POD Revisited

When it comes to properly loading a storage container for a cross-country move, we get a big fat "F".

Shortly after arriving at our transplanted POD this morning, it became painfully obvious how badly we had failed. We pulled the lock off the latch and took a tug at the roll-up door.

It wouldn't budge.

Thankfully, there was a man with a forklift close by and he came to our rescue by giving our POD a great big tilt, in hopes that whatever was blocking the door would fall back out of the way. In fact, he had to do it twice. As I caught a glimpse of the front end of the box hanging several feet in the air I wanted to scream, "There's china in there!" But, I was so grateful for the help I kept quiet. With the all four corners of the box back safely on the ground, Paul grabbed the door handle and it pulled up with ease to reveal what was inside.

One big fat mess.

It seems everything shifted in transit. What was once a neat a tidy arrangement of our worldy possessions was now a tangled wreck. It became obvious that the way to approach this would be to unpack the thing and try again. So, that's what we did.

Three hours later it was all restacked and tied down. Yes, we did a much better job this time. You see, we learn quickly from our mistakes! We tossed a couple of new items in the box, closed the door, affixed the lock and called the job complete.

The one piece of furniture we decided to bring with us is marred. And our bed looks like it made a cross country move. Several boxes were in various stages of crushiness. So, there's no telling how the contents inside fared.

Spending three hours with our stuff raised a flood of emotion about the stress of this move. We've been gone just long enough to forget. This brought it all back. If we had known then what we know now, half that stuff wouldn't be in that POD. But, at the time, we did the best we could. It was all we could handle. And, after all, it is just stuff. We'll work it out.

As we returned to the park, our day immediately started looking up. Gypsy had arrived! We welcomed her to Kansas City and our dumpy little park. What a treat to have her here. We visited a bit, and made plans for a dinner of Kansas City barbecue tonight. We're really looking forward to it!

She'll be here in a few minutes for happy hour. So, it's time to wrap up this post and get the party started. Because, when it comes to happy hour and barbecue, we definitely get an "A"!

Cheers!

National Dog Week

Just got this message from, of all people, Camping.com:

This is National Dog Week, a time to embrace all things canine. Whether you're a dog owner or not, you probably have pleasant memories of strolling down a trail with a dog, heading to the beach with a dog, and maybe even camping with a dog.

Well, even as a couple of cat people, we give a hearty salute to our canine friends.

Here's a big "paws up" to some of our favorite camping dogs: Bodie, Tucker and Lady. Also, a shout out to our buddy Jake, as his mom is known to pass this way. And, we'll be sure to give an extra shake to our newest canine friend, our dog-niece Penny.

No matter how you celebrate this big event, please do so safely.

Happy weekend!

Outerwear

Our previous wardrobe post raised some good questions about what we're planning to wear if and when we find ourselves in chilly weather. So, I thought I'd provide just a little more (hopefully) helpful insight into our on-the-road wardrobe.

Rule #1 for us is to avoid freezing temperatures. That reduces our outerwear needs considerably. Of course, we're planning to spend the holidays here in Kansas City. So, we could find ourselves breaking our first rule soon. Figuring that this is the only place we might find ourselves in sub-freezing temps, we packed our heavy winter gear in our suitcases when we flew to Kansas City last May. We each have a heavy sweater, coat and gloves stored in a family member's spare closet. My heavy hiking boots and some wool socks are there, too. If an arctic blast hits while we're here, we're set.

While we're successfully following Rule #1, no heavy stuff is needed. Paul's on board outerwear includes a couple of long sleeve t-shirts, a sweatshirt or two, a fleece jacket and a waterproof lightweight jacket. Now, I don't think of a long sleeve t-shirt as outerwear. But, this is coming from a guy who wears shorts and a t-shirt every day! So, not counting any t-shirts, I have one sweatshirt, a sweatjacket, a nifty neoprene-like vest that gets a lot of wear, and a fleece jacket that's just like Paul's. And, that's just what's in the closet! Under the bed, I have a nifty lightweight rain jacket that stuffs into a little bag, my can't-live-without-it black leather jacket, and (I think) a heavy windbreaker-type jacket.

Good thing I did some serious outerwear purging before we left. Oh my!

As you can see, outerwear is a topic one of us gave a lot of thought while we were preparing for our fulltiming adventures. And, since we're just a few days into Fall, our strategy has yet to be tested. We're eager to see how it all works -- especially that "avoiding below freezing temperatures" part.

Bad Sales Guy

Back in the dark ages of this blog, we told you about a sleazy sales guy we met at an Itasca dealership in California. Today, we met a really bad sales guy at a Winnebago dealership in Missouri.

It was a gorgeous autumn day in Kansas City. We crossed the state line to stock up on adult beverages. After making our purchases, we decided to go for a scenic drive and visit the area's Winnebago dealer. About 20 minutes later we arrived at the place and were greeted by a smilin' RV salesman.

We asked for just a wee bit of his time to look at the Winnie diesel pushers he had on the lot. We explained our situation and told him we were just looking. We explained our pledge not to make any buying decisions for at least another 3 1/2 months. We said we didn't want to waste his time, and he said "no problem" and invited us to take a look.

There were three diesel pushers for us to see. One of them was a brand spankin' new 40-foot Journey with a new floor plan we'd yet to lay eyes on. We stepped inside. And, we liked it. We really liked it. It had everything we wanted and then some. Yes, it was nice. Very nice!

Now, if either of us had been the smilin' RV salesman (and I'm so glad we're not), we would have taken a shot at selling this motorhome today. We wouldn't have tried any of tactics the sleazy sales guy used, but we would have at least asked a question or two. After all, if a couple of fulltimers find the diesel pusher of their dreams, are they really going to let some silly little self-imposed 15 weeks stop them?

(I can answer that! And, the answer is No!)

What did this guy do? First of all, nothing. He sat on the Rest Easy sofa and smiled. He didn't point out a thing! He left us to do all the exploration ourselves. Maybe he thought since we already owned a Winnebago we could figure things out on our own. We did, but it would've been nice to hear something about some of the features that would make this big new diesel pusher more fun than our short little gasser. But, we didn't.

Second, when Paul asked him about financing (There's a big buying signal!) this was his reply: "You know, these days many banks aren't approving loans for fulltimers."

Seriously. He said that! This guy knew nothing - and I mean nothing - about our financial wherewithal, and that's what he had to say in response to a question that, loosely translated, meant "We might actually be interested in buying this thing."

His disinterest in selling tempered our interest in buying. Besides, we were hungry. So, it was time for lunch. We thanked the man for his time and took his card. We gazed longingly at the diesel pusher of our dreams and pointed the squirrel in the direction of our moose. Along the way we recounted what we really liked about that nifty Journey. Finally, Paul put into words what we both were thinking.

"If he had done a better job, he could have sold a motorhome today," he said.

Absolutely.

Our Wardrobe

Today was laundry day. And, someday early next week we're going to visit our POD.

And those two things have what, exactly, to do with each other?

They have us thinking about our wardrobe.

Next week's trip to our POD is an opportunity to put into storage anything that we don't really need as fulltimers. (It's also our first chance to make sure the POD actually made it to its destination.) We've spotted a few things that will head to storage, and we'll keep looking for more. One thing that's on the chopping block is our clothes. We have too many. Over the next few days we'll take a close look and see what we can do to lighten our load.

As I was putting away my laundry, I decided to take stock of what's in my drawers and my side of our teeny tiny closet. Knowing that we have a future fulltimer or two who stops by here from time to time, I thought I'd share a bit of my findings:

• 22 "t-shirts". This was a topic in chat recently. My actual total was a bit more than my guess. These shirts fill one drawer and include sleeveless, short and long sleeve varieties that I wear for everything from exercise to going out and about. Most of these shirts are either white or black. After all, those two colors go with everything. That said, I think I have too many!
• 6 "nice" shirts. Nice means they hang in the closet and don't go in a drawer. Only two are really nice. And, I've only worn one of those. The other four get lots of wear.
• 3 cotton sweaters. Living in the Bay Area provided good training for dressing for fulltiming: It's all about layers. These three sweaters range from light to medium weight and get worn all the time.
• Jeans, capris and shorts. I have 3 pairs of each. This is probably one pair too many. But, I had 'em so I kept them.
• Shoes. I think I have 5 pairs. Maybe 6. Depends on what you count as shoes.

That gives you an idea of the "scale" of my fulltiming wardrobe. There are a few more things, but it's all pretty simple. And, it's all washable and pretty darn interchangeable. So far, it seems to work.

Before we started this journey, I tried to figure out what I'd wear the most. A couple of months out, now I know. Most days you'll find me in a a 3/4-sleeve t-shirt, a pair of capris and my trusty Keens. If it's chilly, I'll add one of those cotton sweaters. If my wardrobe has a direction, I'd say that's it.

And, what about Paul? He's the first to admit he brought more clothes on board than I did. For a guy who used to wear a suit and tie everyday, he's made a quick and easy adjustment to a daily wardrobe of shorts and a t-shirt.

We both have some purging to do. But, now that we have a bit of experience wearing clothes on the road, we have a much better idea of what we need...and what we don't.

Girls Bathroom

What is it with young girls and RV bathrooms?

They seem to be completely infatuated!

We had three nieces over today for a grand total of maybe two hours. Anybody wanna guess how many trips to the bathroom these three girls had to make while they were here?

Four!

Yep. Everybody needed to check the place out, especially that nifty foot pedal on the toilet. One of them had to go an extra time, for good measure. It was simply too fun.

For fear that we'd be plagued with black tank woes after their visit, we gave everybody the same lecture: There are only three things that go down that toilet, and one of them should be used as little as possible.

We think they got the picture. Whatever the case, our black tank seems to be just fine.

Exported

One of the things on my to-do list while we’re sitting in Kansas City was to back up our blogs. I’ve never done it. And, one day it dawned on me that, with a couple of hundred posts, this blog represents hours of work that I’d hate to lose. It tells a heck of a story that we’ll want to remember. And, same with Bullwinkle’s Travels. Its 100 or so posts are definitely keepers in our book.

I had seen the “export blog” link on Blogger many times. But, I had made up in my mind that it would be a time-consuming task. After all, it took me hours to write all of this stuff. Surely, it would take more than a few minutes to back it all up.

After yesterday’s post, I decided it was time to tackle that to-do. I settled in with a cup of hot coffee and prepared for backup. I clicked on the link.

A few seconds later it was done. Amazing!

So, fellow bloggers, if you’ve yet to back up your work, I’m here to encourage you to take the leap. Backup early and often. It won’t take much time at all.

You’ll be glad you did.