Well Shaded

What do you do with an extra day in Mitchell, South Dakota? You visit the Corn Palace, Great Clips and Walmart. Then, you nap. Oh yeah, and you watch the wind blow!

It's been a breezy, hot and humid day here. So breezy, in fact, that we probably would have decided to sit here another night had we not already decided to do that. We've paid up for our well-shaded site through tomorrow night. Until then, we're seeing the sights, kicking back and adjusting to Summer in the Great Plains. With today's highs into the 90s, our basement air is really humming!

One of today's Walmart purchases is already making life on the road a bit easier. When we were in Island Park, one of our neighbors (and, I'm sorry I can't remember whom) shared a helpful hint about how to keep kitties out of the driver's footwell in a motorhome. They screened this off-limits area with an accordion-fold car windshield shade.

Absolutely brilliant!

If you are of the feline persuasion, footwells are one of the most curious parts of a motorhome. Find your furry way into one and you have instant access to miles of sugary wires to chew on and a cavernous space deep behind that football field-sized dashboard in which to hide. (How do we know? Our boy kitty found his way into the passenger footwell in our first moose!)

Thankfully, the new moose has just one footwell. Kitty Nirvana lies just below our steering wheel. How have we kept our furry creatures out of all of that nifty stuff? We've stuffed two strips of 3-inch memory foam (left over from the bed in the first moose) in between the pedals and around the base of the steering wheel. It's not at all attractive, but it works. But, after more than a year of use, the stuff is getting dirty. And, frankly, I'm tired of stuffing the stuff at every stop.

So, while we were cruising the aisles at Walmart this afternoon, we checked out the auto care area and picked up an accordion-fold sunshade. You know, the silvery kind? We brought it home, cut about four inches off the bottom and unfolded it (silver side in) below the steering wheel. Viola! Instant cat barrier.

Sure, if they really wanted to get behind this silver and styrofoam folding screen, they could. But, out of sight out of mind. And, that's really true with cats! If they can't see it, they are not that interested.

Of course, the niftiest thing about this new addition is that it folds up in a flash, weighs next to nothing and takes up little space. That heavy memory foam is going to find its next home in a campground trash dumpster in Mitchell, SD.

And, we are now the proud owners of one well-shaded footwell!

Learning

Today wasn't our best travel day.

Of course, nothing bad happened. So, in that respect, it was a great day.

Another way to look at it is we got a very late start and had a long way to go when we were both already tired. We fought wind across a very boring state of South Dakota. And, bugs! Oh, God, the bugs! Add to that a time change where we instantly lost an hour, and by the time we arrived at R&R Campground in Mitchell, SD, we were beat. The plan was to spend a quick overnight and then move on tomorrow.

Then, we caught our breath.

You see, this is a decent park. It's not a destination place by any stretch of the imagination. But, it's a pretty spacious place with a level site, rock solid 50 amp power, smokin' hot wifi and decent cell service. In this first real town we've seen since leaving Rapid City late this morning, this place has everything we need. There's even a palace made of corn!

One of the things we want to learn in our second year as fulltimers is the art of slowing down.

So, sports fans, we're gonna' try it.

We've already decided we're going to spend at least two nights. We'll spend tomorrow stocking up on supplies and picking up at least one South Dakota cache. I might even roll the dice and get a hair cut. Then, we're going to watch the weather. It looks like Wednesday, our anticipated arrival day in Forest City, Iowa, might be filled with storms of the big, bad, nasty type. If so, guess what we're gonna' do?

Yep. We'll hang out here for yet another day.

When a planned overnight stop stretches into a two or three-nighter, isn't that a sign that we might just be learning to slow down?

We sure think so!

Freakishly Small

We did the Mt. Rushmore thing with our visiting family today. My niece and I decided to watch one of the two movies at the Visitor Center. So, we slipped into the theater and took our seats behind a family of three.

I took a closer look at the trio and they looked familiar. Then, I realized I had seen them before...at Red Rock. In fact, I overheard the patriarch in this clan just the other day...discussing with his neighbor how crazy we were to travel on July 5th.

Yes, it is a freakishly small world!

What We Miss

On our way from Billings to Devils Tower, we scheduled a short meetup with friends from Kansas City who are on their first-ever RV trip. They rented a Class A gasser and are putting a zillion miles on it in 10 days, traveling from Kansas City to Mount Rushmore to Yellowstone and back. Ah, the life of vacationers!

We compared itineraries with these RVing rookies and discovered we would be on one stretch of I-90 in Wyoming at the same time. They would be heading west to Cody as we were heading east to Devils Tower. We found a perfect rest stop along our shared route and set an approximate time to meet. Paul and I arrived early, which gave us enough time to exercise the generator and enjoy some lunch. Just as we had everything cleaned up, our road-weary friends pulled in.

They shared stories of their misadventures. But, they did so with a smile. We gave them some essential advice about black tank management, and a recommendation for an alternate route to Cody. They appreciated both. These good folks don't need any more surprises! They showed us their nifty rental and we gave them a quick tour of the moose. They said it was like comparing a room at the Motel 6 with a room at the Ritz. I think they were ready to leave that rental at the rest stop and join us!

While we were showing them around, one of them asked a question we haven't heard in awhile: "What do you miss about life in a house?" I had to pause and think about that one, because there really isn't much!

"A dishwasher" was my quick reply.

Later, after we'd said our so longs and made our way safely to Devils Tower, I reflected on the question and my speedy answer. You see, a dishwasher is nice. But, we don't really miss it. There's something very satisfying about washing and drying dishes and putting them away. Besides, we rarely have all that many.

So, what do we really miss?

Always-on, dependable, smoking hot wifi, perhaps? No. Not really.

What about a garage for our squirrel? Rocky might miss that, but we don't.

Maybe a garbage disposal? I miss that more than a dishwasher. But, then again, I don't really miss it.

What is it, then? What do we really miss?

Eureka! We've got it!

The one thing we really miss, after living on the road for a year, is....

(insert drumroll here)

...Quilted Northern Ultra Plush Toilet Paper!!!

Yes, after a year on the road, we are loving life as fulltimers. But, the cold, hard truth is it's a single-ply life.

That's a sacrifice we're willing to make!

Year One

Our Great RV Escape is a year old! It's hard to believe, but one year ago today was our personal Independence Day. How can it be a year, already? And, in many delightful ways, it seems like we've been enjoying this lifestyle for years.

Let's take a quick look at the numbers. We've traveled 12,284 miles in two motorhomes, and put another 10,000 miles on the Jeep. We've visited 26 states and stopped in 61 parks/campgrounds.

We've been moving!

Though it looks like we've been on the move every five or six days, we have managed to sit some. The longest we've sat in one spot was five weeks in Mission, Texas. (It felt like much longer!) We spent a month in Kansas City twice. (One month was so much more pleasant than the other!) And, we enjoyed month-long stays in Port Aransas, Texas and Island Park, Idaho. We spent another month moving around our former home state of California. The other half of the year we spent a night or two here and a week or two there.

As we've traveled coast to coast and back (plus some) over the past year, we've come to appreciate that we live in one extraordinarily beautiful country. We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to explore it all.

We've also been blessed with new friends. Lots of them! The people we've met during our travels have been the best part of our travels! It's been such a treat to connect with folks we've only known online, and become fast friends with people who just happen to park next door. Many of our fellow fulltimers have said they have many more friends than they had before they hit the road. We couldn't agree more!

It's been a joy to reconnect with old friends and family, too. Many people have asked how we decide where we're going to go. This year, much of our route has been determined by the locations of people who are dear to us. It's a great way to travel!

While we're counting our blessings, we must include our two furry traveling companions. They're celebrating their first year of fulltiming, too! While cats have a reputation for being among the least adaptable of God's creatures, these very well traveled felines have adapted to life on the road quite well. They continue to amaze and inspire us with their ability to live in the moment and go with the flow.

As we celebrate our first road trip around the sun, we're also grateful to the countless people, beyond our family and friends, who have helped us along the way during our rookie year. Everyone, from the cheerful campground hosts that have welcomed us to an unfamiliar park after a long travel day to the good people at McGeorge Rolling Hills RV who helped us secure and move into our new home, remind us that we're not out here alone. There are a bunch of good people out there happy to help, and vice versa. Perhaps our most valuable lesson in Year One has been to put trust in strangers. We've had to. And, so far, it's worked.

Finally, we're grateful to you, our faithful readers. We put all this stuff out there into the ether, and you are the ones who actually stop to take a look. You let us know when stuff is funny, or not, or helpful, or not. And, we love that! While, we're at it, a big hats off to our fellow RVing bloggers. Whether you know it or not, you've become a regular part of our fulltiming day. And, it's one of the best parts!

When we initially hatched this fulltiming idea, we thought it might be fun to travel the country for a year. Of course, as the idea evolved, the time period stretched to two or three years, or beyond. Of course, when we left a year ago we didn't really know how much we'd like living this crazy dream of ours. One year later, two things are clear. First, though we know there is an end date to this gig, we sure can't see it from here. Second, if this was only a one-year gig, tomorrow would be a very, very sad day, indeed.

Thankfully, this doesn't all end tomorrow. Instead, we'll start Year Two with a bit of exploration around Mount Rushmore. We look forward to what the next year will bring.

Tonight, we celebrate. We're sitting outside our moose right now, enjoying a celebratory cocktail while we put Year One in the history books. As I've been typing away, Paul just exclaimed, "We've come a long way from tent camping."

We sure have. Cheers!

366 Nights

Tomorrow is our first anniversary of this fulltiming gig. So, we're warning you, expect a very serious and reflective post manana.

Tonight is all about sleeping!

Yesterday we came to the realization that we've slept in our own bed for 366 nights in a row. (We slept in the original Bullwinkle for a couple of nights in Oakland before we officially left on our fulltiming journey.) And, we can't remember the last time that happened.

Seriously. I think we may have been infants!

When was the last time you went a year without leaving the comfort of your own bed? Between vacations, weekends away and way too many business trips, I have to say it's been four or five decades!

Of course, the irony is that while we've slept in our own bed for the last year, we've parked in something like 60 different places. Again, I have to say I can't remember the last time that happened, if ever. We've both done our share of business travel during our careers, but I don't think we ever made it to 60 different locations in a year.

So, while setting some kind of record for consecutive nights sleeping in our own bed, we've also set a record slept in 60 different places in a year.

Weird, huh?

We'll just leave you with that while we ponder a full year of fulltiming. More on that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, sweet dreams!

Not Crazy

Greetings from Billings, Montana, where the cottonwoods are shedding so much it looks like it's snowing! But, it's a very pleasant 75 degrees here, so we're not complaining.

A couple of days ago I overheard a man in our campground talking about us. "Those folks over there in the Winnebago are leaving Monday," he said. "That's the stupidest day of all to travel."

Know what, buddy?

Today was the perfect day to travel. We didn't even have to leave early to benefit from the very quiet highway as we rolled north along the scenic Gallatin River in Montana. By the time we reached I-90 and headed east toward Billings, there were several other holiday travelers on the road, but traffic was a breeze. Much of the time there was not a vehicle to be seen out our side view mirrors. This being the "official" holiday, there was no road construction. That's right, none! We passed at least three spots where highway workers will be backing up traffic tomorrow. But, not today! And, I can count on both hands the number of semis we saw. Even the truckers have the day off.

To be fair, if we were driving into Salt Lake City or the San Francisco Bay Area this afternoon, traffic may have been a bear. Here, it was smooth sailing.

And, you know what else, Mr. Campground Man?

It's not nice to talk about your neighbors.