Working the dream life for 16+ years.
Jim 
After putting more than 6,000 miles behind us, today was the first time I actually felt uncomfortable maneuvering the trailer. OK, I’ll admit it – I was scared. It takes a man to acknowledge his faults, and learn from them.
Call it overconfidence or poor navigation, or blame it on bad signage and a crazy sudden curve. It all comes down to this: when haulin’ 16,000 pounds plus, know where you’re going, stay alert, and never ever panic.
This list of tips will help campers conserve water when dry camping in an RV without hookups or boondocking at public campgrounds.
Understand truck and trailer weight rating accronyms and their importance!
We are proud to announce that the LiveWorkDream Full-Time RVing Superstore is now online! We developed this Amazon.com aStore as a service to our readers and filled it with helpful books, campground directories, road trip music, and RV products to help make life on the road a little easier. We sifted through the countless books, DVDs, music CDs, and product categories related to RVing, traveling, …
This one’s for the Carson Park Ranger. This funny friend of mine has a hilarious routine about old full-time RVing couples, one of which we encountered at a wayside near Gaylord, MI. Where I came from they’re called rest stops, but that’s not the point. As we rested at this wayside stop, we spotted a man and woman identical to those in the Ranger’s shtick. …
Paying tribute to the 29 souls lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald at Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, Whitefish Point Michigan.
Good home cooking continues to be found as we put the Midwest behind us. To celebrate paying off our trailer at a US Bank branch in Sheboygan, WI and to put a couple persistent hangovers at ease after way too many with the Schwabenlanders, we stopped in Brillion, WI for fuel and decided to grab lunch somewhere.
There was Mom’s Place Family Restaurant in a plain building with laundromat next door. And there was an authentic looking roadside diner with Rudy’s written in neon and a sidewalk sign promoting the daily special of Roast Chicken. The choice was simple.
We’ve been thinking of various new business ideas for ourselves when we complete this journey. If at that time I am still interested in starting an RV park, somebody please remind me about Sunshine Valley.
On our corn-stealing morning run when staying near Eau Claire, WI we just had to check out the campground down the road from its dilapidated sign. The first thing we noticed was the For Sale sign at the edge of the property. Then we noticed the “Closed” sign at the campground entrance. Then we noticed how much work someone had put into this little campground and how long it had been since anyone had obviously even parked a tent there, not to mention an RV.
I have to share this New York Times article I just got from the Redwood Technology Consortium mailing list about location-neutral rural transplants since it focuses on urban refugees transplanting themselves to Steamboat Springs, CO – in Routt County where we really enjoyed our stay at Seedhouse Campground. We were considered urban refugees ourselves when we moved from San Francisco to rural Eureka, CA ten …
In campgrounds across the nation, at dusk when the light is just right, if one listens carefully, the chirp of the Twilight Honker can be heard announcing nightfall and the paranoia of fellow campers. With a scientific name like Honkalarmus Paranoiac, one can imagine frail little birds taking flight at the slightest hint of danger. The truth is, these annoying beasts are the result of discourteous, mistrustful campers everywhere.
It is inevitable that you will hear someone setting their car alarm as night falls in any campground. What’s funny is to hear the next few car alarms being set by others who heard the call. What’s not so funny is when someone sets off their alarm disrupting the relative peace and quiet of evenings and mornings in the great outdoors.
As a child, I was terribly frightened by the movie the Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t the witch, the trees, or even the monkeys. The idea of a tornado coming and tearing up my house and carrying me away from the comforts of my home and family was really quite traumatizing. 😥 With age and a little therapy, I’ve been mostly able to overcome …
I’ve just finished upgrading this blog to the latest version of WordPress (v. 2.2.2). So if you were encountering any odd issues while reading Sunday night, that’s why. Coincidentally, Google seems to be having trouble right now with the satellite imagery for all Google Maps – not just our site.
If you ever experience any other unexpected glitches while enjoying this site, please post a comment here or send us an email through the contact form on our About page. Thank you for your support.
… not about this full-time RVing lifestyle, we seem to be getting that down pretty good. But René thinks she wants to be a farmer, and this morning we discovered that we can’t even tell a field of sweet corn from feed corn.
On our morning run down the rural county roads near our home (this week) at Harstad Park, we couldn’t help but be tempted by all the corn in the fields alongside the road, just ripe for the picking. What we got serves us right for taking two and dashing home.
Another quick tip, before I forget … though I don’t know how I could. They say the sense of smell is the strongest trigger for recollection.
The biggest stink we ever smelled coming out of our RV holding tanks was not from the black water. Our kitchen grey water tank started expressing itself with a very pungent sulfur smell when we were staying at Lindenwood City Park back in Fargo, ND.
The lower campground had recently been re-opened after major flooding from the Red River, and a couple fellow campers said they wouldn’t be surprised if it was the water so we left it at that. When we dumped the tanks, however, we knew it had to be something more.
Here’s another quick tip for RVers with dual LP tanks for their rig. This was another little chore from my RV maintenance day back in Duluth. I wrote the word “use” on a small piece of magnetic sheeting to help us remember which tank we’ve been running off of since we like to use one tank up completely and keep the other one full as …