Thankful for Freezing Weather???

Never thought I’d say that! But I guess you learn from everything, so thankful I should be!

Here’s a timeline:

  • Wednesday night we hit Reno’s Sports Bar for some food and holiday shenanigans.
  • Got home and forgot to drip the faucet (even though our water hose is heated and insulated, it will freeze if it’s not dripping)
  • 4am Thanksgiving morning – woke up to a frozen water hose… Caught it in time, brought it inside, thawed it out. (It was only frozen at the connection point between two hoses, about a half inch was exposed with no insulation.)
  • Went back to sleep, with the faucet dripping!
  • Made a delicious Thanksgiving feast!
  • Black Friday: woke up to water in the kitchen sink and tub, and a frozen sewer hose!

    Frozen poop tube pieces… 

What I’ve learned:

  • No matter how much fun, or booze, we have: REMEMBER TO DRIP THE FAUCET!
  • When the temperature drops to 2 degrees, or thereabouts, we shouldn’t be camping!
  • Or we should insulate the doggone poop tube as well…
  • One grey tank is for the kitchen sink, and one grey tank is for the bathroom and washing machine.
  • The grey holding tanks have no back-flow preventer, and will back up into both tanks simultaneously if they have nowhere to drain…
  • And finally, roaster ovens are the way to go when Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner in an RV!

Maybe I won’t have to use this cold weather knowledge for quite a while because we might be heading south sometime this week… This whole “getting dark at 4:45pm” is for the birds! Come on summertime!

 

No Shave November… 

My mom got us these shirts! 

Football and food… 

I decorated for Christmas a tiny bit early! 

Our “kitchen table” since our “dining room” is currently housing a Suzuki Katana!

Thanksgiving tradition that I’m keeping alive! Cheers! 

And we will end with little Charlie…

IMG_3582

She was trying to drink my mimosa… 

Camping in 7 degree weather…

Who camps in 7 degree weather?! 

Well, we do. The real question is: Who’s brilliant idea was it to work on a 2000′ tower in late November in North Dakota?? … Hmmm… 

 Allen is working all weekend since they were off almost all week due to crazy winds. We’ve been leaving the bathroom faucet trickling 24/7 so our water doesn’t freeze. He forgot to leave it running when he left this morning for work. I got up 2 hours later and caught it just in time! Crazy! 

We even put a pillow over the spigot to kind of insulate it…  Our ghettoness is showing. 

 I’m just glad we have this camper (2015 Grand Design Momentum), our old one (2009 Forest River Wildwood) would be so much harder to keep thawed out! I thought Oklahoma City was bad last year… That was nothing compared to this!

More snow is on the way for Thanksgiving. Yippee! 

I forgot to take my tape measure to the grocery with me today. I need a maximum 7″ high turkey to fit in our convection oven…. 

I wish we were in the Florida Keys…. !!! 🌴

North Dakota… 

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!