CasperBob

Hey everyone, been a while since I've updated. We got rid of our Class C Jayco Greyhawk and purchased a Tiffin Allegro Bus. We decided the Greyhawk was a bit small for full timing. We also just purchased a park model and moved my mother in law into it. So we'll be stationary here in Apache Junction, AZ for the foreseeable future. What's everyone else doing these days?

Hi everyone, Haven't heard from you all in a while. We are in an RV resort in Apache Junction till the end of March. We had planned on staying just a couple of months till the mother-in-law's health improved, but liked the place so well we decided to extend through the end of March. Where is everyone staying at right now?

We too are going to use South Dakota for the some of the reasons Dan and Freda mentioned, and it’s right next door to Wyoming haha.

Well it looks like we are going to make the class of 2020 after all. Our house went on the market yesterday and we signe an offer for several thousand dollars over asking price this afternoon. Closing tentatively set for the middle of September. Full time RV life here we come!

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a quick update on our progress. The mother in law had neck and back surgery a few weeks ago and her mobility is improving quickly. She wants to go back to Phoenix and live with my wife’s brother like she has been doing the last couple of years. We have just a few things left to do on our house, which we should finish up next week. Signed the listing agreement this past Thursday. Realtor thought the place looks amazing, her word not mine, and thinks it will sell fast. So hopefully we will still make the class of 2020! We’ll be happy dancing for sure...haha.🕺🕺💃💃

Hey Grizz, we live in Casper, well till the house is sold. Watched the fireworks from our front yard. Dogs are going crazy haha.

It's beginning to look like we are not going to make the class of 2020. My wife has been in AZ for the past two weeks because her mom had a couple serious health issues come up. DW going to bring her mom back to Casper for some physical therapy and rehab. We are still going to sell our home but not sure if we will stay in WY or move to the Phoenix area while we are being care givers to the dear mama in law. There is always time to travel, but the mother in law is more important right now.

It has changed our plans a bit. We were hoping to finish the renovations on our house over the next two or three months then get it on the market, after which I would retire upon selling the house. But Friday I got laid off so our plans have accelerated. My wife and I see this as a blessing as now I can spend full time working on the house so we can finish everything on the house and get it on the market by the end of April. We are actually excited, although our full time adventures may start with boondocking in the mountains in Wyoming haha. But we actually prefer that over campgrounds anyway.

Welcome! I certainly would have jumped on something like that. We've unfortunately went the other direction, moving from 18 to 19, and finally now to 2020. As someone once said, right in the middle of all my plans life happened. Good luck on all the work you have ahead to get on the road.

Oh how we can relate to that. I've been in my house for almost 18 years, with me being a care giver to my then aging mother for 11 of those years. After my mom passed several years ago, I remarried. Not only did my wife and I have our stuff to get rid of, we also had a lot of stuff of my mom's. I think you guys have the big hurdle behind you with your house being sold. Good luck on the rest of your downsizing. It gets easier as you get closer to the goal is what my wife and I have found. Like Skeet, we hope to be in AZ next winter. We'll spend some time around Q, but will also need to spend a bit of time in the Phoenix area since we both have family there. I'm ready for my Sonoran Desert fix, haha. Maybe we, the class of 2020, should have a meet up.

Skeet, sounds like you are about to wrap things up also. My wife and i are so ready to hit the road. We have some friends from here in WY that went full time last April. They have been spending the winter in the Quartzsite area and he keeps sending me pics of his thermometer at 70 or 80 degrees, lol. I told him I'd be in AZ next winter. Wish we were there now. I'm really missing the desert today - been snowing since mid-night with 40 mph winds. All the roads are closed...nobody going to leave Casper today.

Hey everyone, just a quick update on our progress. The renovation project on our house is coming along well. Finished up the second bathroom. Haven't had many weekends to work through the holidays and Jan. Between dinner with each of the kids & spouses, my daughter just having twin girls about 10 days ago - all are doing fine, one of the babies will go home from the hospital today or tomorrow and the other later this week - and oldest granddaughter's hi school basketball games, we just haven't put many hours in on the house. Only have a bit left to go on the kitchen and some baseboard throughout the upstairs and the inside will be done! Still have a bit to finish up on the exterior paint - weather put a stop to that last fall - and a bit of landscaping and all the outside projects will be done. Still on target for listing the house sometime in March. Sounds like the residential housing market is starting to pick up a bit here in Casper from what two different realtors have told us in the past week. Fingers crossed...

Hey Skeet like the others have said, thanks for starting the class of 2020. We too were planning on being in the class of 2019, but a couple of remodeling projects on the house to get it ready to sell turned into a major renovation of the entire house - long story, haha. Anyway, we hope to have the house on the market by end of March and be on the road late in the year. I promised my employer I would stay till the end of Sept. He wants me to stay another 2-3 years, (good feeling), but we are ready to get on the road!

Glad to hear you got the septic system done. Hopefully you will have an offer on the house soon. Wow! That's some warm temps. We camped a few weeks ago in 99° temps. With just a single 15K unit in a 32 Ft. rig, it just keeps up. Wish we had the two 11K unit option, but I usually try to stay out of high temps by going to the mountains up around 9000 feet this time of year.

All of our remodeling projects are still moving along, albeit much more slowly than my wife would like, lol. The contractor in me keeps saying we won't finish till early next year, but the DW keeps thinking we should be done by end of September. I suspect we will actually end up being part of the class of 2020 instead of 2019. Oh well, this has been in the works for me for over a dozen years so what's a few more months. Besides, home prices have recently taken a bit of a dip which is not unusual for this time of year around here. We had a relator come in and take a look at the house and give us some feedback as well as a market analysis of what our house might be worth. Better than I expected but a little lower than she first thought. All in all, sounds like I should be able to double my investment even with all the remodeling expenses added in. The up side is that we have taken some weekends off to enjoy our motorhome, now that all the little issues are fixed. Went just about 35 miles out of town this weekend and camped on the North Platte river. Keep in mind that 35 miles from town in Wyoming is usually the middle of nowhere, haha. We saw several drift boat outfitters come by with clients fly fishing, as well as seeing a few deer at water's edge, several pelicans float down the river then fly back up stream to do it all over again. Even saw a Bald Eagle soaring overhead in search of a meal. And as a bonus I pretty much convinced my wife that we should stop killing ourselves with the non-stop remodeling so we can still enjoy life... and more time in the RV! And that pretty much sums up what's going on in this corner of the world.

Congrats to both you and Grizz1 on the sale of your houses! I had to laugh when I read your comment about life after property because I told the DW almost the exact same thing the other night. She took early retirement and is among the happily retired folks as of April 26. Now things are moving much faster on the remodeling projects on our house. We are hoping to have it on the market by late July/early Aug. but to be honest I think we will be done much sooner. Because we have been remodeling, the house is pretty emptied out. Down to just one bedroom set from four. Family room is now empty. Office is next along with some of the living room furniture. But the big project will be the garage full of woodworking tools and supplies. That will be the hard one for me. We didn't really up size or down size when we made our move from a 32' 5th wheel to a 32.5' Class C. Still need to get it out on a shake down weekend, but the weather has been be crazy. We had about 5 days of summer last week, now been snowing for two days. Ah spring time in Wyoming.

Thanks. It does seem to be pretty functional. We have most of our everyday stuff in it already. Would just need to grab some clothes and food and could head out for a weekend. We will probably change our domicile to SD. Vehicle ins. is about 25% to 30% cheaper there than WY. Ins. agent told me one time the reason WY rates are so high is due to the high number of wildlife related accidents. I've been pretty fortunate with RVs. The last three I've owned I've not had any major issues with. That stinks having a kink in the fresh water drain. The tech that did the PDI on our motorhome is pretty good. He used to work for the company I work for and was always pretty meticulous in his work. I know he filled the fresh tank, checked the pump, all the water system, etc. Then had to re-winterize since we can still get sub-freezing temps at night. Was 69 here on Tues. and 21 this morning when I got up. We're hoping to go out for a weekend early next month. Or at least do some driveway "camping" lol. Dubois has some beautiful country in the area. I did a backpacking trip with our church boys group there but that was over 20 years ago. We've spent most of our time rving in the Big Horn mountains. Lots of ATV trails there, which our family is big into. We're going to go with Escapees also. Our friends that are in SD went with another service and is not happy. He said he signed up for a year so when that's up he is changing to Escapees also.

Kind of what I figured. I do the same thing. My Amazon wish list has been getting quite large lately, lol.

I guess it's been a while since I last posted on our progress. Just finishing up the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. A number of other commitments have kept us from working on the house much over the last few weeks, but should finish everything up inside by the end of May. Still have a few projects outside, but spring in Wyoming is always a guessing game. One day it's high 60s, the next day there is a blizzard. Kirk, I'm sure you remember well those spring days during those 18 years you lived in Cheyenne, lol. Well the seemingly never ending sage of what type of RV will the Watts couple end up with has finally come to a close. I did not persuade my wife into us buying a vintage Bluebird Wanderlodge. Well, actually I think I talked myself out of after hearing from a number of owners their annual maintenance ran in the $2000 to $5000 range. Ouch! And no new dually for this old guy which means no new 5th wheel toy hauler either. We are the proud owners of a new 2019 Jayco Grayhawk 29MV. We decided wanted to stay under 40 feet and fell in love with the floor plan. We can hardly wait for the first nice weekend that my wife doesn't have to work so we can get it broke in. Or as many of us know, see what breaks. We want to get some time in it before moving in full time. Anyway that's what's happening in snowy, cold Casper, WY this week. It's fun to read all the posts and see the excitement we all have about getting on the road soon. We have some friends from Sheridan, WY that are in their first week of full timing and are stuck in the blizzard in a campground just outside of Rapid City, SD. Come on sunny days!

Nice spreadsheet Mark. Wow, that's a lot of items. Thanks for sharing that with us all. It reminded me of a couple of items we still need to purchase.

Congrats Mark! We own a 2011 Ram 2500 with the Cummins and are planning on upgrading to a 16-18 3500 dually and trade the old Fleetwood Prowler 32' 5er for a toy hauler in the 38'-40' range, if we don't go class A pusher. I love the old Bluebird Wanderlodge motorhomes, but my wife is not as big a fan as me. I guess we'll see who has the better powers of persuasion, haha. Same thing with us on the house. Although we still have to finish up some remodeling projects before we get it on the market, hopefully in June.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we had my mother-in-law move in with us in May of last year. That kind of put our plans on hold for a time. Although we did continue with all of the remodeling projects on our house. The mother-in-law is back in Phoenix for the winter and sounds like she isn't coming back - seems I keep the AC crank down a little to low for her, lol. So we are still hopeful we will have the rest of the remodeling finished up by late spring and get the house on the market, as the real estate market here looks to be good this year. We had put off selling for the past couple of years due to a slow real estate market. All depends on oil and natural gas prices in Wyoming as to what the real estate market is doing, well in Casper, WY anyway. That said, we started almost two years ago on getting rid of things and downsizing. After a couple of yard sales and many items donated to a local non-profit that supports our local homeless mission we've emptied out lots of "stuff". My next big project is to start in on the garage that's full of construction tools, mostly woodworking tools. Some items belonged to my dad and were part of our construction company he and I owned many years ago.

That is good information. I've been telling my wife we will be fine at 40' but she want to go smaller because she's worried about this very thing - getting into national and state parks. I'd blame it on she's just afraid to drive a 40' rig, but she used to help her prior hubby drive semi. She pulls our 32' 5th wheel at least as well, if not better than me, lol. I'm like you Jim, I have to resist that urge to overthink things. I tend to drive the DW crazy sometimes with my detailed thinking haha.

Those of you that follow Chris and Cherie of Technomadia may remember that Chris started out in a teardrop trailer and when Cherie joined him, I think they lived in that for a year together. Not sure that it was a T@B or not. My hat is off to anyone that can go full time in something that small. If I was 23 instead of 63 I would probably do something like that, but I do enjoy the space our 5er affords us these days and am very thankful to be blessed with it.

I know a couple of people that have lived in Japan. And I have a missionary friend who's son is going to school in Japan. He says his Japanese friends think the tiny house craze in the US is funny since apartments are small there compared to North America. My dad and I lived in my parents truck camper for two 7-8 month stints while working construction in the mid 70s. Of course being in my late teens and getting to spend lots of time with my dad, I loved it. Didn't mind the small space at all. Of course we were in the mountains in northern WY so outside most of the time. My kids used to look at me funny for the first 6 years I kept telling them I would full time when I retired. The past 5-6 years now, they just say, "You guys have fun."