54 with a Good Sam discount. Oh, and our Sprint phones and Aircard worked perfectly. For more information visit JantzenBeachRV.com.

A Break in the Weather

We’re looking at a busy week ahead of us. It actually started yesterday with a calendar full of classes, meetings, project fulfillments, working out and just your basic life busyness. So, we were excited to discover that this weekend is going to be sunny! Just when we thought we might have to give up hope on squeezing one more trip in before winterizing the rig, we’re now excitedly planning a mini-escape. Now we just have to decide where to go. Perhaps to one of the campgrounds nearby in the Columbia River Gorge? Or perhaps we could check out Silver Falls State Park which is south of Portland (although, their RV sites tend to fill up quickly on nice weekends). Maybe we could trek out to the beach again. The sky is the limit.

One thing that we have to make sure of though, is that wherever we go, there needs to be an RV dump station. Our backup station is no longer available. We recently discovered the Camping World in Troutdale, Oregon no longer provides a free RV dump station. Rumor has it that the dump station kept getting clogged up and it took a lot of money to fix the clogs, so they just decided not to offer it anymore. That sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. What would really suck is if the Super Wal-Mart center in Wood Village, Oregon quit allowing overnight RV parking. We’ve noticed that some of the same rigs overstay their welcome all too often in that parking lot. We also know that all it takes are a few folks taking advantage of a good thing to ruin it for everybody. I checked out www.allstays.com and noticed there are quite a few Wal-Marts in Oregon that don’t allow overnight parking.

Although we absolutely LOVE staying the night at Wal-Mart (talk about an adventure), we will still plan to stay at one of our beloved Oregon State Parks. Stay tuned to find out just where we chose to escape to!