Postponed And Walter

I have spent most of the day looking out this window, with temps borderline between shutting the windows and turning on the AC or keep them open with the AC turned off and a slight cool breeze at 75° but with 90% humidity. It is 2:30pm central time when I write this. After spending all day on Wordpress, trying to get a free blog set up like I use to have, I feel like the whole day is wasted and in fact "Postponed". Rain off an on, lots of reading on forums to find the Wordpress answer and still waiting for "Staff" expertise.

I Was More Than Bored Today

Today was like any other day but for some reason I couldn't settle on anything to do. Siesta, Mahjong, reading books, tried a movie and didn't finish, sat outside, tried watching taped ballgames, read some online stuff about AVS, not much interest in anything. I was able to drag the box from Chewy from the front porch to the kitchen. I lifted the 40# bag of kibble with nothing but my arms and felt no signs of pain or stress on the new hip. Some different soreness on what I would call the top of the femur so I haven't tried to walk. I assume it's the bone attempting to grow onto the new hip. Just a blah day ... so I listed some photos below.

There will be better days than today in the Wild West.

I'm Taking a Vacation From Blogging

A couple of things.

I'm not sure that I am going to renew my current domain name: houndsandrvs.com when it expires sometime in September. Currently it redirects to my original blogspot domain. If you decide you want to continue to follow this blog in case there are changes down the road you will need to change your bookmark address to this domain name:  bhounds.blogspot.com. That will be the blog address if I decide not to renew my current domain name.

There isn't much going on in my life since I have basically finished my research of RVs and currently have no plans to travel. I find it hard to write about everyday living when the intent of the blog was to write about researching RVs and then writing about my travels. I can't honestly say if those travels will take place or not, even after almost three years this October.

I am also finding my retirement life is nothing exciting and definitely not anything to write about to send out for the public to read. It is basically what I expected it would be if I chose to live here after retiring. Things are good but slow. There is really nothing to read here when the highlight of the week is mowing the yard or washing a car.

Because of that I have decided I am going to take a blog vacation.

Every Day is the Same

{Editor's Note: The trailer in the three photos sold today about two hours after I posted them.}

More and more I am finding each day of the week is basically about the same. As much as I hate to admit it, things are turning into a boring rut again, with very little motivation to make changes. My days are not much more than staying up later, waking up an hour later, reading blogs during my two cups of homemade Starbucks coffee in the morning and then more internet surfing than I intend, the rest of the day.

At times that bothers me.

At times I think of that type of mentality while traveling. What would I do in a location where I would become bored? Would I pack up and get ready to move to a new location? Then spend the time it would take to set up a new site? I sense some of the bloggers I follow are bored based on where they are located, but they never tell you that.

It is said that is one advantage of the RV lifestyle, if you get bored with the scenery, location etc, you just pack up an move somewhere else. That also takes time at both ends of the trip.

Even when I lived in some great areas of the USA, I remember there being times just like these. It's hard to believe you would feel this way living on the beach, Carlsbad Blvd in Carlsbad Calif and feel this way. Or out in the country between Oak Harbor Wa and Coupeville Wa on Whidbey Island, just around the corner from Fort Ebey SP, that I would have feelings of boredom. The few months I lived in Breckenridge Co, was nothing but work and skiing....so there wasn't a lot of boredom.

I have found though, this feeling has increased with aging. I'm not thrilled with it nor am I happy with myself of falling into this daily routine. I know all the standard answers. I know how I have to turn off everything and get started doing something, even anything. I know if I were to start in one room and downsize some more, that would probably get everything in motion again. I could move from room to room. Most of the downsizing has been done, with very little left to downsize. I have become so lazy recently that even the thought of going to buy groceries is an issue.

I have found nothing in my life that is stressful nor anything that is a concern, leading to this feeling. Everything is going smoothly without any problems. So I am not really sure of the lack of activity on my part.

I find it really strange at times, with all I have, all the choices I have and the freedom to do them ... that I would end up feeling this way day after day.

Today I have been looking online at trailers for sale, even the older motorhomes again. I've been reading forums, checking Craig's List and still drying to decide on a couple of trailers I've had my eye on. Still no decisions. I love those big old motorhomes, but I have nowhere to park it when it's not on the road and the fear of it being a money pit.

Trailers are for sale are everywhere. There is not a lot of difference in price compared to location. I have a couple I really like, but still undecided.

I've lost interest in watching MLB baseball, lost that last month or so. I have no interest in the NFL pre-season, even though I consider myself a football fan.

The photographs of people traveling in Washington, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico keep drawing me to traveling. Then I see Winston having trouble getting up two small steps into the house after he gets outside.

Nothing has changed in my RV decisions.

I think I'm going to take a drive in the Mini Cooper, get out of town for a few hours.

Indiana Fall - Nothing Going On

Today would be one of those days we would be camped out inside the rig, it looks like the PNW has arrived in southern Indiana today....dark, light constant rain. The coffee is hot, the hounds are back to sleep wrapped up in sleeping bags and a full schedule of college football is planned.

I feel myself slowly migrating to my own winterizing, by hibernating in the house preparing for a winter that is a month to two months away. Another words nothing is going on to blog about, besides a normal daily life. It's the job during the week, a daily dog walk in the afternoon, some reading at night, time on the internet and then to bed with the windows open in mid 40's temps.

This time of year I find perfect in Indiana. The days are sunny, clear and temps in the mid 70's. Can't feel the humidity if there is any. The leaves are turning colors slowly but this year they are a dull color, nothing vibrant, that makes people drive a lot of miles to observe the bright colors.

Last weekend was out of the ordinary for my schedule as I was helping a friend out that had a family emergency. Still besides the rig repair a few weekends ago I find myself having just enough time to finish the odds and ends around the house. It's those typical weekends when you have a job during the week and are a homeowner. There is always something that has to be done, like errands, recycling runs, dog vet trips, yard work, and maybe some preventive maintenance on the house.

The camping urge has seemed to disappeared. Is it time to winterize the rig?

After backing out of buying the Lil Snoozy trailer in September, I mentioned I had no plans to buy a trailer or any rig until I was getting ready to leave in the spring of 2014. I said and thought that because why would I buy a rig in the fall and then have to park it all winter for lack of use? I can only justify my earlier than planned purchase with a few reasons. The rig condition was the best I had seen in the used rigs I had looked at over the past couple of years. It had everything I needed, plenty of room for the hounds and I. It was local (not planned) so that saved me a lot of money in gas driving it home or shipping charges if I were to have bought it out of state. I was able to look through the rig before purchase and make a decision instead of traveling many miles to see it in person.

Those are some of the reasons that keep me from second guessing an earlier than planned purchase.

I must admit, at times I do wonder if I made the right decision in making the purchase earlier than I had planned. At times I feel like selling it. Then I sit inside the rig and think about my plans for the spring of 2014. I have re-inspected every nook and corner inside and out. It always feels good spending time in the rig. The hounds love being inside it, each of them have their own spots now. It feels good when I picture the rig moving down the back highways heading west. When I think of the places I am going to go, pictures of places of the people I follow on the sidebar and some old places I have been to in previous travels ... It's during the times I spend inside the rig that I know I have made the right decision in making a purchase earlier than I had planned.

The rig is in great shape. More than enough storage for just one person, plenty of room for two or three 40# bags of dog food, good size tanks, a TempurPedic mattress to sleep on and enough windows to enjoy the scenery when having to camp inside like we would be doing today.

Even with conflicting urges of hibernation like usual this time of year in the midwest and a slight urge of "hitch itch" .... all is good.  Patience is required right now and that's always a hard thing for me. Next spring can't get here soon enough.

It's great to see all of the movement from the travelers I follow, each going somewhere different based on their needs/urges. I just need to get out there and join them because I would feel a lot better.

Have a great weekend.

A productive Weekend

Amazing sometimes how fast things can change. I was sitting here at my Saturday morning with a cup of coffee, reading blogs, sports, news, looking at trailers, rvs, and extreme vehicles. I looked at the room I was in with all my stuff ready to go to the recycling center...so I made that trip to the recycling center. Then I went through my closets another time and left only the bare minimum I would need for work plus my jeans, shorts and tshirts...everything that I had not worn in a while, went into a bag and went to goodwill after hours.

I came back from the 25 mile drive, one way, and started to clean the rest of the afternoon and felt this energy and motivation come over me like I had been missing in the past few weeks, then had the inside of the house looking more like a "presentable view" instead of the "lived in view". My ballgame tipped off at 7:30pm, so I left for that, came back and got some sleep earlier than normal.

Sunday, it was mid 30's but clear and sunny so I went outside to do some work on my bank, picked up limbs from the high winds a few weeks ago and then did a general inspection of the outside of the house for potential repairs...there were none to do. That short time of doing little yard stuff I realized I dreaded doing what would be needed to maintain the yard and landscaping. After all, there has to be more to life than doing that over and over and over every year.

All during this time of cleaning, throwing away stuff and working outside today, I kept thinking of what I was really feeling and what I was wanting to do if money was no option, jobs were no option and the only thing I had was free time.

That answer had me traveling full-time and not here doing the weekly routine things of laundry, lawn work, and looking for something to do while my friends still were working. I thought of RVsue out in Arizona, Glenn's first couple of years of traveling and all the neat stories he wrote about. Then WheelingIt driving that 38' Class A out into the desert with their solar panels and boondocking. I thought of the summer I spent traveling cross country and then up the west coast on with a bicycle, a tent and sleeping bag.

All of this was what excited me, just like it did in October of 2011.

I thought of the times I had moved from the beach in Southern California in 1984 to Whidbey Island Washington up in the San Juan's and how nice it would be to spend just the summers up on the NW instead of the high 90's here with even that high of humidity. Or the times I drove from Reno Nevada down 395 to Southern California and remembering how beautiful that drive was. Then the time I spent the winter during a a ski season in Breckenridge Colorado....I enjoyed all of those places to the max.

Here, is yard work, after I hopefully surviving tornado season, cold winters that I do not want to experience when I'm older and a general feeling of boredom after being here for 16 yrs this month.

Everyone said this weekend, after mentioning to them "I might sell my house", either knew someone that would be interested, some that said "I always liked that house" and an real estate agency wanting to list it if I did decide to sell it, saying they knew of interested people.

With all of those people saying that, plus what I had done this weekend of getting my ass in gear, I knew there was a reason that the thought of rving full-time had never gone away even after several attempts of pushing it out of my thoughts for months at a time. I knew what my gut was telling me was the right course of action and it was time to make it happen.

So when I get home from work tomorrow, I will continue to knock something else off my "to do list", plus I have a few things to work on for even a better look and then the for sale sign is going in the front yard ... but not until I get those things done.

If things don't work out on the road, I'll sell what I have and look for a new residence somewhere out west, small town, where the weather is nice enough all year round to ride my bicycles, hike or soak up some sun.

I feel better already with my thought process. Last week was just a bummer of a week with some of the news I had received.

Now back to finding something to buy to live in on the road.

After A Day of Yard Work

I did some things yesterday that I would put under "house maintenance", that I would not be doing if I were RVing full-time. I am sitting here, almost 9am, feeling the heat building from the outside ... wondering if I can spend another day working on my latest yard project.

Through a suggestion of a friend a few years ago, I laid River Rock in the flower beds in front of my house, with no border. Yesterday I bought what border was left at the local landscaping biz and had enough to do one section in front of my house.  Wasn't bad, dug out only dirt, inserted the brick borders and covered with Cypress mulch around my Yews I put in last fall.

Now the work begins. I have 25' x 4' of River Rock bed to take out and move to the back side of the house. Then dig out to put in the brick border, level them and dig out dirt from the bed and level that. Put the black material for preventing weeds  (does the stuff ever work) and then cover with more Cypress mulch.

It's going to be 90 today and yesterday 86-88 felt like the end of the world while I worked outside.

At different times of taking breaks, drinking lots of water and even after a 2 hour mid-day nap ... I kept thinking what it would be like if I were boondocking in my Class A RV (not bought yet) and sitting outside with the hounds in a nice mid 70's atmosphere with little humidity. Wondering where I would be this time of year.

Also wondering what I would do when I become bored while RVing.

What do you full-timers do when boredom hits  you while you are on the road?

When I am bored here, I usually hit the local college town (25 miles away), for bookstores, camping stores and my favorite watering hole for the 12" Stromboli sandwich and then cruise back home to the spot outside of a small town, with 15 acres of hay behind me.

What would I do if I were bored while RVing full-time?  Let me know what you do while traveling and boredom hits.

Well, its shade on the west side (front) of the house, so off I go to start my day of more landscaping.

I wouldn't be doing this if I were full-timing already .... would I?   (laughing)