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Here's a chance for you to contribute or ask questions.
From a former neighbor (and good friend) of ours in Virginia, who now lives in Florida
The photos and journal entries were great. Sounds like 2006 is off to a wonderful start. Hopefully, you will get the card
and photo I sent to the RV park. Wow...are you situated on the edge where you took the pictures? One of the most memorable
family vacations that we took was a flight to Las Vegas, drive to San Juan Capistrano (Kevin had a West Coast office there)
and then we drove up to San Francisco. It was during Krisityn's 16th birthday. Kevin had a trip to SF for a show so we really
tagged along. I was really taken by our trip north. We did take a little trip west to see Pebble Beach and take the 17 mile
drive.
We passed through Monterey and the seals were in abundance there. On our last day in SF, we took a guided tour across the
GG bridge in an open air restored fire truck..They provided us with fireman gear including scarves and gloves. (We were there
in July by the way) There was no fog on the bridge and we drove through Presidio too. The husband and wife that owned the
truck also lived in a restored firehouse in SF that has been featured on HG tv. Once across the bridge, we went underneath
to a park and took lots of pictures. The "city" experience was scary for the kids with the homeless people all on the sidewalks
but we still managed to walk to the Old Navy anchor store and the huge Nordstroms. The kids also enjoyed the Exploritorium
Science Museum...very hands on...One other place we stayed on that trip was at the Inn at Harris Ranch near Hanford CA. It
is a working cattle ranch and boy did it stink when we got out. In the daylight, all you could see was black heads...tomorrows
dinner!! Kevin's sister and her husband were stationed not too far from there at Lemore Naval Base. Bert was a flight instructor
there for a while. They said that it was in the middle of nowhere and they were right. I still am surprised at the mountains
there.
Better go...Again, I don't know how you are traveling to catch the cruise but we are close to 295 or 95. The Port Canaveral
area is very well marked so you shouldn't have a hard time getting there.
Take care. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Linda
From a school-mate of Dale's from Streetsboro, Ohio
Jan 23,2006
What a great bunch of places you've been, it's getting more tempting
each time I look at your site. We looked at the Teton camper, just a little too much on our budget. They sure are awesome
campers, though! If you ever hear of one for sale, probably used would be all we could afford, let us know.
My husband and I sure have enjoyed your website, and love all the
good information you have shared for everyone,as well as the photos!
Thank you so much, you are just great, and we readers are grateful
for all your time and effort.
Ricki
Ricki,
Thanks for the kind words about our site -- really
glad you enjoy it. We really do like the quality of our Teton, but they can get expensive. We originally wanted
to buy a 2-3 year old combination (truck plus 5th wheel), but couldn't find one which had the features we wanted. So
we ended up buying a used truck (2 year old Freightliner Sportchassis with only 21,000 miles) and ordering a new Teton from
the dealer in Casper Wyoming. But there are some great deals out there if you have the patience and time.
Here's the Teton Club website, which also has a
section for used Tetons, plus some combination packages, too. Hope you find it interesting. http://www.tetoners.org/
The below is not a picture of our Teton
(ours is white with burgundy and other colors/stripping), but is similar (which I got from the above website), and it shows
a Sportchassis truck -- a medium duty truck, not a semi. If you don't get the heaviest or biggest RV (ours weighs 20,000
pounds filled to the max allowable), then there are some heavier duty pickups (such as Ford F-450 or 550, or Chevy Duramax)
that will do the trick. But be sure to know the max towing capability of the truck you are interested in, no matter
what brand of RV you get. Most truck salesmen will tell you whatever you want to hear to make the sale, maybe because
most of them really don't know what they are talking about, unfortunately... Plus, you should probably give yourself
about a 10 percent margin less than the max the truck is rated for, so you are not pushing the limit on the truck all
the time when towing -- easier on the transmission, engine, and brakes...
Hope this helps. Take care!
Dale
From: Glenn Peterson
Sent: Jul 8, 2004 9:35 PM
To: ankroms2@mindspring.com
Subject:
In just a few years I will be retiring and we plan to become full-time RVers then
using our Travel Trailer. I am computer literate and would appreciate ANY information gleaned from your experience.
How do you pay your bills? How do you get mail when on the road all the time? What is the best way to
get email? Is it best to join a camper club? What should be the essentials since there is only so much room?
How do you decide where to maintain a residence? Don't you still have to pay state taxes somewhere?
We have property taxes, how do they compute that when the only thing we will have is our Travel Trailer? Anything you
can suggest is appreciated.
Glenn Peterson
Hi, Glenn,
Wow! Your questions cover a LOT of bases! We learned about Full-timing
from reading lots of books, and talking to everyone we could meet who have done this--and there are a LOT of us out there!
Have you read Barb and Ron Hoffmeister's book, Movin' On? And you might also want to check out several of the website
links we have on our site. We learned SO MUCH from RVers Online. We planned our great escape for about 8 years,
until we finally DID it!
Well, we'll take a stab at answering some of your questions. This
might take a couple of e-mails...oh, by the way, sorry this has taken so long to answer you. We are travelling with
our grandsons right now, and didn't check this e-mail as regularly as we should. Also, would you mind if we use your
letter on our site?
First of all, about the computer. There are several options.
We travel with a laptop, so one way (our least favorite) is to get on line at a campground that offers modem hook-up.
We have found that most usually, that "modem hook-up" is their extra phone line in the office, that they also use as the line
for their Visa/Mastercard machine...so they want you to keep it to 5 or 10 minutes. If all you need to do is send and
receive e-mail, that can be adequate. For our purposes, we have found that getting on line using our cell-phone, is
the answer. We have our cell service with Verizon, and we have the National Plan. For $59 (actually $65, with
all the taxes they add on) we have 800 minutes a month, plus unlimited nights and weekends. We only get online during
weekends, and after 9 PM. Now, for this, you have to buy a cable from Verizon to connect your cell to your computer,
and that costs about $75. For some reason, we got it on sale for $35. The connection is SLOW, but reliable,
so we are happy with it. And for us, the third solution is out of reach at present...we have friends who bought the
two way satellite Internet dish, which costs about $6000, and you have to pay $100 a month for the service! Probably,
eventually these prices will come down.
A word about using your cell-phone as your ONLY phone. We found that
in the first year, we often exceeded our minutes, and the rate of "extra" minutes is really exorbitant. So now, we call
the number *611, and check how many minutes we've used. When we come close to our maximum, we turn the cell off during
the day. Our kids can still leave us a message, and we turn the phone back on at 9PM, check our messages, and return
calls then, during free time.
We have also found that we often are camped in places remote enough that
cell phone service is spotty or non-existant. We recently bought a cell-phone booster and external antenna on both our
car and our RV, and it has helped tremendously. We are going to add the name of Norman Nielsen, who sold us the antenna
and booster, to our website when we get online again.
Ah, lets see, there is another option that I forgot to mention...Verizon
also has a high speed Internet via the cell phone. It costs about $80 a month, and does not come off your minutes (
in other words, you also have to pay for your cell phone minutes used). However, again, it is usually only near big
cities...and we are not usually THERE!
All right, this e-mail is long enough. I will try to address your
other questions in separate e-mails! Hope this helps.
Dale & Kate
Hi, Glenn,
Part two of our answers to your questions. We made MOST of our bills
automatic bill paying from our checking account, such as life and auto insurance, supplemental medical insurance (my husband
is retired military, so our primary insurance is Tricare, and our supplement is MOAA)Verizon Cell Phone. Explorer RV
Insurance will take it out automatically, but they will notify us first. We do online banking through our Credit Union,
with a secure website. We use our debit card to get cash, usually only in $300 increments, to avoid the surcharge of
using other ATM's, also for nearly all of our other purchases, which makes it easy for tracking our budget. We use SUB-accounts
(accounts which we can name, allied with our main account), and when his pay is deposited once a month, we devide it into
the sub-accounts. We made a budget where we figure that we will need so much money a year for things like Truck and
RV maintenance, Licenses, Insurance, Vacation and Christmas/gift account, and we deposit those amounts on the first of the
month. Then, if we have to buy tires, or get the brakes fixed, etc, we simply transfer that amount. My husband
and I don't like to worry about where the money is coming from. It's THERE. Minimizes the pain of surprises along
the way....
We get our mail through Alternative Resources (see the links), which is
a mail forwarding service in South Dakota. We use their address (which gives us residency in SD--so State income tax),
and twice a month (or whatever you arrange), they will forward it to wherever we call and ask them to. I think RVers
ONline,(see links) has a link to a site that discusses the many pros and cons of choosing a state of residence. We lived
in SD at one time in our military career, and so kept it as our state of residence from then on, so felt very comfortable
with this. We also have our driver's license through SD, cell phone number, and Absentee Voting ballots, so that helps
in filling all the requirements of residency. We travel full-time, and have no other home in any state, so this meets
the requirements of SD residency. SD is very easy to work with in establishing residency, and Alternative Resources
has been very helpful in providing information and forms needed.
More later...
Dale & Kate
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