Website Migration!

We are migrating off of Blogger! We have hosting and are moving to WordPress!

This will be the last post made on the Blogger account! Apologies to anyone trying to find our website while they nameservers were switching over!

Flashback: Lyndsay's Van Life - Part 5

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I broke down in Bozeman, was questioned by police, got towed to an auto shop and clogged their toilet, they were booked and I needed to be towed to another shop, then found out I'd been outside the other shop before the original tow. Because my life is a comedy.

Sunday Review: RV Wheel Bearings Explained - Guest Post by Dale Constantine

I previously made a post on a Sunday Review about a quick and dirty path to greasing your wheel bearings. As it turns out, I was grossly misinformed! While the "cheat" works if you are in a pinch (and got us across mountains and a couple thousand kilometres when we had no other choice), it is definitely not recommended and is very risky. I will be doing a complete service of my bearings this year before moving to my next destination. Proper wheel bearing service is a necessity for travel trailers and 5th wheels.

So here to correct me is licensed automotive technician Dale Constantine, whom you can find on LinkedIn. This post is an explanation of the wheel bearings. Next Sunday's post will explain why you should never cheat!

No Thursday Post This Week

We just hauled our setup from Vancouver Island back to Winnipeg in this midst of the pandemic. While all of our posts were ready for while we were driving, we did not have a Thursday post ready, nor enough time and energy to put one together. We hope to be back to our normal schedule on Sunday, with an article from a licensed technician explaining the problems with my previous post on wheel bearings.

Thank you.

Flashback: Lyndsay's Van Life - Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Lyndsay:

So now I finally had my temporary registration and it was time to head back to Winnipeg.

But this was an old vehicle. There was no computer to warn me if anything was going wrong. It had a single temperature gauge that said "hot" on one side, "cold" on the other, and a large "normal" section in the middle.

I was hauling ass through California. I made it into Nevada.

Sunday Review: Why you need a Costco membership.

"We can't store bulk groceries, why would we have a Costco membership?"

I cannot for the life of me comprehend this response when I recommend that other full timers make purchases at Costco.

Flashback: Lyndsay's Van Life - Part 3

Part 1

Part 2

Lyndsay:

So due to MPI refusing to take an electronic title I was still waiting for the paper title, spent some time as a tourist, attached pleading signs to my van in hopes of avoiding tickets and towing, waited some more, lost out on a winter job in Vancouver, still had to drive a 1976 Econoline all the way back to Winnipeg with no guarantees that engine survived, got free drinks, met Crack Dealer Tony, and finally got woken up in the middle of the night by Crack Dealer Tony.

"Lyndsay! Lyndsay! I'm drunk! Let me get you drunk too so I can rape you!"

Flashback: Lyndsay's Van Life - Part 2

Part 1

Lyndsay:

So I did all my research, bought my tickets, had my plan go haywire due to MPI incompetence before even leaving, got to California, picked up my baby, then lost a mirror in San Francisco and realized I was in the "everyone sues" country.

I immediately parked the van in the free spot where I'd spent the last night and sat with it for another night. By the way, watching the fog roll in in San Francisco is AMAZING. I made a call to the guy that was supposed to be getting the paper Title to see if it had arrived. Despite being express, it hadn't arrived, but he said it would be there the next day. I sat on the side of the beach next to the van with some chicken wings and a beer watching people swim with seals. And threw chicken bones to seagulls.

Even though there had been a bit of a SNAFU, I couldn't help but think that I was in a beautiful place.

Sunday Review: No, you don't need to repack your wheel bearings every year.

Notice: I had been doing additional reading and research well after writing this, as well as talked to some more people (these posts are usually written beforehand and then scheduled to be released). This is a very "backyard mechanic" method of maintenance. It does work, but with big caveats. If your hub rear seal is going or you pump the grease in too hard (more likely with an electric or pneumatic pump), you can blow out the rear seal and get grease on your brakes. This will ruin your brakes. If at all possible it is always best to do a full inspection on your trailer's hub and brakes with regularity, which means pulling everything apart (future post). If you have a method of tracking your trailer's mileage, it still needs to have the bearings repacked on the recommended schedule. It is especially true that a new RV should be checked properly after the first year in case of manufacturing defects (Chinesium axles), and a used RV from a private sale should be checked right away. This is all information only, based on what has worked for me. You could damage your RV if something goes wrong, and this summer I am fully pulling apart my wheel assemblies to check brake pads and replace seals. I used this method due to a difficult situation and may never use it again.

Once or twice a decade at most. (Addendum: Depending on how far you go with your trailer each year.)

How often do you get your wheel bearings repacked on your vehicle? Never, you say? Yeah, no doy.

Okay, some of you will have repacked your wheel bearings on your vehicle, but it isn't common anymore and usually you just end up buying new wheel bearings (or replacing entire knuckles). Well, the trailer is only mildly different. (Another addendum: more than mildly, they are designed differently.)

Flashback: Lyndsay's Van Life - Part 1

As I've said before, Lyndsay lived in a van and trailer for two years before we met. Her experience was very valuable helping us pick out an RV that would meet our needs. I was ready to buy a shell and do a build, but Lyndsay was insistant that we start with something liveable and useable as she'd tried to do the build path and it was quite the mess.

Let's take a trip back down memory lane a bit, to before Lyndsay and I even met. We're going back to summer of 2013. These are Lyndsay's words and her story.

Lyndsay:

Nothin' but a shell.

Getting Ready for the RV: Organizing

It's like Tetris, but with containers.

Lyndsay should really be writing this one. She organizes and I make a mess. Whichever part of the brain deals with that, mine broke.

Sunday Review: Financing When Broke

Yes, you can get financing for an RV even when you are poor and/or broke.

First I'll give you a quick rundown of what we did. Then I'll go into some more details on what you can and/or should be doing.

Getting Ready for the RV: Downsizing

Yup. That part of all of this. The worst part about moving into an RV. It doesn't matter how you sort it or what kind of sentimental value it has; you will be selling, giving away, or throwing out most of what you own.

And the worst part? Sorry ladies, but it is mostly the things that you want to keep that will be going. This is one of those things that the Glitz and Glammers get right.

I wrote a book!

On the right sidebar you can see my Patreon under my pen name.

Well, I just published my first e-book under that pen name!

Sin's Shadow is now available for purchase on Amazon and Kobo!

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0875RM535

https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/sin-s-shadow

Round 3: Cold

Let's fast forward to our winter on Vancouver Island. We were short on funds and couldn't afford skirting. We had to find creative ways to save on heating bills, do it one step at a time, and still avoid freezing water lines.

Sunday Review: Riding Mountain National Park

Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba is one of those places that you just have to visit in Canada. The park is located on the Manitoba Escarpment and covers nearly 3000 square kilometres. The protected area covers three converging ecosystems; grasslands, upland boreal forest, and eastern deciduous forest.

Workaway: The Horse Ranches, Part 2

Our first Workaway was a bit of a disaster that we cut short by a good two weeks. We were worried about the next ranch we were going to, wondering if our first experience was the norm. But we also know that we have almost catastrophically bad luck, so our first experience being a near disaster was kind of to be expected.

New Mini-Movie: The Potato Thief

New mini-movie courtesy of Lyndsay and Aurora's limitless creativity. Enjoy.

See the sidebar for the link to our YouTube channel.

Workaway: The Horse Ranches, Part 1

Apologies for the post coming later in the day.

We did a lot of research trying to figure out how to make money on the road or how to cut costs so that we could be more mobile. One of the suggestions from the Glitz and Glammers was Workaway. You exchange volunteer work for room and board. There were plenty of farms on Workaway, so that meant a place to park, electricity, water and even groceries and meals. And of course this also meant that our daughter would be able to see where food comes from; too many young people (even adults) believe it comes from a grocery store.

Sunday Review: Dehumidifers

To follow up Thursday's post about mold, I thought I'd get a little more in-depth with the dehumidifiers.

If you are exclusively in Canada, you will probably need to deal with humidity. It just isn't optional. Even if you have a small air exchanger (if such things exist in RVs), the coasts are just too humid in the winter for that to be good enough. I saw some people just running ceramic heaters through the winter with the window cracked, but their electrical bills were immense; some hit almost $300 per month. Our highest bill was barely over $100. Just get the dehumidifier.

Round 2: Mold

The warnings are right on your RV instructions; there is no air exchange. RVs collect moisture. Spend as much time out of them as possible.

Well, we did a lot of that. Outside is nicer, after all. We don't want to spend time cooped up if we don't have to.

The nearly universal recommendation that we got for full time living was to get some Eva-Drys. Every single last Glitz and Glammer and blog we read told us that this would be enough. They absorb moisture, then you plug them in outside for a few hours before putting them back inside. Sounds great, doesn't it? And in the prairies, it worked just fine! We only had one as we were on a tight budget, so we would just air out the RV from time to time to help it along. The general recommendation was to have three Eva-Drys, but that would be all you would need.

Renos: The Living Room

Before the renos. We had the dealer remove the oddly-placed couch. Seriously, why the heck do the engineers put a couch kitty-corner to the TV? And that chandelier? Really? Madness I tell you! And that wallpaper is U-G-L-Y ugly!

The biggest problem with any RV: you walk in and you are extremely aware that you are in an RV. It doesn't look like a home. The couch is in the wrong spot, the eating area is built to sleep on, and everything is absurdly tight. Worse, all of the colours are terribly drab and unappealing, making it feel even more closed in. We wanted it to feel like a home for ourselves and Aurora; a sense of normalcy for everyone and a place we can be comfortable when stuck indoors.

Sunday Review: Establishing Residence in Canada

Clarification: This is advice to Canadians that want to RV full time. None of this applies to Americans.

A lot of people that aren't RVing full time in Canada but would like to do so avoid it simply because of the way our residency requirements work. Our health care and schooling are tied to provincial residency, so a physical address is mandatory.

Well, this isn't nearly as complicated as you would think.

Getting Our New Home

That's my wife's cat in a skirt and it gave me panic attacks in the middle of the night more than once.

We purchased our travel trailer in March 2019. We'd spent months looking at various models online and checking out many in person. The salesmen were exceptionally annoying, always steering us to new models when we specifically wanted used. Few if any of the dealers in Winnipeg had used trailers. The only way to get a used trailer in or around town was to buy privately; but we needed to get financing and that meant hitting up multiple banks, not just going through our own. The dealer we had to go through was a 3 hour drive from the city.

Round 1: Mice

There is a saying among wilderness survivalists: "Mother Nature is the world's most successful serial killer." As much as we enjoy nature, the reality is that most of us live our entire lives trying to keep nature at bay. Nature isn't just squirrels and flowers; it is also disease, floods, mold and rot, animal attacks, hypothermia, earthquakes and more. We love nature, but we underestimate it at our own peril.

Mice (and/or rats) are everywhere. They get into everything. This was one of Lyndsay's biggest fears. Not only do they carry diseases, but they can destroy an RV from the inside out by wrecking insulation and chewing through wires. She told me it would be an ongoing battle.

Meet General Drumpf of the Mouser Division.

The Grass is Greener

We've been living in our camper trailer since June, 2019. That's more than eight months, as of writing this post. Since then we have learned a lot. Such as how much nature wants to kill us. We've had cold, we've had mold, we've had rain and snow and ice. But that's all for other posts.

Choosing A Home

In 2018, we made the decision to live in an RV full time. The next step was deciding what kind of home we would be buying; and make no mistake, the RV is your home. The decision needed to be every bit as careful as buying sticks and bricks.

We had many things to consider. Lyndsay's experience helped a lot. She'd tried to live in something while building it and it was a disaster. There were bare minimums we needed no matter what; changes could be made while living in it, but it had to be livable. As we were low income, up front and long term costs were major factors. We had to take Aurora into account, unlike most of the full timers that we've viewed online. And it wasn't like we could go ask friends for advice. The biggest benefit of buying sticks and bricks is that there are tons of other people that do it and advice is plentiful. No amount of research and watching videos made by the glitz and glam folks can fully prepare you for such a decision.

About Page Added

I have written our about page, which has an introduction to each member of our family. You can find it on the right sidebar. Enjoy!

What the frak do you think you're doing!?

When we told everyone that we would be moving into an RV, not a single person believed it would happen. Plenty of eye rolls and "sure sure." We were both over 30 years old, after all. And broke. People don't change after the age of 30 and they sure as hell don't get to go on adventures when they're broke.