Crooked River State Park
I've been waking up around my usual 6:00 a.m. time. But I've been staying in bed reading until 8:00 or 9:00.
This weekend, we did what we tend to do in state parks - we stay inside and let the weekenders have the park, knowing we'll be able to enjoy it more during the week.
Saturday
We returned emails and I watched college football on Saturday.
We did book an hour and a half nature tour on a pontoon boat limited to eight people, but when we arrived at the park office, they canceled the tour. Apparently, the steering went out on the boat while they went on a test run this morning, and the boat was stranded out on the river somewhere. So, we got a refund and went back to our campsite.
In the evening, Linda prepared part of the grouper we got up in South Carolina. She baked it with some parmesan cheese and a coating of honey-nut granola to give it some sweetness and crunch. It was good, but it was even better the next night with a little additional honey added. :)
Not much else to tell for today. :)
Sunday
Today was another day much like Saturday. We returned emails and I watched football. Linda did some purging of our files and got rid of a couple of old laptops we'd been carrying around as "back-ups".
Speaking of back-ups, I backed up both of our laptops on an external hard drive.
We also received an email from our reader, Dave. He sent a reminder about checking electrical connections in our RVs to make sure that wires haven't come loose.
He had a problem in his transfer switch box. A transfer switch in RVs determines what power source is being used by the RV. In other words, if you are plugged into a campground pedestal (aka shore power), it is the campground's electricity that is running your electrical appliances. However, if you turn on your generator while plugged into shore power, the transfer switch "switches" or cuts off the "shore power" and your RV runs on generator power.
In older RVs, the transfer switch was "manual" meaning you had to actively flip a switch to make this happen. In newer RVs, there is an "automatic transfer switch" and the switch from shore power to generator power happens automatically as soon as the generator is turned on.
So, if you have an older RV and you are NOT plugged into shore power and you turn on the generator, you may have to flip a manual transfer switch to get power to your appliances. However, most of you will have an automatic transfer switch and the switch over should happen .... well, automatically. :)
Note that new towables do not have a transfer switch unless you ordered the unit with a generator from the beginning or ordered it with "generator prep" for a future "built-in" generator installation. If you are using a portable generator with a towable and plugging your RV directly into the generator, you don't need a transfer switch, however, it may not work if you have an electrical management system (low/high voltage and proper pedestal wiring protection) - see this article When A Portable Generator Won't Power Your RV.
Assuming you have a built-in generator, why would you ever have a need to run it while plugged into shore power? Well, if you are parked in 90-degree weather in a campground with 30-amp electric or less, you may want to run your generator (assuming it is not against campground rules) to be able to run two air conditioners. So, the transfer switch allows you to do that without unplugging from shore power and then plugging back in at night when the temperatures cool down.
However, the transfer switch is designed to just transfer from one power source to another. It is NOT designed to transfer heavy electrical loads. So, before you turn on your generator, make sure your air conditioner, microwave, electric heaters, water heaters in electric mode, and multiple appliances are turned off so the transfer switch won't be overloaded.
Now, getting back to Dave's issue. Dave emailed me this link to a blog post where he described how the transfer switch box in his motorhome melted due to loose connections within the box: Problem Spotted, Fix Comes Later.
I forwarded this on to Jack (Living The Full-time RV Lifestyle), our technical mentor, and he had this to say:
"This is typical of the results of a loose electrical connection. ALL electrical connections - solar panel boxes, transfer switches, the main loadcenter and the subpanel - should be checked EVERY year for screws that work loose.
The screws work loose even in a residential environment due to heat/cool cycles. In an RV environment this is amplified by vibration so it is more common. Use of solid core wire by the RV industry, instead of stranded wire that is called for in Marine environments, also contributes to the issue. But solid core wire is not the entire root cause. It is a combination of factors."
So, in the interest of RVer safety and education, I pass this along to you. :)
For dinner, Linda re-heated last night's grouper dish and added some more honey and more granola. Delicious. :)
Again, it was another day of hanging around our rig and taking care of a few things as they popped into our heads.
Monday
Happy Veterans Day and thanks to all of the veterans out there! I know we have many in our audience and we appreciate your service very much. If not for you, our life and this Journal may not have been possible.
This morning, I finally got caught up on posting our financial results from August, September, & October - Our 2013 Actual Expenses.
With my health issues and hospitalization back in August, the last three months were brutal on our budget. Of course, August also was the month when our RV refrigerator went out, Linda lost a crown on her tooth, and big ol' tree limbs fell on our Jeep causing our insurance company to total it out.
As of the end of October, we were $15,650 over budget for the year with about $8,500 of that being in Medical Expenses. The rest of the overage is due to 1) expenses related to replacing our Jeep and other vehicle repairs/maintenance, 2) paying more in estimated taxes due to a very good business income year, and 3) splurging in some areas because we wanted to and had the extra cash flow do it.
With our truck engine replacement last year, and the medical and other expenses this year, we're glad we've maintained an emergency fund of about six months of expenses. And we're glad we had our Health Savings Account funded to a level above our $10,000 health insurance deductible.
On the medical expenses side, the total bills came in at around $13,000. Our insurance company reduced many of those bills and paid 100% once we reached the $10,000 deductible. Additionally, the hospital offered us a 15% discount if we paid that bill in full, so we paid it out of our Health Savings Account. But we also used our emergency fund to replenish our Health Savings Account up to the maximum allowable deductible amount for 2013 - $6,450. We're going to need that deduction this year, and we can add the rest back next year.
I hate telling our audience that you can live a comfortable, moderate RV life on $36,000 a year and then we have two years in a row where our expenses will exceed $50,000. But it is what it is, and it just reinforces the need to have an emergency fund or at least an emergency financial plan.
But what if we didn't have an established emergency fund or Health Savings Account or a good income year? Well, if we never would have started RV-Dreams and never have established the many sources of income we now have, we would be parking the rig and working somewhere to cover these additional expenses. We might be workamping, where our annual expenses were more in the $28,000 a year range (and could be less than that if necessary), and where we could earn a paycheck. Or we might be parked in a seasonal campground and working a more traditional job or being a Walmart Greeter.
The bottom line is this life is simple and adjustable and, especially because we have no debt, we can easily pick up jobs to both sustain the lifestyle and pay for financial blips like the last two years. It could come to that in any particular year for us. So what if we have to take two years off from traveling to pay some bills? Yeah it wouldn't be ideal, but it would be doable without a whole lot of stress. And then we'd be back on the road again.
I guess my point is it's great to have a fixed income where you don't have to worry about the expenses of life on the road, and it's great to have saved up an emergency fund, and it's best if you don't have any debt, but with some forethought and some planning and knowing what you are getting into, you don't have to have perfect finances to be a full-time RVer. If you have a positive attitude, are physically and mentally capable, and are willing to work hard at what may not be the best jobs in the world, you can make it as a full-time RVer.
Of course, if you don't have perfect finances, and you prefer no risk, no work, no stress, and don't want to have to adjust to your financial situation, .... well, then perhaps it's best if you leave the RVing life to others. :)
Moving on.
Today was beautiful, and almost all the other campers in our part of the loop left. It was quiet and peaceful. I took a few pictures of the campsites in our section (Sites 45 - 62).
The sites on our side of the road are wide and extremely long and separated on each side by native vegetation which provides wonderful privacy.
The sites on the other side of the road are very long, angled pull-throughs.
This first one is the ADA site next to the bathhouse.
Here are a couple of the other pull-throughs.
Sites in the other areas of the campground are also nice, but they don't provide near the level of privacy of this stretch.
As the afternoon passed, I got out our ladder and climbed up on the roof. Our satellite internet has a good signal, but is not connecting. I did a cable "by-pass" to see if we had a cabling issue and I called our tech support at Mobilsat. It turns out we likely have a bad receiver - a big gray piece connected to the dish arm. I can have one shipped to us.
For the next hour, we discussed getting rid of the satellite internet all together since we've had more problems with it recently. But we just couldn't pull the plug. The more I looked at the Verizon data coverage map, the more I recalled the many places across the country where we didn't have cellular service. Though we have double expenses for internet, we'll hang on to the satellite option as long as the "fix" works and keeps us working where we need it.
As the sun started going down, the subject of dinner came up. Linda wanted a campfire, so we decided to have fire-roasted brats.
We got the fire going and sat out enjoying the silence.
A pair of wrens came to visit us, and later a pair of cardinals came by to check us out.
As it got dark, a critter was shuffling in the pine needles and palmettos, but never showed its face. We were guessing armadillo, raccoon, or skunk.
As the fire got going, we listened to the crickets and frogs while reading our Kindles. And Linda posted photos of the campfire on Facebook.
Eventually, I roasted a brat apiece. We saved room for s'mores. :)
Our wood isn't the best buring wood and results in a lot of smoke if the fire is neglected for even a few minutes. By 8:00, we were ready to call it a night, but we were in serious need of showers first.
Since we're here for nine days and need to conserve gray tank space, we've been showering in the bathhouse right across the street. After long, hot showers, we put on our pajamas and settled in to watch some recorded shows.
I didn't make it through the second one and fell asleep in the recliner. Once I woke up, I moved to the bedroom to watch the end of Monday Night Football, but I didn't even make it through the first commercial. Since we've been back on Eastern time, I haven't seen the end of very many late ballgames - unless, of course, I had an afternoon nap. :)
Tomorrow, we might just do something somewhat ambitious, but don't hold us to that. :)
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