A Week in the Life

Welcome back to Just One More Blog!  Where you will experience the crazy adventures of Jerry and Susan as they figure out the in’s and out’s of full-time RV living.

Many people ask me, “What do you do everyday?”  Honestly, living on the road is not much different than living in a stick and brick. (That’s RV slang for a conventional home).  The big differences, obviously, are that our RV is much smaller (although I know apartments that are smaller than our 5th wheel), we have wheels, and we have to tow our home around.  We have solar, air conditioners, a furnace, and a fireplace.  You get the drift.  

The main difference is that we wake up to different scenery and neighbors.  Of course, Jerry and I like to stay in a place for no less than 2 weeks and usually for over 6 weeks if not longer.  We have the same neighbors on our left as they are here for the winter.  We just had new neighbors pull up on our right from Minnesota.  Jerry has already welcomed them to the neighborhood.  That’s my husband, the welcoming committee.  

I walk every day, usually in the morning as it’s my favorite time of the day.  This park is so huge that I can walk the entire grounds which is about 3 miles.  Sometimes Jerry walks with me, but most times I walk listening to a book or talking to friends.  It really is my “alone” time which I need.  As you know, spending 24/7 together after years of both of us working, has been a challenge.  We are still working that out.  

I watch TV shows that drive Jerry nuts.  “I cannot believe you watch this crap,” so, I have had to tell him that I refuse to watch my shows while you are in the room.  Please, go do something!  Yes, we are still working on this as well.  This will be a continual work in progress, I have to admit.  Watching my shows is a part of “normalcy” for me.  

What does “normalcy” mean for a full-time RVer? Well, for me, it’s walking daily as I did in my prior life.  It’s cooking in our kitchen many recipes that are our favorites.  We’ve been cooking a lot being in the Quartzsite area as there are not a lot of great places to eat Other than the usual pizza places, a couple of Mexican restaurants, diners, fast food, etc.  That has really helped us decide to cook and grill more.  Thank goodness as it has saved us calories and money.

Another “normal” thing we do is relax outside as the weather here is pretty great.  We are both avid readers which makes our afternoons so enjoyable.  I always thought when I retired I was going to read all the books in my “to read” list.  I’m on a roll.

This week we enjoyed meeting with our new friends Ray and Angie in Quartzsite for the day, walking through an art and craft show. Jerry has been wanting a walking stick, which he was so excited to find. We grabbed some lunch and just enjoyed their company. We are meeting them this weekend in Wickenburg, AZ, which is about 70 miles away for Gold Rush Days.

They have actually left our area and are now boondocking (dry camping without hook-ups) in Wickenburg.  Jerry is so excited about going to the Rodeo and getting his cowboy on.  Keep an eye out for pics next week!  

The park had a yard sale on Friday, which means people could set up a table and sell their “treasures”.  Jerry took advantage of that and sold more of his stuff to help lighten the load.  He did quite well, I must say.  I was in charge of marketing, aka walking around the park telling everyone to come to our site.  It was a team effort.

Jerry spent an afternoon with Karl (our neighbor who is from Alaska wintering here) helping him map out our trip to Alaska, which we are embarking on in 2023.  We enjoyed trying a couple of restaurants in the area with Karl and Sandy who have been here since November.  They have been so great helping us figure out the park and the surroundings.  The number one best part of being in a park for a long time, is the people we meet and the friends we make.  

We talked Karl and Sandy into joining us to play bingo. They have a weekly bingo game in the rec room at the park. It was quite hysterical. Check out this week’s Vlog to find out how we did. We will, for sure, do that again. We really laughed so much that night!

Feb 9th was a very sad day for me.   It is the anniversary of my mother’s passing two years ago.  She was 95. That was a tough day, I must say.  I didn’t think I was going to be so emotional that morning, but I was.  The nice thing is Jerry kept me busy and we had lunch with Karl and Sandy.  I was able to share with them about my mom which really helped me get through the day.  Being able to make friends we feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable with has been such a blessing. 

On a lighter note, another “fun” thing I did this week was getting our taxes together.  That took all day.  It’s going to be an interesting year of filing for us since we lived half the year in CA and “lived” the other half in SD.  Our gal, Pam, is so excited to be working on this return… NOT!   

I know many of you are asking about our mail and how we get it. I have explained this in the past, but it is the most asked question. We belong to the Escapees RV Club who has a wonderful mail service. Our mailing address is in Livingston, TX. When we are in a location for a long time, I call them and have them send all of our mail, or with tax info I have been having them scan and email to me. Many tax forms are being scanned and emailed! Thank goodness for Escapees! The great feature of Black Rock Villages RV Park, where we are staying, is they have a mail room which has allowed us to do a lot of shopping on Amazon.

We’re still learning to adjust to this new type of normal as we are both very new to this retirement life.  It’s ok for us not to have anything to do.  That is NOT normal for us.  We are working on this in a big way.  I know, for both of us, this will take a while.  Waking up in the morning and saying, “what are we doing today?”  when we have no plans is such a strange feeling for us.  But, hey, we will conquer this, trust me!!!!  

Just One More…..day to read (one of my favorite things to do)