Birch Bay and Canada

We have reservations here at Birch Bay for 3 weeks and we are currently 2 weeks into it. We like the location (close to Canada) but the campsite is just so/so. While the sites are all full hook-ups and they have the usual swimming pool, spa and play grounds, there isn't much for hiking trails and the beach on the ocean isn't really all that enticing. It is more like a lake than the ocean. We changed camp sites today as a couple that we met (that had about the best site in the campground in our opinion) left today and we moved in as they moved out. Nice little secluded site that will probably be in the next video. it is the site just behind us in a couple of the shots in the video below.

Lisa, Josh and Jared drove up to spend a couple of days with us last week-end. We took a day trip into Canada  with them and it was a pretty cool adventure. Pearl and I plan to go back again next week, not too sure why, but I am guessing it is just so Pearl can get a T-Shirt that says CANADA AND what the heck, we're here already. Lisa and Lance have since departed up to Alaska with Lisa's parents and siblings for a 10 day adventure that I am sure will be pretty fun and exciting for them all.

This is obviously our most Northern point in our travels so far, and in a week we will turn south and head back down the coast then over to Elko, Reno, Sacramento, Riverside, Kingman and a big jump over to Texas for the winter. Our next step is LaConner which could be the best Thousand Trails campgrounds so far but it has limited sites that can accept rigs our size, so it pretty much depends on if we can get a good site. Wish us luck.....

I keep comparing our Thousand Trails locations to Cody and Britney's pictures from "FUN VALLEY" in Colorado and while it appears Thousand Trails may have had the same type of vision somewhere in the past and they are probably still trying to be a player, they are running a very distant 2nd 3rd or 4th. If we still had kids at home and could afford it, we would definitely be doing some serious time at Fun Valley in Colorado. Too Cool, I never knew places like that even existed before Pearl showed me  some of the pictures on Facebook.

So far, the full time RV'ing has been as good or better than we had hoped for, at least for a couple of old Baby Boomers like us. The expenses are right in line and assuming nothing big breaks or one of us doesn't get a nasty case of what ever, it will be a great year with no regrets.

I hope you enjoy the video we posted this week. Aidan has shared a link to some Royalty Free music that he uses and I plugged in a couple of the songs into this video for a little variety (your welcome). I think there are several more songs that I will use in the future. I would still love to get something from one of our musically inclined grand-kids to use just because it would be something special.

We don't want to wish away anytime between now and then, but we are anxious to start heading south so we can see and visit with everyone along the way. See you all on the trip down to Texas.

2017 Expenses in our 1st two months of Full-Time RV Living

We have been on the road since June 12th, almost 2 months so I decided to plug in some numbers into our spreadsheet just to be able to start comparing how we are doing and start making some projection of future cost and comparisons.

I have backed out any expense related to our home in Las Vegas from both months (we just received a final water bill for the Vegas property, but hopefully all those expenses are paid now). It looks like the expenses are a little more than I had expected but not by a whole lot.

I have costed out the cost of the Drone over the rest of the year ($214 for 7 months) and moved some RV camping fees we paid in advance to the actual month we will be in the site. I have also amortized our auto and rv insurance ($2100) as well as the Thousand Trails annual dues ($607) out over 12 months.

I am sure there will be new expenses popping up each month that we haven't planned for, but hopefully we will be able to keep the total monthly cost down to under $4,000, at least on average as some months will be up and hopefully some will be equally down.

If you scroll down below the budget, you will see our 2017 Itinerary along with the mileage and that is where the RV mileage numbers come from in the top section of the expense line items. I also entered the times we have (or plan to) move to a new location. Below that, the number of nights we will be staying in a Thousand Trails (TT) campsite (read FREE) along with nights we will be in a regular RV park, Walmart parking lot, or someones driveway. Some of these nights will be free and some will be expensive but on the whole, campsite expense should be fairly low with our TT membership. As you can see, for the 18 days in June it averaged $19.45 but July was only $1.63. Hopefully we can stay well under $10 average per night over the span of the year ($8.40 for June & July).

The Diesel expense can't be used to compute miles per gallon as we use a system called Aqua Hot that burns our diesel fuel to heat up hot water for showers and dish washing as well as heats the motor-home when necessary, although we will more often use electric heaters or the electric heat pump when we get free electricity which is most of the time so it is close but not exact. We also have a 10K generator that burns our diesel fuel when we use it, but that is mostly when we are boon-docking or traveling down the road and need the Air Conditioners running and now that we are trying to stay in milder climates that doesn't happen as often as previously.

We paid for the registration on the Lincoln prior to leaving Vegas so it isn't included but the RV registration is most of the June RV: repair-tags-etc $452 expense. If I am still doing the expense report next year, I will probably amortize those items out also.

If you have any questions or comments please leave them as we are definitely open to improving our budget and/or saving money. We are also open to any great places to go and check out that you may know of along out travel route even if we have to add another line item to account for it.

2017 Expenses JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC Totals RV Miles (Actual & Projected)  1499 387 520 2740 1312 120 6578 Times we Moved 7 5 4 8 7 1 32 Thousand Trails nites 11 31 31 20 18 30 141 Out of the TT System 8 0 0 10 13 0 31 Campsite average cost night $19.45 $1.63 $8.40 Diesel Fuel 242 762 Campsites ($51 TT dues) 370 51 51 51 103 51 51 Motorhome-repair, tags, etc 452 304 Auto-gas, repair, tags, etc 185 173 RV & Auto Insurance 175 175 175 175 175 175 175 Groceries 774 891 Dining Out 295 193 Internet & Cell Phone 147 147 Directv 118 118 Medical 242 242 Pet Care 55 Leisure/Hobbies/(Drone/7) 602 235 214 214 214 214 214 Computer 101 469 Clothing 51 Mail 5 TOTALS 3809 3765