Class of 2017

[Tumbleweed]

DuneElliot:

 

Welcome to the class of 2017!!!

 

There is a lot of knowledge shared on the Escapees forum.

 

2017 will come faster than we all think. It's hard to believe that it is just over a year away.

 

So much to do to get ready.

 

Dave

[BigTexRex]

New to Escapees but thought I would add my 2cents worth here too since my plan to full-time will be around October 2017 (depending on the weather) or before. Since I am a young pup at 36 (by comparable standards to most people here...no offense I hope) I will be workamping in different places each winter and coming home to Wyoming for the summer to see friends and enjoy "vacation" time and to ride the one horse I plan on keeping (somehow), and also to do any moderate to large maintenance on the truck or camper (friend here is a welder/fabricator/plumber/electrician/mechanic etc).

 

I have always been a traveler and gypsy, even when I was 18, 25, or 30, working on different guest ranches each summer all around the west. I would love to do this again, but more importantly I like working somewhere different every year and making new memories, meeting new people and seeing new places. Some of my best stories come from these times (I even published a book about it).

 

The next couple of years will be remodeling my 5'er to my liking. I have already upgraded the suspension (bent axle and flattened springs) from 2 3500# axles, to 2 6000# axles which will keep me from having to worry about weight and will be doing various interior upgrades over the next couple of years while I have a full-time, decent-paying job. The inside is already decorated to my liking, although the curtains aren't up yet, but there are certain things I want to change. I have recently removed the dinette and sofa-sleeper and added a small love-seat. Now on the hunt for a small table that can be used for eating, or working on my laptop. Upgrading the faucets is the next job (the plastic ones are so ugly) and then to install a catalytic propane heater and the solar system.

 

The dogs (two border collies) are already used to living in the RV (was parked and lived in for the summer last year...2014...at the ranch I used to own) but the cat will take some time. I think I'll just leave the door open during next summer and she can come and go as she pleases...I've already found her sleeping in the dressing/tack room of the horse trailer so I don't think it will be too much of an upheaval for her. Of course, I will have to relocate my outdoor cat to the neighbor's place but he's already over there catching mice anyway so he won't really care if his food bowl moves 200 yards north!

 

I'm excited to scratch these itchy feet of mine again...finally...and, in the words of Bilbo Baggins "Yes, I think I'm quite ready for another adventure."

 

Looks like you have everything organized...congrats on being able to go full-time.

[Tumbleweed]

Happy Thanksgiving to the class of 2017!!!

 

May you all enjoy a great day.

 

Dave

[Tumbleweed]

It seems like the class of 2017 has gone missing.

 

I'm concerned that they have all been abducted by aliens from space; especially with this star wars event.

 

Should we send out an APB?

 

Dave

[Honalee]

Still here. It's becoming very real now. We have sold a few more things, getting the house ready to put on the market in about 7 months. We spent yesterday going to dealerships looking at desiel trucks. (I do not enjoy going to dealerships!!) We are looking at a 3/4 ton diesel and they are hard to find around here (Wichita Kansas). Still just looking. We are thinking Chevy but also looked at Rams. Any thoughts out there?

 

We are planning a trip in the spring to Oregon to take a tour at Outdoor Manufacturing to see how the Glacier Peaks are made. We are also thinking about where we will go first and we are leaning toward Vancouver Island.... beautiful!! That's about all the news here.

 

Our new granddaughter is 4 months old and I'm wondering how we can leave her for 8-9 months at a time.... It will be tough but we plan to winter at an RV park North of Kansas City Missouri so we can be near our kids from Nov thru January... It will all work out!

Love to hear from the rest of you!

Kathie/Tom

[Tumbleweed]

Kathie / Tom:

 

We have a 3/4 ton diesel and love it. We have a Ram but would have bought whatever was around the Cummins.

 

My wife is sensitive to smells and she believes that the Cummins has the least diesel smell. Ram, Chevy, GMC and Ford all make excellent trucks. You really can't go wrong; IMHO it's really just a personal choice.

 

Won't it be cold November through January around Kansan City?

 

Congratulations on your new granddaughter.

[NJTroy]

Funny, funny, funny!

 

We've been scarce because we are pushing like mad to get ready to go. We've had a major financial change and decided to put the house on the market in spring 2016 as a result. This is a full year earlier than the original plan. It's possible we'll actually end up being Class of 2016, but more likely is we'll end up being Class of 2016.5 with one foot in each camp. Our current plan has us moving into the new RV in the second half of 2016 then living in town or the next town over until early to mid-2017. We'll probably still call ourselves Class of 2017.

 

With the earlier house sale date, I'm pushing really hard to get everything done. I'm currently sanding and refinishing all the doors in the house. January brings the exciting and highly anticipated factory visit and RV order. February is the estate sale. Second half of February will be painting areas that are waiting on clearing everything out, like the basement. March the house will go on the market and we'll begin work on the landscaping that needs to be done because of unexpected chimney issues and damage from the last two winters.

 

And then I'll pour myself a drink or three and collapse

[Tumbleweed]

NJTroy:

 

We consider you part of the class of 2017.

 

As we get close to 2016 the pressure is beginning to build to get the house ready.

 

Our plan is to get the house ready in 2016; sell it in early 2017 and be living in the RV by May 2017.

 

Dave

[jamtracy]

Hey everyone!!!

Got 2 new Honda Generators, Manual Hose reel, and changed all my interior lights to LED the past couple of weeks.

This week is wheel bearing repack, 3 dump valve replacements, awning repair and pinbox change out to a Trail air.

The next major upgrade is the washer/dryer combo.

15 months to go.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

 

James

[VallAndMo]

Hello Class of '17,

 

We are new here, having just moved from the Class of 2015 (long story short: things that did not depend on us proved to take much longer and cost much more than we initially predicted... for more details, see our post here.

 

The good news is that we've made some significant progress during 2014 and 2015, so we should be able to go RVing fulltime sometime during 2017, or early 2018 at most.

 

Hope we can meet you all down the road soon!

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2016,

--

Vall & Mo.

[BigTexRex]

Funny, funny, funny!

 

We've been scarce because we are pushing like mad to get ready to go. We've had a major financial change and decided to put the house on the market in spring 2016 as a result. This is a full year earlier than the original plan. It's possible we'll actually end up being Class of 2016, but more likely is we'll end up being Class of 2016.5 with one foot in each camp. Our current plan has us moving into the new RV in the second half of 2016 then living in town or the next town over until early to mid-2017. We'll probably still call ourselves Class of 2017.

 

With the earlier house sale date, I'm pushing really hard to get everything done. I'm currently sanding and refinishing all the doors in the house. January brings the exciting and highly anticipated factory visit and RV order. February is the estate sale. Second half of February will be painting areas that are waiting on clearing everything out, like the basement. March the house will go on the market and we'll begin work on the landscaping that needs to be done because of unexpected chimney issues and damage from the last two winters.

 

And then I'll pour myself a drink or three and collapse

Sounds just like us a couple of years ago. Even though we are living in our RV full time, I'm still working for the rest of 2016 before fully retiring. You'll learn a lot by living in your RV before you hit the road. I thought I knew a bunch after RVing for eight years, but living in it full time gives a totally different perspective.

[BigTexRex]

Hey everyone!!!

Got 2 new Honda Generators, Manual Hose reel, and changed all my interior lights to LED the past couple of weeks.

This week is wheel bearing repack, 3 dump valve replacements, awning repair and pinbox change out to a Trail air.

The next major upgrade is the washer/dryer combo.

15 months to go.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

 

James

James, all the right stuff you're doing...I don't look forward to my first dump valve replacement. It looks like I might beat you by one month.

 

Rex

[DuneElliot]

Still here. Just had some other priorities come up and working on the details of a horse-packing trip this summer and a potential thru-hike of the Colorado Trail next summer (anyone want to be a support crew in their RV? Ha ha)

 

October 2017 is still planned as my jumping off date.

[Tumbleweed]

Vall & Mo:

 

Welcome to the class of 2017.

 

We're glad you're with us.

 

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas and New Year holidays.

 

Dave

[VallAndMo]

Vall & Mo:

 

Welcome to the class of 2017.

 

We're glad you're with us.

 

Thanks for the welcome, Dave. We're glad to be here.

 

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas and New Year holidays.

 

And may 2016 be a great next-to-last-year before we make it :-)

 

Cheers,

--

Vall & Mo.

[VallAndMo]

Hello folks,

 

For those of us looking forward to buy a Ford or Chevy/GM PU truck to tow a trailer with, 2016 and 2017 are shaping up to be great years:

 

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/01/happy-new-year-from-pickuptruckscom.html

 

Cheers,

--

Vall & Mo.

[HSVBamaBob]

Happy 2016, Classmates!

 

Anne-Marie and I spent our time off from work in the eves & attic and, over the past 2 weeks have divided all the holiday ornaments and decorations into 2 large and 1 small piles. One of the two large piles (divided equally) will go to our son and daughter so that they may launch with some treasured holiday traditions and ornaments. The small pile (and I DO mean small!) are our most treasured ornaments and traditions that we will use to decorate the bus during the holidays (during the rest of the year, the 4 small boxes will live in the storage room we are "renting" from our daughter.

 

DIY tip: While in the eves I took a hard look at the pink insulation, and realized it really looked ugly! SO, I went to Lowes and they sell 1/2" foil-backed polystyrene sheets that boost the R-value by 6.1 But, more importantly, when installed they add a super-slick, polished and finished look to the rafters! Since it is very easy to peek into our eves & attic (we have a 4x4 door to the eves and a full size door to the attic), I figured this quick project would go a LONG way to boosting the eye appeal of the house. A unanticipated bonus is, since the insulation is foil-backed, it brightens the eves/attic, making it much easier to see.

 

Total cost for this 6-7 hour project will be less than $250. Installation is a snap as well: all you do is align the 8'x4' sheet on the rafters and staple on with 9/16" staples.

 

Now to get ready for the BIG spring yard sale!!!

[jamtracy]

James, all the right stuff you're doing...I don't look forward to my first dump valve replacement. It looks like I might beat you by one month.

 

Rex

He Rex,

 

Yeah I'm letting a local RV place do my dump valves. I don't have the space, tools and probably the know how to change out the valves. So I'm lumping it out. I let them repack the bearings and install the pinbox as well. I also had them replace a metal wheel well shield that was ripped out with a tire blowout. I installed the hose reel, LEDs and the mounts for the generator storage myself. I have two sealed batteries but when the dealership I purchased my rig from mounted them probably 2 inches to forward which interfered with the armstrong wing bolts when jacks were lifted. So I purchased new shallow battery boxes, covered the cutouts with sheet metal and remounted the batteries in their new boxes. No more batteries hanging out the bottom of the storage box and no more armstrong interference. I'm still contemplating installing the washer combo myself since it's plumed already.

I really want to do most repairs and upgrades myself as labor rates are killers. I had them install wetbolts as well. I am really trying to get our rig full time ready while I'm still working. LOL.

 

James

[BigTexRex]

James, I know what you mean "while I'm still working". The modifications I've accomplished on our RV would not have been possible based on our retirement budget. My latest update are tires. I'm putting on new rims with 235/75R17.5 Continental HTL2 tires.

 

Rex

[NJTroy]

In the nine days since Christmas, my DH & I have completed about 80% of the setup for our estate sale. Furniture is now organized in a way that nicely displays both our furniture and my parents furniture (which has lived at our house since they went into care and needs to be sold to close out their estate). And we managed to sort out and combine all the non-furniture items from both households in a way that mostly makes sense. I still have to empty drawers and straighten up over the next two weeks to be ready for photos for publicity, but we are mostly there. Storage unit is rented and we've moved quite a bit of the family heirlooms we are keeping in there as well. We even managed to sort out the duplicate household items from our existing RV and merge those in.

 

We are exhausted, but very happy to be nearly done. I still need to return to house painting and sprucing up to get it on the market, but I can now see the end coming.

 

Happy New Year everyone!

[BigTexRex]

In the nine days since Christmas, my DH & I have completed about 80% of the setup for our estate sale. Furniture is now organized in a way that nicely displays both our furniture and my parents furniture (which has lived at our house since they went into care and needs to be sold to close out their estate). And we managed to sort out and combine all the non-furniture items from both households in a way that mostly makes sense. I still have to empty drawers and straighten up over the next two weeks to be ready for photos for publicity, but we are mostly there. Storage unit is rented and we've moved quite a bit of the family heirlooms we are keeping in there as well. We even managed to sort out the duplicate household items from our existing RV and merge those in.

 

We are exhausted, but very happy to be nearly done. I still need to return to house painting and sprucing up to get it on the market, but I can now see the end coming.

 

Happy New Year everyone!

Are you doing your own estate sale? I hired an estate agent and he did all the work, advertising, and cleaning up afterwards...made it very easy.

[NJTroy]

Sigh, here comes the over sharing part of my story.

 

No, we have an agent. But before they can begin we needed to deal with my parents' things. Unfortunately, they were pack rats who freely mixed valuable and important things with things that should never have been saved. Add in the complications that my sibling lived overseas at the time, we moved them into care in a crisis, emptied and sold their home and lost them both within four months and you can imagine the situation. We've been working everything down for about eighteen months now. This week's work was necessary to be sure we'd completely gone over it all and made conscious decisions about what needed to go to my sibling, what needed to be tossed, what was a family heirloom that we cared about enough to store and what to sell.

 

I loved them dearly, but there was a lot of anger and frustration buried in the mountain of stuff and issues they left us to deal with. It's been very healing for me this past week going through everything. I found many things I am overjoyed to have and scratched my head and laughed at many others.

 

If I can offer even a bit of our learnings from this, it's that it's critical to have your legal, financial, medical and physical affairs in order. This week was part of the last efforts necessary to do that for ourselves before we head off into fulltiming.

[HSVBamaBob]

Are you doing your own estate sale? I hired an estate agent and he did all the work, advertising, and cleaning up afterwards...made it very easy.

This is the one facet of our Graduation I have not researched as well as I should have

 

How does the estate sale process work and what sort of commission do they charge for their services?

[MilesAndSmiles]

Sigh, here comes the over sharing part of my story.

 

No, we have an agent. But before they can begin we needed to deal with my parents' things. Unfortunately, they were pack rats who freely mixed valuable and important things with things that should never have been saved. Add in the complications that my sibling lived overseas at the time, we moved them into care in a crisis, emptied and sold their home and lost them both within four months and you can imagine the situation. We've been working everything down for about eighteen months now. This week's work was necessary to be sure we'd completely gone over it all and made conscious decisions about what needed to go to my sibling, what needed to be tossed, what was a family heirloom that we cared about enough to store and what to sell.

 

I loved them dearly, but there was a lot of anger and frustration buried in the mountain of stuff and issues they left us to deal with. It's been very healing for me this past week going through everything. I found many things I am overjoyed to have and scratched my head and laughed at many others.

 

If I can offer even a bit of our learnings from this, it's that it's critical to have your legal, financial, medical and physical affairs in order. This week was part of the last efforts necessary to do that for ourselves before we head off into fulltiming.

 

Thanks for sharing. Your story will resonate with many of us.

 

When and where is your estate sale? We live in NJ and are now 18 months out from retirement and moving into the RV lifestyle. I'll be announcing it to friends, family, and work in the next couple of weeks. As my wife and I contemplate all of the stuff in our house, with some things being very valuable, some being valuable only to us, and some just worthless, the prospect of sorting and selling piece-by-piece is overwhelming. Anyway, if you're nearby we might want to stop by just to see how you've done it! And if you have a good experience we may want to use your agent.

 

Right now we are thinking we will contact an auction house where they will have the expertise to sort out the things worth selling at auction from the things that should just be sold on-site or by the box!

 

Hey, this is all starting to feel real

[NJTroy]

How does the estate sale process work and what sort of commission do they charge for their services?

Basically you find companies to work with in your area. We chose three by looking here:

 

www.estatesales.com

 

Then we interviewed all three by phone and asked for proof of insurance and references. We called the references, chose one to interview in person and hired them.

 

The way they work is they come in a few weeks before the sale and take pictures for advertising. They also do the research for any speciality items at that time. Then a couple weeks before the sale, they start to bring in tables to set up and price everything. The sale runs two to three days, depending on how much stuff you have. First day, things sell for priced value mostly. Second day they will bargain more, but you can set a lower limit for things you wish. At the end, this agent recommends charities and if necessary, disposal companies.

 

Fees for us are going to be $1500 minimum or 30% of total sales. I've heard different things, but it seems like 25-35% is common, with varying minimums. We have no doubt that we will be working from the percent of sales.