Our Traveling Vacation Budget
I’ve never blogged about our budget before or how much it actually costs to live full time in an RV traveling for work. It’s a pretty scary thing to do, putting your business out there. Continue reading
Eagle Nest RV Resort gave us lots of good info when we checked in, so we got set up and took off right away to do the Flathead Lake Tour! Continue reading
We are hitting the road this morning, leaving Chimney Rock Pioneer Crossing RV Park. (Check out our review here.) We had fun and will definitely come back if we are in the area. Laura and Joe, the campground owners, were super nice and we are for sure going to miss them! Continue reading
We left Abe’s RV Park in Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, around 4pm. A little later than planned, but work took a little longer for Allen. Plus, we went to the races on Sunday for the last time, I celebrated pretty hard (with not enough food!) and I was paying for it on Monday! Continue reading
That makes my blog official maybe?? We finally got some vinyl letters to put on the back of our camper! Continue reading
I gotta send my ♥love♥ down to Baton Rouge…
We found out Friday that we need to be in Baton Rouge for work on Monday. It just so happens that “Callin’ Baton Rouge” by Garth Brooks is one of my all time favorite songs! So I’m sure Allen will be good and sick of it by the time we get there! Luckily for him, it’s less than 500 miles, so he will only have to deal with my musical selection and singing for one day…
We are avoiding Dallas, so it’ll take about a half hour longer, but it’s well worth it!
I always try to use the Good Sam Trip Planner, just so we don’t get taken into any RV-unfriendly places…
We should be in Baton Rouge for a few days, then I THINK we’ll be heading to Oklahoma City… If that’s the case we will be there by the end of next week. I don’t mind this plan at all!
I’ve never been to Baton Rouge. Our friend Doug, out at Candlestick RV Park in San Francisco, went to LSU and LOVES the tigers, so he will be thoroughly jealous!
I’m super hoping we can get some delicious crawfish… I love them so much… My mouth is already watering…
I’ve looked at the weather and it looks fairly warm. Rain on Tuesday but maybe that’ll give us time to see a little bit of the town (fingers crossed for a weather day!)
And then our friends Bob and Karen are at Abe’s RV Park in Oklahoma City so it’s always good to see them!
I found a campground right down the street from the tower site that I’m hoping works out for us. Water and 30AMP service only, but it’s only for a couple days so it shouldn’t be too bad, and they have a dump station. It’s at an equestrian park… I’m just hoping this little angel puppy of ours can behave herself and not act like a wild banshee the entire time we’re there!
Spoiled little Charles…
I’ll probably have to bribe her with treats… So if you’d like to help out with that, you can put some money in Charlie’s Treat Fund 🙂
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, 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!
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
Happy Friday!
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!
Considering my drawer for pots and pans (and my coffee pot) looks like this currently, I can only imagine how amazing these would be! 
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! 
These are both at Camping World. 
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!
Home Sweet Home on Wheels 