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New to the Escapees/Xscapers


PauHanaTravels

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I just wanted to stop and say Aloha to all our new family members in the Escapees and Xscapers family. We are Gary and Stacey and we hail from Washington State. We call ourselves Pau Hana Travels as we are blessed enough to call ourselves retired in our 40's and well Pau Hana literally translates to Done with Work in Hawaiian. We consider ourselves part-time fulltimers as we do have a home base here in Washington State but we are free to travel as far and long as we want to be gone. We currently have plans to leave for approximately 3 months this Fall and join up with our fellow Xscapers at their Convergence at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in October and next year we plan to spend our entire summer up in Alaska. We are looking forward to meet more Club members on our adventures and are looking forward to joining up with our local Chapter for a Rally in late May. Our home away from home is brand new 2016 Cardinal 3825FL 5th wheel. We just returned home from a 1200 mile shakedown cruise all around Idaho and we couldn't be happier with our purchase. Attached is a pic of our rig while we were camped at the Craters of the Moon National Park last weekend. We love the forward living concept of the 5er and it gives us ample space to move around the rig with us and our 2 dogs, Spirit (Siberian Husky) and Sofi (Yorkshire Terrier).

 

Anyway, I just wanted to introduce ourselves and let everyone know we are excited about being apart of the ohana "family" of the Escapees/Xscapers RV Club.

 

 

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Stacey & Gary

PauHanaTravels.com - Pau Hana = "Done With Work"

2016 Discovery 37R with a 2013 Ford F150 FX4 toad

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Welcome to the Escapees RV Club and to the forums as well. It is great that so many are finding the RV life style and bringing new & fresh ideas to the group! e managed to leave our careers fairly early but not as soon as you have. I do hope that you will become a regular contributor to these forums! Some of of us have been around a long time, but we can always gain from a fresh prospective. Thanks for joining us.

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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Welcome x2,

We retired when I was 45 and went fulltime for 7 years with my wife ## years old (2years younger) that was in 1997 and all my full time peers were 20 years older. I'm tickled to see Escapees form a young division with Xscapers. We also started with a good quality fiver and at 52 came off the road to help with aging parents now down to one. Now I'm going to be 64 in May, and their age. When you have the resources as you do and we did, I realize the younger the better. I simply cannot physically do what I did then. I can still fulltime and in a few years when our obligations are done here we are thinking of moving to Denver and perhaps snowbird. But diving and skiing are out.

 

From what I'm seeing of the new forum members you won't be as lacking for fulltime peers your age as we were. We only met one other truly our age fulltimers that were retired. I look forward to your posts.

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Welcome aboard! I am thrilled to see so many younger members of Escapees; it bodes well for the future of all of us. Please, let us know if there's anything we can do to facilitate your travels.

 

Love your living room with its huge TV and lots of seating. We're all coming to your house for movie night. :)

 

Linda Sand

Blog: http://sandcastle.sandsys.org/

Former Rigs: Liesure Travel van, Winnebago View 24H, Winnebago Journey 34Y, Sportsmobile Sprinter conversion van

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Linda made me look. Nice blog Gary and Stacey. What got your windshield? When we started RVing in 1997 there were no thin, affordable 57" LCD TVs, your rig is beyooteeful! Thanks for sharing.

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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We were coming back from a truck hike (not towing) and a rock chip from a semi going the opposite direction tagged us. It must have hit us just right to make such a big impact. Cost us $250 with our insurance to replace the windshield. =(

 

Hopefully we don't have to do that again anytime soon.

Stacey & Gary

PauHanaTravels.com - Pau Hana = "Done With Work"

2016 Discovery 37R with a 2013 Ford F150 FX4 toad

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I'm glad you didn't lose control and are OK. Or get glass in your eyes! Windshields are replaceable.

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Seems like thrown rocks are a risk that never goes completely away. I grew up living on gravel roads with very few paved ones in the area and thrown rocks were a pretty common problem but it seems to be much less common today, but probably won't ever go away completely. Thank God for things like safety glass windshields and insurance! We were fortunate with our motorhome in the years we traveled with it as we never experienced a rock chip that could not be repaired and our insurance paid 100% of chip repairs. We must have had a half dozen of them by the time we down-sized and sold it.

 

Sounds like yours was much more than just a chip! :wacko:

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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We had a big rock come off a dump truck and punch right through the outer and inner glass of the windshield - fortunately the plastic sandwich caught the rock, but the interior of the cab was showered with glass splinters. Also fortunately, it was a sunny day and both my wife and I were wearing sunglasses at the time, otherwise I think we would have got glass in our eyes.

 

Welcome to Escapees. My wife and I are in our 40s (but closer to 50 than 40 now). We have a home base on the east coast but aim to sell it in the next year or two, and then eventually buy a place out west (Nevada / Colorado / Idaho regions).

 

Craters of the Moon is a great spot - we ended up staying there longer than we had planned because it was so interesting. I think you got about the only spot that can fit a rig that size - it's a tight campground and the rocks are unforgiving. We saw someone catch one pretty good with their travel trailer while we were there. :(

fuso.jpg.b3c0d8d35ed0a147efc1900170d393e5.jpg

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Welcome! We're in our 40's also (well, cough-cough, my husband is further into his 40's than I am... I'm still, er, 29... yeah, that's it...). We're no longer fulltimers, but we had the time of our lives while we were. Welcome to Escapees!

Stephen & Karen and our six boys, ages 21, 21, 19, 17, 14, & 11
Stephen - Military retiree (as of summer 2012) & current DOI employee (Big Bend National Park)
Karen - Homeschooling stay-at-home mom & veteran
San Antonio, Texas

Fulltimed May 2013 - July 2014 (yes, all eight of us!)
Open Range "Rolling Thunder" (H396RGR - fifth wheel toy hauler bunkhouse) - SOLD
Ford F-350 diesel dually - for the camper
Ford E-350 fifteen passenger van - for the crew

Our unfinished travel blog: http://coach-and-six.blogspot.com/

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We had the same happen to our windshield after doing Alaska all year and returning just outside of Albuquerque. Alaska is where most folks get rock chips! This one came from a New Mexico DOT mini truck getting on the highway ahead of us. Our insurance pays for our rock chip repairs with no deductible to pay so we just stop at a glass shop.

 

Safe Travels guys!

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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We plan to pick up some chip repair kits for the occasional rock chip but this one was beyond usual.

Most insurance will pay 100% of chip repair by a professional, mobile repair service. You may want to check yours as I doubt that you need to do it yourself. I really like watching the other guy work, when I don't have to pay him! :D

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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Yes but I know with our upcoming plans it could be days before we can get to a glass shop. Especially when we head to Alaska next summer. I wish this last incident could have been a chip fill but it was too big.

Stacey & Gary

PauHanaTravels.com - Pau Hana = "Done With Work"

2016 Discovery 37R with a 2013 Ford F150 FX4 toad

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Yes but I know with our upcoming plans it could be days before we can get to a glass shop. Especially when we head to Alaska next summer. I wish this last incident could have been a chip fill but it was too big.

If you are concerned about rocks, have you considered something like ClearPlex?

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Deleted. I goofed up.

 

EDIT: I'll try again. :)

 

On our last Alaskan trip we left Arizona with a crack in the Jeep's windshield. We decided not to get it repaired because of all the stories floating around out there of getting a broken windshield on the drive to Alaska.

 

Six months later we returned to Arizona with the same crack in the windshield....THEN we got it fixed.

 

We had absolutely no damage on our Alaskan trip with the motorhome or the towed Jeep. Enjoy your trip. It's awesome!

Full-timed for 16 Years
Traveled 8 yr in a 2004 Newmar Dutch Star 40' Motorhome
and 8 yr in a 33' Travel Supreme 5th Wheel

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Another younger, Xscaper here. Unfortunately not done with working life but will be full-timing as of late summer 2017 and moving to different parts of the country to work and explore and experience different places.

2007 Keystone Springdale 245 FWRLL-S (modified)

2000 F-250 7.3L SRW

Cody and Kye, border collie extraordinaires

Latest departure date: 10/1/2017

 

Find us at www.nomadicpawprints.wordpress.com

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