live. work. dream.

For the past couple nights we’ve been staying hitched to our fifth wheel trailer when spending just one night in RV resorts. We’ve researched this online and only found this one forum discussion about staying hitched that addressed the issue specifically. It confirmed my assumption that it will do no harm to the truck.

I do, however, raise the trailer a bit more than the RV.net Open Roads Forum member who mentioned he only extends his trailer legs an inch or so after hitting the ground. Personally, I recommend lifting the trailer until I notice the truck bed actually lift. Then I retract the trailer legs until it appears there is no weight on truck bed. All it takes is a couple small adjustments up and down to relieve all weight from the truck’s shock absorbers.

Please note that we do not have air shocks on our Dodge Ram 2500. I do not know how staying hitched will affect air suspension bags. All comments are welcome.

As far as king pin tripods go, we looked into that too after noticing many fifth wheel rigs with them in RV resorts. We’ve read online that larger 5ers benefit more from using tripods – but the smaller 5er the less rocking. We’ve determined using a fifth wheel kingpin tripod is not necessary for our 24′ Arctic Fox. Just something else to carry… I would only consider it if I ever take up permanent residence like I’ve seen in some of the parks where we’ve stayed. But then we would need to go back to Humboldt County and get a carved redwood bear holding a welcome sign.

From our direction we’re traveling in, there’s only one road in, and one road out, to the hottest, most inhabitable place in North America, Death Valley. The music of Pink Floyd is the ultra mellow soundtrack for our crossing at 5:30 am today.

Way back in 1996, the first time we crossed this inferno, the only soundtrack was the wind screaming in my ears as we rode across on bikes getting baked in our leathers. Back then, we gave no thought to what time we crossed. I think we did it at noon. Today, drive across in comfort at dawn in our big ass truck, yet, I’m still terrified. Couldn’t sleep all night thinking about this epic drive. I mean what kind of morons do this in summertime? Us, that’s who. We’re always good for this sort of misadventure.

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Gave the ol’ Dodge Ram 2500 a real workout this weekend haulin’ the rig over Carson Pass (8,650) and Monitor Pass (8,314 ft) from Silver Lake near Kit Carson, CA to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, CA. Check out our new LiveWorkDream Roadtrip Maps page to see some of the crazy hairpin turns and to follow the progress of our route.

The truck had no problem accelerating up the mountains, though it sure would be nice to figure out the right combination of using the Tow Haul switch, Overdrive Off option and the lower gears. While the truck seems to handle our load just fine in drive, using the Tow Haul switch comes in handy on steep steady grades. A few times, though it seemed to abruptly drop down a gear and nearly red-line for a moment. Any tips are greatly appreciated.

The weight of the trailer didn’t seem to be an issue at all. Either the hitch is getting broken in, or I’m getting much better at handling the vehicle as we didn’t experience any of the bouncing around we had the first few days out.

Of course, we were certain to drain our freshwater tank before we broke camp so we weren’t carrying that extra weight. And we had very little waste water in the holding tanks since we are good at conserving and primarily used the campground toilets. After all, we’re used to back country camping where we did all the dishes with a pint of water.

By the time we finished setting up the trailer at Crags Campground on Robinson Creek near Twin Lakes our site neighbor already knew us by name. I couldn’t help but notice the MotoSat dish atop his Sea Breeze RV Coach when we pulled in, and I noticed him watching ours as it locked onto 91 West. I did not, however, expect what happened next…

When I came out of our rig with a Mike’s Hard Lime, ready to do some serious relaxing, this gentleman walked by and said, “If I’m not mistaken, you’re Jim.” Stunned, I paused a moment. “And your wife is René,” he continued, “and I’ve already forgotten your dog’s name.”

Being a marketing guy, you’d think I’d immediately realize the vinyl lettering I put on our rig was doing the trick. But it took me a moment. Long enough for this fellow Datastorm user to tell me what channel I was broadcasting on, how he couldn’t access my Admin page because my network was secured, and how far he bent over when purchasing his $14,000 Datastorm XF2. Perfectly happy with our F2, I really wonder what the added cost gets you besides the nifty blue glow at night… but I digress.

Crags campground was quite, with beautiful views and Mike – who spreads his “Mike Free From SeaBreeze” WiFi signal free and unsecured – made a great neighbor. I just hope we didn’t annoy him too much having fun with the Shapiro’s boy Conner and the dogs. We sure had a great time. I was surprised to hear his generator running numerous times throughout the day, even though he had at least three panels atop his rig. We had been boondocking for the past week and only ran our new Honda EU2000i Portable Generator once while we were parked in the woods at Silver Lake.

I sure like the view from my new office – at least this week. And it sure is nice to take a break from working online to go fishing or for a walk in the woods. Earlier today while desperately trying to catch a large brown trout that was toying with me for hours in the creek coming out of Silver Lake, a kid asked me where I lived. I had to think for a moment. I then explained how I lived in our trailer and was traveling full time with my wife and dog. His answer: “Cool. That must be hard work. eh?”

Yes, hard work indeed. The actual driving is still only a bit nerve-wracking. Setting up and breaking camp has not yet become a chore. And the research, web development, and email communication is still exciting. But all of the above is indeed tiring. At least the view from our office makes up for it.

It is, however, quite surreal to be sitting deep in the woods listening to internet radio while making ice thanks to solar power and Satellite internet service. And I was bit surprised to get online here atop Carson Pass when we couldn’t even get a signal at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. One thing to consider, however, is while the armature of your satellite dish may be pointing directly at a mountainside, the satellite itself is probably about 45 degrees higher in the sky.

After chatting with Linksys Tech Support and troubleshooting my router’s Wifi signal for over an hour at the Travelhome RV Park, I went for a walk with Jerry and quickly discovered why there was so much radio interference in the area.

I couldn’t tell if this was a local cable company, television station, or a regional NSA office, but it most certainly wrecked havoc on the local radio spectrum. Just goes to show you – “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate” – 14th-century Franciscan friar William of Ockham was right…

All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. In other words, when you encounter technical issues during your travels, Don’t Panic.

After a fun visit with some friends who drove all the way from Oakland to visit us at Lake Francis, we have now made it to Yuba City – just down the road from the RV Service Center where we’ll take the rig tomorrow to get the fridge checked out. Of course, it seems to be working well now. Hopefully it was just bad power at that campground. This trip has certainly become one of discovery.

Good news is, we do have internet access with our dish here. Bad news is, our computers can’t see our wireless network. I’ve wired in to troublshoot the problem and have determined there is just too much WiFi interference here. Various other networks keep showing up and disappearing. Ours was visible momentarily then went away for good. At least we are only here for the night … hopefully!

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Here’s a question for the web-savvy full-timers:

Would you rather rely on spotty campground wireless service for your internet connection, or have your own more reliable yet much more expensive satellite dish service such as MotoSat? This may be irrelevant to the weekend warriors but for those of us on the road full-time, who need to remain connected for either business or pleasure it is a serious consideration. So consider this…

We have a top of the line .98 meter F2 satellite dish from Datastorm with MotoSat internet service and a Linksys 300N wireless router. Yet I have spent most of this morning trying to publish these posts and get pages to load with a very weak connection to this campground’s 802.11b network. Why you ask?

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The reality of this trip still hasn’t sunk in yet. With today’s news from the mortgage folks, we are one step closer to being free but not quite yet clear.

I felt a bit strange today telling one of my campground neighbors, “have a good weekend” knowing very well that he was indeed out for a weekend adventure with the kids while I was off on a new adventure that may last a year. Or years.

While camper dad will return to work on Monday, I will be dealing with the repair of our new trailer’s refrigerator at the nearest RV service center to Lake Francis in Dobbins, CA. Unfortunately that’s in Marysville or Yuba City.

But as Whitman said, “These are the things that must happen to you.”

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While camped out at kid-centric Lake Francis Resort in Dobbins, CA, riding out the busy Father’s Day weekend, our fridge crapped out. Brand spankin’ new. One would think that when you pay good money for something . . .

Jim’s been on the phone all day with Norcold Manufacturing I’ve been dealing with our extended warranty people. Looks like we may need to take it to the nearest dealer in Yuba City, back down the mountain. Yuba City? It’s soooooo hot there.

Dad, an experienced RVer, says don’t panic, it’s par for the course and the first of many mechanical challenges. Thanks Dad, I felt better after hearing that. But still, we keep asking . . .

Will this journey EVER begin?