Puff's View

So, from the male side of things..!

3 months in.......would I do it again, in a heart beat.  This has been by far the best move we have made and trust me, we have made a lot of moves.

As you have read from previous posts this is not something we jumped at without thinking and planning it through.  The only glitch if you can call it that, is that our house has not sold however, it is being rented out and covering the payments just fine. 

Getting settled took a little longer than I thought it would.  I have been camping in some form of RV since I was in diapers so this is not new to me.  My parents also had a boat so I was familiar with that side of things as a lot overlaps from the RV world to the boating world.

We do not plan on moving our home for the next few years so I would recommend placing it on some concrete blocks or other solid base.  I have 6 jacks with an auto-levelling system ( this thing is so cool, when parking I turn the system on and raise the front jacks to enable me to unhook the 5th wheel pin.  When the truck is clear I push the "Auto Level" button and the coach does the rest.  4 more jacks drop from the rear 2 in front of the axle and 2 behind to first touch down and then reposition the front ones if needed for height and unit levels itself within 0.1 degree..!!! )  How slick is that, and when hooking back up to the truck it does the reverse and brings to front to the unhook position, right back where I started.  I can't imagine levelling a coach without it.

2 grey water tanks, one for the shower and other for the sinks. 1 black tank.  As we are not moving I left the vales for the grey tanks open all the time, just make sure to run lots of water after using the sink for sink related things. You wouldn't want things to get hard and plug the drain lines up.  The black tank is the opposite.  I leave the valve closed and only drain it when it is full, this allows all the $#!& to swim down the drain hose which is connected to the sewer.  An indicator panel tells when the tank is full.  If you were to leave this valve open all the time there would not be enough slant or water flow to push the material out of the tank and down the drain, it would then sit and settle.  This would not be a good thing.  It has been done and there are ways to fix it but I am not going there tonight.  Our coach also has a built in black tank sprayer, a separate water hose is hooked up and flushes the tank when you have emptied it helping to clear the tank of anything left behind.  Once again and excellent feature and almost a must have on a large coach.  The drain hose outside connects to the sewer via a normal RV sewer hose, I have taken the liberty of slipping it into a 4" piece of white PVC pipe.  It looks better than a hose just hanging there and it is also keeping the entire length of hose at a continuous angle to the sewer connection thus there is no flat spot for things to stop moving at.  The hose was a snug fit but it works.

We are hooked up the city water, a regular RV hose with a regulator is connected up.  From a bad experience last year with my daughter living in our other 5th wheel, this hose is insulated.  Once again it is a regular hose and I wrapped it in the grey hose insulating foam then a heavy duty duct tape and more insulation and more duct tape.  The last layer of tape is black to help absorb the suns energy in the winter to help prevent freezing.  Some people have added an electric hose warmer or line warmer, I am sure you have seen the orange tape wrapped around someones hose.  It has a sensor to tell it when it's cold and to turn on thus preventing freeze ups.  I am hopefully optimistic that it will not get that cold..!

We have electricity, water, sewer and a great view.  Electricity is included in our pad rent so we use the electric fireplace and a small space heater, it helps in the bedroom to take the chill off.  Yes, electric fireplace..!!  The windows are double pane and the coach is well insulated keeping us warm and cosy.

There are a few more neat features but I will cover those in a later post.  So from the guys side of things I am most impressed and happy with my choice. 

Keep the jacks down and awning out with the wine glass filled......happy on RV buddies..!!

Puff

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! 

It is the first Christmas in our new home...... and it turned out great!!! We had our kids over for gifts and breakfast. What started out as a few hours ended up as the whole day! We watched movies, chatted and had a fantastic dinner!!! We were even fortunate enough to watch the snow fall ... although it didn't stick.

From our family to yours..... Merry Christmas!

till next time
Crickit

LETS TALK WIND....

What a long night! The wind kicked up and started rocking the 5thWheel & rattling the slide toppers like no ones business! So finally around 2:30 am Puff & I were bringing in the slides! Talk about crazy!! then trying to go back to sleep after that..... not alot of fun!

All day the wind has been howling (up to 100kms/hr) and the slides have been in,  making for very cozy living quarters! LOL  it has finally stopped blowing (its now 3:48pm) and we have finally put the slides back. You don't realize what you can't access until you move the slides.  We couldn't get to the silverware to make toast or stir our coffee, and to reach the toaster ... well that was an interesting experience. Being that I am short, I could barely reach the microwave!

Hopefully mother nature will give us a bit of a break with the wind....

till next time
Crickit

AS THE HOLIDAYS APPROACH

I don't think I have EVER wrapped Christmas gifts so quickly in my life!! With such close quarters it is difficult to keep anything hidden! LOL  Once it arrives, it needs to be wrapped immediately! Then the question comes "where to put them now?"  It requires a little imagination and  "forgetting" when you accidentally find something  hahaha

The biggest challenge that I am finding is the lighting in this place. I LOVE light!! The more windows the better to let the sun in. I am finding it a little frustrating that the over head lighting in here is a LOT darker than I like....even though we have changed out the bulbs to LED.


We are getting used to shopping every second day.... it is strange buying so little at a time when you are used to feeding a family. It means a lot more trips to the store. We usually go do our shopping at night now, after work and we use that time for our evening "stroll" on the horribly windy & rainy days. A few laps around a shopping mall is better than nothing.

Since we are now living a few feet away from a beautiful scenic walk, Puff & I have been going for evening walks (when the wind isn't blowing 90kms/hr). Its a great 20 minute walk and a great way to relax and breathe. The sound of the waves lapping the beach, the ducks quacking lightly in the background... there is nothing like it!  We can't wait until the sun is out later so we can enjoy it even more.

The neighbors are friendly. Its a whole new thing for me. I am not used to knowing my neighbors (what ever happened to that??? my parents knew their neighbors). I'm just not used to being in a "fishbowl" I guess. Soon summer will be here and the tourists will be all around us, I better get used to it soon.  Puff, on the other hand, can chat up anyone, anywhere! People flock to him! He was out yesterday putting some non-skid tiles on our deck and stairs and out of nowhere comes our neighbor to check it out!

I definitely think this move has helped our relationship. We spend more time together talking than ever before. The TV is hardly ever on, it is mostly background music and chit chat.  Puff has become more helpful around the house indoors & I do whatever I can outdoors to help him... (though the really tall stuff is all his! LOL) We are working well as a team.

Till next time
Crickit

TWO MONTHS

Well its been two months today since we started our adventure. It's funny the way people perceive you..... their thoughts on how "crazy" you are etc.....

We didn't tell anyone we were moving into our Coach.... we let it be a complete surprise. It worked. :)  We invited Puffs parents here for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a bit of a fiasco getting them here, but... in the end it turned out great! They were impressed with the quality of our Coach. They were surprised by the amount of storage we had, and how much we were enjoying it! My mother in law even commented on how much happier we were!!! We invited Puffs sister & brother in law over for a quick visit, they said all the right things, but disapproved of our choice to live here.  Oh well... WE LOVE IT!!!!!!!!

Everything is still great and fun! Its been interesting on some of the windier nights... the rocking and rolling as the south-easters hit us, but we are warm, dry and comfortable! It hasn't been as hard as I thought to adjust to such a small space. I enjoy the fact that I can clean the whole place in 5 minutes!!

We are at the start of December, and getting ideas on how to decorate for the Christmas season.... obviously the HUGE tree will have to be a NOT, and hanging lights inside....well that won't do either. A few changes will have to be made to compensate, but in the end, I think it will work out just fine!


till next time
Crickit