Day 7 - Oh, what about the poo?

Pretty sure you didn't expect this topic but seriously, it's a valid question...I don't really want to but I will cause I think it's a valid informational point. In fact, I seriously cannot believe I am writing a blog post on this topic! 

 Our Loo!

Notice the flushers...they are two paddles sort of, kind of that you push with your foot. The larger one is your real flusher and the smaller one is the water adder. They work best together. An RV toilet is dry so to speak, there is no water in the bowl as there is in a conventional toilet, so you have to add water to wash things away.

  So for the record, we do not. We could, we just chose not to. Have we, yes, will we, if the situation demands it, but we do not as a rule make it a regular practice. Why? Simply a personal preface to not have future potential issues with our black holding tank. Many, many people do and have no concerns, we did a lot of reading and researching and made the choice to not do poo in our potty. We also do not put paper down ours. Again, a personal choice thing and we feel in the long run it will be  less problematic for us if we don't. 

If you were to really use the toilet for poo there is a process that makes it work better. You would add water to the bowl (just like there is water in a real toilet) then do your work; makes flushing it away easier.

Not much else I can tell you about this and I am still not totally believing I am wrote about all this! However, it has come up from others inquiring so thought I would just go ahead and address it to get it out of the way. Since I am on the bathroom area will it surprise you to know that we choose not to shower in our rig either. I know it's crazy but we don't. Again, personal preference. Many do and we may eventually, we just don't right now! 

There's a shower post coming up later!

Day # challenge info here!

Day 6 - Just in case...

Having insurance is part of the RV lifestyle just as it is as a homeowner, renter, automobile driver, it's just a combo package so to speak with the RV. We are USAA customers and have been for a number of years, however, they do not insure RVs (or boats or motorcycles for that matter!) so they pushed us to Progressive.

What I know about Progressive I learned from Flo...seriously!  

There are other insurers out there and had we known beforehand that USAA would not be the primary company we would have done more research and perhaps gone a different route. However, for this first year for $874 a year we are Progressive customers until December of this year.

When it's time to renew we may or may not stay with Progressive, we will do a quote comparison and see. We have no loyalties to them, have not had to deal with them other than to write the policy and that is just fine and dandy with me, in fact I prefer it that way!! Thank you for the safe travels without calamities that we have had and I pray that it continues!

The 31 Day challenge info is found here and it's the reason all my post this month start out Day+#.

Day 5 - YES day

Good morning! It's OUR day...we have started with coffee in bed (uh, well, that's pretty normal for us) and now we are preparing to go hang out this morning and do a few errands before making it back to catch some college football! There may be a stop at Starbuck's in there thanks to a gift card we were given :) No matter, it's gonna be a fun day!

 US at Mr&Mrs Bud's wedding :)

Oh so you are wondering what is OUR day? It's THE day waaaay back in 1984, yep, we were 80s teens, that I said Y.E.S after MiRV asked me to marry him! We have always celebrated this day in some form or fashion! Let me direct you to last year's post if you want to read more. And as for me, I went and took a look back through my blog postings on my other blog, Adventures in Blue, and it seems I have made mention of this day every year since I started blogging...so you know, it's a sort of big day in our world and we like to remember it!

As I went back and reread all my 5 October posts I think this one is probably my favorite. 

You might think today does not really relate to my 31 day challenge but in my mind it does; I will connect the dots like this for you and make it relational (sort of)! IF you think you might ever try RV living I would say you need to really like the person or persons that you will be in the RV with. We like each other in addition to loving each other. If you are going to live in a small space I think you need to like someone more then love them. Not real prolific but it's my .02.

31 day challenge with the Nester information can be found right here! Click on over and take a look there are some great reads out there! I am following a few myself! I like this one on "finding money" and I also think this one is a fun read and I have shared them all with our newly married daughter, as well as this one on shopping the Goodwill!

What days do you celebrate?

Day 4 - Toads

Toad, another term for the vehicle you tow behind your RV, sometimes referred to as a dinghy or just a tow vehicle. We like "toad" it's catchy!

When we bought the RV the seller threw in the tow dolly with the sale. However, we never towed that way, we went with a trailer to put Deuce on. A really nice aluminum trailer that is now for sale should you be in the market for one! It's in SW Missouri; let me know!!!

Currently, we have CC, our Honda CRV, behind us with all four down. THAT was one of the best decisions we have made, it'ssooooo much easier then tying down Deuce and hooking up the trailer. Totally love all four down towing so much better!

Drawbacks IMO of all four down is the tow car still racks up the mileage while being towed! Which is the reason we did not choose to tow Deuce, he was less then a year old and had very low mileage and we wanted to keep him that way. Also some places do not allow you to store your trailer at your site and want to charge you to store it at another location in the park, ah, no this definitely doesn't sit well with us. Again, we did research our options and thought we went with the best solution then decided to go another route, Costly, but in the end the right answer!

 Deuce on the trailer on our maiden voyage!

In July of this year we switched from trailering  to towing and we love it. MiRV chose the Blue Ox system, ordered it all online, did the wiring his self, installed the part that went on Sunny and took it to a trailer shop for the base plate installation/ Good thing we did as it was welded incorrectly and had to be refashioned to make it work, All in all we are happy with the system. It was just under $1500 dollars for this. The trailer was $2700 and it is currently for sale so we are hoping to recoup some of that investment. Did you need a new trailer? It's a real nice aluminum one in near new condition!!!

Our current look with CC behind us :) We'll talk about the cargo on top of CC in another post!

There you have it...all about our toad and not the amphibious type!

Wondering about the Day + # posts? Take a look here to get the scoop!

Day 3 - Fuel

Probably the most asked question is how much money does it take to fill the tank? Which is most often immediately followed with a discussion on gas mileage!

 Mileage Log

Here are the facts.

Tank capacity is 75 gallons of unleaded gasoline...

What it cost to fill the tank and quite honestly we try to never have to fill the tank so to speak. We attempt to not go below right above a quarter of a tank (real technical talk right there!) obviously depends on the price of gas. There are two reasons we plan to not go below a quarter of a tank: 1) the generator will not operate if the gas tank is below a quarter of a tank and 2) filling up from empty seems psychologically harder on our wallet!

More facts! 

Most expensive gas $3.55/gallon (MacAlester, OK)
Least expensive $3.05/gallon (Meridian, MS) Yeah for Sam's Club! 
Costliest fill to date was 53 gallons@$3.37/gallon for total sale of $179.45 OUCH!
Best MPGs 9.5
Worst MPGs 5.9
Average MPGs 7.63

I do use the Gas Buddy app on my phone to help with finding the cheapest gas however we have to be mindful that we are 31 feet plus our toad in length so getting in and out without getting stuck or damaging something is our number one priority. While Wal-Mart's Murphy Oil usually has the best prices their pumps are not always RV friendly, nor are Sam's so we have also filled at the big name truck stops paying a little more per gallon to have easier in and out capabilities.

That pretty much wraps up all I know on fuel for our rig thus far, which isn't really much!

Enjoy the roads you travel and be mindful of the RVs you see and pass on the roadways. They cannot stop quickly and they do not move quickly, especially us gas guys on the hills, the diesel dudes tend to do better with that. And give us some room to turn and get around especially at the pumps, I am amazed (and sometimes in disbelief) at others when we are gassing up. They have honked, come really close and/or blocked us in without even looking back.

If you aren't sure about the Day w/# thing, check it out here!

Day 2 - Wednesday Words - Waitley

“You've got to have a dream, if you want to have a dream come true.” Dennis Waitley

I think you need no help with this one. Just take some time to chew on it, see what you really think it's saying to YOU and then maybe you need to start in on your dream if you want it to come true.

 

There is a 31 Day Challenge going on and I am participating, the info is here!

Day 1 - Meet Sunny!

This is Sunny otherwise known as our 31 foot of Bliss. Yep, she's 31 feet long,  8 1/2 feel feet wide and approximately 11 1/2 feet tall. She's a 2002 Itasca Sunova, hence her nickname of Sunny! Sunny only had 11,000 on her when we bought in December 2012. We've added around 5,000 miles to the odometer and put 9 states under our belts with her since mid-March 2013.

 Sunny :) In case you missed her on the intro post!

A few pictures from when we first got her...

 The front area.

 

 Dinette

 Kitchen

Sunny also has 10 lower compartments often referred to as the basement. I know crazy that you would call the lower compartments the basement, it still cracks me up, that we store our beach chairs, snorkling and surfing gear in along with our off season clothes, tools, vacuum cleaner, grills and lots of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention. She holds a lot more then I thought that's for sure! We downsized from a a 4 bedroom, 3 bath sticks and bricks with approximately 2800 SF when we moved into Sunny. She's got everything we need. I seriously don't miss much about the "real" house, well, except maybe for the ice maker, I might miss that a little! However, many famcamps have ice machines for our use so it's working.

More pictures of Sunny in the coming days so stay tuned!

The 31 Day Challenge is going on and I'm participating again this year, read about it here!!!