Our virgin trip!

If the trailer's rockin', don't come knockin'! - Billy Joe Shaver

Friday, September 13, 2013

This weekend we took the new trailer down to Bellingham, WA. It was to be both a learning and outfitting trip, figuring out what we need for the trailer and purchasing the items that will be needed along the way. We left about 5pm on Friday, after last minute runs to BCAA and the bank. News1130 warned us to stay away from the Cape Horn Interchange and Pattullo bridge as there were to be 38 scheduled closings over the weekend, so we took the Golden Ears bridge instead.

I have to admit to being a little jumpy on the ride to the border. While I have experience travelling and driving while towing and driving larger vehicles, it's my first experience with Harold, and it will take time to stop seeing all the things he might do wrong. As I've found in other circumstances, he definitely handles my nervousness well and pulls off the attitude that he is fully capable, which helps relax me. 

It was our first time across the border together, both using Nexus. I've had it for years, but Harold was never able to get it in the past, due to being in the middle of his immigrancy. Just as we scanned our cards, the border guard put on the red lights and slammed down a red cone in the middle of the lane. A younger woman sauntered over to the kiosk and they chatted for a few moments, before he left and she turned on the green light again. Another moment passed and she looked up, waving at us impatiently to move forward. Her glare turned to a smile and a shrug as we pointed at the cone blocking our way. Her demeanor softened, she laughed with us over her mistake and waved us on through. She even asked if we needed to have the barriers moved so we could get through. These border moments seem more magical and significant because they are so seldom.

We arrived at our destination, the Silver Reef Casino on the Lummi Reservation, about 7pm and were setup quickly. Casinos are a great place to stay overnight. They don't charge you anything, often have dump and water stations, 24 hour security, restaurants and entertainment, and even shuttle service from the RV area to the front door for the elderly or anyone who can't or doesn't want to walk there. 

For some reason unknown to us, the gas station no longer sells any kind of liquor, so Harold ran up the road to buy some wine and dog food (some dog foods are not allowed across the border, and if they see your dog, they will often ask if you have food. If you say yes, they send you in to have it checked. We find it much easier to just not take it down.) before we wandered over to the casino to look around and have dinner.

The Silver Reef has grown dramatically since we were there last year, adding a large area that has easily doubled the space, including more restaurants and a showroom, and a much larger RV and parking area. The new area has a much better air system so the smell of cigarette smoke is almost undetectable, at least, in contrast to the older section. It always takes me by surprise when I go inside anywhere that still allows smoking. It's been such a long time since it was made illegal here in Vancouver. I honestly can't say I miss that smell.

We had dinner at the Mexican Cantina in the new section and it was really good. Better than the typical Tex-Mex place. I had a great Taco salad and Harold had the Pork Torta, a sandwich layered with pintos refritos, jalapeño, avocado, cilantro, lettuce, tomato, onion and lime crema. With a bottle of wine, our bill came to just over $40. Compare that to Vancouver, where a similar meal would have been $100. Socialized healthcare and a living wage, we remind ourselves ... that's the reason we pay more.

We wandered back out to the trailer, and made ourselves comfortable. Toonie was quite happy in her crate, but very nervous when we let her out, not wanting to leave my side. There was an open Wifi signal in the casino, but it was much too faint out in the parking lot. With no tv, and no internet, we were left with chatter and reading before heading to bed. We need to remember the cards next time!

Lesson #1: Play cards! A crib board would be great. Look up some new card games online.

RVs in the lot tonight: approximately 30

Saturday, September 14, 2013

We had a pretty amazing sleep for such a slim, cardboardy mattress. The gel foam mattress topper we stole off the bed in our guest room at home was a huge improvement, and we slept just as well as we do at home. Still, we were up by 5:30am due to having had an early night. We realized we couldn't make coffee as we didn't have any instant coffee and our coffee machine wouldn't work off propane power, so Harold went over to the coffee shop in the casino and came back with two soy lattes. He was all excited about the bargain he got because the server gave him the senior discount. I would have been broken-hearted and gravely insulted if the same had happened to me, but it's as my Mother has said to me, young people just see grey hair and think the person is old. They can't tell the difference between 40 and 65. I'll stay a brunette and pay more, thank you. It was hard enough the first time I had some youngun call me "Ma'am"!

Lesson learned #2: Always send Harold in to get grey hair discounts!

Our first stop was Walmart, which is open 24 hours, so we drove over there to get a Tracfone (Net10 phones were all sold out and Tracfone is owned by Net10) and kitchen and organizational stuff for the trailer. Across the road is a store called BevMo, a private liquor store. We'd noticed it the last few times we'd been down but didn't have the option to buy alcohol so we didn't look in. This time we went in for just a look and fell in love. It is like a warehouse of everything you would want for good times, including glasses, gourmet foods, cool doo-dads and a ton of wine. Best part about it? They had two bottles of my all-time favorite wine, Earthquake Petite-Sirah 2009, that our other wine stores in Bellingham can no longer get.

As I wrote about in my last blog entry, Harold is only able to take two weeks of his annual five week allotted vacation time right now, so we need to put our plan into action earlier to work on the road. That means we can't just rely on free wifi access we find along the way. I had been looking into alternatives that charge less for more data than Verizon, but when it came down to it, reliability is our top priority so we went with Verizon.

Having made that decision, we then had to choose between "Pre-paid" and "Post-paid". If we chose "Pre-Paid", it was as easy as walking into any Walmart, and buying a hotspot device for $269. We could then buy pre-paid cards to input into our account and pay for what we need. The monthly charges are $60 for 3GB, $80 for 4GB etc. 

On the other hand, if we locked ourselves into a 2 year contract, the hotspot is $19.95, and the monthly charges are much lower, $50 for 6GB, $60 for 8GB etc. We are also free to suspend the account when we aren't using it, so we only end up paying when we are going to be down in the US enough to warrant it. We chose option 2, since we see ourselves leaving it on 6-8 months of the year, with a lot of weekends down there in the warmer months and our longer trips to the south states in the cold months.

We rounded out our day with visits to our two favorite Bellingham spots, Purple Smile Wines for tastings and Trader Joe's. Purple Smile was sampling eight Grenaches from all over the world. The two best were left for last, and one, Alto Moncayo 2010, was especially wonderful. We typically don't have an issue paying $40-60 for a really good bottle of wine we just love, but decided to put it on the list for another time since we have been spending so much on everything else lately. The more expensive bottle fit into the same group as all other $100+ bottles we've tried to date. The "OMG I'm so glad we don't like that one!"

We headed back to the trailer with our new purchases, got it all organized, and feeling homey, then settled in for a night of Internet, wine, and a wonderful Mandarin Orange Chicken, we had purchased from Trader Joe's. 

RVs in the lot tonight: easily 50 or more

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Due to being up later the night before, we slept in some this day, and didn't get on our way until 11am or so. We planned to drive down to Burlington, where we were to visit Camping World, a much bigger Walmart, and a Pet food store. Unfortunately, right as we passed the first Burlington I-5 exit, we got stuck in a never-ending detour backup caused by road crews installing the new I-5 bridge. Four months ago the old bridge collapsed and since then there has been a temporary bridge in place. Now they are putting in a permanent bridge. The traffic had to be funnelled down to one lane, and it crawled at a snail's pace. It took us 45 minutes to get to the next exit. Lucky for us, that was our exit. We were surprised to see that the subsidiary roads that run alongside the I-5 were also backed up, so we decided to just go to Camping World, then head back to Bellingham.

Lesson learned #3: Check traffic info more often. A GPS would help here. Patience goes a long way.

Camping World is a great place with everything you might need for your RV. If you know your prices from elsewhere you can get some amazing deals. They have two levels of pricing, one for members ($25 per year) and another for everyone else. We opted to become members since we figure we'll be in there a lot. We managed to escape without spending too much.

After the pet store in Bellingham, and another trip to BevMo, we went back to the trailer to have dinner and pack up to go home. Harold went out to hook up the trailer hitch while I cooked dinner, TJ's Butter Chicken and Lamb Vindaloo. Moments later he came back in to tell me he'd lost the pin for the hitch and didn't have an extra, so he was back off to Walmart where he bought a few more. While he was gone, he missed a wonderful lightning storm and some very good wine.



Lesson learned #4: Always have multiple hitch pins! 

RVs in the lot tonight: way down, only 10-15

Lesson learned #5: Take more pictures! 

The best-laid plans of mice and (wo)men

The best laid schemes of mice and men. Go often awry, 

And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy! - Robert Burns

I've been working on our itinerary for the last few weeks, for our October trip, and just finished it up last night. We're planning to take I-5 down to Northern California, cut over to the coast, follow the coast all the way down to below San Simeon, before cutting over to Paso Robles (wine! wine! Zinfandel and Petite Syrahs!). We'll drive east to Las Vegas where we'll meet up with my parents for a few days, then part ways to go through Death Valley, wander into Yosemite, head into another wine area around Lodi (more Zinfandels!), then start heading home. On the way north, I was planning for us to head over to the coast in Northern Oregon, and up to Long Beach, then back inland and up I-5 again.

I don't like to be hemmed in by schedules, and want to be able to take more or less time in each place as we move along, so I don't want to have to make reservations anywhere. Still there are some places, such as Las Vegas, we'd like to get to on the specific dates, since we plan to be there at the same time my parents are.

This morning we had some bad news. Harold's work only wants him to be away for two weeks now, and I was planning for three (26 days with weekends and Canadian Thanksgiving). I totally understand that it's a bad time for him to take three weeks, and also realize we need to always be amenable to a company that has been so good to him and allows him to work wherever he lays his laptop ... but it's still such a letdown.

It leaves us with two options:

1) Cut out Las Vegas and Death Valley, and do a few longer drive days. I could cut us down to two weeks, and also feel a little easier about leaving for so long on our first trip away.

2) We're heading down to Bellingham this weekend for a trial run, and to make purchases we will need on our trip. We were planning to get a Net10 card to start up our phone again and wait until January to purchase an internet plan. But now, if we buy a Verizon Mifi device this weekend, we can get it setup, try it out, and have it ready to use while we are away in October. I had been planning to purchase a data travel pack from Bell at almost the same monthly rate Verizon will charge us, and it would have only given me 100Mb, rather than the 6Gb we'll get with Verizon. This way Harold can work while we are away. We may have to take a few extra days and drive at night, but we can make it work. It's exactly what we're planning to do in January anyway, so why not start now?

We both agree that option 2 is the preferable one. It means I need to rethink the last week of our itinerary, to make sure we will have data access and also to put us in places we can enjoy while devoting much of the day to work.

So back to the drawing board!

It's all in the planning

“We could live offa the fatta the lan'.” - John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

We've been doing a lot of research lately. Harold has been looking up all the specifics of what we need to take care of the truck and RV, and my job is planning where to go, and how we'll get there. The great thing about RVing these days is the amount of information that is available online. I've compiled a list of web sites that I am finding of immense help. I expect I'll be adding to this as we learn more.


RV Advice: 

http://rvtravel.com - This is a great site with everything you could want to know about RVing. I especially enjoy the newsletters fulls of tips and tricks, advice, and how-to videos.

Attractions:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/ - a site to help you find all the oddball attractions as you drive along.

Overnight Parking:

http://www.harvesthosts.com - For $40 per year, you get access to farms and wineries that will allow you to stay overnight for no charge. I just signed up for this a few days ago and have filled up our itinerary for our upcoming California trip.

http://www.overnightrvparking.com - This site is great for finding places you can park overnight for no charge. Users are given credit for updating or adding data, so the database is well stocked with places.

http://www.freecampgrounds.com - Listings of free campgrounds. I don't like the organization as well as Overnightparking but it's a good backup.

http://www.rvparking.com - Listings of RV Parks. They have an iPhone app but unfortunately, no Android app. It really aggravates me when people cater to iOS when the Android audience is so much larger. They should be making the Android app first, then making the iOS one as an afterthought, as if to say "Oh yeah, we'll make one for those silly iPhones too, just to be nice."

Dumping and refilling:

http://www.sanidumps.com - When you're not hooking up every night, it becomes more necessary to know where you can dump.

http://www.rvdumps.com/dumpstations/ - it's always good to have a backup ... well, except when it's in your lines!




Gassing up:

http://www.pilotflyingj.com - Pilot travel centers are a full service truck stop that also caters to RVers. I've always wanted to use their showers. It will probably be a big let down, but I've always been curious when I've seen the wait numbers on the wall. Make sure to sign-up for their loyalty card. They have both iPhone and Android apps that allow you to find locations, check fuel prices, see your points, shower credits, and rewards.

The Next Exit - This book was referred to me as the book my parents can't live without while on the road. It's a guide to all the services at the exits of all the US Interstate highways. It becomes more important to know what's ahead on the highway when you are driving a big fuel hog that has little dexterity. This book helps you plan where and when to stop.


Mobile Internet and Phone: 
On our first longer trip, in October 2013, we are planning to use vacation time, so we'll be free to be offline as much as we want to be. We'll just be getting internet where we can find it free for the most part. But in the new year, we're planning to work on the road. It's important that we have a reliable way to stay online while we travel. My parents have used a Verizon mobile stick for years and it has done them well, but things have changed and the systems available are much faster and allow more devices to connect.

I had been looking at Verizon, because they seem to have the best US nationwide coverage. The Verizon Jetpack Mifi Hotspot runs $189-269 for the device, then $50-355 per month for 6-50GB accounts. If we were going to be in the US full-time it would make sense to sign a contract and get the device for much cheaper, but we want to be able to close it down when we aren't using it.

While reading through The Mobile Internet Handbook, I came across information on a company, Millenicom, that sells packages using other companies networks. The one I am interested in uses the Verizon network, gives you 20Gb of data for $69.99, and the Mifi device costs half as much as Verizon's. Reading through RV forums, I see a lot of RVers use Millenicom. My only concern is will they let us open an account without a US address and will it be more problems for us in anyway.

http://www.net10.com - We'll have our Canadian cell phones along, but only be using them through Wifi access. It's just too expensive to rely on the roaming rates. My Bell contract expires in February 2014 and I may then look into a Verizon account. For the meantime, we plan to use a Net10 phone. It's what we've always used in the past. All we get is a bare bones phone but the cost is so good, at $20 per month, with 200 carryover minutes, and it's refillable anytime.

Checklists: 
There are a ton of checklists out there for RVing, and sites that compile them all, making lists of lists. Rather them copy them all over to here, I prefer the idea of linking to all the sites that have already compiled them, mostly because I love the idea of making a list of lists of lists!

RV Checklist - Android App
RV Checklist - iOS App
Fun Times Guide
Hit the Road RVing
Changin Gears
RV Goddess
RV Checklist

Taking the plunge

“You have had a dream for so many years.
Let today be the day you make a plan for it.
Just think about how much more likely you are to
hit your target when you finally aim at it.” - Steve Maraboli

I've been watching my parents go off in their motor home for years and wishing we could have the same freedom. This year, with my daughter off to college, we decided it's finally time to take the plunge. Harold and I both work from home and all we need is our laptops and WiFi access. So instead of spending this year's vacation savings on going to the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu, we decided to splurge on an RV.

At first, we had thought to buy a motorhome, something about 24-29 feet long. We started off very cheap, looking at ex-rentals, but we found them too basic. So we decided to spend more money. Neither of our cars are towable, and we didn't want to have to buy a new car as well as the RV. I imagined how we'd be using the RV when we go away. Harold's work schedule is more structured than mine, so I can see me going off shopping at times while he is working. If we just had the motorhome, without a car, that would be tough to do. Sure, we'd have our bikes, but my bags aren't really equipped for a Costco shopping day.


I also didn't like the idea of paying to insure three vehicles, especially since the two we already have are barely used. I started thinking about how useful a truck would be, for yard work, for hauling big items, and for going off road. So we changed our minds and decided to buy a truck and trailer. We settled on a Dodge Ram 2500 with a Cummins Diesel engine. It's more than we need to pull the trailer we ended up with, but in our research we found that Diesel engines last longer and since we were looking at used trucks, we wanted to make sure we got one that still had lots of life left in it.

We did a lot of online research with the help of Google and Craigslist for the trailer, and knew the specifics of what we wanted before we ever set foot on a lot. We wanted a separate bedroom, though this was something we would have given up, if necessary. We needed a couch as well as a dinette. Planning to work from the trailer, it's a necessity to have the room for that, and while we don't mind putting down the couch when we have someone else along, we'd like to have the dinette available.


Trailers seem more geared to families than 5th wheels and motorhomes, so there are lots of models that come with bunks in the front or back. Designs we saw over and over had either a double bed with a single bunk, in the corner, or else an entire front-end devoted to 4 bunks. Neither of these appealed to us, as most of the time it's just going to be the two of us.

The models that appealed most to us were those with big windows at the rear, and we'd be fine with  having slide-outs, as long as the trailer was still usable when they are in. Our plan is to do more boondocking than campgrounds, so slide-outs would only occasionally be used. The trailer we settled on, a Keystone Springdale 256rl, ticked all the boxes for us, best of all, it fit our budget and was even lighter than we'd expected.

We picked up our truck on Friday afternoon. I was going through some mourning about seeing our beloved Honda Accord going. It's been such a good car, and it probably has many good years left in it. The last few days I've been choosing to drive it instead of my own car as I knew it's days with us were numbered, and I was feeling like we were giving up a cherished family pet. The moment I got in the new truck, however, I didn't have another thought about the old grey nag, all my attention was on our new golden stallion.

On Saturday we picked up our new trailer from Fraserway RV. We had a walk-through, where they showed us how to set-up and use everything. A lot of it was common sense and logical, some was information I already knew, having had other RVs in the past, but there was still a lot of information we needed to be able to feel more comfortable, travelling with the trailer.

Eventually, we were done and on our way. The drive home was uneventful, though it's going to take some time before I'm comfortable with our towing prowess. Once we got home, we discovered that the trailer is too long to get down the small hill at the back of our driveway, when it bottomed out near the end. It wasn't a big surprise as I'd wondered about the logistics even before we bought the trailer. We're forced to keep it further up by the front door but we still have plenty of room to park both vehicles in front of it. I'm just fine with this setup, but Harold thinks without the sway bars and with a ramp, we can get it down there. I've agreed to try when we get back from our California trip in October.