RV Travel Life - The First Few Weeks

A travel update seems appropriate since we've been on the road a few weeks now.

Things that have happened while traveling thus far: 

1) Our windshield wipers stopped working while we were driving down the highway in the rain. (This had happened previously in the rain in the dark and we paid someone to fix them. But.)

2) The lower part of our passenger side mirror flew off on the highway. In a 40' RV you REALLY rely on the mirrors to drive.

3) We discovered our radiator hose was cracked and paid a guy to fix it. (Thank the goddess there are lots of traveling RV repair people, and the RV parks usually have a relationship with someone they can recommend. Also, our radiator needs replacing. So that's going to be fun to pay for. 

4) When pulling into the RV park a kiddo was asking us to blow the horn. We tried and discovered it didn't work. Something to do with the same issue as the wipers, perhaps? 

5) I-5 between Vacaville and Watsonville, CA is so jacked and raggedy that our curtain rod literally bounced out of its holder and fell onto the floor while we were driving. Several other things bounced out of place as well. We must have gotten spoiled by those smooth Oregon highways?

6) I had a strep flare-up while in our first park, which we liked so much it wasn't the worst place to be. I called upon my intuitive practitioner, Carolyn, who works with Anthony, the Medical Medium, and she had me up my sovereign silver, zinc, Vitamin C, lysine and drink copious amounts of honey lemon ginger tea, and it knocked it right out. 

Things that have been a delightful surprise thus far: 

Right now we've been driving through California during their off season for camping. This means it's been delightfully easy to find accommodations for us - well, as easy as researching on the internet (using rvparkreviews.com) where the decent places are, then booking, usually via the internet but sometimes via phone. 

The parks have also been accommodating about receiving packages and us changing our dates. In Weed, CA, we just got there too late to get any decent weather. It was cold, and we have not winterized our RV for cold. We were planning on staying a week, then maybe 4 days, and once we were there we left after a night - it was just way too cold for us to be comfortable, even with the extra space heater the office mamager lent us. We ended up paying for two nights, but because of their written policies it could have been for the whole week we'd have had to pay. Off season plus kind humans made that compromise, which we felt was fair and reasonable. 

We've gotten a Good Sam discount at every park we've stayed in thus far. Except the KOAs, which give a KOA discount. Both memberships pay for themselves after about 3 mights camping. Worth it. We do know about Thousand Trails, but we're  not sure we want to make that investment yet, and I haven't really seen TT parks in many of the locations we've been in. And when I have, the ratings on rvparkreviews.com are usually pretty low. 

The campground we're in now is a KOA and they have been most accommodating. Firstly, off season means we have everything to ourselves pretty much. For the first day or two there were a couple of other families here with us, but they've gone now and we own this place. There are long-term renters here somewhere, but they're nowhere close to us since we're in the playground area - and this park is huge. I'm sure we'll get more folks come the weekend, but right now it's ours.

They've been great at notifying us about everything. Off season also means maintenance, so they're doing something with the water that they told us about in advence so we wouldn't be showering or something when they had the water off and on. They are spraying for weeds (gah, don't get me started) and notified us of that. I'm highly allergic to most chemicals as you might know, so my husband called the ofice to see if maybe they could leave off spraying anywhere near us until after we leave. They spoke with the manager/owner and got back to us and said no problem, they won't spray near our site and the sites around it. While we can't ask them to not spray the park, we feel this is a reasonable compromise. And we'll be gone tomorrow when they do it, the RV will be locked up tight, and Muffins will go to her first doggie daycare. 

Speaking of Muffins, she is LOVING the life of a travel dog. She LOVES exploring each new stop, and it's gotten to the point where once she realizes we're stopping somewhere, even at a rest stop, during travel, she cannot WAIT to get out of the vehicle and go explore. She is in her element. She is loving all of the sand at this one - so many places to dig! And almost every park we've been in have had a dog run - a fenced area where she can go off leash and sniff all of the other dog scents that have been before her.

The kiddo has been loving almost having the park to ourselves. There might be one or two other kids at times, but that's a doable number for him - less intimidating and anxiety-producing. And right now staying someplace for a couple of weeks is nice for all of us. We can just relax a little bit, get some groceries, do some maintenance on the RV, get some things fixed, do some rearranging of the under storage areas, and get out the holiday decorations. And in between those things, we'll go see some really cool stuff, and I'll tell you about that another day. But right now we're feeling pretty good about this travel life, and are looking forward to more adventures to come!