Rig Projects...Like peeling an onion!

Have you ever noticed how a simple project on your Rig has a way of tuning into anything but simple??? Our rig came from the factory, " Washer Dryer Ready" so you would think... Go buy and washer and dryer and set it in place and hook it up... Right??? Well not exactly... Not even close... This has turned into a four week project, (so far) and the last dryer I ordered will not be here until February 2. This set makes the 3rd set I have ordered and received. The first two just would not fit exactly right. So I have had to reconfigure the washer hookups, and relocate them 2 inches toward the rear of the laundry closet and move the water hook ups from the right hand side to the rear of the closet. So far I have moved the washer into and out of the closet 7 times to get the perfect location, allowing the doors to be reinstalled on the closet. We washed 4 loads of laundry last night and everything worked flawlessly!! The dryer is the next part of the project... This dryer will actually "hang" on the wall! This is a very interesting design. I still don't know if I am strong enough to lift and set it into the mounting system... I have started taking extra vitamins and am in a rigorous training program to get into better shape for this project... Hope it works!!

More later and will post some photos of the project...

Jim

What a Holiday!!

Well, the holidays for 2008 are in the history book and it's time to look forward to 2009! Trish and I spent Christmas in Williams, AZ this year ... Just the two of us. We had planned to spend it at the Grand Canyon but got snowed in about 50 miles south in the small town of Williams. However, we did have a lot of fun! We have not seen snow like that in 35 years! It was a good thing we left the rig in Phoenix and took the Jeep with 4WD, it sure came in handy not to mention fun! After two day in Williams the storm blew through and they did a good job of clearing the roads so we spent a full day up at the canyon. We viewed it from about ten different locations and then headed to Flagstaff to spend the night..

Trish took lots of pictures, you can see some of them by viewing the "current sites" at the upper left side of this page. I'll leave those pictures up until we take another day trip. Speaking of day trip... we were really blown away to discover Sedona, AZ on our way back to Phoenix. We decided to make Sedona our next day trip. Of course it's time to go back to work for a while to refill the coffers.

Our first few weeks here have been fun but not much success with selling photos... We are hoping that the future will be better now that the holidays are over. I think things would be better if people did not watch the NEWS... Doom & Gloom! It is time for people to go back to living their life and quit acting like sheep and buying into "how bad things are" Oh well don't get me started on that... All I have to say is we are looking forward to 2009... Sales, travel, experiences... After all, that is why we became fulltimers... FULLTIME living our dream, and smelling the flowers along the way!

More later... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Jim & Trish

What a site this morning!

While sippin' my first cup of coffee this morning, gazing out my favorite window, this is what I saw. This was sooooo cooool! Four hot air balloons were launching about 100 yards out of the campground with the perfect view from our rig!

I ran to the bedroom, and woke Trish... I said, "Baby, wake up... you have got to come see this" Needless to say, she is so into stuff like this, she put on her jeans and a sweater and ran outside with her camera and telephoto lens and took about 200 pictures in the next 30 minutes. I will go through them and add a few to our "current sites" folder here on the BLOG. What a great way to start a Sunday morning! This was such an incredibly peaceful site...

Jim

Merry Christmas from Phoenix

I hope everyone is well! Trish was down with the flu for a week but is doing much better... Praise the Lord for that, I lost about 7 pounds! We are planning a trip over to the Grand Canyon for Christmas. We are driving the Jeep and leaving the Rig in Phoenix so we should be able to get some interesting pictures. I will post them in our "current sites" link in the upper left of this BLOG site. Stay tuned...

Boy... We have so much to be thankful for. A lot of the people here in Phoenix seem to be hard hit by the current economic conditions. There are so many houses here for sale and so many foreclosures. Most of the full time RVers we have met are just happy to see the price of gas and diesel back down to where they feel they can travel more often. We were so fortunate to sell the Florida house when we did. We closed on it in June of this year and from what we understand the prices in Panama City Beach are still falling. It seems we got out just in time!

We are so happy we decided to bring the Jeep along. It really works well for the days we go out and sell for Air Photo. It should also allow us to explore some parts of the desert and get some interesting pictures. The landscape here is so different from anything we have ever seen. So far the weather has been good except for the storm that dropped snow in Las Vegas! It was cold, rainy and windy here in phoenix. It also dropped 12 inches of snow in Flagstaff which is about 100 miles north of us... Today it is suppose to be sunny and a high of 63... That's more like it!

More later... Merry Christmas!! or should I say, "Happy Birthday Jesus ! " Thank you GOD for this perfect gift you have given us... This gift of eternal life truly defines LOVE in the purest form... Thank you Lord for you alone are worthy of praise and worship!

Jim ( A King's Kid!)

We are in Phoenix for Christmas and the Winter

Merry Christmas to all! We have moved from Athens, Alabama to the Pioneer RV Resort in northwest Phoenix... What a great trip we had! 1800+ miles of really beautiful country and trouble free travel with the 5er. Trish drove the Jeep and followed me towing the 5er. That was the only part of the trip that could have been better. With a larger truck I would have felt good enough to double tow the Jeep behind the 5er after we reached Texas and the rest of the trip. We saw many 5ers double towing with the same truck we have...

The truck averaged 11.5 MPG and the Jeep averaged 23MPG. We were pleasantly surprised to see the price of diesel and gas drop as we traveled west. In Alabama we paid $2.59/gal for diesel as we were leaving, the last fill up about 100 miles south of Phoenix we paid $2.03/gal. That made the trip cheaper than we budgeted for!!

We are so amazed at the landscape here... Trish is enamored with the very large cactus plants that are everywhere here in the desert. This campground has them growing wild all throughout the landscape and it is so different to us. Fascinating to say the least...

We are starting to work our first roll of film for Air Photo, Inc. this week. It is taking a little "getting use to", to be able to find these homes because the streets and driveways are really different for us. Different as they are not your typical concrete like in the east. Everything here is gravel, rock, or very coarse sand. Again... I will say fascinating to us. This is such an interesting lifestyle for Trish and I. We are experiencing very new and different things!!

The picture was taken the day we left Alabama... We had planned to leave on Monday.. but it snowed that day, we postponed our departure by a day. Tuesday was very cold with a heavy frost. WE DO NOT OWN AN ICE SCRAPER... This is Trish scrapping the ice off the mirror with her American Express card!!! TOO COLD, we are heading south and west.

Phoenix is much warmer... Much more to come... and more pictures soon... Jim

It's Raining Air Photo Reps !

Well, we are in our 4th week here in Athens, AL and there are now two other couples in the area that are working for Air Photo. We had our first get together this past Wednesday for a Mexican Lunch at La Alameda in Huntsville and really had a great time. We decided to make it a weekly event to have lunch and talk about our fulltiming experiences and the Air Photo Business.

Trish and I plan to be here through December 1st and then head out to Pheonix, AZ for a few months. The weather here in Northern Alabama is beginning to get a little too cold for me. This coming week the night time temps are going to be below freezing with a few nights in the low 20s... When the water hose freezes it's time to GO...

We are working some everyday and are having fun everyday with this new lifestyle and learning all along the way... More later!! Laugh some today, it's really good therapy!!

Jim

What a Week!....or Two..

Well we made it to Athens, Alabama safe and semi sound... and the truck is running good again! Boy, what a two week adventure! After leaving Maine we were stranded on the interstate by a failed fuel pump and spent the weekend in Mount Pocono, PA. Great people helped us get back on the road and we made it to Fredericksburg, VA. Our plans were to receive our training from a lovely couple for our new job as part of the ground crew for the, "Air Photo, INC". We will be marketing their product in various areas around the country. This is such an interesting business model. The company is based in Washington state and takes areal photos of unique homes and hobby farms all over the USA and then mats, frames and sells the photos to the owners. They use RVers to market these photos and pays them a commission based on what they sell. Perfect... for us! We are so excited. So.... we get to Fredericksburg, as we are trying to get into a very tight campsite, up a hill, we blew the front pump seal of the transmission and spewed fluid all over the ground! I managed to limp, with the trailer attached, about 1/2 mile to the Ford dealer. They gave us a place to park the trailer, ordered a new transmission, and had us ready the next day by 5:00 PM. Again, great people helped us get on our way. Now here we are in Fredericksburg , VA to get trained but no campsite.

So we met my brother, Larry and wife, Margeret at a campground in Quantico, VA for a long weekend and had a great time. We had a campfire two nights and roasted hotdogs and marshmellows. Lots of coffee and conversation... and a bottle of wine or two... Over all a great time and then left Tuesday to head south.

Air Photo pointed us to Huntsville, Alabama to be trained and then work the area around Athens, Alabama. We found a great campsite in a small park for $330 per month! So things have a way of working out. We should begin our training this coming week and also begin working by ourselves.. We need to replenish the coffers after the fuel pump and transmission. This is a beautiful area we are really looking forward to getting started!