Full-timing in the trailer and the fair

Well, the county fair is starting this week. I took a couple pictures over to the County fair. One picture is of the cows out behind the RV this last winter. The other is of the dogs playing on the beach at Ft Stevens state park in Astoria Oregon. The Fair is all a hussle and bussle with preparations for the weeks events.

We are going up to Sandy and Bills this afternoon for dinner to see the new yard. We will also will be celebrating Calvin Jr's birthday. We will be taking up a blender and toe nail clippers for Haddies trim of her toe nails. So funny. We live in a 30 foot fifth wheel trailer and Sandy and Bill live in a house over 1000 square feet and there are two things we have in this 30 by 10 box that they do not. I guess we are doing a pretty good job of setting up our limited household with the things we need.

We are going to hook up with Tommy and his daughter Cortney and see the Barrell house that Carol and Bryan use to live in. Tune in soon for pictures and an update.

Happy Camping! - Eric -

It's hot but we're ok!

Hi there everyone,

Last weekend was a busy one. Asside from our normal weekend activities, I inspected the brakes and repacked the axles on the trailer. All in all, the process went pretty well after I had all of the parts. I had to get three sets of grease seals before I finally got the right ones. But, like I said, the process went really well.

The temperature these days is exceeding 100 every day. It's really warming up the old Cougar during the day. Thankfully, though, the air conditioner is doing a great job of keeping us cool, even in the heat of the day. All of the work we have done to try to keep the trailer temperatures more under control seem to have paid off. The AC seems to be able to keep the inside of the trailer under 80 unless we decide to do some cooking inside.

Carol has started her temp job with Blue Ribbon. she is working as a secretary at the River Pines water agency. She's only working there 4 hours a day 3 days a week, but she is getting some practice typing and taking dictation, so any experience is good experience.

We are leaving tomorrow to go to a near by rv park with a local Good sam RV club. It will be our first venture with a club. We are looking forward to it for a couple reasons. We'll get to make some additional friends and we will get to see Mike and Theresa Nigro.

Karen and Mike are headed to the bay area to see a couple of drum corps shows this weekend. As much as I would love to go to see a corps show, as Carol says, I can't see and do everything.

Katie and Russ are doing great. They have been living in Elk Grove now for over 6 months and seem to be making life on their own work out just fine.

Well, I guess that is about it for now.

Happy camping all! Eric and Carol Anderson

In memory of Sean Whittaker

We would like to offer our condolences to the family of Sean Whittaker. Sean's life ended far too early when succumbed to his injuries which occurred as a result of a high speed motor cycle accident. Our hearts and thoughts go out to his mom Nancy, dad Lynn and brothers Mike and Jay.

Sean's funeral will be held on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009.

Best wishes! Eric and Carol Anderson

The first day of summer

Hi there everyone, well, this was a very busy weekend which included some special events. We expereienced the annual coming of the first day of summer as well as fathers day. Though we are officially in summer, by this time of the year, we normally would have had a number of sweltering days by now. Now, we have had a few warm days this year, but, all in all, it has been a very mild and enjoyable 'Spring'. Yesterday for instance, Fathers day, we had a high of about 82 degrees which was comfortably warm, but it was accompanied with a cool breeze. It was basically wonderful! :-)

My fathers day started as most Sundays do, with an early rise at 6:30 am to be down to the Amador county Animal Control department to walk dogs. The population at the shelter is back up to about 12 dogs, but we have an Adoption Outreach this next weekend at our local Petco, so hopefully, we'll find some pooches some new 'forever' homes! It is so rewarding to go down there every week and walk and work with the dogs. There is one down there named 'Ellie' that is a pit bull. She is an absolute love. She is big and strong, but if we didn't already have 3 dogs in the RV, I'd would have brought her home. Not a mean bone in her body!

We have been living in the RV for 5 months now. Carol and I could not be happier. The original plan was to put everything in storage for a year and if after a year, we were still happy with living in the trailer then we would sell the remainder of our worldly belongings and get out of the storage unit. Well, 5 months into this adventure, we are absolutly in love with the life style. As a result, we're going to start getting rid of things well before the year is out. Katie wants some of the stuff, but the rest will be sold to raise a little cash and lighten our load of 'Stuff'.

We have found our 2006 Keystone Cougar to be a very comfortable home. Even though the service to the trailer is only 30 amps and the Cougar would be considered a mid level RV, we are very comfortable and really in want for nothing. The Cougar only has a single air conditioner, which is not the norm for a rig used for 'Full timing', but so far, with the additional 'weatherizing' of the rig, has managed to keep us comfortable.

We still have our three pooches and the two kitties living with us. Spotty our orange and white kitty has been around since before Carol and I met. I Shortly after Carol and I got togther, Carol bought a house and moved out of her dads place which was about 1.5 miles away as the crow flies. Well, a couple days after Carol moved into the new place, Spotty found his way back to Calvins home, which is what he knew as home. So, he is a quite the surviver. You see him in one of the attached pictures next to Bruce our traveling moose.

Our 32 Inch Television that Carol and I normaly watch, has developed a blue line in the screen. So, we have sent it in to have it repaired. We moved the TV from the bedroom back out to the living room. It's hard to believe that we use to watch this TV in the living room all of the time for a while. The screen is so much smaller than what we have gotten use to.

Well, I guess that is about all for now. Take care and Happy Camping! - Eric -

Redding 2009

Hi there everyone,

We have come to the JGW RV park in Redding for a weekend. It hasn't been since we hooked up with Karen and Mike in Chico that we have been able to get away from it all. Well, with relatively short notice, we decided to get away for the weekend.

If you have been following the weather at all over the last couple weeks, you know we've been experiencing an un-seasonably rainy and stormy spring. There have been a number of thunder storms moving through the north state lately. Last night was no different. We had a lot of lightning and thunder rolling through during the evening. Carol and I tried to take the dogs for a walk last night before the storm moved through our area, but it became obvious to us shortly after we started that we were surrounded by the storms and that we were best off being in the trailer to ride out the storm. We had been in the trailer for a while, Carol peered outside and made the observation that we might be accumulating some water on the awning which is attached to the passengers side of the trailer. I had placed the awning at a slight angle so that rain would run off if any came, but I have to be honest we got more rain than I expected. So, with it raining quite a bit, I ventured outside and increased the tilt of the awning so that the rain would run off better. I didn't want to be outside any more than necessary, cause it was coming down HARD.

Well, if you take a look at the pictures included in this blog, you can see what happens when you don't listen to your wife or at least the voice of experience. There was a couple with a Keystone Cougar similar to ours. They didn't have enough of a tilt to their awning, and as you can see, it collapsed under the weight of the accumulated water. Ours, fared the storm very well, thanks no doubt to me listening to my wife. How else do I stay happily married for 10 years! :-)

While we were out and about on Friday, we came across one of Reddings land marks, a huge American flag off of the I-5 free way. This is a project of the local Lyons club. They were holding a fund raiser so that they can keep the flag that is on display in good shape at all times.

Our campsite as you can see backed up to the Sacramento River. This is why this RV park is one of our favorite destinations!

Well, I better stop being so lazy and get going. I hope you have a great day! - Take care! Happy camping! - Eric and Carol Anderson

A couple ladies I'm proud of..

Hi there everyone,

Well, as you probably know, it is 'Graduation Season' and our families are no different. Carol has been working for the last year on her Medical Transcription schooling. She graduated yesterday with a GPA of 3.8 so we are all very proud of her.

Steve and Lena's daughter Marina is graduating from high school tomorrow. We so wish we could be there for her graduation, but alas, life sometimes has other plans for us all.

Happy graduation to all those graduates out there!!!

We are doing great full timing in our fifth wheel. Our original plan was to live in the RV for a year and place all of our worldly belongings in a storage unit for a year. Well, we are 6 months into living in the RV and we are more convinced than ever that this is the life for us. So, we are going to start selling our furniture before the year was up. It will save us over $100.00 a month. Also, we continue to be very happy with our selection of Far Horizons 49er RV resort. We just love this place. It's clean and well maintained. The pool area is wonderful as is the laundry mat. Additionally, the folks here have been very helpful in supporting me to try to get my computer seminars started.

Well, I guess that is all for now. Take care! Happy Camping! - Eric -

Wow, we have been so busy!

Hi there,

I'm sorry it has taken so long to get a update to the log out there. I've tried a couple of times lateley, but the internet connection has been a little faulty lately here at the old RV park. None the less, the update you have been waiting for has arrived.

This weekend has been a busy one. Saturday we went to see off Carols nephew Kacey who is preparing to relocate to Maryland after a recent promotion. We also went to an RV show in Pleasanton. We wanted to look at new RV's and I also wanted to get some feed back on my new book from those that are out there in the RV industry.

Speaking of my book, my book is now out there for you all to purchase. You can find my book on 'Amazon.com' or you can click on the following link. https://www.createspace.com/3378075

I have so many different aspects of my new business going on right now. I've been working on sign design for the side of the truck. I've been working on a banner design. I've also been trying to figure out how to market my book most effectively. My most recent attempt was to get it carried at a local RV store. They informed me that it was too much about computers and not enough about RVing. However, on the positive side, I spoke to the owner of the store here at the RV park we are living at and they have opted to try to sell a few copies of the book. So, I'm going to try to hit some of the local RV parks and see if I can get exposure there too.

Carol is doing great. She is almost done with her Medical Transcription training. She is scheduled to take her RMT (Registered Medical Transcriptionist) certification test next week and to graduate shortly after that. I am so proud of her, she has done such a wonderful job! :-)

The dogs are doing great. Tyson hurt his neck back in April. He's doing pretty well, but we think he has some nerve damage 'cause he is now dragging his feet a little bit. :-( None the less, he seems very happy and is still as full of love as ever.

We've been in living in the Fifth wheel for over 4 months now, and everything is going great. We still find that we really are in want for nothing. About the only thing we want to do now is unload all of the stuff in the storage unit and get rid of it.

My sister Karen and her husband Mike are getting ready to leave for a trip to Hawaii to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary!

Well, I guess that is about all for now.

Take care! Happy camping! - Eric-