theboondork's RV blog

Happy Memorial Day everyone !

5/29/2023

If you have the time click the pics, if you don't have time nix the clicks.

Strange flowers. I know the name of these flowers, but I can't tell anyone because it's a secret.

I took all four of my lithium-iron batteries out of the Arctic Fox last Fall and put them in the Lance. But I only had room for three in the Lance's battery box, so I only made cables for
three. The fourth one just sat around doing nothing except waiting for me to make new cables to hook it up in the bathroom, which is only about 6 inches from the battery box.

As was par for the course this last winter, I didn't bring a critical tool that I needed to make up battery cables for number four, so I'll do it while I'm in Denver as soon as I get around to it, but it's way down on my list of things I need to accomplish while I'm here.

I've said all of that just so I can say this; since I took all of the batteries out of the Arctic Fox, there was no DC electricity in the Fox, so I couldn't put the slides out, and I can't work in there with the slides in, because there's no room to walk. But this morning, I got busy and put battery number four in the Arctic Fox and hooked it up, which enabled me to put the slides out, so now I can cleaning up the Arctic Fox.

Slide-outs in an RV are a wonderful thing. They do away with the feeling of living in a tube and give most RVs an apartment-like feeling... But, and that's a big but, like everything else in life, a slide-out is a trade-off; you get the spacious feeling when the slides are out... and here's that big but.... they add another layer of vulnerability to an RV.

Anything mechanical can fail, and the way most RVs are put together, especially more inexpensive ones, failure is almost guaranteed. There are motors to burn out, gears to fail, sheer pins to break, tracks to jump off of, and on some RVs, not the Arctic Fox, thankfully, when the slides are in, you can't even get the refrigerator door open to put your groceries in until you put the slide out... Talk about inconvenience!

Due to the build quality of the Arctic Fox, I've never had a problem with either of its slides in the ten years I've used it. And since driving on bumpy dirt roads has been a big part of the Arctic Fox's life, I attribute that to the Arctic Fox being built on one of the strongest frames in the industry, so the frame doesn't twist as most RVs do. This means the slides stay in place on their tracks much better even on bad roads.

Many truck campers, especially the higher-end, more expensive ones, now have slides. But when I was looking for a truck camper, I was specifically looking for one without a slide. I don't need the extra room, and I don't need the extra time and effort to get the camper packed up and ready to go.

I have come to the conclusion, belatedly perhaps, that the more I simplify my life, the easier my life becomes, and the easier my life is, the less stress I have, and the less stress I have, the more freedom I have to enjoy my life.

Theboondork

My grandson watching TV. It's about the only time the kids slow down enough for me to take their picture.

Pink flowers.

My granddaughter watching TV

6 Comments

OFM

5/30/2023 04:12:54 pm

That last paragraph is essentially what I have been preaching since I got to be single 26 years ago. And now that I don't need and cannot use the bikes, kayaks and climbing equipment any more I am still looking to get a smaller rig for my travels. My near future plans include an exercise of stripping my trailer of stuff to see how much room I really need. I used to do multiday solo trips camping out of a Dodge Caravan very easily.

Tom

5/30/2023 09:05:17 pm

I figure that you don't need much stuff if you don't do much of anything. For instance, if I had the time or the money to pay somebody to fix everything that goes wrong with my RV, I wouldn't need all these tools I carry, and that would lighten my load considerably. So the more hobbies a person gets rid of, the less space you need to tote everything around, and you've already figured that out.

Some hobbies just aren't suited to full-time RVing, but fortunately, taking pictures, which is the only hobby I have left, is a great hobby to have while living in an RV. It doesn't require much equipment, and everything is relatively lightweight. So getting rid of your hobbies as you've done is a good start.

I don't think there's a limit to how small an RV can be when you consider that some serious backpackers can live out of a backpack for weeks if not months. And since your are pretty frugal to start with, I think you could live in an RV of just about any size, including some that most folks would think are too small.

The trick is to go as small as possible without losing too much comfort or convenience. The reason I can live the way I do is no matter what I'm in, I'm able to stay comfortable, and being comfortable is the key. And that's why I don't like any of those tiny trailers that you have to cook and eat outside. Cooking and eating outside with the bugs, the dust, the rain, the wind, and the neighbors watching you eat is not what I would call comfort. And spending an hour packing up all of that outside stuff every time you move is definitely not convenient.

So I would say that based on my couple of years living in the Lance and the little bronco, don't worry about what size RV you end up with; get the RV that you like, fits your level of convenience and comfort, and no time at all your life will end up fitting that RV. And if it doesn't, your new RV is not too small.... You still have too much stuff.

Tom

5/31/2023 05:25:38 am

Thank you for the very insightful information. The last paragraph is incredibly accurate in my opinion.

5/31/2023 06:51:49 am

Your welcome Barney. However, I do feel rather silly giving advice on living a simple life to someone who's gotten rid of everything except some boxer shorts and a pair of Crocs.

Tom

Linda

5/31/2023 02:28:06 pm

Writing a blog is also a good hobby for RVers. It's both a record of what you've done and a way of sharing that with others. I enjoy reading the blogs of you two even though I'm no longer traveling myself.

5/31/2023 06:14:47 pm

I completely forgot about the benefits of writing a blog Linda, I should have included that in my list of good RVing hobbies. That would be assuming of course, that someone enjoys writing a blog like myself.

I didn't think I could do it, and I never would've imagined I could write a blog every day. I can't type, my spelling is atrocious, punctuation is random, and worst of all, I seldom do anything worth writing about since my life couldn't be more normal, other than living in a house with wheels.

But dictation software made it possible for me to try it, and believe me if I had to hunt and peck out a blog there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to get it finished. The hardest part for me is thinking of something to say, so I just say whatever pops into my head at the time. I almost never decide what I'm going to write ahead of time, in 99% of my blogs, I just start talking. And whatever I'm saying usually leads me into saying something else, which usually explains the disjointed nature of my writing which normally has no distinct theme, And that's what I'm doing right now.

For some reason I enjoyed it and now my daily blog is an important part of my life and there would be a big empty hole if I had to quit writing for some reason.

Tom

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Happy Memorial Day everyone !

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