Happy Anniversary To Us

Sunday, May 1st, was our one year anniversary of being fulltime RVers.  The first year certainly has flown by!

We had a fantastic first year.  We saw so many awesome sites, enjoyed time with family and friends, appreciated the time we had to relax, and treasured the time we were able to spend together.

Of course, we had some problems as well.  A step-stool on the interstate that put a hole in our trailer, a tire that lost it’s tread and put a dent in the trailer, and hassles with DirecTV.  However, life brings problems no matter where you are.  And, none of them were earth shattering.  Mostly, just annoying.

We learned some things about our preferences, as well.  We discovered that we prefer staying at a mix of places.  RV resorts with activities and pools are fine for a month or two.  But, then we are ready for some quiet time again.  We enjoyed seeing the sites, but we plan to slow down the pace this next year.  After all, we have lots of time to enjoy all the regions of this beautiful country.

Our second year will bring some new adventures.  Kevin has just started his part-time job as park caretaker. He’s out mowing grass at this very moment.  I think he’s happy to have something to do and earn some income.

I’ve signed up to volunteer at the Kid’s Zone through Beaver Dam Hospital.  I’ll continue to work online as a virtual assistant.  I’ve actually developed a network of jobs that will bring me as much work as I want.  I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve turned some work down.

We’ll be working at Amazon in Kansas this fall.  That will definitely be an adventure.  We’ll have to see if our bodies can take it.  The income will allow us to take the winter off and explore and enjoy. 

So, overall it’s been a fantastic first year.  We’re looking forward to many more years of this life.  Neither one of us can imagine going back to the old life!

The weather has still been cold and dreary.  The sun shines for a day or so, and then back to clouds and rain.  Oh well, it is what it is. 

Our DirecTV is finally working again.  After numerous calls and frustration, I was finally contacted by a manager. He sent out a repair guy this past Sunday morning.  The repair guy had things fixed in no time at all.  We needed a new part outside.  And, they’re covering it under our service plan.  If they would have just sent someone in the first place, we wouldn’t have been without service for eleven days. 

As the repair guy told me, the company is such a massive beast, customers are constantly falling through the cracks.  Once you get a manager, things happen.  But, getting to that point is a frustrating process.  We were given a phone number to call for the manager with a pin number.  After five days, your pin number expires and you can’t call the management center again.  What a joke!

Our Mi-Fi is still not working.  It turns out our SIM card was bad.  They’ve sent out a new one, but it hasn’t arrived yet.  Since our mailing address is Eric’s house, we have to drive over an hour to his house to pick it up.  We’re planning on driving into town on Thursday to take him out to dinner, so we’ll pick up the SIM card at that time.  Hopefully, it will solve the Mi-Fi problem.

Eric has been so wonderful taking care of our mail this winter.  We were able to take care of most of our business using the internet, but there were a few times where he needed to send us some mail.  He never complains that our mail is a pain.  What a guy!  We’re planning on helping him with some home repairs this summer.  It’s great when family members can help each other out.

No pictures today.  I didn’t think you wanted to see more gray skies :)

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Here Comes The Sun

It was so wonderful to see the sun this morning.  I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I was able to witness this beautiful sunrise.

Kevin will say I couldn’t sleep because of “the” wedding that was being broadcast this morning.  But, that’s not it.  Although, I have been watching the whole thing.  Just saw “the kiss”.

I’ve been a bit grumpy the last few days because of problems we’re having again with electronics/technology.  We still don’t have our DirecTV working.  We’re waiting for the receivers they’re supposed to be sending us.

On Tuesday we purchased a new Mi-Fi from Verizon.  We’ve been using an aircard since last summer, but we couldn’t both be online at the same time.  We had tried a program called Connectify that is supposed to turn Windows 7 into a hotspot.  We had some success with it, but the program kept shutting down, and it just wasn’t working well for us.

Also, we were not satisfied with the company we’ve been using for internet service.  Last August I contacted the 3Gstore.com for help in setting up our internet service.  They were offering Verizon aircard service for $10 less than Verizon was charging.  I was under the assumption that this plan would be through the 3Gstore.  There would be a one-time charge of $99 to lease the aircard.

I didn’t realize the service was through a third party company called Group Access.  We were limited to 5GB of data per month and were able to check our usage online.  Unfortunately, Group Access sold our account to Coast to Coast Cellular a few months after we signed up.  It took weeks to get a new aircard from them and many phone calls to actually get it working.  Also, we were no longer able to check our usage online. 

When I asked Coast to Coast about that, they said they were “working on it”.  We were never given any information on how to view our account online or find out what our usage was. In January we ended up going over our 5GB limit by about 1/2 of a GB.  That cost us an extra $125. 

When I called to complain, I was given a user ID and login to view our account online and was told I could email them anytime for usage info.  That was the first we were ever told any of that. Due to the fact that we were never informed of how to check our usage, I asked for a one-time credit for the overage charges. Of course, they said no.  I have filed a dispute with our credit card company, and we’ll see what happens.

The lesson learned is don’t sign up with a third party internet provider.  Their overage charges are ridiculous.  I must also say that the 3Gstore has not provided any help with this, and basically told me “tough luck”.

So, back to Tuesday and the purchase of a Verizon Mi-Fi.  It worked for a few hours and then stopped working.  I called and found out their 4G network was down nationwide.  As of this morning, their network is back up, but our Mi-Fi is still not working.  So, I’ll have to call them again.  Luckily, I hadn’t cancelled the aircard yet so I still have internet. 

The Mi-Fi is $50 per month with a 5GB limit.  Overage charges are $10 per each GB over the 5GB limit.  That’s a much more reasonable price for the overage fees.  We did have to buy the MI-Fi for $99 and a two year contract commitment.

Also, yesterday we had to spend another $800 on truck repairs.  One of the wheel hubs had to be replaced; something to do with the anti-lock brakes. 

So, with gloomy weather and all of these problems, I’ve been in a bit of a funk, and couldn’t fall back asleep this morning. Hopefully, the sun will cheer me up.

Now, I know full well that these are little problems, and I should not be complaining.  When I see what devastation the tornados in the south have done, I know I am a very lucky person.

Unfortunately, I’m a worrier.  I truly believe I’ve learned to let things bother me less in this last year, but I still have a ways to go.  I’m working on it, but it’s hard to change who you are :)

Kevin just got up to go chase ducks off the roof.  Apparently, two ducks were walking around on the roof above the bed and quacking.  Too funny!  I needed a laugh :)

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Great Visits

It has been so wonderful to see my family again.  Korey has been here for almost a week.  He has to leave today, but we’ve so enjoyed spending this time with him.

On Sunday, we went to my mom’s for dinner.  We haven’t seen her since September, and Korey hasn’t seen her since August.  She was so excited!  We had a great dinner and so enjoyed catching up with my brother and his wife.  Both my boys were there.  I cherish every moment with them. We had a great Easter. I hope all of you did, too.

We attended church in Beaver Dam on Easter morning.  Something the pastor said in his sermon really hit home for me.  He was talking about the rock being rolled away from the tomb, and how God sometimes will roll away the rock of our sorrows or pain.

It made me think of how much Kevin and I had disliked our jobs and wanted desperately to get out and start our new fulltime RVing dream.  It felt at times like it would never happen.  But, now almost a year later, I feel as if God moved that rock for us.  We are so much happier in this simpler life!  We now have the freedom to do what makes us happy.

Yesterday the sun finally came out.  It was 64 degrees, and we spent some time outside.  The three of us took a walk and then played some bean bag toss.  Last night the rains came back.  It’s been raining hard all night.  The sun isn’t supposed to return until Friday. Yuck!  All this rain certainly has turned the grass green. 

 

 

 

Korey and I sampled the wine I bought in New Mexico.  Good stuff!

After Korey leaves this morning, it’s time for some errands. We hope to be able to get haircut appointments, go to the bank and get a Mi-Fi air card from Verizon.  Right now, we have a regular air card so only one of us can be online at a time.  We’ve been very dissatisfied with our internet provider, Coast 2 Coast Cellular.  But, that’s a story for another day.

Also, we still do not have  satellite TV.  The local service guy couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it.  He said he thought both of our receivers had gone bad at the same time.  The odds of that are so slim. We don’t think that could be the problem.

But, DirecTV is now sending us two new receivers. They should be here in a few days.  We’ll see if that solves the problem, but we doubt it.  So frustrating!!!!  At least we’re in an area where we can receive local channels through our antenna.  So, we are now having to watch commercials, and Kevin is missing ESPN.  Such a rough life we lead :)

One more event that has happened since we’ve been back in Wisconsin, is that we’ve been hired by Amazon to work at their Coffeyville, Kansas distribution center this fall.  We understand that it will be hard work, but the income we will earn will allow us to take the winter months off and enjoy.  I’ll write more about the hiring process in another post.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

A Visit With Old Friends

Last night we went out for a fish fry with some very good friends.  Sue and I became friends in 7th grade.  We remained the best of friends all the way through high school.  In fact, Sue and her husband, Jim, were responsible for setting up my first date with Kevin. 

The two of them were our maid of honor and best man and godparents to our oldest son.  They had two boys close in age to our two boys.  Every summer we would take our boys to Great America and the boys attended church camp together for a number of years.

As is often the case in life, interests change and sometimes you don’t spend as much time with good friends as you would like.  So, over the years we saw less and less of them.

It was so good to see them again! Their son David, his wife, Liz, and their one year old son, Harper, joined us along with our two boys.  What a cute family David has.  Little Harper is just adorable. 

We had a wonderful evening catching up.  We have made plans to golf together this summer, and I’m hoping they will come out and visit us at our campground.  Since I forgot my camera and don’t have a current picture, I’ll share a picture of the four of us at our wedding in 1977.  What children we were.

 

 

The weather sure has been crummy since we returned to Wisconsin.  We’ve had rain and clouds on seven out of nine days since we’ve been back.  I’m thinking I got spoiled by all the sunshine we enjoyed this winter in the southwest.

What I have been enjoying is being with my family again.  Korey has been staying with us since Wednesday, and it has been so wonderful to have him with us again for a few days.   We saw Eric at dinner last night and will be with the boys, my mom and my brother and his wife tomorrow.  Seeing all of them is worth a few rainy and cloudy days.  But, I wouldn’t mind some sun and warm weather sooner than later :)

We have taken a few walks in-between the raindrops.  There are a number of white pelicans on the lake.  When they are swimming on the water, they appear to be completely white.

Yet, when they’re flying, their wings are black.  I’m not sure what kind of pelicans they are, but they sure are pretty. 

There are also many robins and some red-winged blackbirds in the park.  Certainly, all of these birds mean spring is just around the corner.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Isn’t it Supposed to Be Spring?

We left Springfield, Illinois on Monday morning.  As we entered Wisconsin, we saw a bit of snow on the grass.  I was sure hoping to avoid snow this year :)

We arrived at Burlington RV Monday afternoon.  Our appointment for repairs was first thing Tuesday morning.  They were kind enough to let us stay overnight on their lot Monday night.  They even turned on the outside water for us since one of the reasons we were there was to have our water pump replaced.

On Tuesday they replaced our water pump and repaired the damage that was done by one of our tires losing it’s tread back in February.  Repairs were completed at 5:30 p.m.  Since it was snowing to the north, we decided to spend another night in their parking lot.

We have been so impressed with Jayco.  Our warranty expired last fall, but they covered the tire damage repairs under warranty and replaced the water pump,as well.  Jayco’s customer service is excellent.  We had filed a claim with Goodyear for the tire and the damage it caused.  We got an email this morning saying they were covering all of the repair costs and the new tire.  So, Jayco will get their money back, and we will be reimbursed for the tire.  More good customer service!

It rained all day yesterday and most of the night.  There were even a few thunderstorms in the evening hours.  Three inches of snow were predicted to the north overnight.  Yuck!

We left Burlington around 11:00 a.m. this morning and arrived in Beaver Dam about two hours later.  We are at Derge County Park where we will be the camp hosts this summer.  The roads were fine getting here.  Just a bit wet in a few spots. 

Here’s the current view out of our back window.

I’m not happy about the snow view.  However, this view is to the south so I’m sure we will see some awesome sunsets out of our back window this summer.  I don’t know what crop will be growing, but it will be nice to have our back shades open with no one behind us.

Here’s the view out of our side window.

That’s Beaver Dam Lake across the road from us.  It’s to the east so there should be some beautiful sunrises over the lake.

We’re fighting with DirecTV again.  When Kevin set up our satellite today, it wouldn’t work.  When he called DirecTV, they told him our protection plan doesn’t cover us because our dish is on a tripod and not attached to a residence.  They sold us this plan last September when we had a problem with the dish on the tripod so someone screwed up. Again!!!

They wouldn’t help me find a service person in our area.  I finally found the name of a service person online, and he is supposed to call me back tomorrow to set up a time to come out and take a look. I’ll definitely be cancelling that protection plan that doesn’t cover our equipment. 

I hope this finally convinces Kevin to cancel DirecTV.  Their customer service is the worst I have ever encountered!!! Dish Network has got to be better. It certainly can’t be any worse!

Our youngest son, Korey, should be here in about an hour.  He’s driving down from Minnesota to spend the next five days with us.  I’m so excited to see him.  And, we’ll see our oldest son, Eric, on Friday.  The whole family will be together for Easter. I have missed my boys :)

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

A Little Lincoln History

Today we visited the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.  It is a four block area in downtown Springfield that has been restored to the mid 1800s time period. The movie at the visitor center covered the time Lincoln lived in Springfield, and it was very well done.

The main feature of the site is the home Abraham and Mary Lincoln owned while they lived in Springfield.  It is the only home they ever owned.

Lincoln came to Springfield at the age of 28 to be a junior partner in a law firm.  He lived here for 25 years and during that time got married, fathered four children, and was elected President.

This room is the Back Parlor.  The couch is the original horse hair couch the Lincolns owned.  It is believed Lincoln was informed that he had won the presidency in 1860 in this room.

This is the Sitting Room.  The mirror was brought by Mary Todd when she moved to Illinois.  Under the mirror is her original sewing table.

The Park Service offers free tours of the house.  There are also two other houses on the block that have been restored and are open for self-guided tours.

We walked about six blocks to the Lincoln Presidential Library.  There is currently a Civil War exhibit which we looked at.  Across the street is the Lincoln Museum.  We didn’t have time to go through it today.  Maybe next time we’re in the area.

Our last Lincoln stop for the day was his grave site.  Lincoln is buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield along with his wife and three of their four sons.  Those three children all died before they were eighteen years old.  Their only child to survive to become an adult was their oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 

 

Spring has arrived in Illinois.  This apple tree was in full bloom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, I couldn’t resist sharing this beautiful tulip picture with you.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Brrr!

Two days ago we had the air conditioner running because it was 86 degrees in Oklahoma.  Since leaving there, highs have only been in the 40s and the skies have been heavily overcast for two days.

I have a feeling we won’t be seeing 80 degrees for quite some time.  I guess there is always a trade-off for everything.  As we’ve been driving through Missouri and Illinois, I’ve been enjoying the views of green grass and the blooming Redbuds.  There are also some trees with white blossoms that are so pretty.  Even with the clouds, it’s been beautiful.

Here are some of the white trees zipping by.  You can see the bright green of the fresh leaves, as well.

And, of course, no trip through St. Louis is complete without a picture of the arch.  We drove through St. Louis around noon today, and traffic was fairly light.  I’m sure glad we weren’t  heading south on I-55 into the city.  They were backed up for miles.

 

 

 

It was windy again today.  Unfortunately, it was now coming from the northwest instead of the southwest.  So, Kevin was fighting a head wind all day.  No more being pushed along from behind.  Our gas mileage sure wasn’t good. In fact, it was so windy that it pushed our step down while we were driving.  Kevin had to bungee it to keep the wind from blowing it down. 

We are spending two nights at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield.  The rate for 55 and older is $20 a night for a FHU site with 50 amp electric.  They also have free Wi-Fi which works great.  Some sites are on asphalt parking lot and some are on grass.  It’s quite muddy so we chose the asphalt.  We will definitely keep this place in mind for future trips back to Wisconsin.

There were some tornados and heavy storms in central Illinois last night.  It feels like we’ve been tip-toeing between storms.  All we had was rain all night in Missouri.  Nothing serious.  It appears the severe weather will not be a factor for us between now and Monday when we reach Wisconsin.

We did see on weather.com that it is expected to be in the 40s all next week with clouds and rain.  Why are we going back there?? I guess seeing family and camp hosting are good reasons to return.  Hopefully, the weather will improve sooner than later :)

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!