My Favorite Camper-Sized Things

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

I have to start off by saying that Charlie is THE BEST camper-sized puppy I could ever wish for!

Now, moving onto camper-sized THINGS…

Living full-time in a camper takes some adjusting to but overall I love it. Before I moved in with Allen for good I went through all my clothes and got rid of half of them. Then I went through again and got rid of another half. I still probably have too much, and I TRY to live by the rule that when I get something new, I need to get rid of something, but that doesn’t always work out perfectly!

The biggest challenge for me is staying tidy. Just ask Allen! He sometimes starts twitching (slight exaggeration) coming in the door from work if I have crafty stuff on “his side” of the bench, and let’s not forget walking into the bathroom if I’ve forgotten to put my makeup and hair stuff away… (Let’s just say my tidiness is a work in progress!)

You know that saying: Well… This is more like it:

True that!!!

But in a camper, you need to be organized and live by this rule or things can get out of hand rather quickly!

So here’s a list of some of my favorite things that work well for me in our camper. Some I have, some I just really want!

I have a set of nesting mixing bowls and measuring cups just like these, but I got mine from Aldi (it’s a discount grocery in Cincinnati) and I only paid around $15. This set is $30. The only thing I wish is that my green bowl had the same little pour spout-that’s kinda nifty!
These Magma nesting pots and pans look SO nice! A dream come true! They all stack neatly inside of each other and there are two removable handles so they don’t get in the way! I am in love with them. I’m REALLY hoping my wonderful mother gets us these for Christmas! I saw them first on Shore Looks Nice.

Considering my drawer for pots and pans (and my coffee pot) looks like this currently, I can only imagine how amazing these would be!

When we had the other camper, I would do dishes and set them on a dish towel on the stove, leaning against the wall to dry. But with our new camper, the sink is on the island, which means there is no wall to lean plates and things against to dry. So one of the first things I bought was this drying rack. It folds up and fits under the sink when I’m not using it.
I’m also in DESPARATE need of a spice rack! I cook dinner almost everyday. 6 days a week, if not 7 sometimes. And I use a LOT of spices. Right now I have them all stacked/falling off of a lazy susan on a shelf in the pantry. I bought this spice rack from Kohl’s when we were in Waynesville, but when I got it home I realized how cheaply it was made so I returned it.Now I’m thinking maybe this will work out better. I can stack things on top of it, and even though it’s not as fancy looking as the one above, I can use my existing spices!
I absolutely love our washer/dryer combo, but sometimes I don’t have the patience to wait for things to dry all the way, OR they just don’t. This mostly happens with jeans and heavy sweatshirts. So I picked up this drying rack and it gets a lot of use!
And, even though it’s not storage related, I think it’s fair to mention that I’ve found some really decent dishes at Big Lots. I usually look in the picnic section for plastic plates and bowls. And I try to find thicker, better quality ones that will last a while. We had some black ceramic dinner plates and bowls that Allen loved, but it was just too much of a hassle to have to stack paper plates in between them every time we would travel so they wouldn’t break that I finally gave them away. He’s still a little sad about it! But it wasn’t practical (sorry babe!)
I don’t have this shoe holder but I want to make one. My friend recently sent me some fabric and I think some of it might work out really well for a shoe holder! I’m sure it wouldn’t be TOO hard to DIY!
Bed Skirt Shoe Organizer
I know they probably sell the “pop-a-bag” things that hold your plastic grocery bags, but you can just as easily make one yourself. I made mine out of an empty Clorox Wipes container. I just stuffed the bags inside and tore off the little plastic prong-y things. Super easy! I used to have them in a tissue box and that worked too! Here’s the pop-a-plate and pop-a-tissue. (I don’t have or want either one of these, I think they are kind of a waste of money, and now I don’t have anywhere to put them.)These are both at Camping World.
Some kitchen appliances that I can’t really function without:
Rice Cooker

Slow Cooker

Immersion Blender (I actually found this at Goodwill for $3!!!)

If you have any ideas that I missed or some favorite camper-sized things of your own, please share!

Tour of Our Home on Wheels (part 4- the bedroom and bathrooms)

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Our bedroom now is an actual room… A place to relax…

Our bedroom in our previous camper was a bed.

This was it. You couldn’t walk at the foot of the bed. And this was pretty much the extent of our closet/dresser space.

Just to give you a visual, because I know I keep comparing the two campers, but we do just have so much more room now, here’s the floorpan for the 26′ Wildwood we had and the floorplan for the 43′ Momentum we have now.

Taken from FunTown RV

Taken from Grand Design.

I’m pretty sure the bedroom is Allen’s favorite room. It might be Charlie’s favorite too.

We have a king size bed and we finally found some sheets we love! (100% cotton=amazing) The mattress is super comfy, but we still have our short queen size memory foam pad on top (we are waiting for our Walmart Savings Catcher money to add up to get one that actually fits!) Hahaha

The bedroom is the only room with carpet, unless you count the strip in front of and under the couch. Charlie has a bed on either side of our bed and one in the closet, but she still sleeps with us of course!

The closet has shelves across the back and shelves and a bar for hangers on the left. It DID have the same thing on the right but we put a washer/dryer combo in. My mom got it for us for a housewarming gift – thanks mom! The washer/dryer is SO nice! I LOVE not having to lug everything down to the laundry room in whatever campground we are in. And the money we save is crazy; when we aren’t paying electric!

Thank you Camping World for the image.

We have a dresser with 4 drawers and a TV above that. The bed lifts up for more storage. It came with a built in safe and an ottoman that pulls out from the foot of the bed and opens for even more storage. The ottoman is also Charlie’s step stool and she will sit and whine if it isn’t pulled out for her. We have 4 windows in the bedroom (3 that open). And our bed is in the third slide. I definitely wanted a bed that was sideways when we started looking. I guess I just wanted something different.

Oh, and there are LED lights in the closet too.

There are outlets on either side of the bed. Our closet doors have mirrors on them and the bedroom door is frosted. We have an A/C in the bedroom with its own thermostat. It gets warm in the bedroom, I think because the ceiling is lower, there’s carpet, and the exterior of the nose is painted black. So that A/C works the hardest.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are speakers connected through the surround sound that play in the bedroom also. The thermostat control is in the bedroom along with this little panel that tells us what we are running on (50amp, 30amp, generator). And when we are running on the generator it will tell us how many amps we are using at any given time.

The main bathroom is next to the bedroom. It has a large shower with an adjustable height shower head and a seat. We have a 12 gallon hot water heater now (5 gallons previously) and Allen thinks it’s bad for the environment because it encourages him to take super long showers. We never had that luxury before! There’s a vent fan in the bathroom (no rain sensor this time), it has a vessel bowl sink that I love. The countertop almost matches the kitchen. There’s a medicine cabinet, a storage cabinet under the sink, 3 drawers, and a big linen closet that is super deep. The toilet is a foot flush and a porcelain bowl. (Fancy, fancy!)

Our bathroom will never be this clutter-free again (sorry babe), so I had to steal this photo from Grand Design.

The half bath has just a toilet and sink, but it DOES have a window!

DIYs & MODs

I used Command picture hanging strips to hang two things in the bedroom to the left of the dresser. I want to hang more things but I’m still deciding exactly what I want.
We put up Command hooks in both bathrooms for hand towels and one in the half bathroom to hang the broom. Here’s a post about hanging things with Command products.
We also had to install the toilet paper holders ourselves. Allen did that, and I tell him all the time they are a bit crooked. (They aren’t.)

In the main bathroom.

In the half bathroom.
On a side note, I love these blinds. Charlie can’t stick her little head through and bend them like she used to!

Previously:

Tour of Our Home on Wheels (part 3- the living room and kitchen)

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

The layout of the main living area in our camper is just about perfect for us. It has opposing slides, which open up the space a lot. Also, the ceilings being so high help with that. (We are 13’6″ high.) Some images I’ve taken from Grand Design‘s website and some are my own.

All of the brochures say there are overhead cabinets above the couch. There aren’t. I think there may have been in 2013 and 2014 and Grand Design has just failed to remove that part…

I’ll start with the kitchen…

I really wanted an island when we were looking at new campers. Not only does it add counter space (which in campers, is always at a minimum) but it also let’s me have a conversation with Allen when I’m prepping dinner or my least favorite chore: washing dishes, which he doesn’t do nearly enough of, IMHO.

The island in our Grand Design Momentum has a marble looking top and double basin sink with sink covers. We usually keep the smaller side covered, adding even more counter space. The faucet has a sprayer that pulls down so you can rinse the whole sink. Under the sink there is room for a small trash can on one side and two shelves on the other. Next to those cabinet doors are three drawers. There are three shelves on either side of the island with blue LED lights under them and outlets on both sides as well. Directly above the island are two chandelier lights that hang down and add a nice touch that I haven’t seen too often in campers.

In the kitchen slide, there is a large pantry with 3 shelves and 3 drawers, an oven and stove- with stove covers that match the island, a storage drawer underneath the stove, a marble looking backsplash, a convection microwave above, and another storage cabinet above that.

The stove WITH the covers on.

The stove WITHOUT the covers.

This would be my attempt at organizing the pantry… for probably the third time… yikes!

Next to the stove is our “residential-size” fridge. Which means it’s huge in the world of campers, but still not quite as deep as normal ACTUAL residential fridges. (We can’t fit one of those can holders that roll the cans forward for instance). All the appliances are stainless steel. And our fridge is actually magnetic! Another rarity in the camper world…

I think I might be overly excited about the magnetic fridge…It’s getting quite cluttered. And I’ve been on a post-it note kick lately so those are stuck everywhere!

Above the kitchen there is a vent hatch with a fan. It is controlled by buttons on the wall, has four speeds, and has a rain sensor, so when it starts raining, it’ll automatically close. There’s also an air conditioner that has a heat pump on it. I didn’t know what the heat pump was until I started Googling. It’ll warm up the room by 4 degrees at a time. Any more than that, the furnace will kick on. But that is going to be really nice come wintertime! (And since I’m kind of spoiled with it, and we aren’t paying electric right now, I’ve used it twice here in San Francisco in the morning when it’s chilly – it’s awesome!)

Combine the heat pump with the electric fireplace (I’ve used that too…), and we should be nice and cozy! The fireplace has 10 different looks going from super bright and blazing, to just a small little thing, and 2 different heat blower levels. It also has a remote and a timer that can be set. The fireplace is under the flat screen TV. It’s flanked by two storage cabinets. (Ours contain liquor on one side and dog food on the other.) Above one of the cabinets is a radio/CD player/DVD player/Bluetooth and USB capable thing that plays through the surround sound system and can play in the living room, the bedroom, or outside, or any combination of those three. Above the TV there are cabinets all the way across where we keep our DVDs and books. Above the TV there are light switches and a USB charging port. (It took us a full week to figure out how to turn the LED lights on the island off!)

***Full disclosure: This entertainment system is also junk, but not as bad as the one in the garage. It’s a Furrion radio/CD player and a Haier TV. Furrion products are supposed to be able to communicate with other Furrion products so I’m not sure why Grand Design would skimp on the Furrion TV here. If we watch TV we can’t use the surround sound system. But if we watch a DVD or listen to music we can. Also, every time we switch between the DVD player and our separate BlueRay player, we have to unplug and replug in the TV because it gets all confused and will play sound but no picture. We thought at first it was a faulty HDMI cord so Grand Design sent us a new one… Read about that fiasco in the DIYs & MODs section at the bottom of this post…

That’s our Bug-A-Salt rifle sitting under the TV. It’s pretty awesome!

Across from the kitchen is the other slide that holds the couch, 4 theater style seats. They all recline all the way back. The two end seats have cup holders, massage, and heat. There are blue LED lights under the couch also. There are huge picture windows behind and on either side of the couch, letting lots of light and fresh air in, which I love! We have a table that matches the countertops that we can set up in front of the couch if we want to eat in the living room. We’ve only done that a few times though.

You can get to the garage through a glass door and to the half-bath from the living room. There is a loft bed on top of the bath, that has a pull out ladder to get up to it. There is another vent hatch with a fan up there and a window (just for light, it doesn’t open). Currently we just use that space for storage. We keep our out-of-season clothes in Ziploc Space Saver bags (I love those things). Luckily for us, and Allen’s OCD tendencies, the loft came with a curtain that slides across and covers all that.

I took this one from Grand Design’s website. (I don’t ever have that many lemons laying around.)

The floor is lighter colored and patterned which makes it like camouflage for dirt. I love it! There is a built in central vac with a plug-in spot on the second step leading up to the bathroom and bedroom and a kick plate so you can just sweep dust and dirt right in! Also, right by the steps is a coat closet with a couple hooks inside. Above that is the “jimmy jankster” – Allen’s term – or the control center. It’s where the controls for the awning, step lights, porch lights, and slides are. It’s also where you can see how full the tanks are (fresh, 2 gray and 2 black- although I’m always iffy if we should trust those sensors.)

Some sensors I DO trust because I know they work are the smoke alarm and propane alarm! Allen set the smoke alarm off the first time he made breakfast for us, and set the propane alarm off because he insisted on spraying sunscreen on me INSIDE!

One thing I do want to mention that I love about this camper is that when we are traveling, and stop at a rest stop or what not, I can get to the bathroom and one side of the fridge. In our old camper we had to open the slide to get to the bathroom. And in order to be able to crack the fridge open enough to grab a soda, we had to climb over the couch. So I really like this part.

DIYs & MODS

I’ll start with the HDMI cord. After waiting weeks for my buddy Jerry in the warranty department to get us a replacement HDMI cord, we discovered that all of the cords running between the TV and speakers and CD player are all enclosed in the entertainment center hutch thing. So Allen tried to attach the new cord to the old one and pull it through. Well, there’s some tiny holes it runs through inside the entertainment center that we couldn’t get to. So he wound up cutting a small hole and running the cord up behind the TV. It doesn’t look bad at all. Plus it’s behind the TV. Still, one of those annoying little things that come with all new campers.
This is right behind the pole that the TV is attached to.
And this is underneath, you can’t see it.
We’ve run an extension cord from the right side of the couch, behind, and out the other side to have outlets on both ends. (Allen got sick of handing me my phone when it was charging on “his side” of the couch, and decided to remedy that!)
I’ve put up Command hooks on the backsplash of the stove to hang utensils I use a lot. And we put one on the side of the entertainment center to hang MY keys (Allen never loses his…)
We’ve also put small pieces of Velcro to hold remotes, since EVERYTHING has a remote and it’s hard to keep track of which remote goes to which device. (But, we were drinking that night -combine that with the Xzilon coating- and we woke up to remotes all over the floor because the Velcro didn’t stick!)
I’ve made a few throw pillow covers to add some personality to the living room: DIY Pillow Covers, and DIY Pillow Covers, Round 2

Previously:

Next up:

Tour of Our Home on Wheels (part 4- bedroom and bathrooms)

Tour of Our Home on Wheels (part 2- the garage)

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Our 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH has a 12’2″ garage, which is perfect for us! We didn’t want anything TOO large, because you are giving up comfy living space for garage space. (I’ve taken some images from Grand Design‘s website, I’m sure you can tell which ones!)

The garage, or the toy hauler if you prefer, gets used about as much as the rest of the house. We needed a large enough space to be able to travel with a motorcycle and Allen’s huge tool box (for now), and a Smart car at some point down the road.

If they can do it, we can too!

The back hatch folds down to a ramp so you can move your “toys” in and out, but also has the option of turning into a patio or deck in the back. It has railings that pin into place all around, and a set of stairs that pin to the back and lead down from the patio. There is a manual awning that goes overtop the patio and has stabilizing legs on it (it took us a couple times putting the awning out and thinking that it was super flimsy before we, well, in all fairness, I, discovered this!) When the patio is down, there is a 3-season garage wall. It’s basically sliding screen doors with plastic that can velcro over the screen. The doors also open all the way to get toys in and out. There are vents that can be opened when traveling to circulate the air and let fumes out if you have “toys” in the garage.

In Louisiana, the entire RV park was a muddy mess, so the only way to get to the street was to leave the patio set up with the steps leading to the road!

Inside, it has a Happijac bunk system: 2 queen bunks that can raise all the way up and stay out of the way while traveling, or come down for extra sleeping room. The bottom bunk also turns into 2 benches and there is a table that fits into place in between the bunks. This is how we have it set up most of the time. Especially if we are somewhere that we can’t have the hatch open and the patio set up. The garage came with a roll of carpet that you could potentially lay down, but we tossed that out. We take advantage of the garage floor as a place to take off shoes and muddy boots.

There is a TV, radio and CD/DVD player in the garage.

***Full disclosure: (because I want to be super honest about everything) This radio is junk. We are on our third one from the factory so far. We’ve talked to another guy who has the same camper and he concurs with our opinion. It’s a Furrion CD player for a car that they mounted in the cabinet. It switched by itself from the speakers in the ceiling to the speakers by the TV. It constantly sounds like it is trying to spit out a disc even when it’s turned off and there’s nothing in there (that sound drives me crazy!) and it turns its volume up and down on it’s own.

Moving on.

A small cabinet passes through to the living room and a hatch opens up on the floor for more storage. We have an electric space heater, rain boots, and ratchet straps in there right now. We have a metal file cabinet under the pass through cabinet with the printer on top, and Allen’s tool box set up in the garage right now (sometimes he takes it to work depending on the job). A glass door leads to the main living area and a door to the left of that leads to the half-bath. There’s a 3rd A/C in the garage.

DIYs & MODs

We drilled more holes in the Happi-Jac bunk rails to give us more options of where to have the top bunk. We wanted to be able to keep some things on top of the bunk when we were stationary for a period of time. (Crock Pot, sewing machine, rice cooker, etc.) Here’s a post about that: A Little Camper Fixing
We hung a tension rod with black out curtains across the back wall. When we have the patio set up, you can see right into the house at night through the 3-season garage wall, so this gives us some privacy. The curtains are all black on the side that faces the rest of the world.

Previously: Tour of Our Home on Wheels (part 1)

Next up:

Tour of Our Home on Wheels (part 1)

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

It’s recently occurred to me, as I’ve been checking out other RV blogs, that I’ve never actually given a tour of our camper… In the blogosphere at least! I love our home, and I’m proud of it, so here it goes!

We live on the road full-time in a 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH. We bought it in March from Palm Beach RV in Florida. We looked for months (at least 6) and went to numerous RV shows in multiple states, visited dealers, looked online and read reviews. We knew we wanted a 5th wheel. We knew we wanted a toy hauler (that’s what the TH stands for in the name). And we knew we need at least a 12ft garage to eventually fit a Smart car.

The rest we kind of decided along the way:

an island in the kitchen
a full size fridge
a king size bed
a washer/dryer
actual closet space
a pantry
a couch AND a table to eat dinner at
a patio
nice entry steps that don’t rust
automatic leveling jacks
a generator

***Notice the order those are listed in: my top priorities first 😉 -I’m writing this post so that’s allowed!

The Momentum 385TH met our wants and needs, and even more. So, we went for it!

She’s good looking’ huh??!

The morning after we picked her up, at Palm Beach Traveler RV Park, we were ready to take off for the muddy swamp that some call Louisiana!

I’ll start with the basic exterior features, then work my way through the inside. I’m going to list DIYs and MODs we’ve done as well. I always find it interesting and helpful to see what other RVers have done, so I’ll share our little tweaks (and issues we’ve had along the way also).

The camper (some people say fifth wheel, some say rig, RV, etc., I just refer to her as a camper) is 43′ long. Here’s the basic layout and numbers:

Some of these photos I took from Grand Design’s website, others are my own. You can probably tell the difference!

It came equipped with a Onan 5500 generator in the front that can run everything. We have run it all night long on less than 5 gallons. There are 2 – 30gallon fuel tanks. One that feeds into the generator. And one that has a pump that you can connect to pump fuel into your toys, motorcycle, car, etc. or pump into the generator tank.

There are 3 slides, 2 electric awnings (the main awning has LED lights across it), 2 entry doors (with aluminum steps that won’t rust), a patio that folds down in the back with a manual awning over it, frameless tinted windows, 3 air conditioners, heated tanks with an insulated and heated underbelly (which will help like crazy this winter if we get stuck somewhere cold like last year! – Oklahoma City… Frozen water lines… Frozen toilet… New toilet… Not fun…). There are LED lights under the steps and flood lights in the back. We opted to add a Xzilon coating to the outside, as well as the inside (which guarantees we won’t have to wax it for 5 years).

There is a large pass through cubby in the front-ish. The generator is actually in the very front. But it’s to the right of the front door. All the cubby doors slam-latch closed, and most of them have magnetic something or others that hold them open. The pass through cubby is heated so things, as well as water lines won’t freeze in the winter.

The camper came with a swing arm for a TV, and we just mounted the TV from our old camper on it. I like being able to sit outside and watch the race or a game (or occasionally Dr. Phil-Allen’s favorite! Haha! Just kidding…). We used to have to set up the white folding table and run the cord out through the door if we wanted to watch TV outside. Which wasn’t so bad either, just more work.

Twin Rivers RV Park, Hobe Sound, Florida, May 2013

Red Coconut RV Park, Fort Myers Beach, Florida, January 2014

Abe’s RV Park, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, September 2014

Lake Pines RV Park, Columbus, Georgia, February 2014

DIYs & MODs

Allen found some metal hooks and screws at an Ace Hardware (where employees still actually take the time to help you) that we hung up on the ceiling of the cubby for our fishing poles. He mounted them to the metal beams that went across. So far they are working well! It keeps them from getting all tangled and broken when we drive. ***Disclosure: we are NOT avid or even somewhat avid fishermen. We took his kids fishing this summer a couple of times, but we had to buy poles for that, and so we needed somewhere to keep them.
We discovered a puddle in the cubby and found a leak in the water line so we had to fix that a couple of weeks ago. Here’s that scenario: Leaks are the Worst!
Currently the leveling system is all wonky and has lost its mind. Here’s that situation: Broken Leveling Jacks. I’ll update when we finally fix it.
Allen had a little run-in with a yellow pole in a gas station parking lot. Here’s where we fixed the ladder: A Little Camper Fixing

I’m going to give you the tour in parts… If I did it all in one post, it would be ridiculously long! But I will link them all together as I get them written!

Next up:

A Little Camper Fixing

Posted on August 29, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

It’s kind of nice that Allen has been getting Saturdays off work. That doesn’t happen too often. But it gives us a chance to do more things… So this Saturday we fixed the ladder on the camper and lowered the top bunk in the garage to give us me more storage space. Continue reading →

A Few Random Friday Thoughts…

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

My neighbor Carmen recently got us (and by that I mean me, because really, Allen will never touch the thing…) a bread machine! I love it! I’ve been wanting to get one since we were in Florida this last time. Our neighbors Lyne and Terry had one and it smelled so good. They bring down their own flour every year from Canada because they don’t like the way American bread tastes. Anyway, I’ve been comparing models, and Carmen said she really wanted to get us something for sort of a housewarming gift, so, I’m the proud new owner of an Oster 2LB. Expressbake Breadmaker.

my very first loaf… i was excited and couldnt wait to try it.

I started with the traditional white bread in a 1.5LB loaf and it came out delicious. Then I moved on to the flavors… I’ve mostly used the recipes that came with the breadmaker but I’ve also ventured into Google territory for some yummy ideas.

I made a super scrumptious cheddar/garlic/herb type loaf that we ate one day then the next day sliced and drizzled with EVOO and stuck on the grill for a few minutes – SO good! We had the bread with a bacon-wrapped pork loin…yum!

Cheesy, garlicky, herby goodness… Please excuse the bites off the top, i couldnt help myself…

I tried Honey Wheat because that’s the kind of bread we like on a daily basis, but the recipe was a 2LB loaf, which is just too big for sandwiches. And I had not mastered the art of slicing by then. The next day we took off for Tahoe so it was moldy by the time we got back.

The latest was a 1LB Italian garlic and herb loaf which came out perfect! It’s the perfect size for sandwiches. (Allen’s taken two to work already.) And I let it cool longer this time before slicing. I also didn’t use my fancy bread knife and bamboo bread slicer that I bought.

I just used a non-serrated knife I got from the Dollar Tree a LONG time ago, and it worked great… Surprising, but true… So we have decided that the 1LB loaves are the way to go… My goal is to never buy grocery store bread again.

On another note, I felt my very first earthquake ever!!! I went to school (this super expensive one) out here in San Francisco for 4yrs and never felt one (I think I was on a barstool for most of them…) and then last year we were out here for about 5 months and I didn’t feel one then either. This one was crazy! I was laying in bed with Charlie, probably blogging or Pinteresting, and it felt like someone hit the camper. It actually felt like Allen backed up and hitched up to the camper, but I knew he was at work. So I thought A) someone was trying to steal our house with me and the dog inside! or B) one of these tourists driving a rental RV must’ve clipped our nose… Charlie and I both ran outside but nobody was out. All was quiet. I texted Allen and he then informed me it was an earthquake, that they felt it by the tower too. Yikes! But it was a smaller one, nobody was hurt, so that was good.

Begin Rant:

I’ve also been on the phone trying to order parts for the camper from Grand Design. We have a 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH. We just bought it at the end of March. It’s still brand new. You’d think it would be fairly easy to get simple parts for it. Almost two weeks after sending the first “inquiry form” to Grand Design, we finally have parts on the way! (I honestly thought they would have excellent customer service being that they are still a new and fairly small company…)

While I was back at my mom’s house for my brother’s funeral and Allen and Charlie drove from Texas to San Francisco alone, a yellow pole at a tiny gas station jumped up and grabbed onto the ladder on the side of the camper, yanked it a little and busted the red light that’s back there. So we need a light, and the bottom brackets that hold the ladder onto the camper.

We wound up having to get the part numbers from Grand Design then call a dealer to order them because Grand Design is not set up to sell directly to actual people. I find this silly. Luckily, Shelly at Lazydays RV in Florida was super nice and helped us out. I probably should’ve called Palm Beach RV since that’s where we bought the camper, but oh well.

Anyway, while I was on the phone with Amanda at Grand Design I had her switch me over to Jerry in warranty (yes, I’m on a first name basis with these people). I spoke with Jerry multiple times when we were in Louisiana trying to take care of the radio/tv situation. Grand Design had the bright idea to put some Furrion products, and some Haier products in here. (To save money I presume..) But they don’t communicate well with one another. The radio in the living room is also a DVD player and that wasn’t working so Jerry sent us a new HDMI cord. It worked then, but in hindsight I don’t think the cord was the issue. We still have the same problem with having sound and no picture when we play a DVD but now we just unplug the TV then plug it back in. It’s the cheap Haier TV. In the garage (toy hauler) there is a car stereo that also plays DVDs. But it constantly sounds like it is skipping around a CD in there or trying to spit one out. Jerry also sent us a new radio that we swapped out. That worked for a while. I noticed Monday that it started making noise again. So he is supposedly sending us ANOTHER radio to swap out and says if we have more issues we will have to take it in to have it looked at. I’m trying to avoid that because we live in here full time and I’d rather not live at a dealership for days. Also, the closest Grand Design dealer is in Sacramento. And Allen will not be commuting to from Sacramento to San Francisco to work! Anyway, last time, Jerry took forever to send anything out, I mean he said he sent it then a week later I called to see where it was and he still hadn’t sent it. So fingers crossed he actually put it in the mail yesterday!

End Rant.

Before we left for Tahoe, Allen’s buddy was flying home for the weekend and gave us a 10LB bag of potatoes. (He lives alone. Why he would buy a 10LB bag of potatoes eludes me. I’ll have to talk to him about that.) Anyhow, I’ve been looking at this bag all week. Then I decided that instead of letting them go bad, maybe I could freeze them. So I Googled… Then I made some frozen hashbrowns (you just dice them, drop them in boiling water for about 2min, drain and cool them, bag them and freeze them) and some frozen fries (same as above but you also fry them in oil for about 3min after blanching and drying, then cool, bag and freeze). Easy peasy. I still have over 5LBs of potatoes left but at least I got rid of some of them!

skinny fries

potato wedges (I sprinkled them with season salt when I took them out of the oil.

Last night I made 3-ways for dinner. Technically, 4-ways. If you don’t know what that is, it’s because it’s a Cincinnati thing… We are weird like that. It doesn’t matter where we move to, where our domicile is, Allen will always love 3-ways and goetta. (I on the other hand despise goetta… The taste, texture, cooking it, yuck!)

Every time we go back to Cincy we have to pick up a couple packs of chili mix…

I like 5-ways. Allen likes 4-ways. Everyone likes a good 3-way. 😉

The night before last, I came up with a new concoction that was pretty tasty… Rum and Kool-Aid! My brother loved Kool-Aid so I named this “Ode to Adam”…

I promise, Charlie didn’t drink with us!

Oh! And I almost forgot, I started growing my own green onions a couple weeks back. It is super easy. You just stick them in a glass of water after you use most of the green parts, change the water every couple days, and they grow on their own. Love it. This is my second round. After a while they get weaker and can’t stand up on their own, so you do have to start fresh after a couple of uses.

Thursday

Monday

They grow fast!
And just for fun, here are a couple shots of Charlie hanging out with her buddy Samantha in the old parking lot that is our “yard” here at Candlestick RV Park…

Considering a Domicile Change!

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

I’ve been doing a lot of research on changing our domicile for a few months now. When we were in Slidell, Louisiana we received a bill in the mail from the City tax department. They were charging us a fine for not paying taxes quarterly, even though we pay in full every year. In Ohio, we pay state income tax as well as local income tax. The local city tax also went from 1.5% last year to 2% this year. Plus, that annoying fine they just started adding 4 times a year.

The bill for the fine was the last push I needed to really start looking into our options. The taxes are one thing, even though we don’t actually, physically “live” there, but the fine is another thing all together and the fine alone is over $300/yr. No thanks!

Everything I found online from other blogs and websites (Technomadia, RV-Dreams, Escapees, My Dakota Address, Wheeling It, etc.) was pointing me toward Florida, Texas, or South Dakota. These states have no state or local income tax.

I spoke with someone at Loring & Associates, PLLC, recommended by Escapees, about all things domicile so I had a good jumping off point. I knew I had to find a mail forwarding service to use as a “home base”. And I had to check vehicle insurance rates. And consider how much it would cost to register our vehicles. A 2015 Grand Design Momentum Toy Hauler, a 2011 Chevy Silverado 3500HD, and a 2006 Suzuki Katana 600. I also needed to consider how often you need to physically be in that state for drivers license renewals and vehicle registrations or inspections. We don’t have ties to Ohio other than family. No property, no house, no doctors or church affiliations, so there’s no real reason we should keep our domicile there if it isn’t beneficial to us. In the far off future we either want to settle down on a ranch and adopt a bunch of animals or get a little shack on the beach or own an RV Park… None of which would include Ohio. And definitely would not include our little town that is ripping us off tax-wise.

FLORIDA was my first choice.

I love the beach.
Warm weather.
Sunshine.
The beach.

But when I ~~called Progressive~~ – sike, they wouldn’t talk to me because Allen and I aren’t married, even though I’m on the policy also and he’s given them permission to tell me anything and everything numerous times… When I got a quote online instead, the insurance rates in Florida were absurdly high! I’m talking over double what we are paying now for the camper, truck and motorcycle. So, my dreams of becoming a Floridian, at least for now, are nonexistent.
When looking and comparing Texas and South Dakota, it was kind of a toss up.

TEXAS

Allen’s company is based out of Texas and we go to the shop usually at least once a year.
The truck is already registered in Texas because that’s where we bought it.
I like Texas. And BBQ.
But in Texas you have to physically take your vehicle in for a safety inspection once a year. The exception is if you are not in the state of Texas. But as soon as you get back you need to take them. I really would rather not drag this huge camper to a tiny state inspection place every year when we get back into Texas.

SOUTH DAKOTA

They have a really low sales tax, not that we will be making another big purchase super soon, but good to think about for when we do get the Smart Car.
They make it really easy to register vehicles, you don’t have to physically bring them into the state even.
You do have to stay one night to prove YOU are physically present in the state in order to obtain residency status and get your drivers license.
We’ve never been to South Dakota. So it might be interesting.

So with all things considered, it really came down to insurance rates. I got quotes from 6 different agencies over the last week. Yes, I spent many hours on the phone. Not super fun. But, I did get a feel for just how much rates vary from one company and agency to the next.

*** I should note that even though some of these companies say they specialize in full time RV insurance, some of the agents I spoke with seemed floored that we actually LIVE in our camper… What???

Also I learned that South Dakota and Texas used to be really cheap states for insurance rates but then full time RVers started using these states for a home base so all the claims were coming back to those two. Overall, across the board, South Dakota is the least expensive of the two. It’s still more than what we are currently paying. But, and I realized this when I started researching, we don’t have the right coverage now.

We are with Progressive for everything. When we traded in the old camper for this one, we just called and switched the coverage over. They asked all the same questions and we answered honestly. They asked where the camper would be at least 6 months out of the year and we said nowhere. We told them we live in it and travel all the time. They made us give an address anyway. So, we do not have the full timers package. I’m sure once that is added, it would bring our current rate up.

So with all said and done, we would definitely save money switching to South Dakota and it’s fairly easy to do.

We need to secure our mailing address with My Dakota Address.
Stay the night in South Dakota.
Get our drivers licenses.
Register our vehicles.
Switch our vehicle insurance.
Change our address with Allen’s work and health insurance.

We just need to time it right. You need to do everything within 90days. Our lives are hard to time. We are in San Francisco now, so we could just take the northern route when we leave here, depending on when and where we are going next. If we stay until winter and there’s snow in South Dakota then that’s not happening. If that’s the case, we could possibly just fly out there for a couple of days over Christmas break to take care of everything. But if we leave in a month and the weather is still nice, we could stop by and take care of everything. We never make plans, we make tentative plans, loosely. So the loose, tentative plan now is to become South Dakotans!

Image Transfer DIY

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Yesterday when I got lost in the endless Pinterest maze, I was actually looking for a way to transfer an image onto fabric. Since I made my pillow covers, I’ve been thinking they looked a little plain. I found a solution (I think!)

I still want to add to this but, now I know how to do it! It’s super easy! You need:

A printer
Wax paper
Scissors
Fabric

That’s it!

Remember everything will transfer in reverse. Good thing this was a test on scrap fabric!

Word… And my Sutro coffee cup…

I chose my image and put it into Word. Then I cut a piece of wax paper to around 8.5″X11″. I had to finagle it a little to get it into the printer. I wound up sticking it between two sheets of regular paper then pulling the top piece out. Hit PRINT. Then put the ink side down onto your fabric and rub, make sure it doesn’t move or it will smear. And don’t touch the image on the wax paper because the ink is wet. Voilà!

I need to figure out what else I’m going to put on this pillow cover because the chair turned out pretty small in comparison.

The chair is a drawing I did when we finally had to get rid of the original. It was around 13years old and it finally gave out in Oklahoma City. We definitely got a lot of use out of it!

I just hung up these two guys this past weekend. The top one was a DIY I made for Allen’s birthday present. We picked up some Command damage-free picture hanging strips. They are kind of like Velcro but they snap together. I love all the Command products!

With a camper, space is limited so the more you things you can hang and keep out of the way, the better… But you can’t really put nails in the wall, and the studs are never where you need them to be. I still wanted to hang some things to make it more “ours”… They are holding so far! Here are some more Command products currently in use: