Update–12/24/2010

We have finished (I think!) the upgrades to our house.  We did new stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, new granite countertops and the last item was new carpeting throughout the house.  We temporarily took the house off the market for the holidays to complete the upgrades and to avoid any showings while family was visiting.  The house should be back on the market around the 1st of the year.  We will see if the upgrades helped.

I was just reading an article in today’s Chicago Tribune about buying a home and how buyers feel paralyzed because there are so many homes available, many with desperate sellers (foreclosures and short sales).  Because of this buyers just keep looking and looking because they want the “best deal” out there.  They are looking for the McMansion at a starter home price.

Another task completed on our checklist was renting a storage unit and moving some items into it.  A big thumbs down to Public Storage on this issue.  I did my storage unit shopping online to see what the best rates are as there are a few companies out there and many facilities in our area.  On their website Public Storage came out with the best rate for the size I wanted and it was only a few miles from the house.  I was quoted $71 per month for a 10’x10’ unit.  I completed the reservation in November.  When I arrived at the facility with my truck fully loaded the manager advised me the rate would be $88 per month and the online quote was only good for 7 days.  The confirmation did not say anything about this.  The manager stated she had no authority to make a change to the confirmed price.  End result, after many phone calls, was that customer service for Public Storage states I will get the $71 rate but the correction has to be done by the regional manager.  The local manager said this should be done by next week.  Meanwhile I did move our stuff into the unit at $88 rate but may have to do some additional follow up on this.  Public Storage, if you are trolling the web, I am not a satisfied customer!

Christmas eve today and we have a snow storm on the way with one daughter flying in and one driving in.  Hopefully the weather does not delay or cancel their travel plans.

Update 12/13/10

Life on the road is still life in the house.  With the holidays we are getting no activity on showings for the house.  We have taken a more aggressive approach to selling.  We lowered the price another $10,000 and bought all new kitchen appliances, stainless steel.  Here is a picture of the kitchen showing the new range and microwave.

The dishwasher is to the right but would be in another angle.  We already had a stainless refrigerator (fortunately!) so it was not too expensive for these 3 appliances.  Next we will be putting in granite countertops.  We hope to have that done before Christmas.  That will probably be it for the improvements.  I hope it helps!

Our daughter Kim moved into her apartment this past weekend so that cleared out some furniture and other stuff in the house.  We then had to do some creative arranging with our existing furniture so rooms would not be vacant.  I think we did a pretty good job.  It does make the house look bigger!

Next up is to move some of the boxes and other stuff we are keeping into a storage shed we are renting.  That is set for next week and will clear out some stuff presently in our basement.  The last thing to do will be to have a garage sale to get rid of all the remaining furniture and stuff we and our daughters do not want.  That will be done when the house is sold.

Merry Christmas!

Just to keep you interested

It has been a couple of weeks since my last posting, so I thought I would write a little something to make sure my followers stay engaged with this blog.  The entries will be skimpy until we actually get close to going on the road.

The house has not sold but we did get our first offer just after my last posting.  The offer was very low and was not even close to what comparable sales have been in our area this year.  It appears the buyer was limited to a maximum loan amount that put our house out of his reach, but he tried.  From this offer we did learn that there are buyers coming into the area for the new Navistar Corp. facility nearby.  From what I read in the papers there is supposed to about 1500 employees at the facility that is about 10 miles from our house.  This buyer was one and we learned at least one other person who viewed the house was from Navistar.  To stimulate interest we did another price reduction, our biggest yet.  Hopefully someone will want a house for Christmas.

We did start the sorting process for all our “stuff”.  This meant taking everything out of the storage space in the basement and deciding whether to keep it, sell it, put it in the trailer or throw it away.  We needed to do this to get all the Christmas stuff out plus our daughter, currently living with us, is moving into her own apartment, so she will be taking a bunch of “stuff”.  I did rent a storage space to begin later this month so I will begin moving some things there to begin clearing the house out a little in preparation for our move into the trailer.

Meanwhile the weather begins to turn ugly for us.  This should be our last winter and it will be one thing that will not be missed.  It has been very nice living in the Midwest except for the winter.  From mid November until mid March it is like somebody covered the area with a gray sock.  You don’t want to go out because of the cold and snow is only pleasant for an hour or so until it turns mucky, dirty and gets all over the place.  Growing up in California it was always neat to go see the snow and play in it, but once you live with it, FORGET IT!  You have never seen a car get so dirty than after a snowstorm, then you go to a car wash while it is freezing outside, go figure!

OK, I have rambled enough. 

Update–November 18,2010

It has been a couple of weeks since my last entry and I feel like I am letting down my followers (all 4 that I know of!), so here is an update to keep me motivated and you interested.

After having the trailer at the house I brought it to the storage yard in Big Rock, Il., where we have been storing our trailers for the past 4 years.  The space that we had been renting was for a trailer up to 30’ so other arrangements had to be made.  We rent by the year and our renewal is at the beginning of December.  I was reluctant to pay for another year as hopefully we will get out on the road early in 2011.  The solution was to rent month to month, at twice the annual rate.  The nice thing though for this higher rent was a very long pull thru spot so we do not have to pay them to put our trailer away and take it out as we did in the past.  So now the trailer sits in storage waiting for the big day!

No we have not sold the house.  The showings picked up this last weekend but no one to date has been serious or placed an offer.  The market in this area is tough as there are limited buyers and a large inventory of homes for sale.  We continue to drop the price every couple of weeks to stimulate interest.  Hopefully someone will be interested.

The past couple of weeks I have gone out to the trailer to do some things on it.  Geek Alert! (I will be talking techie stuff).  Mainly I have been trying to figure out a set up for my DirecTV that will work with the wiring in the trailer.  This has been an evolving issue as I started taking our satellite service with us in our trailer for the past 3 years.  The system has moved from a standard definition dish with receiver and 19” flat screen TV to our current system which is high definition (Single wire set-up, SWM) with two HD-DVR’s in the trailer, a 40” LCD HD TV and a 23” LED HD TV.  Fortunately new trailers are being pre-wired to accommodate satellite systems.  I just had to figure it all out so I could have a separate tuner/DVR in the living area and one in the bedroom.  I think I got it all figured out this time.  I still will have to test it out at a later date.  For those of you asking, how does the satellite service work in a trailer, here is how.  I have a regular dish that I mount on a tripod outside the trailer and then connect the coax wire to an external jack on the trailer.  I get the satellite settings from the receiver and then align the dish.  As the local channels are spot beamed by DirecTV we were not able to get local channels (major networks) when we were out of the Chicago area, however when we move into the trailer we will then subscribe to a DirecTV RV account.  This type of account allows you to receive your network programming from the network stations in Los Angeles and New York, so it should work out fairly well.  In addition the trailer does have an HD antenna on its roof to pick up local channels in the area we are in if needed.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Open House

WE PICKED UP THE TRAILER! 

Another checkmark on the fulltimer to do list.  I went and picked up the trailer from the dealer.  Got a little orientation on hooking up and unhitching a fifth wheel as this is a new experience.  Big thing, watch those turns.  This trailer and truck turn like a semi, you have to have a lot of room.

Brought the rig home to do a few things to it and we invited Fran’s co-workers and boss over to take a tour of our future home.  So we started off right, a wine a cheese house warming.

Above is the staff from the office.  The view is to the back of the trailer.

Here is me with two of the other husbands of the staff.  Of course, I am near the wine!  This view is of the kitchen with the dining table and entrance door to the right and the stairs up to the bed and bath towards the center.

It was a fun time and I had a great time showing off the remote for the slides, jacks, and awning.  It’s a guy thing!

Left the trailer on the street overnight and then brought it to our storage yard.  I had warned them that I had bought a larger trailer and it would not fit in my old space.  Fortunately they have some very nice pull thru long spaces for me.  The problem is the fee is about double.  Hopefully it will only be for a couple of months.  So, we got the trailer and now it sits!

What’s Your Plan?

It has been interesting since we made the decision to go to full time RV’ing.  The look on peoples faces when they ask us where we are moving because our house is for sale.  Once we tell them then the next question always is, what is your plan?  Where are you going? 
At first it seemed as though we had to justify that we were going to live full time in a fifth wheel, but if you think about it what is the difference from this and living in an apartment or house.  The main difference is that we can get up an move anytime we want, otherwise we have the same (somewhat) comforts of a permanent abode.  Granted the square footage of our fifth wheel is much smaller that what we are used to, but I am sure we can adapt (have any of you seen my parents condo!).
As for what's our plan - here is a tentative outline of what we see ourselves doing for probably the first year once we start.  From Illinois we will be heading to Texas.  First to Houston to visit my niece and her family so we can see her new twins, plus visit with other friends we have in that area.  From there we will make a stop in El Paso to see my other niece and her family, then onto Phoenix to visit with our daughter and possibly view some baseball spring training.  Next up would be Southern California where we will probably stay for awhile to visit with many friends and relatives.  From there we will work our way up through California and do some sightseeing in Oregon then to the Washington/Oregon wine country.  From there it is into Canada where we want to meet up with our friends from Idaho in Banff.  After that we will work our way back into the Midwest to meet up with our other daughters in Illinois and Ohio before the cold weather sets in.  A stop in Tennessee to visit with my nephew then most likely head back west through the south to avoid any cold weather.
Just to keep you informed, the trailer financing was approved and the trailer will be picked up this week.  Again, to any prospective full timers out there, buy the trailer early as lenders are not lending to full timers, unless of course you plan to pay cash. 
I did some research on this lending issue and it seems that full timers are a victim of the stimulus bill that was passed and the tightening of bank regulations on mortgages.  An RV for a full timer is considered their home so the regulations require that banks must impound (collect upfront) for insurance and taxes.  Well for a full time RV’er they cannot determine where they permanently live so the banks do not know what to collect and are concerned, legally, how they should handle such loans.  So the result is they are just not lending to full timers.

First Look

We went to the dealer today and did our walk through and demo of the trailer.  We signed all the financing paperwork but are still awaiting the final decision.  At this point we do not anticipate any problems based on the word back from the loan company rep regarding our unique situation.  We did not take the trailer home as they still have to do some things to it plus they want to confirm loan funding before they release (makes sense). 

But, we did take some pictures to share with you.

To start with, here is the floor plan from the Jayco brochure.  We went with the queen bed option.

Here are two pictures of the outside of the trailer, left and right side.  Sorry, the trailer was in the service bay so the pictures were taken somewhat close to the trailer.

Here is the huge storage area.

Here is the living room.  You are looking towards the back of the trailer.  The TV (40”) is on a motorized lift and can disappear into the cabinet.  The couch has a full size air bed built into it.  Off to the left are two rocker recliners and a dining table with 4 chairs.

This is the kitchen, which is in the middle of the trailer.  The drawers you see facing you at the end of the cabinet turns into a counter extension as the whole drawer slides forward to give you another 3 feet of counter.

From the kitchen picture you see the steps on the right which lead up to the bathroom and bedroom.  Here is the bedroom.

It was hard to get the entire bedroom in the picture.  The glass doors are the closet and off the right and out of the picture is a cabinet from wall to ceiling with drawers and a cabinet where a TV can be placed in the door.  At the foot of the bed on the wall is a dresser with hamper.  The entire bed lifts up for storage underneath it and includes a built in floor safe.

The bathroom can be entered from the bedroom or the hallway.  This picture shows the shower only as seen from the bedroom.

Some neat amenities we added were a key fob that allows you to remotely open and close the slideouts, the jacks and the awning.  We also added a 5500 watt generator, which is in an outside cabinet upfront and we added a pull out cargo tray/bike rack which slides out from the rear of the trailer.  We also got two A/C units, one in the living room and one in the bedroom.  The trailer is set up for a washer/dryer in the bedroom (it would replace the cabinet on the closet wall) but we decided against that option as we did not want to give up the storage space.

Problems????

It seemed as everything was going smoothly.  We were called that the trailer was done and we set up a time, this Friday, to do our paperwork and walk through/demo of the trailer and then take it home.  NOT SO FAST!

The dealer finance person contacted us to discuss the financing arrangements.  He had just noticed that our file indicated we were planning on being full time RV’ers and all his lending sources would not lend to full timers.  The issue now arose that we could not use our South Dakota mail forwarding address as that is not a residence and the bank wanted a permanent address for us.  Fortunately our house has not sold yet so we are able to indicate we are not full timers yet and do own a residence.  OK, that sounds good, but now the trailer has to be registered in Illinois meaning double the sales tax plus our licenses are no longer in this state.  First option discussed was getting Illinois licenses for both of us, meaning the trip to South Dakota was for nothing and we would have to go back later to do it all again.  We were not anxious to go that route figuring there may be an issue with changing states so often in a short period of time.  Second option was to see if the lender had an issue with us having South Dakota licenses but living in Illinois and registering the vehicle in Illinois.  The dealer contacted the lender and they asked for verification that we live in Illinois (utility bills, mortgage statement) and we should be OK. 

The dealer then requested we move up, to today, our coming in to sign the papers and do our walk through so that he can get the paperwork to the lender to see if it will fly.  Meanwhile we will most likely not be taking the trailer home today as we await funding approval.

So, lessons learned for full timers.  Either pay cash for your rig or buy it when you still have a permanent address. 

Wish us luck!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

In preparation for the arrival of our new fifth wheel (scheduled for 10/26) I thought I would go back and show our camping life progression since Fran and I were married in 1979.  Our first purchase was a tent with assorted camping gear.  It is amazing but I can remember so much of this over 30 years later.  The purchase was made from my first bonus I ever received working for the government, a whopping $250!  Here is a picture of the tent.

We used this tent for almost ten years to do all our camping.  This included camping with two of the girls when they were babies. 















In 1990 we decided to get a pop-up tent trailer to handle the larger family and give us more comfort.  At that time pop-ups did not come with all the amenities you can get now.  It had a sink and stove along with two large beds on either side with a dinette table.  No refrigerator, no microwave, no heater.  It served us well and we really enjoyed using it.  We took it on many weekend trips along with a long trip from California to Kansas City and then we used it when we moved from California to Naperville. 

In California we were able to store the trailer on the side of our house.  We were not so lucky when we moved to Naperville and ended up storing it at a storage lot where field mice decided to use it when we did not.  It was an interesting sight to bring the trailer home to prepare for a weekend trip only to open it up and see the curtains and tent fabric with holes in them along with the wiring being eaten and to find baby mice inside.



We decided to trade the trailer in and move up to a full size trailer with a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.  All the comforts of home.  We ended up buying a slightly used Jayco trailer. This trailer served us well but became a little impractical as the girls got older.  

We decided on another Jayco trailer, this time a new one and it had bunk beds along with a sofa.  This gave us better sleeping arrangements and additional comfort inside. 

This ended up being our last trailer for a few years.  As the girls got older and had many outside activities we found less and less time to be able to go out with the trailer.  We decided to sell the trailer and not do the RV thing for a few years.  So for around 6 or 7 years we were without a trailer.   As I was getting ready to retire we decided to go ahead and get another trailer so just the two of us could go out for long weekends.  At the time I had a Ford Ranger pick-up and did not want to buy a larger vehicle to tow a trailer so I started looking for trailers that were light enough to be pulled by the truck.  I found a hybrid trailer at a local dealer.  This is a trailer where the beds pop out of the trailer and are enclosed by canvas like a tent trailer, but the rest of the trailer is hard sided.  It has a bathroom and full kitchen.  We bought this trailer in December of 2006.

This trailer was functional but was a little cramped.  The problem we quickly found out was that the Ford Ranger could not adequately pull this trailer, so a larger pickup needed to be bought.  Once that decision was made then the point of buying this hybrid came into question as it was not very comfortable.  Sooooo, next trailer..............................................

Now we are talking comfort.  This trailer has a slideout, swivel rockers, queen size bed, surround sound, sofa, full kitchen and bath.  We really enjoyed this trailer but when we decided to go full timing it was obvious this trailer would not be sufficient.  It does not have the storage nor the insulation and interior room to be really comfortable on a full time basis.  So we come somewhat full circle by trading this trailer in to our local Jayco dealer, the one where we bought our first full size trailer 16 years ago, and bought our new fifth wheel (picture to follow).

In the 20 years that we have had trailers we have traveled completely across country twice, driven around 4 of the great lakes, been to Canada twice and been in over 30 states.  

Welcome to South Dakota!

As mentioned in a previous post we decided to use South Dakota as our state of residence while full timing due to its beneficial taxes and vehicle regulations.  When the truck was purchased the dealer in Tennessee handled the out of state registration so that was one issue removed, but we still had to get our drivers license and register our other car until we sell it.  To get a drivers license you do have to show up in person.  For full time RV'ers you have to stay overnight at a campground or motel in South Dakota and bring the receipt with you and then sign an affidavit that it is your intention to live in South Dakota when you are done full timing.  To get a license plate on a vehicle in South Dakota you have to go to the county where your address is, so we decided to go to Madison, SD, which is the county seat, to get the license plate and to get our licenses.  The functions are separate in the state and for Madison the drivers license facility is open only on Tuesdays.  We drove up Monday (620 miles) and stayed in a local motel to get our mandatory receipt.  At 9:00am on Tuesday we showed up at the drivers license office and within 15 minutes had our South Dakota licenses.  We then walked next door to the county offices and within 10 minutes had our vehicle titled and plates in hand.  Other than the long drive to get there, what an easy experience.  Beats any other state we have lived in.!

After completing our business we thought we would stop by "our residence" in town to meet the lady who runs the mail forwarding service.  She was very nice and extremely helpful.  We completed all the paperwork in advance so our local Jayco dealer will be able to register our fifth wheel in South Dakota.  Here is a picture of "our residence".

We then left our little town and began our trip back home.  We decided to stop in Sioux Falls, SD as we had seen a picture of Falls Park on the local news and it looked interesting.  It was a really nice place to visit.  Here is a picture of part of the park.

 We stopped in Tomah, WI., for the night and then headed home today, Wednesday.  A quick trip but we got everything we needed to done.  Probably will not have to go back to Madison until our licenses have to be renewed.

Jayco Plant Tour

I thought it would be a fun idea to visit the Jayco plant and take the tour. The plant is located in Middlebury, IN which is about 2 hours away from our house. The tour was quite interesting and the plant they show you is the one that makes the fifth wheels and today they were making the Eagle models, but not the one we ordered. It takes four days to make a fifth wheel. The plant is located in the heart of Indiana Amish country and a majority of the employees that work in the plant are Amish. First stop on the tour of the plant where the trailers are made was the ceiling being finished. Each side, top and floor of the trailer come into the plant fully completed meaning they have been laminated, insulated and wiring installed. The finish work is then done in the assembly plant. Here is a picture of a worker installing all the ceiling fixtures. You can see it is a very large piece and this is for a trailer smaller than the one we purchased!  Next up was the actual assembly line. The trailers are on a track going sideways and they work on groups of six of one model. Here is a picture of them on the line.  The slides are assembled in a different part of the plant and then meet up with their unit towards the end. Here is a picture of a full wall slide ready to be mated with a trailer. It was a very interesting and informative tour. It was nice to see the craftsmanship and quality control they have in building their trailers.