Rex is growing up

We adopted Rex on the 21st of May. On that day, when we brought him home, he weighed in at 9 pounds. Now, today, not quite a month later, he has more than doubled in weight, weighing in at 19 pounds! Rex is finding that he is fitting in well and starting to figure out the pecking order. Rex loves to play, and plays with Charlie and to a lesser degree, Rosie. Charlie gets a little tired of the sharp puppy teeth on his neck and jowls though!

Rex has had his bumps along the road though. He had some sort of upper respiratory infection that he fought for about a week, but thankfully, we have one of the best VCA's in the world just a few minutes away, that is open 24 hours a day. We got him on a 10 day course of anti-biotics, and now is doing great!

We had hoped to take Rex on his first road trip this weekend, but because of Carol feeling sick her self, we were not able to hit the road. We will continue to keep you posted on how Rex is progressing as he grows up.

Safe travels all!

Eric, Carol, Rosie, Charlie and Rex

Please welcome our newest road warrior... Rex

On May 21st, Carol picked out a new little bundle of joy to be part of our family and his name is Rex! We adopted Rex from Valley Spca who is a rescue that has been around for 25 years, but is smaller than Chako in that they only have fosters for volunteers, and four of them at that.

He and two of his siblings were found under a church in Stockton about 3 weeks earlier. They were nursing on their mom when they were found. He has a sister who is also brindle and a brother who is black on white. We wanted a male, in hopes that he would be a bit more acceptable to Rosie. Of the two boys, Rex (previously known as Avery) seemed to be a little calmer but also more confident as well as being understanding of Rosie's "Corrections". 

When we brought Rex in our pack he weighed in at 11 pounds. A week later, he had gained another pound and weighed in at 12 pounds. A week after that, this morning, he's added on two more pounds and weighs 14 pounds. Of courses Rex's first road trip was his ride home to our house from the adoption event in Stockton.

We took Rex out for a second ride this weekend just to help him get comfortable with the idea of riding on the road frequently. He's better get use to the idea, after all, we got some full timing to do going forward! :-)

Our local VCA facility is also a major medical facility for pets providing MRI's and various high-tech treatments for sick or injured animals. They have made the decision to phase out their 'General Practice' operations and open up a new satellite office. But that will take a while. Also, the veterinarian that we have enjoyed working with over the years, Dr. Wong, is now director of Medicine and no longer seeing clients. So, we are on the hunt for a new veterinarian. We had a couple options to consider, Old Towne Vet and Bradshaw VCA. We asked Old Towne how much they would charge for a Neuter, and they told us $500.00. We checked with Bradshaw VCA and they told us about $300.00. We have been to Bradshaw vet in the past with one of Chako's foster dogs Starr and were pretty happy with the help we got from them, so we are thinking we will be going forward with them, at least initially.

We'll keep you all posted with the life and times of Rex, as well as Rosie and Charlie.

Safe Travels.

New tires for our rig

We bought our Allegro bus motorhome in September of 2010. At the time, the tires that came on the rig has a lot of life left on them. They were made in 2006. However, now 7 years later, those tires are now 11 years old. We have always kept the tires covered, so the tires have held up well over the 11 years of their lives. Discussing the life of our tires with various tire shops have agreed that the tires will hold up very well when covered and that we should not be surprised to get 10 or more years out of the tires.

So, we went to our nearby Les Schwab for tires for our 2003 Allegro bus. We paid just south of $2,900 for the 6 tires. When they installed the tires, we asked them to save a tire that we could put in the bay for a spare. We don't expect a tire problem at any point, but if we have a problem, we can call for a service truck to change our failed tire with the spare that we have.

We live full time in our rig. We weren't 100% sure that we would be able to find room in the bay without removing some stuff. Like everyone, we probably have stuff in the bays that we don't need to keep hauling around, but it is always hard to make the decision to toss stuff out.

However, with just a little moving of stuff around, having a space for the tire was easy to come up with, actually, we had a gap that we had lost sight of. So, with putting just a few items such as our Jack stands, the hydraulic jack, and a ceramic heater inside the tire, we were able to re-organize and get everything including the spare tire in the bay.

Safe travels all!

Getting ready for a power upgrade

So, we are getting ready to upgrade the power set up of our 2003 Allegro Bus from a 2000 watt modified sign wave inverter/charger to a pure sign wave inverter/charger. We will also be adding 300 watt solar with an MPPT charge controller. We've received some great insight from a friend of ours, but looking to see what others might suggest.

Quite frankly, we are not quite sure why they sold this RV with a Modified Sign Wave Inverter. The microwave has never worked right on it. I'm wondering if we should replace the current Inverter/Charger with just an inverter and then leave it up to the 'Solar' to charge the batteries, or if we should indeed do a one-for-one change out. Currently. we live full time in our rig and have it parked at an RV park in Sacramento. The rig is under trees, but the end I plan to put the panels on is pointed south and has a fairly clear exposure to the sky.

If we go with the Inverter/Charger route, is there going to be any problem with there being effectively 'Two chargers' on the battery bank.

Lastly, we currently only have about three outlets on the 'Inverter'. Should we keep the wiring the same and again only energize the three outlets, or should we make the process a little more manual where I plug the RV 50 amp plug into an interior plug, which is powered off the inverter when we unplug from Shore power. If we take that approach, how do we keep the inverter from trying to charge the batteries (Because it is getting 120 volts from it's power source) and draw from them at the same time.

I'd really welcome any and all input. Thanks!

Our second trip to see the poppies

A few years back, Eric tried to give Carol a surprise trip to see the California State Poppy preserve to see poppies in bloom. That year turned out to be not such a great year for the bloom and as a result, the surprise ended up to be kind of bust because it was such a poor water year. Also, the place where we choose to stay, in 'Lancaster' was a bit disappointing because of the unending wind.

This year however, with the weather being a much wetter winter, we thought we might have more success at seeing some poppies in bloom. Also, we thought we might change our accommodations and hopefully stay in a place that might be a little less windy. So, this year, instead of traveling straight to Lancaster, we thought we would stay in Bakersfield.

Though we have stayed in Bakersfield in the past, we thought we would try an RV park that we had never stayed at before. We stayed at the 'River run RV park' in Bakersfield. This RV Park is right next to the Kern river and was a wonderful place to stay. The park is about 10 years old, and has all of the modern immunities such as well equipped Laundry Facilities, a club house, store and swimming pool. The park is run by a husband and wife team and they are doing an amazing job with the park.

On our first full day on the trip, we made a run out to the Antelope valley, home of Lancaster and the poppy fields to check out the reserve. On our drive out there, we drove over the 'Grapevine' an arterial road from Bakersfield to Los Angeles. And for these veteran 'Grapevine' drivers, we were admittedly a little surprised as to how green the hills were leading up to the Grapevine.

Once we got to the reserve, the day was a little cold and windy, but we had a much better opportunity this time to check out the flowers. Though, the cool wind kept the flowers still somewhat retracted, there were a lot of sheltered areas that gave us an chance to check out these beautiful flowers.

Reports were that the eastern part of the park, had the best blooms, and that report was correct.

Though our first full day was full of driving from Camp to the Antelope valley, we took a little slower pace on our second day and included some time sitting and relaxing outside and enjoying the warm sunshine and cool breeze. This really is a beautiful park with a great location, especially if your sight is one to back up to the river.

On this second day, we did run into Bakersfield to check out the old part of town and to grab a bite to eat at a 'Woolworths' Luncheonette. This particular dining establishment was part of an old 'Woolworths' store back in the mid-1900's but was closed when the chain closed down. However, someone reopened the Woolworth's luncheonette as a unique dining experience. It was great, because we got to sit at the counter and enjoy a 'Burger and Fries' together. It was the first time Carol got to sit at the 'Counter' of the luncheonette.

The rest of the old Woolworths, was converted into a massive 'Antique Mall'. Even to be found in the 'Antique Mall' was some great treasures to be found. We had a great time on our trip to see the Poppy's and Bakersfield. We will definitely return here again.

Safe travels everyone!

Eric and Carol Anderson

Flag down!

So the other day, the furnace kicked on but sounded like the blower motor fan was taking a dive. So, when we got home from work the following afternoon Eric started to take the furnace apart to see what the part number was so he could order a new fan. His wife Carol was holding the cabinet door open and Eric was taking a picture of the model number on the furnace. Carol spotted the American flag that had been sucked over a bay wall and into the blower motor. We are both so glad Carol had seen the flag. She sure saved us a lot of money and work!

Eric will not be putting up some screen material to keep similar items from being sucked into the furnace in the future.

Safe Travels

Eric and Carol Anderson

A dogs life in our motorhome

We started our Full timing adventure in 2010. We had lost our home due to the financial downturn in 2007 and 2008. The veterinary practice that Carol had worked at for 25 years as a veterinary technician, had closed it's doors because the owner had decided to hang up his stethoscope. We put our house on the market, but we couldn't drop the price fast enough to keep up with the falling value of the collapsing real-estate market. We cashed in some of our 401k to try to keep the boat afloat, but ultimately decided that we had to just walk away from our home.

We rented a home for a while, until our daughter Katie moved out on her own. We kept the Fifth wheel trailer that we had bought when we both still had jobs, and decided that the time had come to start our full timing adventure. It was something that we had known that we wanted to ultimately do, but we figured we would be closer to retirement and in a much better financial situation than we were at the time. We had taken numerous trips in our various RV's with our pets, and they always seemed to handle the traveling fairly well. So, when the decision was made to start full timing, we figured the dogs would go along with the program. Fortunately we were correct in our assumption.

Here is a little video to give you just a sense of what the lives are like for our four-footed friends!


Safe Travels!

Eric and Carol Anderson