Working the dream life for 17+ years.
Living the dream full-time RVing nomadic lifestyle working as location independent entrepreneurs.
Rene used my better shot of America’s national bird for her Obama shout out. But this one of it taking flight over the Hoh River will suffice. It means I can check one more item off my “things to do before I die” list.
Call me silly, but I’ve always wanted to see a bald eagle close enough to take a photograph. And yes, it did take this long. But I never said it had to be a good picture.
When you live somewhere long enough you develop a circle of friends and a sense of community.
The same can be said for fulltime RVing, at least among the cool online RVers.
Recently we’ve hooked up with various road trip bloggers who we’ve grown to know via the internet.
After getting to know these folks through their travel blogs, twitter tweets, and forums, it’s been great to put some faces to the names.
Jim and Rene complete first circle of coast to coast fulltime rving sabbatical adventure roadtrip.
Take a RV road trip and slow down enough to meet great people and learn more about strangers from other parts of the world.
Sixteen months into our road trip journey, we feel comfortable making some conclusions about our future.
With this in mind, our travels are taking on more of a sense of urgency these days.
We’ve been wandering around the Northwest, taking serious looks at places we’ve been curious about. Based on what I’ve heard about Missoula, Montana, it always sounded like a great fit for us, and consistently makes “Best Small Towns” lists. Recently, we visited to learn more for ourselves.
We stayed at this RV park just outside of town. A great park, with a great name; Jim’s parents were also “Jim and Mary.” The days were getting cold, so we only spent a few days there, looking around, talking to economic development people, and getting a feel for the area. We were so busy I hardly took any photos. Here’s what we learned.
Watching fall colors and saying goodbye to our best friend Jerry at Yellowstone National Park.
Jim raves about his manly Stanley classic bottle Thermos and refers to lyrics for the thermos song sung by Steve Martin in The Jerk … I’m picking out a Thermos for you …
OK. Life must go on I suppose, as lonely as it is without Jerry …
But enough about my hay stories. By now, I’m sure you’re as tired of the hayin’ as I was when we finished. How ’bout some fishing?
This isn’t exactly timely anymore, but consider it my summer fishing report for Lake City, Colorado – from the Vickers Ranch fish ponds, to their upper ranch mountain lakes, to the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River.
A fun time was had. No gear was broken. And a few fish were caught. But not too many.
How we found the courage to say goodbye to our 10 year old canine cancer hero, Jerry, on our RV road trip.
While sitting in the Dodge dealer today in Jackson, WY, as they did over $2k in repair work on our truck brakes, I realized that I’ve finally discovered a couple of real downsides to living the fulltime RVer lifestyle.
Fulltimer Downside #1: when you pull into a town with out-of-state plates, and tell the local auto shop that you’re having vehicle trouble, who do you trust? You gotta wonder; Is that service guy really drooling? Are those actual dollar signs in his eyes?
From Florida to Wyoming, three different shops have looked at our truck, to find out the cause of a loud, chirping sound coming from the wheels. One wanted to charge us $700 for what they claim was the real problem (we said “no way.”). We paid another shop $75 to determine we had dirty brakes.
But the sound keeps getting louder, and we have some steep mountain passes to tackle on the way to the Pacific Coast. So today, we took it to a third shop.
The problem, Shop #3 said, is that our entire brake system is blown to hell. We are left wondering: why didn’t the other shops see this? The service guy said that’s because they didn’t tear the break system apart to investigate. We have to go on faith that he’s not a scheister. Jim saw our parts lying on the floor, next to good ones from another truck, and verified that ours looked blown. The caliper seals were all indeed shot. And the rotors had a deep blue tinge to them – discoloration indicating they had been cooked pretty hard.
So what would you do, dear reader? Take your vehicle to another no-name shop in town, and pay another $60 estimate fee? Or run away, hoping the dealer was lying while praying for the best on those seven percent downhill grades?
We were recently asked to review the new Library of America book, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau. Edited by Bill McKibben, this anthology covers environmental writing from Walden Pond to global warming.
It sounds like a great read, and we’re honored to review it. But that might not be very soon since we’re on the road again. We’ll have the book forwarded as soon as we have a steady address for a while, or we’ll pick it up at Thanksgiving.
Until then, check out this overview from the publisher and see what major publications have to say about American Earth …
Jim reviews safe haying practices learned while workamping as a ranch hand at Vickers ranch for hay season.
Enjoy a slideshow of pictures from workamping at Vickers guest ranch in Lake City, CO
We can’t over emphasize how fortunate we feel to have hooked up with the Vickers family here in Lake City. The work is hard, but their generosity and kindness more than makes up for even the longest days here on the ranch.
Recently, Larry and Paulette Vickers took us all to the “The Lone Cowboy Concert,” a BBQ dinner and show with cowboy poet and singer Michael Martin Murphey.
Well, if you’re not into cowboy music, you might not know who this legend is. But if you’re old enough to remember the classic ’70s hit “Wildfire,” then your ears have been graced by his music.
If you’re not of a certain age, then do yourself a favor and get to know him. He is incredibly talented and puts on an entertaining, intimate show. Here’s just a sample of Murphey’s heartland cowboy songs …
Read on to check out the video of his amazing opening act, and see what Jim had to say Michael.
A day in the life of a young fulltime RVer on a road trip sabbatical.
