The rv.net Northwest Spring Rally is almost over for another year. This year we’ve been at Brookhollow RV Park in Kelso, WA.

It’s been a great rally. David and Laura did a fantastic job as wagonmasters, making this one of the smoothest and most relaxing rallys in a few years. The weather cooperated too. Sunny all weekend, with some breeze every afternoon making it a bit cooler than we’d like, but still enjoyable.

Looking forward to next year. Tomorrow we leave here for Kennewick, and Nikki’s Mom’s place.

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RV.net, Kelso, WA, Brookhaven RV Park

Tags: Full-timing, Motorhomes by john
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The last few days, the power level shown by the meter on the power panel always read low, even though we are plugged into shore power.

Then yesterday the power started to briefly blank every time the furnace kicked on. Finally, last night, the DC power completely died. Actually, most of the DC power died. No lights, no heat, no hot water. But the refrigerator still worked.

Time for a trip to Fred Meyer to get a heater. With the darkness outside, I wouldn’t do much troubleshooting until morning. But an AC heater could keep the coach warm.

Troubleshooting the problem, this morning and reading the limited information in the user’s manual, I determined that the problem is with the disconnect relay.

The rig has a battery switch on the panel by the door. This switch turns off some of the DC power systems. According to the manual, it is to reduce the drain on the battery when dry camping and you leave the coach for a time. Since we are not dry camping, it seems that we could function without that relay for a brief time. Since RV dealerships aren’t open on Sunday, and probably don’t have the part in stock anyway, removing it from the equation seemed a good solution.

So I tied the input and output together. Now the power level is as expected, and the lights are bright, as they should be. I may not get in too big a hurry to fix that thing.

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Holiday Rambler, RVing

Tags: Full-timing, Motorhomes by john
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My contract at Boeing ended yesterday. Today we left home in Puyallup, Washington for the first stage of the new adventure that takes us east to Burnsville, Minnesota to see our oldest daughter and her husband.

Today we travelled from Puyallup to Kennewick, Washington to spend the weekend with Nikki’s mom.

It started out cool on the western half of the state, but once we got as far east as Cle Elum, it started getting warm. At the Selah Rest Area on I-82, we had perfectly clear views of both Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier.

Once we got here, we realized we forgot our passports. Since we plan to be living in the motorhome for six to nine months, partly in the south near the Mexican border, we need to have those passports. So our son is sending them ahead to us.

Tags: Full-timing, Mexico, Minnesota, Motorhomes, Mt. Rainier, RVing by john
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This guy has a dream. I understand that dream, and look forward to starting down that path.

Ahhhh, living the dream! I don’t know about you, but I often have dreams of full timing. Now I know that some of you out there reading this blog are doing just that and I envy you! I think it’s the yearning to have independence. It seems like it would be nice to just get up one day, pull up stakes and move on to another town. Perhaps it’s the gypsy in me!

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Full-timing, RVing

Tags: Full-timing, RVing by john
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These people have two two workstations in their older 30 ft. class C motorhome.

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Motorhome, RVing, Full-timing

Tags: Full-timing, Motorhomes, RVing by john
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The RV offers less to heat or cool, smaller refrigerator/freezer, smaller water heater, uses less water in general…

What’s not to like? Read more here.

Tags: Full-timing, RVing by john
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Fulltime RVer has a post discussing the relative costs of using propane vs. electricity to heat your RV, assuming you have to pay for the electricity. He does a good job of comparing the numbers, but he didn’t consider if your rig has a heat pump, as ours does.

As I recall from my intro to thermodynamics, oh so many years ago, a heat pump typically runs 1.5 to 2.5 times more efficiently than electricity, depending on temperature difference between inside and outside. The heat pump is not turning electricity into heat, but using the electricity to move heat from outside to inside, so it can move more heat than the energy content of the electricity used.

Bottom line, the heat pump will probably almost always be more efficient except when temperatures drop down into the 30s or below.

Technorati Tags:
Weather, RVing, Heating

Tags: Full-timing, Motorhomes, RVing, Travel Traileres, Truck Campers by john
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Rich in Tour of America posts about camping on the beach at Oceano Dunes, California.

There aren’t many places to do that, but you can at least drive on the beach in many places in Washington.

Note that kelli in Watch and Learn notes that that quiet beach turns into a super-highway on weekends.

Technorati Tags:
RVing, Travel, Travel Trailers, Airstream, Oceano Dunes

Tags: Destinations, Full-timing, RVing, Travel Traileres by john
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Fulltime RVer has a post about Ty Adams, a 28-year old former Monaco employee, who sold his house, and now travels the country in a motorhome encouraging the use of bio-diesel in motorhomes.

The was at the Tacoma Dome RV show this fall. Seattle Times also has an article on him, and he has a website.

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Business, Climate, Motorhomes, Travel

Tags: Full-timing, Motorhomes by john
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