This is a blog about two baby boomers who are retired and living full time in their Class A motorhome. We stay mostly at Thousand Trails campgrounds. We use a drone to film our adventures and share the video on the blog
My wife drives our 42 ft Class A motorhome, I fly the Drone and we are having a blast in our new liftstyle.
We have arrived in Virginia and according to our Caddel Family History, that is one of the three possible harbors that our GGGG Grandfather arrived in back in 1746 when he ran away from home in Scotland and stowed away on a ship headed to the British Colonies (America).
He was sold into a 7 year Indentured Servitude that he worked off and he eventually married Jean Henderson, the daughter of the man that had purchased his Indentured Contract from the Ships Captain. It is hard to understand how the world functioned back in these early days.
We spent almost 2 weeks here at the Thousand Trails Chesapeake Bay RV campground, and enjoyed the campground and local area very much. There is a Living Historical Museum in Yorktown Virginia which is about 30 miles away. They demonstrate the living conditions that the early Americans endured as well as the solders who fought and won the American Revolution.
We met several couples while here and even tried eating Oysters at the Oyster Festival held at a local town. I hope you enjoy the story of how our family arrived as well as the couples and activities highlighted in the video.
Pearl and I were making a video today about our time in New England and while editing it, I noticed we were spending much more time talking about the people we had met instead of the things we had seen and done.
It caused me to ponder about the importance of friendships and how hard it was to nourish and maintain these nomadic friendships. It seems that we no sooner get to meet and know someone and then one or the other of us is moving out to their next destination, potentially never to be seen again.
We have developed a couple of friendships that have withstood the distance of the nomadic lifestyle but they are few and far between. The first couple we met while RV'ing that we were able to overcome the nomadic distance with our friendship was a couple from Kingman Arizona (Pete & Debbie) . We met Debbie when she was walking their two dogs (CoCo & Buddy) and stopped in our camp to met our puppy Tinker, while we were camping in Watchman Campground in Zion National Park back in 2015 shortly after we had retired.
We got to know Pete & Debbie pretty well and although they were 20 years younger than us, and lived 100 miles away, we kept in contact and met at a couple of different campgrounds with them over the years and even stopped by their home in Kingman AZ. a couple of times, where they have an RV Pad at their home and they let us park and spend the night when going through their area.
I think these friendships are fairly common within the RV community, but they don't happen by accident and take a lot of nourishment to keep them from evaporating into thin air once the two couples move on down the road. We have not duplicated this type of friendship with any other RVing couples we have met, but part of that is because we are constantly moving and haven't returned to the same area to revisit friends that have a fixed home to be able to meet up at.
Most of the couples we have met are also traveling and since we generally don't come back into contact with them in person, we have to keep the friendship alive and well through email and videos. This simply does not work as well as getting to see each other regularly by meeting at campgrounds or in hometowns.
So, with all of that said, here is a short update of our time in New England and most of the people we met while in this part of the country and with a little work and good luck we will get to met them all again in the not too distant future when and if our paths cross again.
We spent a week in New York to meet up with some RV Friends (Jeff & Laurie) at Rondout Valley RV Campground. We had a couple of our Youtube followers (Chuck & Cheryl) contact us that wanted to meet up somewhere and we decided Rondout Valley would be a great place to get together.We all got to get together a couple of times and shared lots of RV stories and laughs together.
Chuck and Cheryl have retired and plan to live full time in their RV starting in the spring of 2019, but have been traveling around the North East for several years. They love climbing the highest mountains and exploring deep down into old mines and caves just as much, as well as numerous other outdoor adventures.
Once Pearl and I watch their videos, we knew we would want to do a video interview with them so we could share their adventures with all of you. We enjoyed spending several days with them and plan to see them again next year once they start their Full Time RV Adventures.
We think you will enjoy the interview with Chuck and Cheryl and maybe even more so, we are sure you will enjoy watching some of their adventure videos.
We left Rondout Valley RV Campground September 9th and spent a month traveling up to Bar Harbor in Maine. This has been such a fun trip that we are even thinking about coming back in 2019 or 2020 depending on just how far away we stray to this summer.
We enjoyed Cape Cod and the Boston Freedom Trail for a couple of days before getting to Maine and found Cape Cod to be a great area with beautiful beaches, but unfortunately there was a very sad shark attack on a surfer the day after we left. We did not see any of the seals that apparently are living in the area and have become a food source for the sharks but we did not go back to the beach at Cape Cod after hearing of that attack.
Our original plans was to travel up to and stay at Moody Beach RV Campground located in southern Maine, but we soon learned that much of the real beauty of Maine was further north, so we headed up to Bar Harbor and Arcadia National Park. That was a great decision and we would highly recommend the area to anyone wanting to see the beauty associated with New England.
With our Thousand Trails membership we can stay for Free at the Moody Beach and Narrows Too campgrounds but when we arrived in the Bar Harbor area, we found that the Narrows Too campground free sites were full so we had to rent a spot. We decided to step up and rent one of the sites right on the ocean so we could watch the tides come in and out and enjoy all that scenery. The site cost $107 per day (minus a 20% TT discount) so we only stayed in the site 4 days until we could get into one of the Free sites, but it was money well spent.
We got to eat lobster dinners and a variety of seafood and enjoyed most all of it, although not many items compared to Pearl's home cooking which is always awesome and usually pretty healthy.
Well it is now October 9th and the last month has flown by and we are back in Rondout Valley Campground meeting up with some friends and looking forward to meeting some new ones. The couple that does the youtube channel "Get Gone With Us" are planning to come to Rondout Valley campground this Sunday for a meet up. They have a great channel and provide a lot of useful information to their viewers so we are anxious to get to meet them. Check out their channel here.Get Gone With Us
We had a great August spending most of it in Pennsylvania at several Thousand Trails Campgrounds. We have meet up with lots of our viewers in Pennsylvania and it is easy to understand why so many couples living in Pennsylvaina are watching our videos and considering the Full Time RV Lifestyle as there are so many great places to RV around here.
We have driven the RV over 40,000 miles since we purchased it almost 5 years ago and Pearl has driven over 35,000 of them and now I have to admit she does a much better job of driving it than I could. I am so proud of her and all the responsibility she takes care of in our Adventure. As they say it Takes Two To Tango and in my opinion it Takes Two to live and enjoy this Full Time RV Lifestyle to its fullest. We highly recommend it and are so glad we have had the opportunity to see this great country of ours in our slow and leisurely manner.
Here is our video for August we hope you enjoy it.
We left Indiana after spending a couple of weeks visiting with family, as well as a couple of different subscribers to the Youtube channel. July and August have been really good months but it wasn't all fun as we had several mechanincal issues pop up that need attention. But that is what the RV lifestyle is all about.
We headed to Pennsylvania after couple of days at Niagara Falls. We enjoyed Niagara Falls every bit as much as we hoped we would. The falls are Majestic especially from the Canadian side. We took several tours including the boat ride right up to the falls on the Maid of the Mist tour boat. That was a dramatic although pretty wet boat ride. If you get the opportunity to view Niagara Falls in person, we would definately reccomend it.
We then headed down to Gettysburg Farms campground and spent several days in the area visiting Civil War battfields and enjoyed the area and all it had to offer.The Thousand Trails Campground "Gettysburg Farms" is on an actual working farm with lots of animals and CORN FIELDS everywhere. We had several big rain days here and luckily we moved from our first campsite right on the river to a very nice site but further back from the river. The folks that did not move had to be towed out, as the river overflowed during the night and put many of the lower campsited under a foot of water. The river went down within a day and no one was ever in any danger, other than mud.
We headed over to Hershey Pennsylanvia to see some of the sights and found more rain but we had several sunny days also. While on one of our walks in the park, a couple in a 45' class A motorhome pulled over and called out to us by name. We didn't know what was going on at first, but they follow our youtube channel and reconized us and wanted to visit a bit. That was a very fun experiance and has happened a couple of times in the last several months. We decided to do a video on their RV experiance that I think you will enjoy watching.
We have been communicating with several couples that live in Pennsylavinia that have been planning to transition into the full time rv lifestyle. One of the coupls drove over from Philadelphia to meet up with us and do an interview to discuss their RV plans. Tom and Christina are a very interesting couple and they definately have the right attitude to live a fun and exciting RV Life Style.
We asked our Youtube viewers to answer about 10 RV related questions and posted the results in a Video Poll that I think many of you will enjoy watcing. There were about 300 respnses to each question and I think the answers and analysis are right on.
We have been communicating with Tom and Lorie from New York for several months via email as they are subscribers to our youtube channel and just recently purchased their RV and moved into it. We decided to meet up in Timothy Lakes campground and do a Video on their story on just why they are living the RV Lifestyle even though they are still working. We have now met up with them at a couple of campgrounds and plan to meet up with them again in October. I think you will enjoy hearing their story as we certainly did.
Well that catches us up through September and we have moved up to Cape Cod for a week and now are just outside of Boston for several days and will soon head up to Maine to meet up with a couple from Texas. We have met these folks a couple of times and missed them by just a day or two at other campgrounds. They are retired law enforcement officers that just started their RV Lifestyle. We would love to interview them, but like many of the people we have met, they are not interested in going on camera at all, so you just have to take my word on it, they have a very interesting story.
See you Next Month, and we hope to have lots of beautiful pictures from the Fall Foilage Colors up in the New England Area.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Is The Full Time RV Lifestyle For You?
We have met a lot of couples both online and in the RV Campgrounds that are interested in the Full Time RV Lifestyle. Most of them do not really understand why we would sell our home and live in our 42' Class A Motorhome.
This lifestyle is not for most folks, I think we probably all agree on that, but Todd and Nancy just might be one of the exceptions. They drove over from their home in Akron Ohio to our campsite to meet us and agreed to tell their story in front of the camera. We had such a fun day with them and I wish we could have put it all into the video but it just simply would not all fit.
Here is a 20 minute video of their story and the process they went through to make their decision. I hope you enjoy meeting them and watching their story.
It seems that winter is over and we have been dealing with record hot weather & Humidity in Texas and Missouri for the last couple of months, but now that we have hit Indiana, the weather has settled down into the 70's and lower humidity. We purchased a large dehumidifier before we left Texas and that has helped tremendously. I have heard about them but never needed one but am a believer now. We dump about a gallon of water out each morning, so it is definitely doing something.
Here are a couple of the videos we took at the different campgrounds leaving Texas
We are in Indiana because it is as good of a route to Niagara Falls as any and our Nephew "Robert Caddel", his lovely wife Esme and their family live in Indiana and Robert offered to BBQ a nice dinner with cold beverages at his home if we come through his neck of the woods, so here we are. We will definitely get some video of the event. Robert will have to work pretty hard to beat his dads BBQ ribs that we had back in Nevada last summer, but he indicates he is pretty good on the Grill.
On the route, we stopped for a week in Branson Missouri just to see what it was all about, and it was definitely worth the stop. Here is a quick little video of our stay in Branson. The photo shows us getting stuck but that was later in Sedalia Missouri at the Escapees Rally. Below is video of the Rally and some of the seminars we were able to attend plus some folks that follow our Youtube channel and decided to also attend the rally.
So now we are about 100 miles West of Indianapolis Indiana at Horseshoe RV Campground. It is pretty nice and nestled into a forested area and several small lakes around the campground.. We will be here for a week and Robert said he may bring his girls to the campground to do some fishing. I don't think Robert is much more of a fisherman than I am and sure wish Roberts dad (Steve) was here as he is the fisherman in the family (other than our Brother-in-Law Britt who is a REAL fisherman) but I would bet that Steve would love teaching his granddaughters how to fish. I don't know why he never taught his son or brother though. I guess granddaughters are just a little sweeter than sons and brothers.
So now you are all caught up on where we are and what we have been up to. We are meeting up with a couple from our Youtube channel here at Horseshoe Lakes in a couple of days then heading over a little closer to Robert & Family before going up to Jefferson Ohio where we are meeting up with several couples and one of them says they have a very interesting story to share with us and want to make a video about it for our Youtube Channel.They aren't giving us any clues so I don't know if it is a interesting story or not but we are very curious to find out. Stay Tuned and we will all find out together when they come to visit and tell their story.
For those that may be interested. We finished our First Year of Full Time RVing and keep a good record of all our expenses and put it out each month. Here is the latest with our 12 months included.
Pearl and I met with Tonya (my sister) in Bell County Texas to visit our Great Great Grandfather (Captain Andrew Caddell) grave site. Captain Andrew Caddell fought in the Battle of San Jacinto against Santa Anna who had just taken over the Alamo Mission. The state of Texas granted Captain Caddel 4,700 acres of Texas land in 1835 for his service in that battle. The state of Texas also placed a large memorial headstone on his grave site around 1936 in memory of Captain Andrew Caddell's service in fighting in this battle and for Texas Independence.
The current land owners Robert and Karen Rance who graciously gave us a tour of the cemetery and they have taken great care of the land and the cemetery while in their possession for the last 22 years. I have posted my family tree information on the Ancestory dot com Web Site back around 2001 and have updated it on occasion as we have found new information. This video has sections of my family tree going back to 1590 and have put pertinent parts of that family tree in this video.
I hope you enjoy the Caddel Family Tree as well as the Captain Andrew Caddel Cemetery. It is a beautiful piece of land it is located on
As you may have noticed, we did not post our February expense video but here is the March Expense report. We purchased some new camera equipment in March (Cannon 80D and a Rode Pro + microphone). We have had some issues with our sound quality on some of the videos so hopefully this will help with that issue.
Well, we finally did it and applied for an Amazon Affiliate status and have started to insert links into the video descriptions on Youtube, so I thought I would try one here to see just how it works.
We haven't got to test it as yet, but if anyone is thinking about purchasing something from Amazon in the next few days, would you consider clicking the link above to take you to amazon web site. It should take you to the doggie poop bag page and from there you can go anywhere you want to make your purchase and we should get some kind of kick back from Amazon and you will simply pay what ever the regular price is for your purchase.
Easy Peeze, and we get some cash, not sure what we will do with the cash, I think you have to have a $100 balance to get a check so it may a year or two before we get anything. If our account starts getting credits we will post it here so you will kind of know how it works.
Thanks for trying the link, if it is too cumbersome no problem just do your amazon normally and don't worry about it as it's just for fun to see if it will work. I don't think it will work for me to use it myself but you can bet I am going to give it a try. :-)
I am a little late posting the January Expense report over here on the Blog this month. We had a pretty inexpensive month since we didn't have to purchase any Diesel Fuel or Campsite expenses. We aren't really too compatible with the South Texas weather or terrain. It has been cool and windy almost the total time we have been down here. The good news is we only have 3 weeks left before we head north.
We are actually thinking about leaving a week early and going to Big Bend National Park and maybe even staying at the Hol-I-Day rv park where daddy and Beverly always wintered back when they had COZY. We tried to get their exact site (36) but it is a popular site and unavailable. It will pretty much depend on my trip to the dentist if we get to leave early and go to Del Rio and Big Bend.
I need to just get my teeth cleaned and a general dental checkup and I am going to do it in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico. We have gotten a lot of positive feed back on this dentist (Dr. Dan :-) and depending on what he says I may or may not have some implants put in. But if it is too costly or I am not comfortable with his skill set, tenderness and cleanliness then I will settle for a cleaning and we will head to Del Rio. We both want to go there so we just might make it.
Our luck has ran out as far as inexpensive as far as February goes. Pearl decided she wanted a new Ipad, and the car is making a funny noise (its in the shop as I write this) and we have been going out for lunch and dinner like there is no tomorrow. I am guessing we will be over budget in several areas this month but we have been pretty lucky all year and nothing too expensive has popped up so far to chew up the maintenance part of the budget so it was a little due.
That just about covers our month on January and a big part of February, wish me luck at the dentist and hopefully we will make it to Big Bend National Park for some good weather and vibes that daddy and Beverly may have left down here for us to connect up with.
We met up with a couple that follows our Youtube channel a couple of weeks ago. They live up north of Dallas and came down to South Padre Island for a vacation and emailed us asking if we would like to meet up with them and visit about RVs. We did and decided to do a video about their trip to Alaska they plan to take in May. Here is that video, we had a lot of fun making it.
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The General Manager of one of the RV parks down here saw the above interview with Charles and Cande and contacted us to see if we would like to come to their customer appreciation day and interview the full time RV'ers there and post it on our Youtube Channel. We think it might be a lot of fun so next Tuesday we will be doing several more of these type videos. Hopefully we will get a little better with practice and make it a kind of regular event at different campgrounds, as long as we can find volunteers to do the videos with us.
If you have any ideas for questions to ask these seasoned full time rv'ers please leave them in the comments section here or on Youtube and we will try to get you an answer.
We have been down here in south Texas for a couple of months now and we are ready to hit the road just as soon as it looks like the cold weather is warming up. The sad part is I am guessing we still have a month or so to go.
We had dinner with a couple that lives down here locally and I asked them about the dentist in Mexico and if they had use them. It appears most everyone has confidence in going across the border and having their dental work done. It cost me almost a thousand buck the last time I had a crown put in back in Nevada, The going rate here in Mexico is about $200 and potentially one day service if your lucky...
I made an appointment to have my teeth cleaned and maybe some more work if there is a comfort level, but I am a little bit concerned about sanitation and catching something that doesn't wash off in the process. I am not above walking out it it doesn't look right, but hopefully I get in and out with no permanent damage. Might even get some good video for the Youtube channel or maybe not now that I think about it.
We received a letter from one of the couples that follow the Youtube Channel saying they were coming down to South Padre Island and would like to meet up with us while they were here and of course we jumped at the chance. Their campsite was right on the Bay so that is where we met up with them to go and have some lunch. We had breaded shrimp and margaritas overlooking the Gulf and it was great. Not too healthy but delicious.
South Padre Island is a beautiful area and we need to go there more often. We shot a video of us visiting and discussing their plans to travel to Alaska this summer. We got so caught up in it that we have moved our plans to RV up through Alaska to next year (2019). East Coast this year and Alaska next year. Sounds Great to Us.
Here is the interview we did with Charles and Cande, Hope you enjoy it and if your up for it, start making some plans to join us.
Today we sat down to discuss some of the major concerns we feel many folks may have concerning the decision to live full time in an RV. We are staying at Tropic Winds campground which is located on the Gulf of Mexico in South Texas. While there are definitely constant Tropical Winds blowing, we have had considerable rain over the last few days. I feel it should be called TROPIC RAIN campground.
We didn't close several of the windows and we had rain coming inside the camper from several windows and vents but we were too focused on our discussion in making the video, that we didn't notice the rain pouring in right behind us. I doubt you will be as focused on the discussion as we obviously were, but maybe you will get a chuckle out it or the crazy rain storm. One of our neighbors said their rain gauge showed 5 inches in just over an hour.
Stay tuned for the ending, or just skip to the ending if you get bored to see what happens when Pearl leaves early in the car to secure our next campsite,about 20 miles away, leaving me to finish packing up and drive the RV to meet up with her. Obviously I was a little late in meeting her.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the video and hopefully everyone is nice and dry as you are watching.
As many of you know, we are trying to maintain a healthy diet (most of the time). Yesterday, Pearl asked for suggestions for dinner and I requested a Pizza (it was my birthday). In her effort to keep it a more healthy choice, Pearl looked up a Califlower Pizza Crust pizza recipe and found one.
She was going to make it a vegetable pizza but since it was my birthday I asked for a little meat on it (its a guy thing). Anyway, to make a long story short. It was Great and we will be doing it again, I am sure.
The only issue, and it was a minor one, was the Califlower had a little too much moisture left in it and the pizza slices were hard to pick up. We ate the first bite off the point of each pizza slice with a fork then were able to pick up the rest.
A viewer from our YouTube channel gave us her solution to the recipe which is almost identical to the one she uses. (wrap the Califlower rice in a paper towel and squeeze out any excess moisture prior to mixing into batter)
The pizza is super healthy (vegetarian version) and very good, if you are courageous enough to try it, I am sure you will like it. If you do try it, please give your comments below to let us know how you liked it and if the paper towel suggestion worked.
We are down in the Rio Grande Valley now and the weather is nice. It has been windy, but I think that is normal down here. It hasn't hit freezing yet but has gone into the 30's a couple of times at night. We often use the heater in the morning and the air conditioner just a couple of hours later. The saying here is that this is the only place where you can get Frost Bite and Sun Burn in the same week. That pretty much covers the winter weather situation in just a couple of words.
That being said, overall the weather has been great. We get to walk the dog everyday and usually in shorts and t-shirt. The only downside for me is the RV Parks are all pretty much asphalt, cement and a little grass. Unfortunately there are not situated on lakes, forest or anything like that, which would be much more to our liking. We do get to meet lots of friendly people and there plenty of activities going on in each park, but we have to venture out of the park a lot more to keep entertained, as shuffleboard, pickleball, dances and pot-luck dinners are nice but not exactly what we enjoy doing a lot of.
Luckily, we have found quite a few places to go to and things to do, so it has worked out pretty well. We briefly showcased a couple of the places we have visited in this video and as we find more and varied interesting things to do, we will probably be able to add some fun and color to the our activity videos.
We will be in the Rio Grande Valley until the middle of March, when we head back North. We have our route and schedule planned out from here up to North Eastern Missouri arriving there in late May for the Escapees RV Rally which we like to go to (usually in Tucson AZ). From there, we are hoping to meet up with Robert and Esme in Indianapolis, checking out Niagara Falls, New England, several Civil War sites and Canada before heading down toward Florida for next winter.
Without much more adieu, I give you our next video as it paints a much better picture of where we're at and what we have been up to. Hope you enjoy and hopefully the weather stays nice and we get to do lots of fun stuff which we will definitely try to get some pictures/video to post. Thanks for watching and Stay Warm, where ever you at.
It's really hard to comprehend that we have been living full time in the RV for 7 months now. Traveling up and down the Pacific Coast seems so long ago now and we are a little sad that it will be more than a year before we get back into the western part of the USA to visit the kids and grand-kids again. We definitely enjoyed all the family time we had up and down the coast visiting everyone and hot-rodding Ronnie's Camero was a blast. Thanks to all and look forward to seeing everyone in 2019.
Special thanks to all of our friends and family that read, comment and follow our adventure here on the blog. We very much enjoy it when someone leaves a question or comment so don't hesitate to say hi so what ever is on your mind, down in the comments section below if your so inclined.
Currently we are down in Weslaco Texas bouncing between a couple of different parks, staying 3 weeks at each one then moving. We spent the day at Padre Island a few days ago and it is pretty nice, as Steve and Lance will vouch for as we spent a month on Padre Island in our 24' motorhome back in 1978 that we all really enjoyed.
There is a beach RV parking area that Pearl and I are thinking about staying at for a few days but haven't decided for sure yet. When we parked on the Beach in California for a week last spring, it really covered everything in salt and was a pain to get clean again.
The campsites are all fairly standard in the Thousand Trails, Encore Parks here and while there is plenty of room and lots of activities, I don't really enjoy them all that much, as I much prefer being nearer the ocean, lake, forest or river. It's fine for spending the winter I guess, but we will definitely be ready to get back on the road this spring and explore new and different campsites.
We are scheduled to get to Branson Missouri this Spring then go to a RV rally in upper Missouri later in the month before heading across to Indianapolis to visit Robert and Family. We will head up to Niagara Falls and the New England area during the summer and head down to Florida for the winter. I am sure I will way too soon be sitting in Florida writing the same thing that it is hard to believe that 2018 went by so fast.
I plan to do a short video or two showing a little bit of the Medina Lake campground where we were camped at in late November/December and where we will stop back at in the Spring, along with some drone footage I shot here at Country Sunshine where we are at currently.
There are lots of RV'ers here now, the drone footage shows the park fairly empty 2 weeks ago, but our neighbors said just wait until after Christmas and all the Canadians will start showing up and they have showed up in droves. It is really filling up fast as I write this the first week in January.
Our most viewed videos seem be the ones that show or discuss finances, so even though I was thinking about ending the expense videos fairly soon, I have received numerous request to continue them over on YouTube. I see they are constantly the top viewed videos even here on the blog so here is the latest spreadsheet on what it cost actually us to live full time in the RV for December 2017
At the end of the video, I added a section where I back out all of the expenses that are not absolutely mandatory and leave room for some personal adjusting up or down depending your personal situation. According to those numbers, a couple could possibly live this lifestyle on $25,000 a year assuming they were debt free and didn't spend a lot of money on extras (really no money on extras)
Hopefully, we will have a video of us and the more recent campgrounds we have stayed at pretty soon, but for now here is the December Expense Spreadsheet for those that haven't seen it already on YouTube.
