live. work. dream.

Since launching our blog, we continue to find individuals who also want to hit the road and travel. Some, like Sara and Matt, are doing it in a truly eco-groovy way, by treading lightly across America in a veggie oil powered RV. And the couple that inspired us, Phil and Carol White, continue to live their Road Trip Dream across America, while sharing the benefits of travel with others at conferences and events. Our Blog Roll, over on your right, has links to theirs and other RV travelers websites.

Recently, Rudy and Irene Tenorio of Atlanta, GA, contacted us, asking more details about our trip. This adventurous couple wants to take early retirement, starting in December, 2010. Because they’re smart and starting to plan now, and contacting others who are doing it, they’ll definitely be on the road to making it happen in ‘10. (more…)

Whenever we find locals willing to chat (of which there are many in the rural places we visit), we ask loads of questions about the area, their work, the weather, you name it. They think we’re playing “20 Questions,” but what we’re really doing is trying to figure out:

• where the heck we might move to, permanently
• and what on earth we’ll do for a living

As summer winds down, the locals have more time to talk. Information is getting thrown at us as quickly as the summer days are going by. The following is a summary of what we’ve learned recently, so we can look back on it a year from now — if we do decide to settle down somewhere . . . or start to run out of money, whichever comes first!

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After putting more than 6,000 miles behind us, today was the first time I actually felt uncomfortable maneuvering the trailer. OK, I’ll admit it – I was scared. It takes a man to acknowledge his faults, and learn from them.

Call it overconfidence or poor navigation, or blame it on bad signage and a crazy sudden curve. It all comes down to this: when haulin’ 16,000 pounds plus, know where you’re going, stay alert, and never ever panic.

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Let’s face it, most of us are lazy. We like our routines, no matter how detrimental to our quality of life they might be. Even when little signs start appearing in our lives, whispering to us that maybe it’s time for a big change, we tend to ignore them for years, if not all the way to the grave. We just don’t like change. Even Jim and I made the move to sell our business only after Jerry got sick. Like many, it took a traumatic event to get our butts in gear.

But change doesn’t always have to come about as the result of sickness or loss. One person we recently met at a campground is absolute proof that when we humans do embrace change and run with it, the rewards in life are so much greater than staying with the status quo.

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There is definitely something to be said for taking a hot shower when camped out in the woods. But with a finite supply of fresh water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing and flushing the toilet, conservation is of utmost importance to make your water last as long as possible.

This is especially true if you have to hand pump the water to fill your tank! Many public campgrounds, if they have water at all, only have old school hand pumps. Some of which are very deep and/or difficult to pump. And rarely do they include a hose spigot. When this is the case we take turns filling a collapsible 5 gallon water jug to fill our tank. Ten turns to be specific. It’s a wet job, but that’s the price you pay for the biggest, quietest, most scenic, most secluded and least expensive campsites!

Anyway, here are a few quick tips for maximizing the use of your freshwater supply:

• We use a 1 gallon Thermos jug – any container would do – to capture the water from our tub faucet while waiting for it to warm up. We can then use this water as we like, or put it back into the fresh water tank.
• Whenever available, we use campground vault toilets instead of our own – if they are not too nasty.
• If your RV does not have a control valve on the shower head, install one and use it to turn the flow of water off while soaping up then turn it back on to rinse.
• Make up for these bird baths with nice long hot showers when hooked up at private campgrounds.

We finally put our minds at ease and weighed ourselves. No, we’re not gaining weight. Well, we might be after the way we’ve been eating and not working out. But that’s not what i’m talking about.

Since we left Eureka with our loaded trailer, a tiny voice in the back of my head has been nagging me about the alphabet soup of truck/trailer weights and towing capacities … GVWR, NCC, GTW, GCWR, GAWR … it’s enough to drive a man crazy. Or just ignore the issue altogether, which is what we did until recently.

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We are proud to announce that the LiveWorkDream Full-Time RVing Superstore is now online!

We developed this Amazon.com aStore as a service to our readers and filled it with helpful books, campground directories, road trip music, and RV products to help make life on the road a little easier. We sifted through the countless books, DVDs, music CDs, and product categories related to RVing, traveling, and buying/selling a business that are available at Amazon.com. We then compiled the ones we think you’ll find useful and categorized them for your easy review. Purchases can be completed right here on our site or directly at www.amazon.com.

This one’s for the Carson Park Ranger.

This funny friend of mine has a hilarious routine about old full-time RVing couples, one of which we encountered at a wayside near Gaylord, MI. Where I came from they’re called rest stops, but that’s not the point.

As we rested at this wayside stop, we spotted a man and woman identical to those in the Ranger’s shtick.

You see, the old man’s gotta have overalls and a feed cap – the full-timer’s uniform. Personally, I prefer the shorts and tank top that have become my uniform of choice.

The only thing missing from this picture was a yapping little dog, but from the sounds of things it was back in the trailer.

About 4 states ago, I whined about how I was stunned find out that people in North Dakota didn’t have fresh local lettuce all year long. Silly, spoiled native Californian. Getting out and into the real U.S. has opened my eyes.

As a lacto-ovo vegetarian since 1989, I always tried to live by the creed “Eat / Buy / Act Locally.” And when living in California, abiding by it was easy. I never gave much thought to those organic hearts of Romaine I’d buy in December. Even though I was paying as much as $3.00 a bunch, the lettuce was organic, and it was “local” because it grew in my own state, so it didn’t travel that far. During summer, as I bought salad greens at the Farmer’s Market each week, I was mentally adding up my bonus karma points. Score! How much more local and hippy dippy could I get? My, did I feel righteous at the checkout line!

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At about the age of eleven, I remember being touched deeply by Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The story of the 29 men that perished on that stormy early November night in 1975 just always touched a nerve for some reason. It still does.

When we were in back in Duluth at the other side of Lake Superior, I started to tease René because she was not even aware of this tragic story and only barely recalled the song.

At that time, I noticed and ad for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, but was disappointed to discover it was on Whitefish Point on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula which was not on our route at the time. After being persuaded by the Schwabenlanders to head North out of Wisconsin instead of South, however, the final resting place for the ship’s bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald became a must on our revised itinerary.

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