Moving In

With little more than the motorhome's picnic furniture, the living space of the home had remained empty in order to facilitate the installation of our new oak floors.  We continued to live and work remotely in the motorhome as various move-in projects were completed, such as installing a side garage door, and moving the RV pad gate about twenty-four feet closer to the front of the house so the new door would be behind the gate and so the motorhome would not extend into the backyard.  The floors reached their minimum cure time the day before our house belongings arrived today after the sale of the Vancouver house.  I  laid down heavy paper in the high-traffic areas to lessen the chance of damage as the movers bought in our furniture and decor.

The first week in May marked the end of our urban camping experience.  For seven weeks the motorhome had served flawlessly as a home, workspace, and toolbox.  With the arrival of our furnishings, house projects switched to internal painting, and prepping for the new kitchen.  Since the home no longer had a full kitchen, I installed a temporary one that served us for months.

As we shifted to living in the house, the Safari got a thorough cleaning inside and out.  All the consumables were restocked and all the systems were checked out before placing the rig under the cover.  I use an Adco RV cover that stays on most of the year.  The cover lasts 3-4 years with regular annual maintenance to repair chafing.  At $600 per cover, that breaks down to $200 per year.

Laura and I were so happy to have the Safari for the move and the renovation.  Being able to live and work onsite during the renovation definitely sped up the process.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

RV Pad Living Must Have

Laura left for Vancouver today to coordinate the packing and moving of our household goods and to donate/dispose of those items not coming to Anacortes.  I have stayed behind to work remotely and monitor the completion of the new floors.

It has been roughly six weeks since we relocated to Anacortes, and in that time we:

• fixed the door bell
• installed a new mailbox
• had a 30 amp electrical panel installed on the outside of the garage for the motorhome
• had 220 VAC run for a dryer in the laundry
• celebrated Laura's birthday
• attended our son's wedding
• Replaced the failed crawl space sump pump
• demo'd the old flooring
• demo'd the kitchen in preparation for the new floors and a new kitchen
• had new white oak floors installed throughout the home (now waiting for them to cure)
• joined the Anacortes Yacht Club

Must-Have for the RV

Critical to the experience of living out of our Safari while parked on the RV pad has been our FloJet Macerator pump that enables us to dump the black water and grey water tanks into the home's sewer cleanout.  We first purchased this system in 2016 when we bought the home, and it has been a convenience for this type of situation ever since.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Anacortes Day 1

With all of our furniture and decor sitting in our Vancouver "staged" home, arriving in Anacortes did not mean moving in.  Major near-term renovation projects include:  replacing all the carpeting and tired engineered wood flooring with a solid, finished in-place, white oak floor. and repurposing the old kitchen to the garage in order to make way for a completely new kitchen layout designed by Laura. 

Our first full day in our new hometown started with waking up in the motorhome, breakfast at the Majestic Hotel, and ended with a sunset stroll along the Guemes Channel Trail near the Anacortes Ferry Terminal.  It was amazing to think that we were here after a journey that started three years earlier when we purchased the home while attending the Tulip Festival.

Included in the day's activities was the purchase of a new bed, acquiring a decorative whale that would fit with the coastal, nautical, sea captain back story of the cottage Laura wanted to create in our new home, and acquiring a comfy leather reading chair and ottoman for the future home-office.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Anacortes or Bust

March 16th marked the end of our twenty-one-plus years of calling Vancouver, WA home.  With our "goodbye" pictures of the house taken, we prepared to head north with me driving the Safari while towing the Honda Fit, and Laura driving the Honda Odyssey and pulling a utility trailer. 

The 250 miles journey to Anacortes took about five and a half hours thanks to the traffic moving well through Tacoma and Seattle.  After we arrived at our home in Anacortes, I parked the motorhome on the side of the house behind the gate.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Urban Camping While Staging Our Home

Urban Camping

Our last urban camping experience occurred three years earlier when we purchased a home in Anacortes, WA, and prepared it for handoff to a rental property management company.  Fast forward to  March 2019, and we are in the final phase of staging our Vancouver, WA home for sale.  The photo shoot for the real estate listing was coming up fast, so it was a mad dash to complete the last items on our ToDo list, and stage the house.

Moved for RV pad driveway repair

One of the items on our list was to have part of the driveway leading to our RV pad replaced.  Trees had damaged the existing installation.  In preparation for the work, we needed to relocate our Safari motorhome.  Fortunately for us, our home is set back from the street with a fifty-foot driveway, so there was lots of room to park in front of the garage.

The benefits of a long driveway

With the motorhome moved, the crew was able to bring in their equipment to break up and remove the old driveway.

Breaking up the damaged driveway

Shortly after preparing the area for new concrete, Vancouver got hit by snow and below-freezing temperatures for several days, so we had to delay the pour.  Four days before the scheduled photo shoot, the replacement driveway sections were laid down.

The driveway is poured on March 11

March 9 was our last night in the house, so our urban camping experience started on March 10 as we continued to complete small projects and stage the house.

Prepping to sell

The photo shoot would be occurring on March 15, and we'd be departing for Anacortes on March 16.  All total we'd spent seven days camping on the driveway.

The new driveway in place.

The crew that put in the new driveway did beautiful work, and it was all completed in time for the photo shoot.

Our departure configuration minus kayaks and bicycles.

One of the nice features

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Returning Home with a Check Engine Light

Returning home from our summer in Anacortes, and Port Townsend the dashboard was showing a "Check Engine" light.  It had become an intermittent problem with my Caterpillar 3126 since our May trip to Armitage Park Campground in Eugene, OR.  The light was also accompanied by a noticeable drop in power.

Our SilverLeaf Electronics VMSpc software running on a laptop plugged into the Safari's diagnostic port was reporting:

ENG PID 1 43 UNKNOWN COMPONENT, Unknown Failure

Knowing that diagnosing this problem was beyond my knowledge and tools, I dropped the motorhome off at Peterson Cat in Portland, OR.  Pro Tip:  Always take photos of your rig whenever you bring it in for service just in case something unfortunate happens.

Problem Resolved

Peterson Cat diagnosed and solved the problem.  During the Injector Solenoid Test, all six injectors passed but the #1 connector was found to be very loose. The overall wiring harness checked out OK.  Petersons replaced the injector wiring harness for #1 (a short adapter that connects to the larger harness) and installed a new valve cover gasket.  The Check Engine light has not returned since the service, and the engine's power has been restored.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Creating Space in the Company of Others

Laura wearing her noise canceling headphones.

It's two days before departing for home after nine glorious weeks in the RV.  A Wednesday of working remotely has both of us are looking forward to spending some time together in the afternoon.  Living and working in the 300 square feet of our Safari Sahara motorhome is easy for us because we worked up to it gradually.  My first work-related phone conference while on a "work-vacation" occurred in 2006 when RVing meant trips in our Coleman tent trailer.

Our 1996 Safari Sahara 3530 motorhome versus the 1993 Coleman Pioneer Chesapeake tent trailer it replaced in 2014.

While the size and comfort of our mobile office have improved over time, the challenge of two sharing a space when one is on the phone in conferences remains.  Early efforts had me typically moving to our Honda Oydessey van that towed our tent trailer when I needed to get on a conference call.  As the RV's and the boats got bigger, Laura and I found we could be in separate cabins or rooms with a door providing some level of sound isolation. What we wanted was a solution that allowed us to be in the same space together.

Wireless Noise-Canceling Over-Ear Headphones

Sony WH-CH700N

Technology has a wonderful way of solving problems when it isn't creating new ones.  We purchased Laura a rechargeable, Bluetooth wireless set of headphones with noise-canceling technology.  The headphones mask my talking so Laura can be in the same room watching TV or listening to music. They work so well, that I typically have to tap Laura on the shoulder if I want to get her attention.

Laura has come to enjoy the sound quality of the headphones so much, that she'll frequently switch to them when listening to audio from the Internet.  Being Bluetooth enabled, she can pair the headphones with her computer or with her phone.  The earlier photo of Laura at the grill with the headphones on is an example of the beauty of Bluetooth.  Prior to popping up to check the status of dinner, Laura was sitting in her zero gravity chair listening to a podcast on her phone which is connected to the Fidalgo Bay RV Resort's Wi-Fi, and thus has Laura connect to the Internet.  Isn't technology wonderful.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much