Thinking Of Past RV Decisions

First of all you will notice the new blog theme. I was looking around this morning at different themes I had found through my Google search and this one, called “Flat” jumped out at me. I’ve looked at hundreds of themes this past week and nothing ‘hit’ me like this one. So along with the permanent move to a hosted site and a domain ending in .net, I also have a theme that I feel will last a long time. Let me know if you have any problems with it loading, reading it on your smart phones and those that have tablets.

~~~ Found the sidebar on the new theme was too hard to read. Some where having problems loading the page. Voted to “go back to the white with red banner” ~~~

I don’t know why or where the thoughts of different RVs struck me but I did a quick journey back through RV Memory Lane. Not all the way but back to the 2013 summer. Long time readers remember that I have changed my mind a million times on motorhomes, trailers, trucks, tow vehicles … the list is long.

I will say that after I did all of this analysis again, I still feel I made the best decision of not selling the house and even not buying a motorhome nor a trailer. I’ll not go into details again about the pros and cons, but my ‘home base’ is paid for, low property taxes, great location and not much more than routine maintenance. As far as trailers or motorhomes go … how would I have been able to handle those last few weeks with Winston? Or fitting a 2nd large tall bloodhound into a small trailer?

So here is a short recap and photos of things I either passed on, bought and sold. In all cases, money had been put down for a purchase and not completed most of the time.

The Summer of 2013 I put a down payment on a refurbished Casita trailer, local seller and a tremendous refurbish job. I backed out of the deal because of the lack of space for a bloodhound and two basset hounds. Now in January 2016, that would be two bloodhounds that would have had to fit inside withe me and Heidi … I would had to sell it. It was a great trailer though, someone got a great deal.

It was sometime in August 2013 I had put a deposit on the 2013 Starcraft AR-ONE 17RD trailer. The only delay was their prepping the trailer for delivery. Those couple of days gave me time to 2nd guess my decision and change my mind. I really liked that trailer, although I am not sure how it would have done as a full-time trailer.

September 2013, Winston, Sadie and Heidi head to Arkansas to pick up the Lil Snoozy Trailer I had decided to buy. Hours before closing the deal I changed my mind and didn’t buy it. You can read about that 586 mile trip here.

It wasn’t 2 weeks later after backing out of the deal on the Lil Snoozy trailer and blogging that I would not travel with 3 hounds … blah blah blah, I turned right around and bought a 2003 Coachman 258db from a local seller. A week after I purchased it, due to a large oil leak, I had to replace the oil lines from the oil filter halfway back to the oil cooler in the radiator. (Thank you YouTube). I let it sit through the winter and sold it the 2nd day of great spring weather.

The day I bought it Sadie, Winston and Heidi gave it a close inspection … decided it was the way to go … it wasn’t long before Sadie used her Bloodhound Property Laws and claimed the couch as hers. That’s Winston in the driver’s seat.

 

 It snowed a lot that winter in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana … It was a good ‘leak test’ for the Class C.

In May 2014, on a whim, I bought a 2006 Chevy 2500 HD 4×4 short bed pickup truck. My friend had just pulled it onto his used car lot for sale, minutes before I stopped by to just visit. With a bigger tow vehicle than the 2006 H3 Hummer I had at the time, I investigated truck campers and larger trailers. I kept this truck for only a month. It was a great truck but when I saw my current 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser for sale online, I traded the truck for the FJ and that put me back int the area of small trailers.

It was toward the end of May in 2014, about a week after getting the Toyota FJ, that I drove up to Northern Indiana to take a look at someone’s Escape 19′ trailer. It wasn’t for sale but that is the way Escape Trailers in Canada work. They will hook you up with someone as close to you as possible, so you can take a look, if you express interest in their trailers. I lost a large deposit on that decision when I backed out of it. Fantastic trailer though. IF I were to buy a trailer in the future, the Escape 19′ or 17′ would be the one.

It was sometime in June 2014 that I came to the conclusion I wasn’t traveling full-time with two basset hounds and a bloodhound. I would continue to downsize here at home, enjoy what I had and the area I lived. I had the feeling of contentment from that point forward. Yes, there have been times those thoughts of traveling come back to the forefront … but never as intense as they were from October 2011 – June/July 2014. We did travel for a week or so last June 2015. It was a great trip and I found out that it is possible with 3 hounds. Although the number of bloodhounds and basset hounds changed since that time.

I guess all of this is like me changing themes (templates) on my blog frequently, only this is not as drastic financially.

Sadie and Stella had a great walk through the field today here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Now What??

Basically the websites of the 3 hounds are up and running. There are a few more things to add to the sidebars but basically the majority of the work is finished. The feeling an ‘ex workaholic” gets when working non-stop is gone.

So, now what?  What’s next?

When I shut down my computer last night I was reminded of the time last June while sitting at the picnic table on a beautiful Colorado day, at Rifle Gap SP, thinking to myself “now what?”

Both seemed to be very similar in feeling but so much different in the task. One was building websites with most of the hard work furnished, so there wasn’t major building involved. It’s not like I was writing code, which I don’t know how to do. Yet, there is a lot of work to get the website/blog designed and working correctly … times 3 or 4 if you count mine.

Whereas in traveling, there was the planning, the packing, getting the hounds situated to travel, non-stop driving, setting up the campsite and then sitting back with a feeling “that’s all finished … now what do I do?”

Weird comparison isn’t it?

Not much was planned for today except watching some college basketball before the two NFL Playoff games play back to back (almost 7 solid hours of football). Not only am I out of high-speed data, using my 1gig yesterday for $10 … but I am also out of food and no motivation to go shopping. The life of being a single sports/computer addict.

Not much of a post today … I guess I need to look through the old photos I have on file and post some here. This blog is more about photos than just plain commentary.

On a side note … traffic reports show that 50% of my blog traffic has deserted me and has moved over to the websites of Stella, Sadie and Heidi, now following the hounds … so much for thinking you and your content were the reason people were coming back to read your blog … lol

It’s was a cold but beautiful sunny day in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana today.

It's Important To Read Not To Glance

In this post I am going to insert some photos that have nothing to do with the subject of this post. Instead of the individual photos in a row, I am going to use the option of putting them into a tile. Let me know which type you like. You can still click each photo within and enlarge them.

When I started yesterday I was wanting to convert all my WP categories into WP tags. They were like tags in my Blogger blog, but WP has tags and then categories which can also have sub-categories. It looked simple to do, shouldn’t take to long … but what started with my mistake led into an all day affair in WP.

I followed the prompts after seeing a tool called ‘category and tag converter’. As I clicked that link it sent me a page with a list of blog sites. I GLANCED at what it said at the top but did not READ it carefully. I am not sure why but it has happened most of my life. It’s where you glance at page but you don’t read the page. That cost me a LOT of time yesterday.

I glanced at the page, saw ‘WordPress’ and clicked the link. While thinking it was strange the next page was asking me to upload my blog .xml file … I played along, downloaded my .xml file and then uploaded it like the prompts wanted.

Then … coincidence came into play. While checking to see what happened after that uploaded file, making sure my blog was still there. I clicked on one of my photos on the newest blog post. Trouble was I couldn’t click on the photo … something that did work before the upload I thought. That was the wrong thought.

So now my focus went from the hows and whys of converting categories to tags … to why aren’t the photos enlarging like before. Now I didn’t have the option of even clicking them. I emailed a couple of friends that were online to see if they saw the same thing. They did.

So I did what I always do when I need answers for almost anything. I searched on Google. That search listed a lot the same questions that I had, but most of them were dated years ago. Time consuming reading. I finally decided to log into WP forum and check there. Couldn’t find anything that was exactly what I was having problems with.

By now though I am reading and not glancing at the pages of information.

Long story short. I had an answer from a WP tech rep. In 15 minutes she has checked my blog, corrected one of the photos to enlarge when clicked and sent me a file that showed me exactly what to do. How’s that for service?

Of course that led to more time but I had a lot of time on my hands while the snow melted outside. I’ve been needing something to keep my mind busy this past week or so and moving my blog to WP came at the right time. Although it was time consuming, I love that kind of work. Maybe I should go back to a two year college and formally study web design or learn how to build apps. For the past 10-11 years of doing stuff like that off and on, I’ve always enjoyed it.

So I have her instructions. I am not thrilled with what I have to do to fix those photos but it is the process of inserting photos that I did not notice. What is interesting ALL of the posts transferred from Blogger, each photo enlarged with a click … just like I wanted.

The mistake of uploading my blog back up files and installing them over my blog that was already there … had nothing to do with the photos issue!! All of that was self-imposed errors because I glanced at a page and didn’t read the page.

The WP process of inserting photos into blog posts does not and will not enlarge the photos automatically like Blogger does. I was told this morning by the same WP tech rep they are working on that automatic function.

There are a few extra steps that will have to be taken every post with every photo. It IS very time consuming, say if you have 8 or more photos you want to insert into your blog post and have them enlarge to beautiful photos when your readers click them. Yet, there is a visible difference in the quality of the photos on a WordPress blog compared to my blog on Blogger.

I like having that option even for myself. Click any of the photos below to enlarge them.

So things are fixed. I would like to learn more about how WP works, so today I will READ not GLANCE at the pages I look at.

I have to run, Stella is howling for lunch to be served.

Warm this morning in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana with dark gray clouds to the west bringing temps in the teens by Sunday with snow tonight.

Oh … that process to convert Categories to Tags … Took less than 2 minutes

A Lazy Weekend

With the winds between 15-20mph from the west, Winston decided the best sleeping spot of the day was outside behind the Mini Cooper. That is one of his favorite spots and one he uses when he is waiting for me to let him inside. He also likes to sit in the sun on that corner and watch the highway traffic.

He looks about the way the weekend felt. Not a lot going on. I've watched some NFL preseason football but never a full game yet. My Reds have finally dropped to last place in the Central Division as expected with a starting pitching rotation of all rookies now. Plus with trades or injuries they are playing 4-5 position players off the bench.

Today though I added the IRL Pocono500 to my viewing pleasure. So as you see it's been pretty anti-climatic once all those weeds were pulled last week. I have had a few sprouts start to come back. So far I can pull any new weed starts as I walk to and from the mailbox down the driveway. The ones like the one pictured have been pulled at the flat top of the drive while the dogs are outside and I am outside to get some fresh air and some sunshine. Whether I can keep up with those new wanna be weeds is yet to be seen.

For Heidi's bath yesterday I decided to pull an old shampoo off the shelf, bought from the vet last fall. It not only has Aloe Vera in it, but oatmeal. So why shampoo her with "grain" if I am not going to feed her grains in her dog food? That's a good question. I've read in some places that Oatmeal in dog food or in this case shampoo may help in spreading a yeast infection ... if that is what she has.

I just wanted a shampoo that was less intense compared to the medicated shampoo that seems to increase her skin rash after it's applied. Surprisingly today, after the bath on Saturday, her skin really looks good. There is softness to it instead of hard crusty and/or red and raw. There is little to no redness anywhere on her skin today. She chewed and itched her skin today a lot less than she normally does. I am going to wait a few days to see  if there continues to be improvement before I post any photos ... but I am encouraged by what I saw today.

Something I should have done a long time ago since I have a spreadsheet for everything else, I made one up for her. I listed the date, skin condition on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being the best and dog food name with ingredients. I've gone back through photos and vet bills to fill in past activity onto the sheet.

I also found out this all started in July 2014, not October as I thought. I found an old Word Doc that I had started as her health journal in July 2014 when I started using the food supplement named Dinovite. This sheet will give me and the vet some sort of reference for future trips to the vet. I had taken notes before or made a point of remembering thing in my head but this spreadsheet will be much better to see when needed.

While I was sitting outside with Sadie, I noticed along the wall of tall trees there was a patch of leaves very high that had already turned yellow. They stood out among all the green colors. You might be able to tell from looking at the leaves that the wind is a strong wind.

The yellow leaves I speak about are towards the upper right corner, halfway between Sadie and the right edge of the photo.

Yellow leaves toward the upper right hand corner

Just barely left of center ... Bad editing by the photographer

As usual in late August things get pretty comfortable here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana. The temperatures start falling, the humidity decreases to levels that are livable and the thought of travel starts disappearing ... until ... you read a blog or blogs where people have broke camp and are heading for a different location or some people are making plans to head to their winter locations. It's readings like that make the fire still glow in the pit of my stomach.

The inner urge to wander takes over. The spreadsheet of options is opened again to look at the pros and cons. The thought process moves in between living comfortable or make and adapt to changes. Yet it's also hard to think of moving 3 hounds when you see them sleeping in their favorite spots on a floor, couch or bed that doesn't include dirt or sand.

Yet the urge to shut everything down and hit the road increases the excitement level ... more than staying comfortable watching football (my addiction), which starts in a couple of weeks.

I'm not sure what will happen.

Another Great Day of Retirement

I've been sitting here today waiting for the grass to dry so I can mow the lawn later this afternoon. It's tall as usual this time of year and with the light rain early this morning it's not dry yet. It just proves that when you are retired things do not matter. If something is not done one day it can be done the next or another day.

A lot has happened this past year, nothing major, no problems but just the way my life has adjusted to my first year of retirement.

I had no doubts I would NOT miss work and I haven't. If I wasn't traveling, I am doing what I pictured I would be doing if I decided to stay around the house and the local area.

All the plans for traveling and the reasons for delaying them have been discussed in past posts.

My daily activity is not much different than what I have done for years while working. The only difference is, what I spend all day, every day doing now I use to do during weekends and when I had time off from my job. It seems like a lot of my time I do nothing and that's fine with me. It just doesn't matter to me, nothing is scheduled nor prioritized. Sure there are things I want to get done around the house, some things I need to get done before going anywhere ... and they are getting done, just at a slow pace.

I use to be a workaholic, rarely took vacations, worked on days off and at home. Still deep inside I knew I could and would adapt to be someone would slow their pace down to almost nothing. There are days I follow the same schedule as my hounds do ... eat a little, sleep a lot.

Through the help of my Excel spreadsheets I've always kept that track my monthly spending and a book I read a few years ago called You Don't Need a Million Dollars to Retire, I have been able to adjust my lifestyle this past year and my spending from the days of working a stressed out job to daily routine of relaxation and leisure.

Sure, there is always unexpected expenses and there always will be. Mine have been small amounts  compared to others. They were no more than the cost of vet treatment for Heidi's skin rash/allergies. It seems like a lot of money but is nothing compared to medical bills, car/rv repairs or house repairs that other people are going through. I'm thankful for that and know that I am fortunate my life is what it is.

I have gone past my 1 year anniversary for retiring. I stopped working last year on April 11 and then it was official a couple of weeks later after my company processed what was needed for my departure.

At the time of the exit interview I had just bought a 2006 Chevy 2500HD 4x4, with plans of purchasing a larger trailer and was deciding on a trailer around 19'-21'. It was a great pickup truck, short bed, crew cab, plenty of room for me and hounds and enough power to tow about anything I wanted.

At times it felt like it was too big for me and when thinking of adding another 20' feet behind it ... I had doubts that was what I really wanted to do.

Within 4 weeks after buying that truck I saw a Toyota FJ Cruiser for sale that had low miles, one owner that had it serviced on a regular basis at the Toyota dealership. Of course that would put me back into the range of small fiberglass trailers 16' and/or the converted cargo trailer option. It was a costly move but one I'm glad I made.

Still that smaller vehicle was going to put me further off the grid to camp and a vehicle that would get me further off-road when exploring the local area.

It must have been the right rig to buy because for the first time in almost 15 years, I have not had the urge to look at other vehicles online, buy, sell or trade it. I've been happy with the two vehicles I have and that says something after the amount of cars and trucks I have bought, sold over the past 15 years. The only thing I have noticed though since retirement, I rarely drive anywhere. When I reported my annual mileage for my car insurance, which decreased my premiums, I thought they might have a really hard time believing the mileage I was telling them.

Luckily with my addiction to spreadsheets, I already had a spreadsheet made, where I take the odometer reading the first day of each month, recording the monthly mileage of each vehicle. I know those miles will increase later but since last June, it is consistent and extremely low.

So if you have read this far, you must be asking yourself where is this leading to ... what is so "great" about today? Nothing really, except I am not in the long line of traffic every afternoon that passes in front of my house, of those that work where I use to work. That is the "great" thing about today and every day ... a job is not soaking up my time and after a year plus two weeks, I am still able to do what I want when I want. To me, that's a fantastic thing to have.

I have not missed spending money on a whim. I do miss the dollar amount of those checks I use to get electronically deposited in my account every two weeks, but I really like the trade off of dollars for time. Time seems to be much more valuable and is much more enjoyable.

For those readers that may be on the fence, trying to decide how much longer to work, it's doable to retire and live on less money than you planned on having. It's doable if you have as many things as possible paid off. It's also doable if you have a few monthly expenditures and can control your spending.

Enough about wasting days away retired.

As you can see from the photos, Heidi has decided to come out of her hibernation and enjoy the good weather outside. From day one when I picked her up 4 hours away at the Basset Hound Rescue in 2010, she has always been a true homebody and will spend the majority of her time inside the house, no matter how nice it is outside. Plus she loves to sleep more than any other hound I have had since 1987.

The other two, Winston and Sadie love being outside. Winston will sleep in the sun unleashed, while Sadie will roam the field in back connected to a rope to prevent her from taking off chasing deer, rabbits, squirrels, birds or butterflies. She will sniff every inch of that hay field. The length of the rope is long enough where she can reach the back of the field near the woods.

One thing I have noticed. When I am sitting outside enjoying the day, the sun, sometimes the cool breeze and they have all those acres of open field to move around in ... they either sit or lay in the grass within 6' of where I am sitting. If I move my seat, they follow me and stay within 6' of me. They don't get too far away from me if I am sitting outside.

That makes me think they would all do well at a campsite boondocking. I have made each of them a 20' lead that can be connected to my FJ bumper, to a stake or a cable run when traveling. They have also passed the nighttime test sleeping with the windows open and a lot of animal noises nearby, such as dogs barking, or coyotes howling. Things that wake me up do not wake them up. That's another good sign for their future in traveling.

I think right now it's down to a couple of things for use to get sorted out ... the process of all three of them wanting to get out of the FJ at the same time when the door opens in back. Then the process of me controlling three 6' dog leashes with two hands and keeping them from wrapping them around my legs like on the trip in September 2013.

Sadie has no issues jumping in and out of the back of the FJ like she did with the H3 Hummer I had on the September 2013 trip. She has even jumped into the FJ that was full of groceries when I have opened the door after returning home from the store. She never did that when I had the Hummer. The two bassets have to be lifted in and out of course due to their short legs. They would jump out but that isn't good for Winston's bad back and both basset's knees. I have a ramp picked out to buy for them to use. It's retractable and can be easily stored.

So once again it's that time of  year where the travel 'bug' is with me. Some things with the hounds have been figured out and tested with positive results. I know the two kinds of weather I don't care for but put up with are "hot and humid" and "freezing cold" ... those are looking like travel times.

We will see.

Good Weather Makes the Mind Wander

I actually believe that winter is officially over here in the 'tropics' of Southern Indiana. It's 58° right now on a bright sunny Sunday and a forecasted high of 68°. Although in past years I have seen weather like this in mid-March and have a snow storm weeks later ... in this case I am believing the "global warming" stories and am planning that the 2015 spring is here for good.

Not a lot going on as usual. Not really a lot to blog about, so this is just a short update for the past few weeks.

About 10 days ago when the snow was so high, Heidi did what she rarely does, she peed on the concrete. That was a blessing in disguise. As I was about to pour water over the urine to get it off the concrete, I see a puddle of blood in her urine. This poor basset hound is having a rough winter.

By the next morning we were at the vet to check that out. She had a urinary tract infection and the vet said it was not surprising with all she is going through. With a weak immune system, the infection didn't surprise him. He sold me some Baytril tables that she ate like candy for the next 10 days. Within 24 hours of the first two tablets, she was back to her normal self sprinting around the house after her first trip outside in the morning. I could tell she was already feeling much better.

The vet was happy with the improvement she saw on her skin. This is not clearing up her skin as fast I want nor as the Atopica did back in November and part of December. At times she looks like she is improving and by the end of the night, she looks no better than last October when this skin rash mess started.

Very frustrating to say the least.

The weekly shots of RESPIT are increased on schedule by .1ml until we get up to the 1ml weekly injection. Basically that is an immune program that fights all allergies that are geographic location specific. It will take almost 140 days before any improvement will be noticed. Still, it is not damaging to her kidneys or liver that long term steroids would do nor the reports of what long term Atopica would do. So I guess the wait is worth it, even though that is hard to do.

We have just passed week 6 of the treatment or as of today it's day 46 days out of 140 before noticeable results.

Would her skin problem heal or be a potential problem with location changes, environmental changes, while traveling?

Temperatures are getting high enough for me to finish the last few things on my list of house 'to do'. These things on the list have been held off until the temps get warmer. There are a couple of things I will have to wait until the ground dries out. The ground is extremely saturated with the melted snow and then two days of rain this past Thursday night and all day Friday. I'm not thrilled about getting under the house to inspect, especially with a rising water table. It's not a crawl space under there but a huge dirt hole about 4' deep and I have seen it after there are heavy rains.

As every spring, improving weather generates mind cell activity. I start thinking of traveling, and it has happened every spring since 2012. Of course two of those three years I was still working, so it wasn't possible long term. Last year I was very close with the Chevy pickup truck I had bought and the search for the right trailer. I only kept that truck for a month and a half before buying what I really wanted ... the Toyota FJ Cruiser 4x4. I still love that vehicle.

I still cannot understand why it seems to be so important what I do or don't do to some readers of this blog. I've always done what I want, not what someone else tells me to do, even at work. I've never followed the path of the yellow brick road and white picket fences around the 2-car garage house... or even the plans required to move up the corporate ladder. All of my moves have been location/recreation first ... job second. That is until this last move back to Indiana in 1994, that was job related. Even then I've pretty much followed my own path.

Based on just a few past comments and emails I have received, my traveling decision seems to be more important to them than me ... I find that very strange.

So, yes I am talking and thinking of traveling again ... dogs and all. I am also seriously considering selling the house and moving west and have thought of that most of the winter. I just need to complete those 2-3 things on the 'to do' list that I've been needing warm weather to complete. Then I can turn the house over to an real estate agent. I don't need to be around to sell the house. With no mortgage payment, I can leave the house empty, put my furniture, computers and bikes in storage and hit the road. They can show and sell the house empty. That seems to be my most consistent thought.

I still think it would be a quick sell based on price, size and location. There are not a lot of good quality houses around here in the price range of the asking price. It would make a great house for a young or older couple. The area has extremely low property taxes and the house requires little maintenance but more than I am wanting to do. I'm just not into the normal house maintenance that is required with ownership.

I've looked at willow.com, realty.com and houses.org for houses in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah recently. Once again I can't really make a decision where to go until I could get there and check the areas out. I am also not sure I want to be a homeowner once my house would sell. I'll decide that later.

I had a friend wanting to buy my Mini Cooper and all was looking good until she couldn't find someone to give her a loan. That seemed strange to me because she works where I did and is paid well. Two income family with two kids and a house. After she later told me that she had just had transferred $20,000 of credit card debt to a loan, the answer was pretty obvious.

The Mini Cooper will sell quick after I detail it, get the winter grime off of it, park it down by the highway for all to see with a for sale sign on it. I will also list it on Craig's List. Over the past few months of my blogging vacation and reduced computer time, things have getting downsized again, some detailed inch by inch house cleaning, and some minor repairs fixed.

Computer time has still stayed low. I survived the winter using little heat as possible, thus heading for a big refund in May for overpayment of my utility bills. I pay a fixed amount every month and then settle up every May. My vehicle license plates are due in April as well as my property taxes ... so basically all of the small stuff will be taken care of for the year before I hit the road.

Before next spring I would expect that my legal residence would change. With my military retirement health plan, TriCare, luckily ObamaCare is not an issue for me. With that not being a factor I can still have about any state I want as a legal residence for full time traveling.

All I know is I am tired and have been of the daily routine living where I do and the responsibilities of home ownership.

Not a Lot To Blog About

One thing that has changed since I retired in April, the hounds get to go outside a lot more than when I was working. They also seem to like to go outside at the same times day and night. Just recently Heidi has been going outside every time the other two go outside and that's a good thing. Just this past summer she rarely got off of her dog bed on the floor and usually that was just to move to the couch.

But she is evidently feeling better now because not only does she go outside even for short trips, she is barking at 4pm every day to be fed.

It may take some coaxing to get her to get off the couch and go on the daily walk but once she starts the walk, she insists that she be the leader of the walk and will do anything to keep in front of Sadie to maintain the lead.

Little does she know that Sadie could care less who leads. Sadie is only conscious of what scent is in front of her nose and yesterday it was good I had her on a leash, the deer scents were stronger than normal.

Winston on the other hand is getting older and consequently is needing to go out more times than this time last year. I can tell that his aging process seems to have increased this past year and in a way that is a sad thing.

He will also put his nose to the ground as soon as he steps outside. He is stubborn, will not listen if a scent has him busy and is slow in everything he does. He is on his own clock and will not move faster no matter how much I voice commands.

In this picture around noon today he is enjoying a cool 65°. His favorite position is laying on the concrete in the sun and will spend hours sleeping, at times so long that I forget that he is outside.

Sadie have has never liked having her picture taken. I was able to when she was just a few months old, but after that she would turn her head or take off running. She definitely does not like the camera.

In this case I took eight different photos trying to catch her looking at me and every time at the last split second she would turn her head.

She might not like cameras but she LOVES outdoors. She loves going outside, will stay out for a while or there will be times that she will want to come back inside two minutes after wanting to go outside. She never barks but will just stand still until I come outside to find her.

She will even sit sometimes in the field not moving, thinking she is stuck or her rope is tangled up. The funny thing is, she is not on the rope that is anchored. The one time she was attacked by the neighbor's dog, she just sat down and didn't move while the other dog was moving around her in circles barking.

All of these photos were taken today around noon with an iPhone 5S.

It's another beautiful day here in the 'tropics' of southern Indiana. It was all weekend actually and it is the norm for this time of year, yet it's strange seeing all the different kinds of weather hitting other parts of the USA, the fires in California, flooding in Arizona and tornadoes yesterday in Michigan. Still very nice here and one of the reasons I hardly have the urge to travel in the fall seasons in the Midwest. Plus it's football season.

Saturday was the normal college football marathon. What can I say, I'm addicted to that sport even though there are still things outside the game I don't like about it. I am hesitant to say what I don't like about the current game because it also spreads into the NFL, and society in general. It would take too long to type and discuss all the different aspects of some sad situations and wold only lead to more discussions on subjects I am tired about hearing in the news.

I'll talk about the games only and not the news outside the games.

My local team (IU) had a major upset at Missouri Saturday. They have a little split personality in them the past couple of years, meaning they can play great one weekend and next weekend they might look like they have never played the game. I'll take the win on Saturday though. Those type of wins are very very rare in football.

I only have one tv but flip back and forth to different games during commercials. I also have my remote set up to a set of sports channels on DirecTv. It's amazing how many games are televised at one time. I don't want to see all of the games but a lot of times there are a couple of games going on at the same time, so I'll record one and then watch it later IF it turns out to be a good game. My Saturday viewing starts at noon eastern time and ends after the late Pac12 game usually around 1:30am Sunday morning. I'm a night person, so there is not a problem with the late finish time.

Sunday I watched only a couple of NFL games. The local Colts games and then a Super Bowl rematch where Denver was in Seattle, a game that went into overtime. Great game to watch.

Some might be asking what do the hounds do during all of these football games? They sleep most of the time which is their normal daily activity. Throughout the day they will have me take them outside, more trips during the day since I am retired. We can usually fit those requests to go outside during commercials and we still do the daily walk either at game halftimes or between games.

Their daily routine is not changed just because I am watching football. It's good they have the room to spread out during the day, each hitting their favorite sleeping spots and those spots do change during the day. That is one thing I think about deciding whether to buy a trailer or not ... the available room. The interesting thing is their sleeping spots are the same every day and change by what time of day it is.

Heidi is feeling much better. She is actually going outside every time the other two hounds go out, where she wasn't during the summer. She hardly got off of her dog bed during the summer, only getting up to move to the couch to continue her sleeping marathons. She takes her time deciding whether to go on the daily walk but then will insist she leads the way once the walk starts.

With all the news about Apple's release of the iPhone 6 and the OS upgrade to 8.0, I am seeing today in the blogs I follow that 8.0 seems to be too frustrating so they are showing people how they can revert back to OS 7.2. I usually wait before upgrading operating systems on my phone or computer and I think I'll still follow that until the bugs are worked out. It's tempting but I'm sticking with the 5s I bought in June. I remember when I decided to renew my contract and upgrade my phone, I had decided not to wait for the iPhone 6. I wasn't sure I would like the size of it.

Really, I have no desire to be carrying a small tablet all the time when I am out and about. In fact I have been tempted recently to selling my 1st generation iPad, my iPhone 4 and my new iPhone 5s ... then going to a cheap flip phone to use for emergencies and making the few calls I make every month. When I thought about that, the only thing I could gain by selling the 5s, is part of the cost of the phone. I would still have to have the same monthly plan with Verizon, so I would not be saving anything there. I might as well keep the 5s.

Reading Rick's blog this morning, I started thinking if I should go back to a Google+ account. Unlimited storage for iPhone photographs is a pretty good deal. I have plenty of room on my iMac, so storage is not an issue for photographs, same with my 16Gb iPhone. I have 1,000's of photos on my iPhone and have barely used the amount of storage available. I still remember the reasons I stopped my Google+ account before and still feel the same way about it.

Rick did bring up an interesting point when he was talking about cameras. He said with digital photography and posting photos on blogs, it really didn't make a difference if those blog photos were taken by an iPhone or a bigger digital camera. Recently I've been thinking of buying a bigger digital camera to get back into photography as a hobby. It's been almost 20 years since I had a larger camera and interchangeable lenses. The only other camera I have besides my iPhone is a Nikon CoolPix 3100, that I bought years ago for my online sales business.

Many times I would have to use a tripod with that camera because I was not able to hold the camera still enough when I used two hands. Would it be that way if I were to buy a larger Nikon? I think a larger camera would be easier to hold and less chance of blurred photos that the CoolPix has at times.

That's about it ... nothing really going on ... and I apologize for the lack of excitement in this post. It's just part of the laid back lifestyle outside a small rural town. I'm spending less time on the computer recently, looking and reading about different cameras, and on occasion trailers and camping equipment. I have thought more about traveling this winter. I still don't see traveling is possible with my three hounds and two hands.

Domain is Working & Ramblings

It looks like my blogging vacation lasted a couple of weeks. I wasn't off the internet and spent more time than I would have preferred online but I'll discuss that later in this post. I can't shut my mind off so I am always thinking about different decisions and solutions.

First of all, I am going to renew the domain name of this blog. I just checked it and it did work. So all should be operable at www.houndsandrvs.com as well as www.bhounds.blogspot.com Yesterday I took down the domain name and was just using my blogger address, so for those that tried to visit the blog and got the blank page saying your browser could not find the blog ... that was the reason for it.

This blog is almost three years old, I have close to or a little over 100,000 page views and regular readers that come back looking for either new information, see if I'm breathing, what the hounds are doing and what kind of travel plans I have, if any.

So, I decided to stay "open for business", renew my domain name and continue to blog. I have a lot of online friends here and that's always a good thing being a self proclaimed loner. I know being on the side of a "blog reader" it's always disappointing after following a blog to either have the author stop blogging and tells you or the blogger that quietly disappears and never comes back to their blog.

I didn't feel it was right to stop blogging, even about every day routine living as long as I had followers and I still had the urge to write. Which I have both.

While I didn't write about anything I did do some rearranging. As you could see I moved some things from the right sidebar to the left sidebar. I removed some blogs from my list only to make it shorter. I still follow the removed blogs on my Feedly account. I deleted photos of the hounds and my Toyota. I might put the photos of the hounds back on the sidebar. I'll probably continue to move things around and may add those blog links back to my sidebar even though the list was long.

During my absence I continued to read my list of RV blogs as well as other retirement blogs and found that I was not the only one questioning whether to continue blogging or what subjects to write about. Lloyd posted yesterday that he was finding little to write about since he has come off the road, doing the same hike everyday and now living in one spot. He had also gone through all of the social media options and is reverting back to just blogger as his writing platform.

Bob Lowry and his wife over at A Satisfying Retirement just returned home from a trip to the upper Midwest in a Class C and found that 43% of his expenses were going into the fuel tank. While Curtis over at Poor Mans RV Life has found out that after using a Class C, a Jeep Cherokee towing a trailer and a Van over the years, that his older diesel pusher, a Pace Arrow is the best rig he has traveled in, getting 10mpg and spending roughly $500 per month in fuel as he starts his fulltime RV lifestyle.

Both of those percentages and dollars are more than I had budgeted in my estimates. I also knew or expected I would spend more than I have budgeted for fuel, food, etc.

As I mentioned above, I've been spending more time than I have wanted on the internet. It's just the rut I've been in longer than I want to admit. I do a lot of online reading during the day from the blogs I follow, to sports news and forums, forums for the FJ Cruiser and Mini Cooper as well as computers. I trying to stay away from reading the news, still it is very easy to spend hours and hours reading before you realize just how much time you have spent ... which feels like wasted time to me.

That is not the way I want to spend everyday ... so today I am making changes.

It's beautiful outside AGAIN today, so I am definitely going to be spending some time outside with the hounds. The Mini Cooper needs washed and it's finally cool enough to do that. With the recent storms and high winds I will be getting on the roof since the temps have decreased and clear off some broken tree branches.

I admit I like this time of year in the "tropics" of southern Indiana. With the clear skies you can see a million stars at night and the low humidity you can do things outside and still breath. For some reason this summer, bugs and mosquitoes have not been a problem. At night I am smelling more and more camp fires in the air.

Al talked about his three hobbies he has had over the years and how they have came together in the way he travels and his daily photography. That got me thinking and asking myself what were my hobbies past and present. Some of them I have always had for as long as I remember while I found a few that I no longer did but had possible interest in starting again.

Back in the 80's I was into photography. I had all the different sized lenses, the different filters and the bags to carry the equipment in. I have photographs I took while traveling throughout the world and 99% of those photographs are on 35mm slides. At that time 35mm slides was the preferred option for taking photographs. I have some older photos from a small 110 camera that I took with me on my cross country bicycle trip and those can be scanned, I just need to take the time to do it.

So photography is something I might start doing again. I realized I have a lot of neat things to take photos of around here but like most everyone else ... we take those shots for granted since they are a part of our daily life and end up not taking pictures. Many of the photos I am seeing from bloggers this summer from Whidbey Island and surrounding areas, I don't have a lot of photos of but have ten years worth of them in my mind. I think I'd rather have the photos.

Sports have been a hobby of mine since my first breath. My dad was a high school basketball and baseball coach so our life was geared around sports 12 months a year. In the summers he would have two to three weeks off and unlike many of the current RV bloggers, we did NOT take camping trips .. we would travel but would stay in motels that had a pool. We also tried to tie those vacations to major league baseball games if possible. So, no matter what happens I doubt my love of watching sports will ever change.

Another hobby I like doing is riding either a road bicycle or my mountain bike, even if its only for a few miles. When I do travel I will take the mountain bike with me and leave the road bikes at home.

Like Al, I have always enjoyed driving ... yes driving.  I cannot count the number of times I have made trips from California to Indiana and back or Washington to Indiana and back but every time I loved driving cross country. Yet on all of those trips I either didn't have time or didn't take time to stop and look at the beautiful country I was traveling through. At times I did take the older highways but only stopped for food, gas and an occasional nap.

From the list of hobbies I wrote down just out of curiosity, I found that I could do most if not all of them traveling.

That leads me to the subject of traveling.

At this time I cannot make that commitment. Basically after more thinking the past two weeks and even coming close to purchasing a trailer I have decided not at this time. I also enjoy this time of the year in Indiana. Also the hounds ... every time I think about them traveling, I think of their comfortable life here. Winston is getting older, hind legs are getting weaker, and when I look into his old eyes as I pet him ... I hear the words "stay here". Heidi is getting treatments for her skin issues which have not changed even with cooler temps and even keeping her off grass for two weeks ... they got worse. Sadie is just Sadie ... big and needs room when inside.

After a few recent tests traveling with the hounds there are still issues that I wrote about here last September. They do better in the FJ than in the H3 Hummer I had. It's a little bit smaller inside so less room for stuff and us. I just feel the best time for me to do any traveling is when I am down to one hound, not three. It doesn't matter how much I want to travel in a small trailer towed by my FJ 4x4, I know that is not enough room for me and the hounds.

Of course you never know what lays ahead in life, what could change to take away that chance to travel but I am willing to live with my decision and I'll have no regrets if something happens to prevent me from traveling. I have traveled a lot and seen a lot of places recorded in photos in the past just not in an RV, so if something happens before I can travel it's ok.

I will still take short trips with the hounds but I cannot say that I'll make the commitment to travel for the reasons explained above.

Today I am making some subtle changes to my daily routine to enjoy what's outside around me and also to get out of my recent rut. I know I am early into my retirement phase but I think I need some sort of structure instead of floating aimlessly through my days. I'm not talking major changes, just things that will put me back into some sort of routine, without spending all my time in front of a computer monitor.

My traveling plans may change when the temperature get to the point that I hate being here and that might be enough to shove me out the door, hounds and all.

Even with little to no travel at this time, I will continue to blog about retirement living and if anything changes in the travel plans.

Response From Kickstarter

I received good news today, at least as a start on Kickstarter. I've read good stories about this site so last Tuesday I went over to the site to find out what I could and if I had a "project" that would fit their requirements.

I had a little different project from their norm, so I emailed them for clarification and received their reply today, confirming that my project would fit in their project model and that I could moved forward with my idea.

I had an idea that I have had set up for a years and in the past I had emailed these out to family, friends and co-workers when they requested them. The word got out what I had or did for my own personal enjoyment and/or analysis, so more and more of the information I had was passed out for free.

Recently I had been thinking of ideas that would generate online income. I was looking at ideas I could sell online, electronically and not dependent on me being in a certain location or even have internet connection. From 2005 - 2008 my fulltime job was at home, selling autographed sports memorabilia online via Amazon, eBay and my website. I had 4-5 blogs that tied into these websites to generate traffic. I didn't ship anything from my house since all of my inventory was at the authenticator's location. They would drop ship the order as I received a sale.

Sounds pretty simple and it was great between those years but it also amounted to 7 days a week and long hours. I was making enough income to live on and work from home. Due to the economy change in 2008, plus a change in policies from my suppliers, business decreased rapidly. After going back to a 40 hour a week job in 2008, I ran my online business part time until 2011. Those part time hours still amounted to over 20 hours per week in addition to my 40 hour per week job. When I was doing the business full time I was working 7 days per week and anywhere from 6-16 hour days.

I loved it though, sports is my thing, so the hours added up and it didn't matter. I loved all the work I was doing and it never seemed like a job.

With the urge to travel and with an expectation of not being able to be connected to the internet all of the time I began to look at other options in generating income this past month. I am not sure if this idea will work but I'm going to try it and find out.

I have most of the set up work completed and will only have to write a project description to add on Kickstarter. Once I get things set up on Kickstarter, I'll post the link and go into more detail what my project consist of here in a blog post.

Thoughts on a Saturday

Some of you may have witnessed my blog was changing its template and format about every 15 minutes Friday night. I went to bed with the template I thought I liked but changed it the first thing Saturday morning. It now looks just like that RV and Hounds blog that I stopped writing on. I am still undecided about the two column format on this blog but I believe this template will stay around. I like the colors and the feel it has while I'm reading it. Feel free to send any suggestions.

I went to bed last night with major plans this morning. So far at 10:38am local time I have not started anything except the usual. That usual is two cups of Starbuck's coffee as I read online, maybe do a blog post and read what little email I get. I am not really happy with that start because it is becoming more and more routine. Like a daily routine. No worries, my plan of weed eating the rest of the hay around my rope anchor will get done but it will cost me because the temperature will be much higher when I am doing it ... unless I push it to Sunday morning.

One of the things I notice in retirement, I usually don't know what day of the week it is and if I do, it's very rare. It's only an observation, doesn't really matter but a change when you have lived a pretty structured life for 40+ years. At times I wonder if I am bored or am I just content with my life? After all, I have never lived anywhere as long as I have in this house. That seems very strange because I use to like to move and in the past that use to be costly not only in starting over but the funds used to get there. So for me being here in this house since 1997 is hard to believe at times.

Still, I find there is plenty to do around here but it only happens when I get out of this desk chair and get outside or down the highway. I see myself falling into a rut that I don't want to happen and at times find I don't have the motivation to make the change. That concerns me a little. It's something that I thought might happen during those days off in a 3-day weekend when I had a job.

Like last night I completely forgot it was Friday. I woke up dreaming, trying to figure out why I was at work and why I needed to work 14 hours to get caught up. I was thrilled to open my eyes and see Sadie standing next to the bed giving me a look "I need to go outside". It was nice to know I was no longer working a job.

I'm usually a late starter anyway. I am much more of a night person than a morning person but the hounds have their routine and that has not changed since I retired. They still get up around 6:30 for their first of many trips (depending on weather) outside. This morning I could not believe it was June after seeing this horizon. I had to take a photo of it.

2014 June 21

Then after waking up to a very confusing dream and glad it was only a dream, the hounds go back outside for a 2nd time. I wonder if they do this because the want to go outside or that they know once they come back inside they get their "milk bone", that I buy at Costco where they are hand packed into a 15# box. I am beginning to think they like that 2nd bone of the day.

Speaking of Costco, I usually make the 90 mile trek to the north side of Indianapolis for dog food, milk bones, some groceries and that also puts me in the vicinity of Trader Joe's. I use to buy Costco's brand of Nature Domain dog food. It is made by Diamond Foods. They also manufacture Taste of the Wild along with their dog food under the Diamond Name. The Nature Domain food at Costco has the same ingredients as the much more expensive and smaller bag Taste of the Wild. Here is my typical trip to Costco.

Dog Food & Dog Bones

That's a lot of miles to drive just for that but it's nice to wander around Costco at times as long as I keep the billfold closed. After one of my infamous spreadsheet analysis on dog food costs, including gas to travel, I decided it was best to buy at my local Bloomfield Feed Store. I buy the Diamond Natural for Large Breeds. Dog Food Review ranks that food as a 4-Star and it's $33 for a 40# bag ... Your credit or debit card is not good there, it's either cash or check.

Another thing I like to do in Indianapolis is not going to the Indy500 race but I like going to Indy500 practice. No traffic problems, usually plenty of sun, good food and a lot of loud laps. No, I am a fan of the other races at Indy, just the Indy500.

During practice you can get a little closer to the cars. I like seeing the designs that will change from year to year. A drastic change was made from standard body design for many years to this design in 2013.

This is a 2002 Model

2002 Red Bull Team - Tomas Scheckner

This is a 2012 model which was the most drastic change in decades, with the body wrapped around the rear wheel. Just for towing purposes, the nose is not attached on the car below.

Body Behind Rear Wheels

Besides racing and basketball, Indianapolis has a professional baseball team, currently the AAA affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. A new stadium was built in the past 14 years by the same company that designed Coors Field in Denver. This stadium is easy to get in and out of located a few blocks north of I-70. Tickets are much much cheaper than the MLB prices and you can get better seats. It's a nice way to spend a night watching baseball, if you are a baseball fan.

Indianapolis Indians

One of my favorite towns of all time is Bloomington Indiana. It was one of the reasons I moved back to Indiana in 1994, besides the employment reasons. I attended college here in 1970, just after all the anti-war protests in the 60's. During my time on campus they had great concerts by big time 60's bands, have a highly ranked School of Music, Business School and of course all IU sports are in the BigTen Conference. I've attended IU Football and IU Basketball games since I was I a kid growing up. I was born my dad's senior year on campus and spent my first year of life on campus, maybe that is why I "bleed", IU.

Assembly Hall

Memorial Stadium

Even thought I am a graduate of Indiana University, I attended many games in Seattle watching the University of Washington Huskies while living on Whidbey Island. I still think the most beautiful surrounding area to watch a college football game has to be the UW stadium on Lake Washington.

University of Washington Stadium

In a rare IU appearance in Seattle, I was able to fly out in 2003 and watch the Huskies pound the Hoosiers in football. It was nice to see that the surrounding Husky fans understood and told us Indiana was a "basketball school" and not known for football, they understood who their opponent was that day. They were more interested in beating Oregon that fall, as many of the cheers during the IU - Washington game were about beating the Ducks of Oregon.

IU vs UDub 2003

I've talked about my change in diet since I retired in April 2014 and most of my meals look like this with no limit in amounts of veggies or fruits. This is a typical lunch or dinner.

Daily Salad

Yet in Bloomington is one the 'all-time' favorite places for IU fans and alumni that has been located here since the 1940's. They keep expanding the building by adding floors. On the wall going to the 3rd floor are autographs of the 1984 Olympic Basketball team, who trained in Bloomington that summer since Bob Knight was the Olympic Coach for that year. Just a few of the names are Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. No doubt a few drunk patrons have tried to get that piece of wall out of there and into their collection.

Just called Nick's and people from IU know nationwide what you are talking about.

Nick's English Pub

That is not what Nick's English Hut is noted for, the autographed wall. What they are noted for nationwide by any IU alumnus is what I eat about every 3-4 months just to keep my cholesterol up.  lol It is their world famous strom. I've been told by the bartenders I am one of the few that orders the 12" strom and finishes the 12" strom. I usually make it home 25 miles away just in time for an afternoon siesta after eating one of these. It is full of provolone cheese, Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, and pizza sauce. It has been slightly changed by new ownership in the amount of ingredients they fill the Italian bread with, just like most restaurants in today's economy.

"The" Strom

It doesn't matter where I am in Bloomington nor what I'm doing, if it isn't the strom I buy ... I will drive out of the way to the SE corner of Bloomington to 5Guys to have one of these. The last time I visited, I decided to change up on the order and buy my normal cheese burger (standard is double) and a "Jr's Cheeseburger" which turned out to be a single cheeseburger. No fear, I ate them both and never felt full. They tasted great!!

5Guys

I realize for the purist in good diets NEITHER of those are good for me ... but I like the word I see most people say ... MODERATION! I guess I'll keep eating them with possibly a longer period of time between meals.

So as you see, I don't do a lot around here but there is enough to do once I make an effort to get in the car. I think that since I have all kinds of time on my hands now, I don't feel as rushed doing different things because I am not trying to fit everything into a weekend between the work weeks. I like doing all of these things during the work day now ... less crowds, less traffic.

The thing is, these are all fun things to do, but I've been doing them for a very very long time. At times it feels like it's time to move on to other NEW things, NEW places. I want to see the stars at night where is absolutely no traffic sounds, unlike here. I want to wake up in places that have no one around for miles. I want to sit out in the early morning heating water up for a cup of coffee or tea.

So we will see what happens.

Still, as my other blog Hounds and RV's shows a 2+ year history, I have had a very strong urge to travel these past couple of years. I can't decide how to go or where to go, but the options have always changed. The hounds have played a role in those decisions or lack thereof. I believe they deserve to be considered when I am thinking of traveling and/or making major decisions.

That's about all I have for today. One good thing about retirement, if you don't get your next item on your 'to do' list finished as planned, there is always tomorrow.

BTW ... I finished what I had planned this morning. No photos but I did cut all the hay the farmer chose to leave around Sadie's rope anchor. Of course for the 3rd year in a row, I got so close with my metal blade on the weed eater that I caught her rope. It's been shortened enough from my previous two mistakes that I cannot tie it back together and have it long enough to reach the house. The length was based on two things, short enough to keep her out of the trees and long enough that it would reach the house so I can hook the rope to her collar without me going out into the yard in bad weather.  :)