It's official: Retirement and Full time RV living

We officially moved into the RV last week and completed our first full week living at the campground. It was a fairly uneventful week as I was still working for AHN remotely. I agreed to help transition to the new director and not officially retire until today, 9/20. I can’t believe the day is finally here and it feels a little strange. I no longer have to set an alarm and head to the office every day. Working for these two weeks had its challenges though.

Connectivity was key to the transition. I needed to have lengthy phone calls and online meetings. Well, Verizon service here is not great at all. We purchased a Verizon MiFi to connect while traveling and it wasn’t any better than my phone. Luckily we have a Weboost cellular booster that we purchased when we lived in the apartment downtown. We set that up and it helped a little but with only an inside antenna, it didn’t boost the signal enough for the laptop to connect well to the network. Luckily, Tim has an ATT phone with 10 GB hotspot and that had a better signal with the booster. I had to use it most of the days last week. Over the weekend, Tim installed an outside antenna which definitely helped boost the Verizon signal and it became usable..

We have definitely been working out some bugs and issues with the RV since we moved in. The cell service was only one small issue to deal with. Tim took the out the RV for some driving practice the week before and had no issue closing it up and bringing in the slides. When he got back and parked it, the slides would not go back out. The first day here, we almost had to go to a hotel to stay but luckily our fellow RVers came to the rescue. After an hour or so, they figured out a short term fix to get the slides out for us. The slide in was working, but not the slide out. They reversed the wires on the solenoid and then we could take the slides out but not back in. This allows us to live here while waiting to get that repaired.

Our neighbor Bill helping to find a slide solution.

The gang trying to get the slides to go out.

Speaking of repairs needed, we have had issues getting the black tank pull to close fully since we got this RV. Tim could usually get it to work, but he put in another stop/pull further down to prevent any leakage issues. He was trying to lubricate it so the it would work better and the pull lever came out completely. Another item for an RV repairman. We have been trying to find someone to repair the RV but everyone is booked solid. We are on two different waiting lists with hopes that one of them will get here before we need to leave. This may delay our departure date by a week or so. Hopefully not longer than that. With RVs, things break and repairs are needed. It is good that we are getting some of this out of the way before we are on the road.

In between working and searching for repairmen, we have been organizing inside the RV and the storage area. It is really staring to come along and we should be in good shape for traveling. Tim had the RV and truck weighed while he was out on his practice run and it is way below the max weight of the truck/trailer combination. We were worried that we brought too much stuff, but I guess we’re okay. I have a few more clothes to bring but not very many so that won’t add too much more to the overall weight..

In between working, we managed to get some cleaning done. The RV was pretty dirty, especially the roof. With the pine trees here, it is hard to keep it clean. It took both of us taking turns scrubbing to get the roof pretty clean. We spread the work out over a few days to take breaks in between for our sore shoulders. Finished up yesterday by bringing the slides back in; yes, Tim reversed the wires again to do that. It seems to work as a temporary solution but a headache for sure.

Tim working hard on the roof

I jumped in to help when he took a much needed break. It was really dirty and took a bit of scrubbing.

Cleaning above the slides. See how dirty it was!

It hasn’t all been work; we did take some time to enjoy this area before we get on the road. Look for the next blog to cover some of our favorite places in Northwestern PA..

A shiny clean truck and camper