Over the mountain and through the woods

Gave the ol’ Dodge Ram 2500 a real workout this weekend haulin’ the rig over Carson Pass (8,650) and Monitor Pass (8,314 ft) from Silver Lake near Kit Carson, CA to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, CA. Check out our new LiveWorkDream Roadtrip Maps page to see some of the crazy hairpin turns and to follow the progress of our route. The truck had no problem …

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We’ve drawn first blood.

We can officially call the trailer ours now that we’ve given it its first battle scar. But it could’ve been much, much worse. When checking out the forest service campground at Silver Lake East, we came a bit too close to the trees. More than once. Luckily, we only put a good sized mark on our awning. It didn’t even tear through. But I’m actually …

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If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.

After a fun visit with some friends who drove all the way from Oakland to visit us at Lake Francis, we have now made it to Yuba City – just down the road from the RV Service Center where we’ll take the rig tomorrow to get the fridge checked out. Of course, it seems to be working well now. Hopefully it was just bad power at that campground. This trip has certainly become one of discovery.

Good news is, we do have internet access with our dish here. Bad news is, our computers can’t see our wireless network. I’ve wired in to troublshoot the problem and have determined there is just too much WiFi interference here. Various other networks keep showing up and disappearing. Ours was visible momentarily then went away for good. At least we are only here for the night … hopefully!

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Camp WiFi vs. Satellite Internet


Here’s a question for the web-savvy full-timers:

Would you rather rely on spotty campground wireless service for your internet connection, or have your own more reliable yet much more expensive satellite dish service such as MotoSat? This may be irrelevant to the weekend warriors but for those of us on the road full-time, who need to remain connected for either business or pleasure it is a serious consideration. So consider this…

We have a top of the line .98 meter F2 satellite dish from Datastorm with MotoSat internet service and a Linksys 300N wireless router. Yet I have spent most of this morning trying to publish these posts and get pages to load with a very weak connection to this campground’s 802.11b network. Why you ask?

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Permanent Weekend


The reality of this trip still hasn’t sunk in yet. With today’s news from the mortgage folks, we are one step closer to being free but not quite yet clear.

I felt a bit strange today telling one of my campground neighbors, “have a good weekend” knowing very well that he was indeed out for a weekend adventure with the kids while I was off on a new adventure that may last a year. Or years.

While camper dad will return to work on Monday, I will be dealing with the repair of our new trailer’s refrigerator at the nearest RV service center to Lake Francis in Dobbins, CA. Unfortunately that’s in Marysville or Yuba City.

But as Whitman said, “These are the things that must happen to you.”

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And Now for Something Completely Different

Stick Home Vs. RV Home There’s so much to learn, it’s hard to pick where to begin. Everything’s a lot smaller in the RV versus the house. It’s Simple Living at it’s finest. Organizing our things so they’re easy to grab but not in the way is a puzzle, and figuring out how to make the most use of limited space requires some doing. Downsizing …

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Day Two

Hitching up the new foxWhat a trip! And it’s just begun…

We enjoyed the first night in our new mobile home and drove another ninety minutes to another Premier RV Resort in Eugene Oregon. So far the trip has gone off without a hitch.

Well, not quite. We couldn’t have even made it off the lot without our new Pullrite Superglide Fifth Wheel Hitch. Having never towed anything before in my life, I was a little concerned about pulling a huge trailer. I hadn’t even really gotten used to the size of our new Dodge Ram 2500 yet… But this hitch made it simple! (Read on to see the video that confirmed my decision!)

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And… We’re off!

Well, almost. If you can still see the counter ticking down above, you’ll notice we still haven’t quite moved on to the next big thing … more about that later. For now, suffice it to say we have just begun what is sure to become a great adventure. And so far, so good! We just picked up our new Arctic Fox 24-5N fifth wheel trailer …

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