Four Months in an RV in the USA

So, how are we going after four months of RV living? Very well thank you. Buying and registering the RV was achieved in a couple of weeks - we will write more detail about this in a post later on.

We have been managing the small space with surprising ease. We are very glad we ended up buying a 29ft RV with a slide. Although it is a bit more of a handful for parking we are glad of the extra space. For Rob and Fiona having a bed we can walk around rather than one where one person has to climb over is certainly appreciated. The over cab bed for Symi has been fantastic. The design of this RV means that she is able to sit up in the space which gives her an area for playing lego (which she has been doing a lot).

Other features of the RV which we appreciate are the oven, stove and fridge. Apart from the bench space being limited (we are learning to be tidy cooks) the kitchen is easy to cook in and we have managed all sorts of things including cakes and bread in the oven. We even did pizza the other day.

For the first two months the weather was pretty cold and not conducive to sitting outside. We did not get too claustrophobic inside except for when it was raining which has been rare. Snowboarding, walking and riding outside also helped. Having said that we were very glad when the weather warmed up enough to eat outside regularly. We have purchased a small gas BBQ and have started to cook a lot more outside. This has the advantage of decreasing the cooking smells in the RV.

Schooling Symi has been interesting and at times challenging. Rob has taken on maths and Fiona english, grammar, and reading. We are all learning new things. Symi struggles some days especially with the intensity of being the only child in the class. Fiona and Rob have had their patience tested, as well as their ingenuity (in coming up with incentive programs and ways of making things interesting). That said, we are managing to complete the work and are well into term two. This term we are doing science experiments which are fun. We all look forward to the holidays.

Symi and Rose playing lego

Serious scientific experiments

Symi also had the opportunity to go to an American school for the day. She had a great time. As parents it was interesting to note that the parents are not allowed to wait for children inside the school building (all classrooms doors are inside the building). This is because the security expert for the school thought it was too dangerous - all to do with school shootings - scary! (Even scarier is the fact that there have been 74 shootings in US schools since December 2012)

Money wise we still seem to be spending lots. We have split our spending into sections and as you can see a lot of of spending seems to be on “other” (bits and pieces we buy), setup (BBQ, sheets, boots, tents, sleeping bags etc) and snowboarding including buying equipment. We are hoping that this sort of spending should decrease markedly as time goes on (we are still waiting for this to happen).

New Sleeping Bag

Family wise this year is an absolute gift. To be able to spend so much time together has been even better than we imagined. We are all getting on well nearly all the time. Rob needs to exercise regularly (nothing new there) and definitely needs time out on his bike alone or with other mad mountain bikers. Fiona needs to find a woman to have a good chat with every so often as well as chatting to friends back home on skype or similar (nothing new there either) and Symi needs kids as she misses her friends badly. Good quality playing time with her parents helps - lots of lego, imaginary games with stuffed toys and lego and soccer and frisbee - but are no substitute for real kids. She did FaceTime her class last night and really enjoyed that. She also emails and speaks to other friends when she can.

We have found that we can be away from power for up to a week – we can charge the computer for school from the RV battery. We have a generator but don't run it for more than about 15' at a time as we don't like to be making noise in national park. 15' is long enough to make coffee (we spent $15 on a drip coffee maker as the stove pots were very expensive) and charge up the electronics a bit. Water is more of a problem we can comfortably manage for 3 days including 3 to 4 very short showers. We have got very used to having a water heater for washing up etc.

Finding spaces in RV Campgrounds seems to be pretty easy so far, outside of some booked National Parks, although it has been the off season so far. Finding them in National Parks is a bit more challenging. If they have first come first served spots it just seems to be a case of staying somewhere nearby and then getting there early in the morning to get a spot. We managed in Yosemite due to rain cancellations. Reservations are released on the 15th of each month for six months time and sell out in minutes.

So, all in all, things are going well. We all miss friends and family but otherwise we are finding this life very attractive. That said, we don’t have any plans to become full-time RV folk like many people here seem to be.