Mother guilt

The middle of the night is mother guilt time. Phoebe caught Greg’s cold and the night was pretty horrid. She struggles against sleep, won’t let Greg touch her (if he does, she throws up crying so hard) and all she wants are na-na’s (breast milk.). To top it all off, it is freezing in here. The RV only came with one battery and it just isn’t enough to run the furnace all night. In fact, after a couple days of trying to run it intermittently, the battery is hardly holding a charge. We tried not to let it go below 50% charge, but the furnace is just is too much for the thing. Mom guilt runs strong with a sick child and cold room. I want to tuck her all up and keep her warm and hydrated, and she will hardly even keep covers on. Another thing that’s been bothering me is how much Phoebe missed bath time. She goes to the door and says bubbles, bubbles. Things like that make me think that this is Greg and my fantasy—not necessarily hers. But then I wonder—isn’t it better to have mom around all the time than have daily bath time?

I started to wonder if it was a mistake—bringing her into this—far from heat, far from medical help. Ok—this is midnight talk—the fact is, it won’t always be cold and the med center is almost as close as home—just that 911 doesn’t work.

We went into town and bought a couple new batteries—no point in plugging in a better quality new one to the old, crappy one. That fix solved part of the problem--we are warmer, but it was just the start of fun battery issues....

On the Road

I feel like we have finally started our new life. We left Stockton yesterday and headed south. Each day seems to bring new lessons in RVing--you certainly don't learn all there is to know sitting at one park hooked up ;) I'm sure we'll still be learning years from now.

When we left Stockton, we didn't know how far we would want to go in one day. We haven't gone on any long drives with Phoebe in awhile. I had a nice Christmas surprise in that my new laptop arrived on the 24th! Dell had emailed to say the delivery was delayed, so getting it early was my Christmas present. Unfortunately, I hadn't ordered an AC adaptor, so dreams of letting Phoebe watch a DVD or two for entertainment looked out of reach. But we finally clued into the fact that we aren't on a schedule and stopped in at Good Guys for a power inverter/surge protector for the truck. Presto--instant-entertainment in the form of a 17' screen movie player. Not so entertaining for the parents though--all we have that Phoebe really likes is Finding Nemo.

Highway 5 is much bumpier than I remember it. Of course, you notice the bumps more when you are wondering if you packed and secured everything properly in the back. The result--I did great except that I didn't realize how much stuff would fall off the back bunk. I mostly put stuffed animals up there, but also left Phoebe's potty chair and I'm lucky it didn't break out the rear window. The back room looked like a bomb went off, stuffed animal bodies everywhere. Greg almost got brained by cups in the kitchen cupboard, forgetting to guard his head when "opening the overhead compartments" (things may shift in flight, you know.)

We made it to a small town called Boron along Hwy 58 in southern CA. There is a nice little RV park that is only $15/night with full hook ups, right off the road and nice drive-though graveled pads. Funny--years of traveling down this way and I never noticed even one RV park--now I notice them constantly!

Christmas with family was very nice--Phoebe had such a great time being the center of attention. At one point during Christmas dinner, she was entertaining everyone by racing around the room from person to person asking for what she wanted off their plates. No sense trying to rein in that toddler energy by sitting down and eating I guess!

toilet troubles

Let me be the 10th to tell you--RV toilets clog easily and there is nothing more fun than unclogging it on Christmas Eve...he he...well, more fun than watching your husband and father-in-law get it unclogged.

Our toilet clogged up and we noticed it Christmas Eve morning. The nice thing about being parked next to RV experienced family is that they are available with helpful advice. The fact that the initial advice involved poking sticks and hoses down the thing surprised me (plungers don't work aparently), but hey...this is all new to me.

In the end, we learned we weren't using enough water...trying to conserve too much. RV black tanks need water to wash everything down.

water water water

When you live in a house, you take little things like water draining into the sink and “disappearing” for granted. The water goes down that hole and for the most part, you never have to think about it again. That doesn’t hold true for folks living in an RV. That water going into the drain isn’t even where thinking about the water begins.

First, you have to know whether that water is coming in—in what quality, quantity, and what manner (main tank? Bypassing the tank?). Some places we stay have a ‘city water’ or other hook up. That hook up bypasses the fresh water tank and goes right to the tap—sort of like the water to your home. The quality varies—though honestly all of it is supposedly ‘potable’ and covered by whatever local agency regulates the water quality. [Side humorous note: Greg and I were surprised when staying at the last place that the fresh tank wasn’t filling when we were hooked up to a constant water supply—I had this vague idea that the water came in, filled the tank then the excess was pressurized water to your system. Come to find out—there is an entirely different inlet into your fresh tank—we had been plugging into the ‘city water’ inlet before. Only luck that our tanks were full before Burning Man because he tried to fill through the city inlet! Though truth be told—we would have figured it out when checking the tank level inside and had to read the manual then. Read the manual! (heard that before?)] We have a sediment filter on the water coming in just in case and a high tech water filter (Nature PureÒ, www.generalecology.com) installed for drinking water at the tap (another day I’ll post the links about bottled water—it ain’t as great as you think!).

Once that water is IN your RV, it has to go someplace when you let the water run or flush the toilet. Our RV has 3 tanks—galley, grey, and black. Some just have two—black and grey. Grey is the water from your kitchen sink, shower, and other sinks. It has the food particles, soap, etc. Black is the yucky stuff from the toilet. Obviously, these tanks have limited capacity. Many RV parks have sewer hook ups—when you are hooked up, again its like a house—all the tanks drain all the time into the ‘sewer’. But places like the Moose Lodge where we are now have only electric and fresh water—no drainage. So you have to spend a lot of thought thinking about what is going into those tanks lest you fill up before you need to leave the park.

We are not entirely new to water conservation, but backpacking you can just dump that grey water into the woods and dig a hole for the poop. Both of us are already longing to be where it is warmer and neighbors not so close so we can just take showers outside (our RV has an outdoor shower, but even without it is simple to set up an outdoor shower system). We haven’t done too badly so far—4 days in and our tanks are all registering at 1/3 full. Visiting a friend last night though I realized how quickly I dropped into conservation mode and what a luxury to let water run and run!

"Attractive Diseases"

I was reading an article in the newspaper this morning and the author referred to colds as an "attractive disease." The context he used the term in meant that when you are stressed, you are attractive to illnesses like colds and will tend to get them, but since I'm in the throws of a cold, I still couldn't help but think its a silly term for a cold--there is nothing attractive about having one.

Having one or more people ill in a small living space makes avoiding spreading the cold all but impossible. Greg manages to not get my colds normally by sleeping in another room and staying away from me. The double-combo of small space and taking care of a sick baby makes it all but inevitable that he'll succumb eventually. Phoebe’s been ill for 3 days, me since last Friday. It was looking like perhaps Greg was going to luck out, but he complained about a sore throat this morning. Poor guy.

Poor Phoebe last night had such a hard time getting to sleep. She wouldn’t take a nap so she was so tired. She couldn’t settle down and ended up just crying and crying. I hope she’s not getting an ear infection. I’ll just have to watch for the signs and see how it goes.

I only have two more days left of work! I will come in next week for a short meeting, but we are going ahead and moving down to Stockton this weekend. It is finally happening!

Nosy Neighbors

One thing I’ve realized already about living in close spaces is that the human need to be nosy comes to the forefront. Living in the suburbs of Sacramento tucked into large houses, you don’t see and hear as much of what goes on in the neighborhood. Contrasted with being parked 15 feet from your neighbor! Without TV, entertainment is outside your windows. Since moving into the park, Greg has met all the longer-term neighbors and the marina staff. When I get home early enough, I always find him out chatting with someone. We know why the neighbor’s dog is named Sherwood, that the next door folks have a house in Trinity, and how long D has been working at the marina…I’m sure they know I’m still working and all about Phoebe!

There was the not-so-nice news too that there was a car accident down the road—a car drove right off the levee road into the river and they haven’t found the bodies yet. Horrible.

I sat at the window this morning crocheting and drinking my coffee and our conversation was all about the short-time folks that had the ‘bad’ spot. The park we are in has about 8 full-hook ups and a short row of three spaces with just electric. People move right out of the electric-only spaces. I had to laugh reflecting on the conversation—since when are Greg and I so concerned about other people’s business?

It is so much fun though, to meet new people and always have something new going on. I look forward to being fodder for the talk of our own nosy neighbors down the road.

hot water anyone?

The little things...we figured out what the problem was with the hot water--we hadn't left it on long enough. This after posting and reading info, finding out all sorts of information about by-pass valves and reading the owners manual and so forth. And they still don't tell you the important things like--how long does it need to heat up? do you leave it on all the time?

We were turning it on and off until Greg had an unfortionate experience with the water turning cold in the middle of his shower in which Phoebe had jumped in with him. The water turned cold, she started screaming and Greg was left with a screaming baby covered in soap, covered in soap himself.

Besides, an Escapees forum member informed me that using the water heater full time costs about $2-3 more every two months or so. Not worth cold showers.

We can take nice hot showers now!

First weekend

Ahh, it is so nice to be in our new home. We are staying in a small park by the Sacramento River, not very fancy, but it has full hook ups and a nice view. We spent our first weekend trying to make some semblance of order out of the space inside. Quick packing and throwing things in at the last minute do not make for comfy livable space when you have a 30ft long home. I finally unearthed the kitchen enough to allow us to make our coffee in the morning--a must for me--and cook some meals.

I don't think I truly comprehended how small that little oven is--even my cookie sheet will not fit in the oven! Off to storage with you cookie sheet! I spent hours decided what cooking gear should be readily accessible (cast iron skillet, 9x9 stoneware casserole dish, small casserole dish, various water boiling/ soup pots, teapot and percolator) and what should be stowed under the kitchen bench (blender, griddle, crock-pot). I found the limited space for dry goods makes it necessary to both reduce the amount of excess stuff stored and have a small storage area for extra stuff under the kitchen bench.

Canned goods--A couple months ago I pulled out every canned item we had in our pantry and set it on the counter. Do you realize how much crap that will never be used ends up stored in your pantry?? I separated into immediate donation and "to-be-used-within-the-month". We were very inventive with our cuisine for awhile as we used things up. I ended up with one small drawer full of cans for the RV and most were bought within a week of leaving, not leftovers. I didn't grow up in the depression, so why do I store food away like I'm awaiting a natural disaster? Part of it I attribute to pure laziness in not cleaning out my cupboards and just re-buying things I didn't realize I already have. I think I must have picked up some of my mother's need to have lots of food squirreled away for lean times though.

We tried taking showers in the RV parking lot and, though it was nice to have hot, long showers, the water smells. Gotta love adventure to live this live-style. I must admit to some thrill of satisfaction as I crossed back over to the RV from the shower house, tucked up in my thick, warm robe. Walking back felt so fun--like a reminder of old camping trips and vacations. I like the thought that the next year to two years will be full of constant change, new-ness and trying out new facilities--or taking cold showers outside, or basking in hot springs.

Oh--remember to take along "shower shoes" (flip-flops)--you don't need exposure to foot fungus from strange showers ;)

mail service established

I ended up setting up mail service in the same town as my old house. We were just so busy trying to get out of hte house and I had to have some place to give as a forwarding address...

NOTE--don't wait until the last minute! lol--like you don't know that.

The good news is that Alternative Resources (http://www.alternativeresources.net/) and Escapees mail service (www.escapees.com) aren't the only games in town. I ended up using a small mail center called AIM Mail Centers and got a mail box. They also were more than willing to provide forwarding services--and would customize it as needed. They will fed ex, UPS, or just reg mail at whatever interval we request for just the cost of our box and postage. We'll see how long that lasts though! I like that it gives us an address in our old home town for awhile so I won't have residency issues for health insurance and so forth. I'm not quite ready to change residency.

On the Road

Escrow has closed, the house transfer recorded and we pulled out of our driveway in our new home Wednesday morning. We thought we were prepared and had done a lot to make the transition smooth, but we underestimated how much more challenging it is to move into an RV and small storage unit than an apartment or another house. None of that 'throw it into random boxes and sort it later' stuff. You have to make it fit or you don't move it. To top 6 solid days of packing, sorting and cleaning, on the second to last load, Greg threw a box into the bed of the truck and it tipped and launched a piece of stone into the back window of our truck, shattering the window.

With the window broken, we could haul, but not take the baby with us in the truck (somehow all that glass over her head would have made me nervous.) Greg took a load to the dump, then the truck was grounded while an autoglass company came and fixed the window. Then no moving the truck until morning to let it "set". Luckily, our buyers were understanding. I was especially thankful when an hour later, Phoebe cut her toe and was bleeding everywhere and, understandably, crying her heart out.

But finally--we are on the road! Sort of. We are parked near by work. I will be working for the next two weeks still before we head out. Things are going smoothly thus far. We can't cook in our home yet because so much stuff is stacked there. My wonderful organiser spouse has cleared the bathroom, bedrooms and kitchen table, but you can only do so much while watching a toddler.

This morning was our first try at using the shower. Though we've taken trips before in the rig, we were boondocking, so no shower. Let me say...it was COLD. the water did warm...slightly. The www.rv.net/forum came to the rescue with some suggestions--try checking the bypass valve, make sure the outside shower taps are off, check to see if there is a thermostat. Great...now we just need to figure out where the water heater IS and we'll try and implement some of those suggestions!