Maiden Voyage

This weekend we decided to test out our new rig before we lumber on down to Kentucky in less then 1 week! As he drove us to Backbone State Park yesterday, my husband turned to me and said, “I can really see ourselves doing this!” Well, I surely hope so because he just finished his last day of work and and we sold our house and bought an RV and already booked several RV sites and will be “doing this” for 4 whole months in 4 days! This crazy dream of ours is finally becoming a reality.

As I was interviewing for a new job last week up in Minnesota I was asked, “What are you looking forward to most on your upcoming trip?” I genuinely replied with, “I love my husband and I really just can’t wait to spend uninterrupted time with him.” The longest time we’ve spent uninterrupted together without working was probably the 2 weeks we took off for our honeymoon in Australia. Otherwise, our pattern was that he went to work at 6 am, I came home at 6 pm (and often much later) and most of our days were spent apart. When your husband is your best friend and confidant that’s just an undesirable situation so we want to make up for all of the lost time! We also wanted to change our setup so that his commute time and my hospital call was much less so this seemed like a good transition time to regroup and refocus on what we want our lives to look like going forward.

So, this weekend has actually gone fairly well with only a few glitches. We found our campsite without hassle and backed in easily. Leveling was not too cumbersome as we got it right on our first try with our Lynx Levelers. The hookups were fine save the surge protector took a bit more time than expected to turn it’s ready light on. Mom and Dad had a nice tent over the picnic table due to inclement weather and our awning was a lifesaver. Fortunately we got to have one good campfire last night. We brought the wrong sized propane tank for our little propane fire pit and will have to find a larger tank so we can enjoy a campfire in the campgrounds that have a burn ban in place.

I was able to enjoy a nice hot shower yesterday evening but my Mom suffered an icy blast because the hot water heater switch refused to ignite. Tried troubleshooting with our RV dealership over the phone but they determined Harvey needs a check up so we’ll bring him in first thing Monday morning. Very hopeful it will be a quick fix and nothing major with the circuit board.

This morning was a bit wet with an early downpour and even some pea-sized hail for a couple of minutes. Ponchos were our friends and the bacon still managed to sizzle over the fire. It was a lot of fun to prepare a French toast breakfast in the tiny kitchen and I felt that the small space won’t really need that much getting used to since it really has all that we need and I welcome the challenge in using the space creatively.

We just have to bring along our Saeco coffee maker/grinder. Something tells me we won’t regret it.

Rocky our Toy Poodle is enjoying his time too!

So this area of Iowa is supposedly sought after for its trout fishing. Our kind RV neighbors across the way randomly brought over freshly gutted and cleaned trout since technically you are not allowed to be in possession of more than 10 per person and they wanted to keep fishing for the next week. So we found this recipe and had some delicious fresh fish grilled in tinfoil over the fire.

This tasty meal was followed by a card game of “Up and Down the River” while huddled under the camper awning with our friend Victor and my husband’s aunt and uncle who we’ve been staying with in the interim between selling our house and embarking on our road trip. We are so thankful for them. We were determined to end the day with s’mores and roasted the mallows over the stovetop.

Now we are snuggled up outside to sleep on our zero gravity chairs under the stars (covered by rain clouds). Didn’t think we’d use this outside T.V. that much but it comes in handy for a rainy day. All in all a good launch and definite confidence booster in showing us that this camper life might not be too shabby.