The main reason we had scheduled a week in Las Vegas was for me to attend a class there on VMware products.  It was a fantastic class, and I learned tons.  This will greatly help me at work, as I’m supposed to be the “VMware guru”.  I feel more guru-ish now.

While there, our fulltime family friends showed up, and we got to spend a few days with them before we split up again.  Lot’s of hanging out and chatting, a trip to the Hoover Dam, and a lovely dinner with super excellent fish taco’s, nacho’s, and such.  I enjoyed the Hoover Dam tour, and getting to say “Dam” without Molly charging me a dollar every time. 🙂

The whole “gang” has kinda been together on and off since early February I believe.  We had met the McCloskey’s earlier, but met up with the Travaglino’s and Garrison’s in Quarzsite for a visit, then “living” with them starting at Pio Pico.  Now, some are headed up the western coastal states, others to the north, then across to the Northeast.  All the talk of moving on, and the planned changes for Megan’s living arrangements have inspired Diane and I to look at making some excursion plans as well.  It looks like our summer will have us touring CA, but the fall will see another trip east.  This time, as far north and east as PA, then down to FL, and then a slow trek back.  We’ll be out there for Halloween in NY or NC, Thanksgiving in GA, Christmas in FL, and just to see if certain family members are paying attention, we should be in IN staying at the Horseshoe Lakes Thousand Trails during the Covered Bridge Festival.

Ok, back to Vegas…

We enjoyed the campground there.  It is a bit cramped, but the facilities were nice, and clean, and the staff was super friendly.  You can see certain undesirables in the area outside the park, but they are kept outside.  We’ll have to check it out again in the future, when the pool is open.  Also, there are a few other RV parks/resorts that are located nearby as well.  They didn’t seem to be gated like the Thousand Trails, but the rates looked low, and the grounds looked well kept.

Our next stop… Menifee, CA, for a week or two.

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Finally adding Nevada to our “Been to” State Map.  Had a nice tail wind for the drive, which is super awesome considering the rise in gas prices.  Hopefully they shift to our next destination on the day we’re heading out. 🙂

The Thousand Trails park here is TIGHT.  Not sure how the 40 foot or 5th wheel people do it.  We got a spot that faces off to the mountains, and we’ll be out exploring soon.

We went out for a bit of an adventure today.  First, some chores around the house such as laundry, and finishing some camp setup.  Then, off to Vegas!  Molly had wanted something from the David and Golliath store at the shops in the Venetian, so we went there first.  This took a bit to park, then walk what seemed like 15 miles to the shop.  From there we went off to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Such a great and entertaining dinner, with great music and videos going, plus a touchscreen unit at the booth that lets you browse all the memorabilia they have.  Awesome.  We then stopped by the M&M store and Coke-a-Cola store next door.  Finally, ended the day with a stop by the airport to pickup a rental car.  This way, I can get back and forth to the class everyday this week, and the girls can still get around as needed.

It was a good first day.  Hopefully a bit slower tomorrow. 🙂

We had a great time during the month of February, but didn’t do much posting here. 🙂  At the beginning of the month, we were able to meet up with several other Fulltime Families that we’ve met via Facebook, here… http://www.facebook.com/groups/FulltimeFamilies/  You would need a Facebook account, and then request to join the group in order to see all the postings.  IF you are in anyway interested in living in an RV and traveling fulltime, it’s a good resource for information.

So, we met the Travaglino’s, who run http://www.fulltimefamilies.com/  I just saw that we are in a picture taken at Quartzsite, which is where we met them.  We also met the Seeley’s who own http://rvsunshadecompany.com/.  I expect we’ll be getting some of these sun shades in the next month or two, when they are back in AZ.  The McCloskey’s were there as well, and about 6 or more other family’s.  Our RV was in the shop then, so we only visited for a few hours that evening, and then parted ways.  But, as happens in this fulltime RV lifestyle, plans changed for some.  They decided to head to Pio Pico, then back up to Wilderness Lakes in Meniffee.  So, we adjusted as well, and caught up with 3 other families in Pio Pico.

With all the different plans and types of Thousand Trails memberships, people are in and out of these parks all the time.  The Garrisons were at Pio Pico, but then needed to leave because of their type of membership.  We had to get to better cell phone and internet, plus a planned get together with the Komfort Kruisers, so we took off to Pechanga.  After Pechanga, we headed back to Meniffee, and the Garrisons were already there, with an open spot right next to them.  Perfect!  A few days later, the McCloskey’s and Travaglino’s were there, and in adjacent spots as well.  After a few more days, in came Northam family came back after getting their truck all fixed up, and then the day before we left yet another (new) family arrived.  We had some good times swapping stories, laughing at ourselves and our kids.  Pre-teen behavior is kinda funny, even from adults. 🙂  A few field trips were held during the month, Sea World, a local Dairy, and some shopping outings. All the kids had a blast swimming, watching movies, playing mini-golf, and just hanging out.

But, life and work call, and it was time for us to head out.  I have a class next week for work, in Las Vegas.  We won’t be without company for long though.  Some of those families are heading out from Southern California for other adventures, as warmer weather north should be here soon.  We expect to see a couple of them here in Las Vegas in a couple days.

We left our Komfort Kruiser friends earlier today, and headed up for a couple weeks at Menifee, CA, at the NACO Wilderness Lakes campground.  And… Our buddies the Garrison’s are here!  They had to leave Pio Pico before we did, and have arrived here at Menifee a couple days ago.  This place is PACKED, but luck was with us, and the spot right next to them was open!  Our timing was perfect it seems.  The girls were hanging out right away, and I got busy on catching up on the blog, which has been lacking since we left the RV for maintenance a couple weeks ago.  For all those reading the updates today, thanks!  Sorry for the big blast.  Hopefully I can be a little more regular, and possibly add some photos in the future. 🙂

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Had a great time over the weekend with all the Fulltime Families.  The evening group dinners and campfire were a nice change to our normal “just us” routine.  Got to chat with all of them at different points, and get to know everyone.  The kids all got along great too.  Seeing how they have things setup gave us  some ideas.  I definitely want to add a cell booster and upgrade my WiFi grabber ability.  Chris Travalingo has a nice setup that attaches to the TV antennae, and gets an awesome range, but I’ll do the cell signal booster first.  Just need to order the bits from Amazon or the 3G store.

And then…

There was a company call today, that would trigger a significant increase in my phone usage.  Couple that, with a degradation of the Pio Pico WiFi, and we had to move.  I made a call to the Pechanga RV Park in Temecula, CA, and they had a space available for us.  This was to be our destination for Thursday evening, but we needed to head there early in order to have good phone and Internet coverage for the work activities.

We’ll just be acclimated to our surroundings in advance of the big upcoming Komfort Kruisers event.

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So, on Monday, we headed from Palm Desert to the Yorba Linda, CA, area.  We picked up Francy from her Pet Hotel, and spent the next couple days in a Residence Inn.  These are nice, as you have a kitchen, a separate bedroom, and they are pet friendly.  They also have free breakfast and dinner almost everyday.  Being able to stay for free, using points gained from business travel, just makes it that much sweeter.  I wasn’t so sure about all the stays I had at various Courtyard Marriott’s this past year, but now I’m pleased with them, and look forward to more points!

On Wednesday, I talked to Shawn at Giant RV, and found out our RV would be ready to go Thursday.  We had held off making any kind of RV reservations so I then started working on finding a place we could “move” to.  We’d thought about heading to a place in Temecula, as we’d be staying there about a week later, but we also found that some of our friends we’d met with in Quartzsite were now staying at Pio Pico in Jamul, CA.  So, they had space available, and we made plans to head there after we picked up the RV.

We got the RV around lunch time Thursday, and found out what all was found, covered, etc.  The run down was pretty good, and most everything was covered.  The errors on the slides were due to a need for alignment, which is not covered, and kinda costly.  The leak was actually coming from the shower, and it just ran across the top of the gray tank to the other side of the RV.  The rest were fairly straight forward, and  so now the AC, the booster switch, and the water heater, are working as they should.

Diane headed back to Orange county for Thursday night, and to do some local things Friday, and I headed off for a lunchtime drive down the road.  A quick stop for Propane and gas, and I was on my way.

At Pio Pico, it was pretty easy to find our friends.  They were parked on the side with no sewer hookups, and our spot ended up being just across the road from them, just two spaces away from where we stayed last time.  So, across the road we have the Travaglino’s, the McCloskey’s, and the Garrison’s. They were away when I arrived, but came back later in the evening.

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Well, we’ve had a great three weeks here in Menifee, CA.  The NACO/Thousand Trails park, Wilderness Lakes, has been a nice place to stay.  We’ll be back here in a couple weeks, and it will be interesting to see how it changes with the weather.  There’s a dairy next door, and we’ve heard that heat, fly’s, and odor, become an issue as the temps increase.

While here, we got to meet some of the other Fulltime Families that we’ve only “met” online.  The McCloskey’s were here for a couple weeks, and the Northram’s arrived about a week ago.  I think Molly enjoyed meeting other kids, and having some different things to do.  We got to see what this thing called “Candy Bar Bingo” was all about, and even a night of Karaoke with lots of kids and adults joining in the fun.

The next week is going to be chaotic.  On Saturday, we’ll be taking the RV in for service.  It needs an oil change, and there are several things that we hope are covered by the extended warranty.  Just to make note of them for our “journal”, we’ve got a slow gray water leak when the tank is half full, the gray tank isn’t draining right (likely blocked vent), the water heater is only working with electric and not gas, and the slides are blinking some error codes when going in and out.  There’s also the engine Air Conditioning and a battery switch that are not working.  So, it might be a few days to get these fixed, so we’re planning on being in a hotel for a week.  We’re going to take advantage of that, and do some fun stuff on the weekend (Palm Springs and Quarzite) and then use some of my Marriott points for a nice place during the week, and stay close to the OC.

There’s no simple way to explain how we came to the decision, except to look at our past and some of the main events that led up to the discovery of the idea.  So, here goes.

First, in this family of ours, we have me (David), Diane, Megan, Molly, and our feline family member, Francie.  I had a rather stable childhood with regards to moving and such, in that I lived in the same house from the time I was 5, till I left home and joined the Navy.  During my Navy times though, lot’s of moving around.  I got very good at it, and had few belongings that I needed to haul around.  For Diane, she had just two different places she’d lived growing up and her parents lived in the second house for nearly 25 years.  As a married couple, we’d only moved a couple times in the 10+ years we’d spent together.  So, as a whole, we were not really what anyone would call “nomadic”.  We’d spent very long periods in one place, and were quite used to that lifestyle.  We loved our Southern California home, but not exactly the financials so much.

In May of 2010, I was offered a job with a new company, which is headquartered out of the Atlanta, GA area.  In this role, I work from home using phones and Internet and then fly out to various locations in the US depending on where I’m needed.  Conferences, customer visits, training, and meetings at HQ, are the typical reasons for my travel.  Neither Diane or I had ever worked from home and the first few months were interesting as we worked to adjust. There were a few realizations along the way, with the biggest realization being the fact there wasn’t a need for our house to be near a particular building because my commute now never really left the house.  This was when we really started considering options for our house and where we would live if we could choose anywhere.  We found that there wasn’t any one place we really wanted to be permanently,  other than the general Southern California area.

Then came September, and a work event in Vail, CO.  My company has a 35′ Fleetwood Class A RV that they have had wrapped with company artwork and logo’s.  They have used this RV for a couple years to haul people and equipment for events we call Roadshow’s.  These are small conferences in hotel meeting rooms, where we invite current and potential customers to come in and see presentations and demo’s of our product.  The RV is a comfortable platform for the team to ride in for these events, and the storage in the basement holds all the equipment.  Sometimes, the RV is used for side excursions as well “since we’re in the area already and it’s the weekend”, and we have a fantastic group of understanding owners.  This trip to Vail was planned to include such a side trip after the event, with a planned visit to Arches National Park in Moab, UT, and a 4X4 adventure in a rented Jeep.  At the time, I had a well equipped Toyota FJ Cruiser and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to cruise Moab with my co-workers.  I then arranged my travel so that I could be there with the FJ and hang out for the post-conference adventures.

The camping and fun we had at Arches was great.  I talked to some of my coworkers about different elements of the RV, and how things had gone for Roadshows in the past, as I’d not been involved with any of them at this point.  This is when my gears started turning.  As it had turned out, one of the company owners had taken his family on the road in this RV and lived on the road for a couple months.  Granted, they spent a lot of time in hotels, but they still basically lived out of the RV.  And they had 5 kids.  At the time of this event we had one that was in her Senior year of High School and headed to College, and just one other 8 year old at home.  Gears were really turning but I was keeping any thoughts or ideas to myself at this point.

In October, we had a couple more company events.  One at the HQ in Atlanta, and another at a conference in Orlando.  Diane has some family in the Orlando area and we made arrangements for her and Molly to head to Florida first, then I left for Georgia, Megan stayed with grandparents till later when she came out for a post conference vacation.  It was here in Florida when I was with Diane and Molly that I brought up the idea.  I’d done a little bit of investigating, but only just enough to know that it wasn’t going to be impossible to do.  If we wanted to, we could get an RV, move into it, and live “on the road”.  My expectation was that Diane was not going to like it, cause she’s not a big camping type person and that would be the end of it.  But, to my surprise, she actually like the idea.  A lot even.  I was a bit shocked, but please.  She’s always keeping me on my toes.  So, since we had a couple weekend days before the conference we decided to start looking at RV’s, and perused a few lots in the Orlando area.  Neither of us had prior experience with RV’s, but we quickly came to some ideas on what we wanted in our RV and knew we could look further once back in California.

We discussed aspects of all the different layouts we saw in the various RV’s, as well as the differences in travel and living for 5th Wheel, Class A, Class C, etc.  We wanted to be able to stay in one place for long-ish periods (like 2+ weeks at a time) and have a vehicle that was easy to get around in while we were parked.  Preventing frequent stops while moving or hauling long distances was also desired.  And, having a “personal space” for Molly was going to be important.  These factors seemed to be the ones that had the most impact on the basic type of RV we would use, and it led us to a Class A and our Honda CRV as a “toad”.  The RV we chose has a Bunk Bed setup, which was easily modified to be roomier for it’s single planned occupant, and provide some extra storage space.  To save on the initial cost, we chose a gas powered Class A.  Other “needs” had to do with our connectivity and entertainment, but we found that the RV type didn’t really have an impact on getting what we needed in these areas.

We spent the next 3-4 months getting financial stuff prepared, figured out how to deal with our house, and started prepping friends and family for our plans.  In February and March, we made the move and bought an RV.  We then spent April through October downsizing, taking practice runs, setting out a plan, and investigating where all we would and could stay, getting an OK from my employer, finding a mail-forwarding service, and trying to setup a basic plan.  We went through many different “ideas” of what we were going to do.  I’ve found the best plan is a flexible one.  At different times during our transition, we had changes in feelings about the idea, but we all knew that it was going to be an adventure, and we didn’t have to do it forever if it turns out we hate it.

The whole process was fun, stressful, emotional in every sense, but we made it to the end of October, and moved into the RV on October 30th, 2011.  Just a little over a year from the time the idea was presented and found to be worth a shot.  Since then, we’ve traveled to and visited Tennessee, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, and back to California.  We’ve driven through several states some of us had never been to before. Our current plan is to stay in the CA, NV, AZ area, or at least a days drive from our CA loved ones.  Will we continue?  We are not sure at this point.  We’re in it till June, and as we get closer to that time we’ll re-evaluate and decide what to do from there.  Even if we’re not full-time, we now have a great appreciation for the RV lifestyle, and will enjoy many future trips in the RV.

This blog entry is part of a writing project from… http://fulltimefamilies.com/group-writing-projects/

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On New Years Eve, we pulled in the lines, slides and awning, and headed from Pio Pico in Jamul, CA, to the Orangeland RV Park in Orange, CA.  Orangeland RV boasts a couple of wins for RV Park of the year, and it’s easy to see why.  The staff is very friendly, everything is super clean, functional, and appealing.  Laundry, bathrooms, pool, store, and even the sites themselves.  It’s not cheap, but still very nice.  Rates are high, so make sure to take advantage of Good Sam and AAA discounts to get 10% off.  Orange and Lemon trees are everywhere, and you’re free to pick from your site, or an empty site.  Or, just pick some up in the boxes outside the store.

We went to the Irvine Great Park for a New Years Eve celebration with some friends from Homeschooling activities.  The Anderson’s, Jones’s, and De Los Santos’s were there as well.  It was a very foggy evening, but the mood was not hampered by it.  There was a DJ with dancing and games in one building, and then a live band outside on a stage with the big orange balloon as a backdrop.  They had a countdown at 9pm to celebrate with those on the east coast, and for the kids.  Fireworks went off, and since it was a ground show, the fog didn’t hurt it at all.  Only issue of the night was the long lines for the food trucks, but the ladies took off and got some fast food from Carls Jr to solve that.

We’ll be here at Orangeland till Saturday, then out to Menifee for three weeks with Thousand Trails.

For those that registered for the RSS and e-mail updates, they should start rolling in now.  I think we have it all fixed up.  🙂

We had a great Christmas celebration at the Crayne residence.  On Christmas Eve, we saw a performance of A Christmas Carol in Costa Mesa.  One of Molly’s friends was in the performance.  She had been in the cast for 18 of their 35 performances this season.  It was a fantastic show, and might be part of our annual Christmas tradition going forward. Christmas day saw presents from Santa, breakfast from Grandma, and then movies for Ed, Victoria, Diane and Molly.  I was in the process of coming down with a cold, and not too interested in the movies, so I stayed home and installed the new hitch on Diane’s car, and setup the new Roku for Ed.  Everyone came home for a nice ham dinner.  Even Megan and Greg were able to join us for dinner and a final round of gift opening.

The day after Christmas, we moved from our nesting spot at Canyon RV, and out to Jamul, CA, which is east of San Diego, and home to the Pio Pico Thousand Trails Park.  We’ve noticed that many of the RV parks are hoping this time of year.  Not sure if it’s a normal Christmas/New Years thing, or if the fact they both fall on a weekend is the driving force, but lots of folks are out in their RV’s and campers this year.  We were able to find a nice spot, but without sewer hookup.  So, we’ll just use the water sparingly, take showers at the park showers, and hopefully not need to dump till we head out on New Years Eve.

Pio Pico is a nice park.  Diane and Molly visited the pool yesterday, as well as the cafe, and found both to be great.  Cell phone and cellular internet service is pretty much non-existent.  I’ve got service devices from Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T, and they’re all the same.  I need to look further into getting my antennae stuff setup, and maybe even a cell signal booster for the phones.