Nanaimo

Well here we are in Nanaimo. We left Brandon on the 15 June after I finished my last shift at 2200hrs. We only drove for an hour or so & pulled into a little rest stop just by the Mb/Sask border. We got up around 0600hrs and drove to Calgary where we parked in the back lane of a friends place for the night. We had an awesome roast chicken dinner with them & a few laughs as well. We left a little late the next morning, but called a friend in Canmore & had breakfast with him at Craigs Waystation. Very good staff & food served there as we had been there several times last year. We decided that we would stay the night at the Wapiti CG there & go for a steak supper & all the trimmings at our friends place. What a lovely evening we had. All this time my hubby had driven the rig, but he was having a hard time driving & looking at the scenery so on Sat morning I got behind the wheel & drove to Kamloops. I had only pulled the trailer on the flat prairies so it was a different experience going up & down the mtn roads. The Knutsford CG was very nice. I drove again to Savona where we had a wonderful breakfast at the roadside diner there. It was also Fathers Day and as I was driving through Hope ( we took the old #1 highway) my hubby's kids called him to wish him a Happy FD. We stopped in Cloverdale just before the ferry for diesel. Our reasoning was the price would be higher on Vancouver Island. Joe drove to the ferry at Tsawwasen and we took the Duke Pt ferry to Nanaimo. The cost at 54ft was almost $250. We won't be going back to the mainland with the trailer if we can help it as they charge $5 a foot over 20ft. We found Jingle Pot CG without any trouble. So now we have the wonderful pleasure of trying to license the units in B.C. What a gong show! Mb is not the fastest at sending pertinent documents by fax so that we can prove we had a license in Mb for more than 2yrs. Geesh. We have moved once since being in Jingle Pot, as we wanted a bigger site to accomodate the length of our truck (25ft) and trailer (37ft). With our slides & awning out we spread out 20ft. Our next door neighbour had company over the other nite & they backed into the rear passenger hip of the truck. Put a nice dent in our unit & nothing damaged on the Toyota fj cruiser, go figure! So now we have made the claim & just waiting for the appropriate insurance company to call us...geesh! The weather here has been nice, not too cool & not too hot. Alot of clouds and we have had 3 days of rain now. At least we don't have the humidity like back in MB. So it looks like we are going to be here for the winter which is okay by us. The owner of the CG is awesome & the people who stay here on a permanent basis are really nice. Gotta check on my soup so will sign off for now, Cheerio, Jeannine

On the Road Again (almost)

As I write this we are 2 days away from leaving our province of Manitoba & heading out west. We have decided to make Nanaimo our home base at least for this year/winter. We still have some stuff that needs to go into HOWie. We have ordered a new generator (EFOY) and a hard wired surge protector. This is hopefully going to be installed on Wed June 15 and that is also my last day of work. Joe will pick me up after my shift ends at 10pm on Wed & we will drive for a while & then tie up for the nite. I expect we will not get much sleep as we are both super excited about really becoming FTers. With our setup we should be able to be off the grid for a long time as we do not use alot of electricity. We also have 4 LIFELINE batteries & the 3 solar panels up top. Will sign off for now, Cheerio

A flooded city

This is sure gonna be one helluva year here in Brandon. We are under a state of emergency and flood watch. We are safe where we live on the top of the hill in Meadowlark CG. However, I still have to go to work and that means going down the hill & over the river that just keeps getting wider. Most of the businesses & alot of homes in the path of the river (Assiniboine) are evacuated. What is known as the Corral Centre here in town is a ghost town now. Lotsa businesses are sandbagged & abandoned. 3 car dealerships have moved inventory to higher ground. There are 2 roads into Brandon from the north & south. Highway #10 & #1a. Highway #1a is now closed & directed over to #10 (or 18th st). They have finished diking around the intersection of 18th st N & Grand Valley road. The sand bags are 3 feet high & 3 feet across diagonally. The bags are stacked 2 high & 4 deep now in some places to keep the river from pushing them aside. I would imagine they will try to shore up the dikes again in the morning. Alot of people have been taking pictures of the flood waters. They are saying this is the flood of the century & beats the river rising in '97 all to $h:t. So time will tell what happens here, what man proposes, God disposes. After all this was a flood plain. Cheerio

Pix of HOWie

Ok I finally got around to taking a pix of our units. Now I just gotta figure out how to download them so that we can share. Having a difficult time trying to download the pix onto the IRV2 forum. Not sure what I am doing wrong.

FT

Here it is almost the end of April & we have officially moved into the 5er. Staying at a local campground (on high ground). All the places that we would have boondocked at are under water. We are all on flood watch around these parts. I have had a nasty cough for over a week now. Taking meds for it but it seems to be hanging around...darn cold.
As I predicted my hubby has taken too much stuff with him & is finding it hard to place alot of things he thought we needed. He is off to Winnipeg tonite with a load of stuff from storage for his son & that pretty much clears out the storage. Also on this trip into the city he is getting the Linex Spray in box liner done as well as attending a retirement party for an old coworker. The hitch will get installed on next Wednesday the 27. Then we will be completely independant. Had a few water leaks & issues with the trailer that have been addressed by the dealership. When they installed the undersink water filter, they didn't do a wet test to see if the lines leaked...of course we discovered the leak when the cupboards were chock a block full of stuff...lol.  We will probably move a few spaces over in the next week or so when things dry up a little more. The reason is we are in a prime pull through site, so we can move to a more private setting.  Kinda funny how many RV's we see going down the road even though the temperatures are still cool.  Cheerio

Not our truck

Well that was not what we expected. Bought the truck last week, wrote out a cheque & got called the next day that the truck was not available. So back to the drawing board. Instead we  purchased a dually 1 ton Chevy deisel crew cab. White in color so will go with anything we tow behind it. Getting a set of mud flaps installed & possibly a bigger fuel tank. Then we take it into Winnipeg for a sprayed in box liner and back to the RV dealership for the installation of the 5th wheel hitch. At this time we are not sure when we actually take possession of the truck, we get the 5er on the 14th. Can hardly wait to find out how much stuff we will not be able to pack into it. Should be interesting. Cheerio

Waiting

We took the plunge & bought a new 2011 GMC dually 1 ton deisel. Not alot of bells & whistles on it but who needs a backup camera, curbside parking assist, sunroof etc? Just more things to go wrong. Now we wait for the truck to come in then we add a bigger fuel tank, step sides all the way to the hips, spray in liner, protective clearcoat, mud flaps.
 They were having trouble finding the 00 cable for the solar panels on the trailer, but think they have it figured out now. We take delivery of the trailer on April 14, before our truck comes in. The temp last night got down to -9C'. The snow is slowly melting around here, but we still have alot to go yet. They are forecasting a major flood this year on the floodplain of the Red River & tributaries. Mother nature is getting the last laugh. Cheerio, Jeannine

Officially Homeless

Temp outside is -3C'. We have moved out of the house, packed some stuff into storage. Living outta suitcases at a friends house until our 5er is ready & the weather warms up considerably. We bought a 2011 Canadian Edition Laredo 310re. We are getting 3 solar panels & batteries installed, sat dish, awnings over the 3 slides. We are still looking for a truck to pull it with. I bleed Ford, my hubby is GMC. Seeing as how I "picked the trailer", he gets to choose the truck...darn...lost the arguement...lol. Cheerio

WE ARE HOMELESS (no more S&B)

Well, it is official. We have sold the house! Now we can go shopping for the 5er. A friend of ours has graciously offered his front bedroom to us until such time as we can comfortably move into the trailer. The temperatures are still alot on the cool side. -20C' is the low temp for tonite. The middle of April is probably a good time to move into whatever trailer we buy. The hubby's kids have come and gone today with more stuff, but there is still alot to get rid of. We are off to check out the friends place so will sign off for now. Jeannine....Happy Trails

Is this the beginning of the end?

As I write this we have accepted an offer on the house. Being the weekend, things will not be finalized until the middle of the week, Mar 2, at the latest, Mar 4. If the deal goes through we will be out of the house by the 15 of March. That doesn't give my packrat of a hubby much time to clean out his drawers...pun intended...lol. As I came into this house 7 1/2 yrs ago, my stuff is almost all gone. However, Joe has 30+ yrs of stuff in this house along with all the stuff that was saved for his 2 kids. They are very slow at taking things out of here. I hear the complaiint "our house is filling up with stuff" . Well  geesh, how do you think we felt all these years with their stuff still in the house. So if the deal does go through, we have realized that we better find a 5er & truck real quick. 3 weeks is not a long time to do much. Will post more as things progress. Happy trails

nasty weather

Beautiful sunshine today, however don't let that fool you. Baby, it is cold outside...-21'C....brr...nasty wind blowin as well. My hubby's sister & BIL are coming to visit & while here we will take in one of the RV shows put on by a company west of us by 1/2 hr. They have RV'd FT for 5 yrs before settling down to look after Dad until he died. They are possibly looking for another 5er, so we will have lots to look at. We are hoping to pick their brains again about RVing. Take care

in the beginning

As  I write this we are under a blowing snow warning in Western Manitoba. Great...more snow to remove.  We  have had the house up for sale since the 6 Jan 2011. Lots of tire kickers. No offers yet. I live in a house with packrats. The man I sleep with is a major packrat, so moving into a 5er is gonna be a shocker for him. He says he will make the transition easily but I have my doubts. Time will tell. I am the less is more type ( opposites attract). My husbands children (male 27, female 24) do not live here anymore but seem to think that dad's house is a great storage place. The daughter has removed alot of her stuff out of the house, however the son is slower. He is complaining that his house is getting full...gee....now he can live with the clutter...haha.. The garage is the last frontier...I do not wanna be in there when they empty it out. There is still 2 feet of snow on the ground. I so want spring to arrive. I delivered 17 liquor store boxes full of stuff from my family to my son (21 yrs) yesterday. I may find a few more things to give away however the bulk of my stuff is gone. Now we wait for the house to sell.
My husbands sister & brother in law have a 5er & have travelled with it & also lived in one for a number of years before they came home to look after Dad. We are going to an RV show here in town this wknd with them. We have already decided that a 5er is the way to go, & now we just wait until the house sells so that we can go shopping. At the end of the day size will be determined by the amount of $$ we get from the house. Then we still have to buy a unit to pull it with. We have been shopping for a 5er for a year now so kinda know what we want & don't want. I want my bath all in one & counter space so that when I cook/bake I have counter room. From what I see I may lose the counter space because we don't want to go too long. 36 ft is too big for me ( I have never pulled a trailer but hubby has pulled TT's all his working career). I still need to get my class 3 license as hubby has his from work. We are both ready to see where the road will take us. Sticks & bricks just don't cut it for us anymore. We are tired of owning a piece of dirt. I tell people  now that if I ever get the urge to dig in the dirt, I will go live with my sister in Nanaimo B.C. She has lotsa dirt...lol. We both spend alot of time on the computer & my eyes go buggy from reading all the blogs about others who FT. We are excited about starting a new chapter in our lives.