Steven@146

31 minutes ago, agesilaus said:

Exchanges don't have better prices anymore so far as I can tell. You pay sales tax and the prices aren't any better and maybe a bit worse than Walmart. I am service connected and we can use FamCamps and the base facilities. We are at Ft Harrison right now. The BX here is very tiny, barely a minute market.

I don't know when the price shift occurred but they are no longer a bargain. It was more than 10 or 12 years ago since we visited my son at the Sam Antonio base and went to the exchange there.  They do have a lot of military gear tho.

Getting your non Vet wife on base can be a pain in the rear depending on the security level of the base.

 

I'm sure the specific base makes a difference as far as security. It used to be a real perk for retiring from the military, using the base facilities. Of course we have been out of the Navy now for 50 years, a night and day change has happened since we were in. We visited a friend at Kirkland AFB a while back and he was saying the same thing about the prices. The wife and I had no problem getting passes to get on base at Kirkland and Fort Sill. Sure brought back a lot of memories for us being on a military base. We really enjoyed Fort Sill and the artillery museums and the Native American Cemeteries. We got a tour of the flightline at Kirkland and a 130 and Osprey. A lot has changed but I saw some things on these newer aircraft that we had on our aircraft 50 years ago.

This year we also visited the PIMA Air and Space Museum at Tucson and the National Museum for Nuclear Science and Technology in Albuquerque. The Boneyard in Tucson is permanently closed to the public.

All of our (my) enlistment was spent at NAS Lemoore. I know a lot of retired vets use base campgrounds when available, seem to be lower priced per night.

In 1979 when I got out, the Navy was kind of purging the ranks, I was offered to reenlist in my current squadron, but 4 more years of sea duty did not appeal to me or my wife. Old Admiral Zumwalt was really shaking things up back then. Heard he felt that if you were in the Navy you should serve at sea. Shore duty rotations kept getting shorter and fewer places to go, the cruises on aircraft carriers and fleet ships kept getting longer and longer. No bonuses for reenlistments, just wasn't they way to raise a family back then, or we might have stayed in.

But it would be nice to visit a Navy Exchange or BX now and again.

What ever happened with the issue of honorable discharged veterans (but not retired) getting access to base exchanges and commissaries? Seems like it just faded away. I thought they were going to allow honorable vets to get ID cards for this purpose. I thought the idea was that the increased buying power could or would lower the prices some what at the bases. As an honorable discharged vet after 6 years service, my intention would not be to buy a lot of things, especially at the commissaries, the active service people and retirees need groceries there more than we do. But it would be nice to get a few things at the base exchanges.

Recently we visited Fort Sill and the museums and stopped by the base exchange just to look around, the supervisor in charge of the base exchange allowed us to buy some souvenir T-shirts from the exchange. Anything more than that and I'm sure they would not allowed it.

Ws just wondering

I would advise not to be wowed or blinded by the "Bling" walking into the RV or "Hype" from a salesman. In fact I wouldn't talk to the salesman much at all. Way too many potential owners get blinded by the "Bling" and forget about or don't know about what's important.

My initial thoughts - What's important after the floor plan is the suspension system, electrical system, holding tanks, solar system?, batteries, converter/inverter, plumbing system, cargo capacity, leveling system (electric or hydraulic), fresh water system, appliances like on demand water heater, 12 Volt compressor or residential fridge and the construction of the RV etc. Double pane windows? Keeps the interior of the RV cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, but they do add additional weight to the RV. An Example - A lot of owners hate the on-demand water heater especially in winter weather. Manufacturer reputation for service support after the sale.

Look in the cabinets and pantry, are they using plastic shelf holders, if so they will probably bend or break and you'll end up replacing them. We had to replace ours, they are just too weak.

Be realistic about how you will use the RV, will it set most of the time in one place, ie short trips, or will you put a lot (10,000 +) of cross country miles on it? Fulltiming needs cargo capacity since you will be hauling most everything you have in the RV. 1500-2000 lbs cargo capacity is too small for most fulltimers. Remember your holding tanks add to your weight, especially the fresh water holding tank, Calculate 8.3 lbs per gallon of water. Full 80 gallon fresh tank = another 660 lbs of weight.

Suspension - is it just the standard leaf springs and drum brakes? Are the leaf spring frame hangers boxed or "V Clip" supported? What are the axle size and tires rating? Most times with a big 5er the axles are 7000 lbs with G rated tires, if there was an option for 8000 lbs axles and H or better rated tires thats a better way to go. Estimate what the loaded pin weight will be by taking at least 20-21 % of the GVRW of the RV. Size or Over size your truck accordingly.

Example our rig has 4400 lbs of cargo capacity, GVWR is 16,800 lbs, 20% of that is 3,360 lbs estimated pin weight but our actual pin weight runs around 3,500 lbs. Our axles are rated at 7000 lbs each so combined they are rated at 14,000, the rest of 16.8 of the GVWR weight is accounted for in the pin weight on the truck. Our leaf springs are 3500 lbs each, total of 7000 lbs per axle but in reality are too weak, and you end up with flat springs on the heavy side of the RV, so that is another reason to upgrade to 8000 axles, 4000 lbs leaf springs. Our loaded weight runs @ 15,500 lbs. Our truck payload rating is 5,390 lbs and that has to be enough for pin weight, hitch weight, stuff loaded in truck bed (generator, bed tool box), occupant total weight.

Just some things to think about

I was thinking about this issue when we first went fulltime three years ago. Our final transition etc. When and where would we stop fulltiming and then what. That is still on my mind but since we got rid of everything when we went fulltime, and the kids took what they wanted back then, there is nothing left except the RV and our truck.

We both decided to be cremated so that can be handled wherever we are at the time. Now the financial part of it, cash bank accounts, investment accounts, life insurance etc is all written down. One inherits the others assets. We do have wills but there isn't much in them.  We only have two kids and they get along great so when the last one of us goes, whatever is left gets divided equally. Both kids are executors and know what entities to contact to inform them of our death.

It's good to have things planned out, that takes some of the burden off those who are left.

I lurk here more than I post. I hang out more on our manufacturer forum but check in here every once in awhile. On that forum many times owners are guided to this Escapees forum for assistance in going fulltime or extended part-timers.

We are in our late 60's, in our 3rd year of fulltiming, and loving every day. The wife does the facebook thing, I cant stand it. If a forum or an RV site gets snarky, I'm out of there in a heartbeat. Life is too short to put up with rude, know-it-all, egomaniac people.

As far as attaching files here, it's too limited. On our other manuf forum there is a place to post pics of "campgrounds, destinations and trip planning, or looking out our back window", I like to share pics of the places we have been, and to assist owners with problems where I can. I also keep up with our non-profit YouTube Channel where we post video's of our site seeing experiences but very little fix it.

Currently at Turkey Creek Escapee's Branson. Seems to be an older RV park more suited to the by gone days of smaller RVs. i'm a little disappointed in this Escapee's park, the site we have is just barely long enough for our rig, we have to park our truck elsewhere, back to back rig parking and close, but you never know who you will meet up with. Just met a couple pulling their rig with a Rivian.

Hang in there Escapee's forum, its a great resource for fulltimers.

We have run Centramatic wheel balancers on our trailer for the last 3 years since our rig was new. I haven't installed them on our truck but could. They have been around for years, mostly used on semi's and trailers. They just fit over the lug studs up against the drum or rotor if you have disc brakes., there is no reason to remove them when changing tires. IMO they do the job better than any tire changing person just pounding weights on the rim.

If any tire shop told me they had to remove them for tire warranty, I would tell them to shove their tires and  warranty. However I can see where they might not want to install them while changing the tires , liability reasons lawyers, even though they just fit over the studs.

In a couple weeks we will be at Big Bend Natl Park. We will visit Big Bend Ranch State Park as well. Looking forward to experiencing for ourselves what we have seen in videos. Also looking forward to experiencing the "Dark Sky Reserve".  We are not able to take the longer more difficult trails but there are some easier @ a mile or two that we can take.

I can understand why they say it is one of the less visited NP, it's kind of out there a ways.

Well we got it straightened out. Apparently it had something to do with the Wife trying to log in to the web site and our policy with her cell phone. The web site thought she was applying for a new policy.

Anyway I found out our premium went down for 2023, a lot, most likely something to do with our credit score and we have never had a claim. I still don't like Allstate.

We have had National General RV insurance since 2017 and this is the first time they have ever asked about the address where our RV is stored or housed. The wife said she got a notice our policy would be expiring soon so she logged on to our account to renew it and see if our rate stayed the same or went up. That's when she got into this questionnaire about the  address of where our RV was stored.

I have never liked Allstate Insurance since back in 1975 when they refused to insure our car because we were in the military.

Any of you fulltimers that have National General RV insurance got a renewal notice saying it is now an Allstate company and you have to fill out an address questionnaire?
They want to know if your RV is housed at your permanent address, that for us would be Escapee's Rainbow Drive. If you say no, they want you to give an address where it is stored. We have never run into that before. I didn't know Allstate had bought National General Insurance. Doing a little research Allstate bought National General in 2021.

I also found a company I hadn't heard of before "Roamly" RV insurance. Supposedly Roamly was created by RV owners.
RV insurance for us fulltimers can be a little problematic with a few companies offering good fulltime coverage.

We haven't been here a month yet so we haven't had to pay the electric yet. It's been a little warm, up in the mid to high 80s so we have run the AC units some but i suspect somewhere under $100.

A little late to the conversation but here is an example of a jewel we found in South Central Texas. Colorado Landing RV Park in La Grange, TX. $450/month + electric, but includes 30/50, water, sewer, cable TV, very nice pool. Good Sam Park, Propane available for refills. Very nice private park along the Lower Colorado River, some fulltime residence and very nice people. @ 1 hour to San Antonio, or Austin and east side of Houston. La Grange is a small rural Texas town right on Highway 71 but has what you need, restaurants, Walmart, hardware, HEB grocery etc. Yes it's hot during the summer, winter not too bad. We stop here every year from Mar-May while we do our annual doctor visits, rig maintenance etc before we head out for parts unknown. . Individual USPS mail slots and UPS/Fedex/Amazon package deliveries. So there are some very nice economical private RV parks out there, but sometimes it can be hard to find them.

https://www.coloradolanding.com/

Our rig is a 2019 5th wheel. I'm almost 67 and just started to replace our bushings, wet bolts, nuts and shackles this month and this time I'm replacing the Lippert Equaflex with MORryde. I last replaced our bronze bushings in the leaf spring eyes 3 years and @ 17,000 miles ago. So far in the right side I found one bad bushing out of 7, the rest were ok. The bad one was in the rear axle spring eye to frame hanger mount. But then again I grease the suspension every quarter. I haven't done the left side yet. I'm doing it in gravel but I have some really cushioned knee pads. Still it gets you in the back, knees, hips and just about everywhere else! It's not a difficult job if you have the know how, tools, jacks, stands and such, and I'm repacking the wheel bearings and checking the brake linings at the same time. Takes me about 4-4.5 hours per side.

I do one bushing at a time and tie the axles together with a ratchet strap so when I take the spring eyes out of the frame hangers to replace the bushing, I raise them back up and the spring eye and frame hanger holes line up.

But still I'm getting to the point where I just don't want to do it anymore. Then again I think about $225/hr labor rates and I'm crawling under there again. Like was said i know how it was done and to my satisfaction, i like to clock the wet bolt grease holes to the 3 or 9 o'clock position, makes it easier to get grease into the wet bolt. Someone else could care less where the wet bolt grease hole is.

My comments on this subject, even though old, would be for anyone that happens to read through this thread, not just the OP. Whether you have a motor home or travel trailer, I would advise everyone to try boondocking with your rig for a few days just so you get practice and understand your limitations. So that when you have to boondock, or are forced to, it is not so difficult a learning curve. The Texas winter storm of a couple years ago taught a lot of RVers a lesson, including us. Even those located in RV parks at the time, Or surviving any natural disaster or occurrence for that matter.

Understand your resources, limitations, and reserve capacity and your weakest link. Understand how you can limit using up your resources and how you can generate more capacity, or recharge your resources. Start by listing what your resources are based on your current rig configuration.

Power - Solar, RV Battery Bank, Generator, Tow vehicle engine power & batteries.

Water - Fresh and Waste tanks + reserves in jugs.

Propane Capacity - to run RV, water heater, furnace, fridge, stove

Gasoline/Diesel - RV Generator, motor home or Tow vehicle

Now in the normal course of RVing the Wife and I will boondock a few nights while in transit from one place to another. We will stay at FHU sites. We don't boondock for weeks. We know our capacities and limitations base on how our rig is set up. Given our rig configuration and resources we could boondock up to two weeks if needs be.

Oh, boondocking making coffee, we use a french press. Lol's

We have been here visiting Yellowstone for the last couple weeks. Staying in Island Park ID and using the West Yellowstone entrance. For a few days they were using license plate odd or even numbers for entrance into the park but that has been lifted, now no restrictions entering the park. The upper and lower loops are open. Only the North and Northeast entrances still remain closed.

Couple days ago at the North entrance, Fort Yellowstone and Mammoth Hot Springs, the lodge and restaurants were still closed, only the visitors center and the gas station were open.

We have driven both loops and didn't run into any traffic problems with road construction.

Still a beautiful place. We have really enjoyed our visit to Yellowstone. We leave the 7th for the Grand Tetons.

Bob, The Wife and I have been fulltiming for two years now, and loving every minute. We have 10,000 miles on our rig now. We were residence of Bastrop County and like others have said for Texas residence it's just a change of address.

Renewing your license plates is easy through the USPS mail or in our travels back to Texas for the winter, we manage to stop by Livingston and get them renewed. Renewing your 8 year drivers license takes a little more planning because you have to do it in person but you can do that anywhere in Texas at a DPS office. 

Enjoy your fulltiming life, the only thing we regret is not being able to do it sooner.

We are on our trip now and have not changed our plans. From Southern Texas to Richmond IN for grandson's graduation, then to IL, IA, SD, WY, MT, ID, UT, CO, KS, MO, IN till end of November. Then Southbound back to Texas and winter on Galveston Island Dec, Jan, Feb. Probably around 6500 miles total.

Yes its going to cost more just for fuel, but if we don't do it now, something else will probably happen next year. We are not getting any younger and neither is our rig.

A lot of us (RVers) will never understand how this could happen. Our analytical minds want to dissect each tidbit of information and identify what caused this tragedy. It has been talked about on a lot of different RV forums. I even looked up the coordinates of where the car was found to help understand how they got to where they were. In the end, we will never fully understand it, even if we had all the data,  its what we take away from this tragedy that counts.

 This is a tragic object lesson to learn from, reading through it. Even something as simple as changing a tire along the road can be a bad decision and put you in a dangerous situation before you know it. Take anyone from any metropolitan city and stick them in a desert where they have never been, within the age group and health issues given, give them a set of circumstances to work through, what would you expect.

Some may come away from this thinking "this could never happen to us", "we are smarter than that", but are we really?
You could have all the right toys possible - RV trip planning tools, RV GPS, RV road atlas, satellite phones and sat GPS, flares, caution lights, triangles, vests, etc., but it can all boil down to the decisions you make.
 

When in doubt - don't, trust but verify, don't blindly follow anything, you think you have never had a problem doing something particular in all the years you have been RVing - until it happens! Even our own arrogance clouds our judgment and will get us in trouble. 

Take Care Out There
 

22 hours ago, Kirk W said:

Steven, the #1 safety rule in bear country is to avoid startling a bear and that generally applies to most larger wildlife. I lived many years in Rocky Mountain country and spent a lot of time in the back country as well as volunteer positions in bear country and have never experienced any dangerous encounter. Make noise as you hike by talking or singing, bells on your pack, or most any other way. 

Thanks Kirk, We are really looking forward to our trip. We have seen videos of bigger park animals roaming through campgrounds so we intend to always be aware of our surroundings. Another thing I told the wife, we will burn out and clean our smoker grill (GMG Davy Crocket) and not use it on our trip, keep it locked inside the RV storage compartment. The smell of smoked meats would attract meat eating animals like bears.

An interesting discussion and timely as we will be going up into WY, MT, ID, UT and visiting Yellowstone.  I appreciate y'alls word to the wise about being cautious. We are not hard core hikers as our age and some health issues wont allow it, but do like smaller shorter less steep trails. We had a great time hiking some of the short trails in the Smoky Mts recently. We are not familiar with bears or other big park animals, you don't see too many in Indiana or Central Texas, does Long Horn cattle count?  I grew up around bulls, you keep your eye on them and stay away from them. I once had the experience of getting the he!! out of the way when a Black Angus bull crashed through two strong gates.

We know not to be stupid around animals and observe from afar. With that being said we are anticipating a great trip this summer and look forward to seeing a few animals. Along with our back packs and gear we do carry bear spray. It could be just as effective on people as it is on wild animals!

16 hours ago, sandsys said:

Ours turned out better. Part of that, I think, came from investing in housing then investing proceeds from the sale of the final house. Yay for full time RVing that prompted that final sale.

Linda

Linda, we did the same. We had our home in Texas, never meant to pay off the house and retire EOfLife there as the rest of the family lives up north. In the end housing went crazy in Texas and after 19 years our home investment paid off big, we more than doubled our money.

-------------

The thought of this thread and SS, the wife and I both had 401s with corporate matching contributions. We never relied on what would be our corporate pensions. It was just as well because the wife and I both lost our corporate retirement pensions and along with it any health care. The companies did away with pensions and just dumped a fraction of what would have been our pensions into a fund at Fidelity Investments. They basically said at retirement, just go away!

- We were never ones to eagle eye the stock market continually, so at close to retirement we got real conservative on investments. Anyway I never got the feeling Fidelity really had our best interest in mind,  rather what they would make managing our investments.

When we decided to retire we didn't have a lot of debit. Bought our current RV rig, sold our house, and paid off debt. We planned to enjoy what we had made, not sit around and watch the stock market. Same with the decision to take SS. We both took SS as soon as possible. Odds are we can draw SS longer and enjoy it even though its lower, then wait till the max and and not be able to enjoy it. We are in a place that we can live off our combined SS income nicely and still have our 401s / IRA nest egg plus profits from our home sale we could use. Right now we are both in good health and at our age now can get decent Medicare health care plans.  

Living the Fulltime RV life and loving every minute of it traveling the country!

12 hours ago, rickeieio said:

Rather than the Golden Years, I refer to it as "The Metallic Years".  Silver in your hair, gold in your teeth, and lead in your a$$.

Isn't it the truth! LOLs

Its a very complicated thing - life. You can plan for the golden years but does it really or does it rarely turn out the way we planned? 

57 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

snip

You have some interesting friends! Does he live in TX? The news here reports a big surge in gasoline & diesel theft both from stations and by punching a hole in the tank of unattended vehicles. 

I saw that on our Austin news this morning. That would really suck, spend $200 on diesel and then have someone punch a hole in your tank and drain it. Wife said maybe we aught to get a locking door on our diesel tank, Me, I would rather have them syphon it out than punch a hole in the tank.

On 3/7/2022 at 7:33 AM, Kirk W said:

It sounds like many of us keep large amounts of cash in reserve all of the time, or at least when we travel, even before the recent attacks on the internet. It leaves me wondering about the amounts kept around. We used to travel some with a couple who always had several thousand dollars stashed in various places around the RV, more than 20 years ago. I always thought that they were paranoid. This thread makes me wonder if I'm the unique one since we typically each carry $100 or so and pay for nearly everything with a credit card. Even with the recent extra cash reserve for possible internet issues, we still keep much less than $1000 around the house or RV in cash. Of course we are also not traveling at this time so if we were I probably would want a bigger cash reserve, I'd be interested to know if some would share or at least hint about how much you think is a good number. My initial thought was to have cash in an amount equal to 2 weeks of purchases. Any opinions?

Hello Kirk, the wife and I usually carry $50 each or less on our person.  Have about $350 in cash available. In these times we are going to increase cash available to about $1000. We always use credit cards for fuel and road purchases, rarely use debit cards unless at a major retail store. We have 2 separate bank accounts, one local, one nation wide. We have three credit cards all from different banks or credit companies, one is a major gas station card. That is about as diversified as we get. We were just thinking, 32 gallon tank @ $5.00 = $160. With 5 tanks of fuel $800, we could get back to family, if needs be.

We don't stock a lot of non-perishable food in the RV. No place to put it and it adds a lot more weight for the RV to carry around. Most of the time, Only our children/family and a few friends know where we are at any given point.