Thankful for Freezing Weather???

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

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…

She was trying to drink my mimosa…

Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner in an RV

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

This will be my first year making Thanksgiving dinner in a camper! Last year we got a few days to go home to see family. We were in Oklahoma City at Abe’s RV Park, so it wasn’t too far to Cincinnati… The year before Allen was in India working and I was staying at my mom’s house.

I’ve made Easter dinner (I attempted to cook a very large ham in my slow cooker…All I’ll say about that is: At least we had fun!… And I burnt my finger really bad! And, yes, I made those bunny ears and forced Allen to put them on. That’s it. That’s all I’m saying.)

I’ve also made St. Patrick’s Day dinner, Shepard’s pie to be precise…

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We made fast friends with the neighbors and didn’t eat until REALLY late! This was at Poche Plantation in Convent, Louisiana…

And I cook dinner almost every day in our RV. So I’m no rookie in the kitchen. But Thanksgiving is always more challenging no matter how much space you have! To top things off, I’m not THE best at time management. For example, I make a lot of Rachael Ray’s recipes, her 30-minute meals, and they typically take me around 90 minutes!!! No lie, ask Allen, usually he’s starving by the time dinner is ready. I can’t help it, I’m just slow… But perfection takes time. Right??

Anyhow, in a camper, space is limited, as is counter space, and cooking space.

Luckily for me, I have the advantage of a new fifth wheel with far more space than the travel trailer we had prior to this. My stove has 3 burners whereas the average stove in a “normal” home has 4. My oven is small. And this one is slightly larger than the oven in our travel trailer was. My saving grace (I think) will be the convection microwave. I absolutely love the thing! I mostly use the conventional oven for storage now because the convection microwave just cooks so much better. Our fridge is huge compared to the one we had in the travel trailer also, so that helps a ton!

I was willing to cook for all the guys on the crew, provided they had some opinions or ideas on what they wanted and where we could all eat. Three of them are staying in the motel a block away and one is next door in the campground. But they are men, and nobody would speak up and say what they wanted to do. So it’s just me and Allen (and Charlie), which makes everything a little easier for me!

We went shopping today and got everything we needed. (I also got a new coat because my old one stopped zipping and we can’t have a non-zipping coat in “Little Canada”!

I measured my convection microwave from top to bottom and decided I could fit 7″ of turkey in there without shoving and squishing! So I was armed with my tape measure… But then we spotted a roasting oven for $25. Boom. Sold!

Now (hopefully) I will have a super delicious, juicy, flavorful turkey and have room for other stuff in the convection oven and maybe, just maybe, fingers crossed, I can get by without using the “real oven”, because that thing just stresses me out! Always has.

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Thanksgiving is for food and football… And family… And friends… But definitely not for stress!

So my TENTATIVE plan is to have a turkey in the roasting oven (unstuffed because I don’t want to risk that… ); a small ham, green bean casserole, and stuffing in the convection oven; then gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce (for me only-Allen’s not a fan) on the stove, with deviled eggs (strictly for me also) and cheesecake in the fridge and freezer, respectively. And let’s not forget the mimosas in the morning…

Followed by Wild Turkey later in the day!

Image: Donald M. Jones

Not that kind of wild turkey…

This kind!

Yum! It’s kind of a tradition of mine that I started when I was in college in San Francisco with no mom to cook for me and no cooking abilities of my own!

I currently have the 15lb turkey Allen insisted we get in a bucket of cold water in the garage where it stays pretty cold (like, we’ve been keeping our beer back there cold, it has one vent and we are using it as a mudroom cold, Charlie shivers upon entering cold… So I think it’ll be okay until Thursday).

I want to make the green bean casserole tomorrow and toss it in the fridge so it’ll just need warming. I don’t want to do the stuffing ahead of time because I love the smell of the trio of onions, celery and garlic all simmering on Thanksgiving morning, so I’ll wait to do that. Then I’ll just have mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry sauce to make (super easy-just cranberries, some water, sugar, lemon juice and salt and pepper makes it delicious!)

I’m pretty excited! I think my planning (albeit tentative) is going to help things go smoothly… Wish me luck! On the plus side, Allen’s pretty used to waiting for hours to eat, so it should be fine!

Camping in 7 degree weather…

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

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…. !!! 🌴

In need of Hot Toddies!

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

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?!

Sunday Funday doesn’t exist in North Dakota

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Allen had to work today. And last Sunday. That kinda puts a damper on the so-called weekend! He works on broadcast towers, you can read more about that jazz here… But they are trying to hurry and finish this job so we can get the heck outta here… I don’t really want to be around when they close the highways! They already closed parts of I-80 that we took to get here. Seems like we left San Francisco just in time to get through the mountains with no snow…

So it’s just me and Charles hanging out today watching football. Luckily the Bengals play tomorrow night so Allen will get to see the game regardless!

I forgot to show off our new home decor I picked up while we were in South Dakota…

They are those wall decals that just peel and stick. You can remove them and move them with no damage. I think they are perfect for our camper. I try not to put holes in the wall if I don’t have to, part of the reason I love Command hooks also! “Home Sweet Home” is above the front door and the other is in the bathroom behind the toilet (I didn’t know where else to put it!)

Anyhow, the other night for dinner I made this Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork and we made tacos with it. Yum! And super simple!

Here’s the recipe:

Layer the following in the slow cooker, in this order…

1 large onion, quartered, and separated

a pork butt or shoulder roast (mine was about 3lbs), make sure you salt and pepper this guy very generously

a can of chipotle peppers in adobo

a can of Dr. Pepper at room temp (use two cans if you have a giant roast-one was enough for me)

Stick the lid on. Turn it on low.

About 4 hours in, flip the roast over. Flip it again in an hour or two. If it is falling apart, take it out and shred the meat. If not, give it another hour and check again. Once you get the meat out, try and skim some or most of the fat off the top without getting rid of too much juice. Shred it and put it back in the pot for another hour, making sure all the meat is soaking up all that juicy goodness.

I served this on warm flour tortillas (I just heated them in a dry pan over medium heat for about a minute on each side). I topped it with some homemade pico (my version follows), a few sprigs of cilantro, and some pepper jack cheese. Delicious! And we have plenty left over for dinner tomorrow…. I think you should try this tonight! (P.S. I’ve been loving The Pioneer Woman‘s recipes, that’s where I found this one! She made hers in the oven, but since I have a camper oven, I prefer my handy dandy slow cooker.)

Pico de Gallo

4 roma tomatoes, diced

1/2 red onion, diced

1/2 jalapeno, seeded and diced

a good squirt of lime juice

a palmful of chopped cilantro

I hope you are all having a better Sunday than my super hard-working, loving boyfriend!

Oh, and by the way, Allen said the Potato Bread I made this week beats out all the others for best yet! And I’ve kind of decided that If I keep it in a ziplock baggie vs. the bread baggies I bought, it stays softer and fresher longer…

We are South Dakotans!

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

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!

Utah the Beautiful!

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

The Bonneville Salt Flats are the first indication you’ve gotten out of Nevada and into Utah. You crest a hill, or mountain, and all of a sudden the landscape looks way different. There’s a bunch of water reflecting the sky and it flattens out a ton. At first it made me think of Louisiana, how it’s AT sea level so you drive through areas that are swampy and wet right next to the highway. Only this isn’t swampy. It’s more like dried salty sand so it’s hard and not squishy. We stopped at the first rest stop and took some pictures.
The Bonneville Salt Flats are where the land speed records have been set. From what I read, it’s ten miles long and you can’t see the other end because of the curvature of the earth. It’s really something to see.
I also read that the whole thing used to be a lake. Lake Bonneville. It was a mostly freshwater lake and it eventually got so high that it all started to drain out, ending with only what is now the Great Salt Lake. The water evaporated and left the little bits of salt behind and now every year lots of salt flows into the Great Salt Lake from the soil and what not. The lake is 12% salinity, much saltier than the ocean and fish can’t live in it. There are brine shrimp that are harvested for fish food and brine flies that are obnoxious to people. Also because of the high salinity, people float really easily.
After the salt flats and the lake we went through or around Salt Lake City. Once we passed that we came into this huge valley with farms and ranches and a couple towns. It was the most beautiful part of the country I’ve seen yet. I kinda want to trade my Texas ranch idea for a Utah ranch!
Shortly after that we came upon a “viewing area” and I convinced Allen to stop. We took a couple of pictures and let Charlie out. While we were there the camper and truck got full of those brine flies I mentioned earlier! It was entertainment for Charlie at least! She’s a fly catcher.
Have you heard that commercial, “happy cows live in California” or something like that?? Lies I tell you! Happy cows live in Wyoming! This state is just wide open, unincorporated, natural goodness. Wikipedia says it’s the least populated state in the country and the government owns almost half of the land. We kept seeing these weird looking fences along the highway. I always expect Allen to know the answer to all my wonderings, but he told me to google it after about the third time I asked what they could be for. They’re snow fences. They keep the snow from drifting onto the highway. Good to know!
We stopped in Rock Springs, Wyoming at a KOA for the night. I reheated some gumbo and made some rice while we swatted a ton of brine flies then we hit the sack.

Friday when we got on the road the truck said we had 40% oil life and 40% oil filter life left. Then yesterday the filter all of a sudden dropped to zero and we were getting messages on the dash. So once we get to South Dakota we will have to get it in the shop and checked out. We are aiming for Hermosa, South Dakota today. It’s close to Mount Rushmore so I’m
excited to see that!

And, Allen made us bacon and eggs for breakfast AND did the dishes! I love him!

Winnemucca = #winning!

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Winnemucca, Nevada. Who woulda thunk it’d be a booming little town?? We were definitely surprised.
We pulled into the I-80 Winnemucca KOA Friday afternoon, checked in, got hooked up and walked Charlie. It was my first time staying at a KOA and it was pretty nice. We were excited to put our awnings out for the first time in about 4 months! I’ll add a review in the next week or so. I should mention that there are a bunch of RV parks in this town. There was a brand new one across the street and one about a block down, so the KOA definitely isn’t your only option.

Once we got little Charles settled in we headed to Walmart for some RV toilet paper (we ran out in San Francisco-crappy! *pun intended*) Then we went to Winger’s for food and drinks. It was almost right across the street from the campground. I think it’s a chain restaurant but we’d never been to one. We had some beers and some wings then headed home and called it a night.

Charlie is climatized and used to mild San Francisco weather so we had to bundle her up!

Saturday morning we went to this 24/7 cafe for breakfast that Allen was seeing signs for on the highway. It was inside a casino. Love it. On the way there we passed a huge lot with buses pulling in and a whole bunch of parked pickups. We knew there had to be something going on in this little town down in a valley in the middle of the desert. We noticed Friday night that there seemed to be a lot of younger guys and Allen said there’s a lot of good looking girls for it being out in the middle of nowhere. Turns out there’s a big gold mining company in Winnemucca and they bus everyone to the mines. Pretty interesting…

Anyhow, after breakfast we stopped at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts and got a new air pump.

We burnt our old one up on the fourth camper tire in San Francisco. (A Cobalt) This one is a little more powerful. It’s an MV-50 and it has little jumper cable prongs on it instead of a plug. We still have to find an attachment thingy to fill the dually tires but the camper is good to go!

While Allen was filling up the tires I spread some of my brother’s ashes. I just wish he could actually see some of this with me.

But, we are on the road again, heading for Wyoming by this evening! (Even though Allen wanted to stay another night just to have another breakfast at the casino!) Moving on!

Goodbye and Good Riddance!

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

We wiggled (kinda literally) out of spot #117 at Candlestick RV Park at 8:33AM on Friday morning. (Thanks to Marcus and Brad for their spotting help!)

It took us a half hour to get past Oakland headed east on I-80. Not too shabby… I managed to narrowly avoid a panic attack crossing the Bay Bridge. (That thing just makes me nauseous!) But Allen is a fairly good driver (just kidding, he’s a beast) so when I get too scared I just close my eyes and get all religious and know that everything will be alright!

my shaky panoramic picture taking skills

We are past Sacramento now and haven’t hit much traffic. (Knock on wood…) Our plan right now is to stop at a KOA in Winnemucca, Nevada. We have a while before we need to be in North Dakota so we may as well take our time!

Happy Friday!

Quake Hold!

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

We are just about ready to go! Mentally we’ve been ready for over a month! (Being out here just wears on everyone and we start longing for wide open spaces – cue the Dixie Chicks!)

I should mention here that I had a mini melt down yesterday. I was gathering up everything we need to register the vehicles and get our drivers licenses in South Dakota and I couldn’t find my social security card! I was all worried that Allen was going to have to “move” without me! But, not five minutes after he walked in the door, he found it for me, right where it was supposed to be, somehow I missed it. Thanks babe! (By “move” I mean change our domicile.)

We are putting the bike in the garage this evening (probably until next year!) and strapping everything down (bike, toolbox, file cabinet). I have all of my sewing stuff put away and the pink flamingo is safely in the cubby! Now we only have little things left…

Our neighbor in Lantana, Florida told me about hurricane putty (or earthquake putty). She used it for little knickknack-y things in their camper when they hit the road. It’s supposed to keep things secure even in an earthquake.

So last week we stopped at Lowe’s and I finally picked some up. It was right around $4. I’ve used it on our pictures we have sitting on the shelves on the island so far. I hope it works! If so then I can leave them out and that’ll be one less thing to put away when we travel.

The frame on the middle shelf holds a drawing I did of the 26′ Wildwood by Forest River we had.

I’m wondering if they make a black or dark brown colored putty. That would look better… I’m also hoping it holds because when we bought the camper we had them Xzilon everything, inside and out. (Inside it’s supposed to protect against stains and what not and it’s almost like a waterproofness on everything-carpet, floor, walls, shelves… Outside it keeps it fresh so we don’t have to wax it for at least 5 years-guaranteed! I think that made it worth it right there!)

One thing I should mention… Traveling with our new fifth wheel vs. traveling in our travel trailer is SUCH a big difference! Everything got jostled around in the travel trailer so that’s what we were expecting when we got this one. I was even worried about the marble sink and stove covers getting broken, wondering if we should tape them down. The first stop we made after traveling the first time with all our stuff in it, we ever so slowly opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom expecting everything to come flying out like it used to in the old camper. But everything stayed pretty much where we put it! It just seems so calm in comparison. Now, that said, I still wouldn’t trust picture frames with glass to stay put!