My mom is visiting! She flew in on Saturday and leaves Sunday. We’ve been having lots of fun, and so I haven’t had much time for the ole blog… But she’s napping now so I thought I’d throw a post out there. Continue reading
I feel like I’ve been slacking on posting lately & I blame these two adorable puppies: Rebel & Charlie
I was woken up at 5:30 on this beautiful Saturday morning Friday morning to some pathetic whining sounds coming from our beloved puppy, Charles. Continue reading
Today, March 6th, is “Black Balloon Day”. It was started by Lauren Hurley, who lost her brother-in-law to a drug overdose on March 6th, 2015. Continue reading
This post doesn’t have anything to do with the topics that I normally write about. It doesn’t have anything to do with RVing, camping, cooking, anything DIY related, or Charlie, even though I’m sure we can all agree that she’s really cute!
This post is for my cousin Amanda. 
Continue reading
After about 3 weeks off, visiting family and getting things done on the camper, we are back in Texas and back to our normal routines. Allen is back at work (his body definitely knows this!) and me and Charlie are back to killing time together.
I feel like I’m getting a lot done, even if it’s little things…
“the hot mess before”
We are also trying to eat healthy, and very inexpensively… Which is a little difficult to plan out, but I’m trying. See: Cheap, Easy, Healthy, Delicious Black Bean Soup. I’ve also kept us stocked with a wannabe 7-layer salad (wannabe because it doesn’t have nearly 7 layers but it’s still delicious).
I also started keeping a written budget. I had one going for the last couple months of 2015 but kind of let it slip in December. It’s difficult to do while traveling and expenses and income changes dramatically depending on what part of the country we are in at the moment. So we are starting fresh. So far we are most definitely in the red! But I’m hoping to get a better idea of where our money goes and trim it back here and there wherever we can. After all, we have a Smart Car goal to get to in a little over a year!
North Dakota! Oh how I love you and hate your weather! We have a light blanket of white this Thursday morning. Allen’s home, scheduled to replace a guy wire starting tomorrow (good luck honey). No matter how or what we try, our water is frozen!!! Hello giant, huge, all season camper: you didn’t think to help our HEATED, INSULATED water hose out there in the elements! We currently have our faucets open. The water pump works like a charm (and our fresh water is full-thank you Allen!) so we’ve determined it must be outdoors grrrr…..
On the plus side, this is a great town and I love the people who live here. (Even if the weather is making us drink more than usual…..) Shout out to Steve-o-reno and Audra for making our time a little more enjoyable!
PS… I made a Monopoly game yesterday… Call me a dork, but what else is there to do when there’s 60mph winds and snow outside?!
We got lucky enough to have time to stop at Mount Rushmore on the way from San Francisco to North Dakota. 
It seems like so far, every time we see a national landmark it’s in inclement weather! When we saw the Grand Canyon it was snowing all blizzard-like, and it was chilly drizzly for Mount Rushmore. But it was still very neat. I’m pretty sure we were the first visitors that morning, we woke up early so we could have time to see it and then get on the road. I sprinkled some of my brother’s ashes there. 
It smelled SO good here to me after all those months in the city!
Today would’ve been his 32nd birthday.
I also spread some ashes at the Salt Flats in Utah.
And in wide open Wyoming. 
I think he would like that. Happy Birthday Adam. I miss you so much.
On more recent things, Charlie and I have been taking walks through Hillsboro. I’m so proud of her for being well-behaved in public! Usually we just take walks in the campground and she occasionally goes to the pet store to get her nails done, but we rarely walk through actual neighborhoods with sidewalks and what not. I felt like a mom taking her baby to a restaurant for the first time. I was so scared she was going to act like a wild banshee! But she acted like a lady and had some manners so I’m very proud!
Little Charlie all tuckered out
Here’s the shake n bake concoction I used:
Just shake. Then bake! This makes enough to coat more than 4 chicken breasts cut into smaller pieces. (I did 375 in my convection oven for about 35 minutes for two breasts and they came out juicy and delicious!)
Oh my goodness, it’s COLD here!
If it were summer time I think this place would be a lot more enjoyable. As it is, there’s not much to do in town. We are staying at the Hillsboro Campground in Hillsboro, North Dakota. Hillsboro is 1 square mile, right off I-29 and almost exactly halfway between Fargo and Grand Forks. There’s a grocery store, a hardware store, and a sports bar.
There’s also a city park where they have a pen full of mule deer. We went to see them yesterday and feed them carrots. I dressed Charlie in her reindeer outfit thinking she would blend in. But she did not care for the deer and the deer did not like her. The park is pretty. The Goose River goes through it. There’s a swimming pool also.
Joyce runs the campground. She also runs the motel. And the senior assisted living center. And the Chicken Shack (at the campground, which is closed now, I’m guessing for the winter). And she runs the Hillsboro Laundry, which is also at the campground. She is one busy lady. There is wifi but it only shows up on the computer, not on our phones.
Joyce will be shutting the water off to most of the park for the winter, leaving only about 8 spaces with water, ours being one of those. We had to go buy the noodle insulation and the heat cord (for water pipes) to make a longer heated water hose so it doesn’t freeze. We had a 20′ one but it wasn’t long enough. The water spicket and electric is pretty far away. They are either right behind the sites or off the side. The spaces are long enough but soft-ish gravel. I wouldn’t want to park a heavy class A here for sure.
Charlie is just shivering non stop, poor pup. We have compromised to keeping the heat at 64 degrees. We have to pay electric for everything over 525kwh so we turn our electric space heater and the fireplace off at night and when we leave. We are also going through some propane. Luckily there’s somewhere in town to refill our tanks. (All 5 of them). Most of the time we are keeping the garage door closed. We left the bike in there and Allen’s toolbox. So it’s definitely being used as a mudroom now!
I even went and bought some “utility” boots for this hard winter we are about to face! Although Walmart didn’t have hardly any winter stuff out and I’ve seen a lady in flip flops and a girl in a summer dress with just a little cardigan over it. Meanwhile, we are wearing thermals and hats and gloves!
We are heading into Grand Forks today to watch the Bengals play. It’s the closest place I think we will find NFL Sunday Ticket. (I definitely want to have a tailgater by next football season-it would save us a ton of money just not having to go to the bar and watch!) And since we are about 40 minutes from anything we are being very responsible and designating a sober driver. I got the unlucky straw this week so Allen will get to act like a drunk toddler by himself!
We were also responsible enough to get our flu shots the other day when we went into town to go to Walmart. #adulting ! I never thought I could miss Walmart so much! But they still didn’t have our Scott RV toilet paper so I’m stuck with Campa-Chem. At least it’s 2-ply! *sigh*
Cheers to football Sunday! Who Dey!
We “live” in South Dakota now and our brand new state is SUPER CRAZY windy and cold today!
38 degrees with a real feel of 29!
So we decided to just chill out and hibernate in the camper until tomorrow. Then we’ll hit the road again and head up to North Dakota. (Wrong time of the year to be headed north but that’s where the money is!)
We got to Camp America Campground in Salem, SD on Monday afternoon. There was one other guy with a little R-Pod camper and a puppy, and a lady camping in a tent (crazy in my opinion because it’s cold!) but they both left the next morning and we’ve had the park all to ourselves since.
Tuesday morning we drove to My Dakota Address in Madison (about 40 minutes away). Teri was really nice and helped us get all our paperwork in order. We filled out change of address forms for the post office and I did a voter registration card. She made copies of our campground receipt for each of us and gave us copies of the residency affidavit then sent us over to the DMV around the corner to get our new driver’s licenses!
The only thing we could register was the motorcycle because we didn’t have the titles for the truck and camper. Teri is getting those from the bank and then she will register them and get our plates for us.
Allen was bummed because South Dakota doesn’t let you personalize camper plates. Our Ohio plates were BIGRIGN… But we are getting those for the truck instead. At least they were available! I think he would’ve cried actual tears if they weren’t!
He’s such a brat sometimes…
After all the address stuff we had lunch at the Country Cafe in town then went and got the fuel filter changed on the truck. On the way home we stopped and got some beer and Jager to celebrate our new domicile! The gas station sells beer (18pks of 16oz. cans!) and liquor, also ammo and hunting licenses, it has a casino and a fried chicken restaurant inside that seemed to be really busy. South Dakota is awesome. So when we got home we let Charlie run around off her leash and enjoy the grass and fall leaves – she needed that after being in a parking lot for 4 months then the truck for 4 days!
We called Hunter at American Adventure Insurance and switched all of our policies over.
That part took way longer than it should’ve considering I gave him all the info about 3 months ago, then even called last week to make sure everything was good to go and still valid.
We called all of our credit cards and loans and what not and updated our address with them and Allen updated his address with work.
Changing our domicile took lots of planning and research (see this blog post), but we got it done!
I still have lots of stuff to write about from our trip (we stopped at Mount Rushmore!) and I want to review all of the campgrounds we’ve stayed at along the way. So that’ll be coming soon! Cheers from a blustery South Dakota! (We turned our tank heaters on for the first time!)
And the Quake HOLD! held perfectly… That stuff is amazing!
Home Sweet Home on Wheels 