Parking Lot Purgatory- and “real life” in the RV

So here it is folks. The “Real Life” portion of this blogging experience. The “what’s it really like, (sometimes)” part . It’s a little wordier than usual, at the start but hang in there…

So two weeks into our trip, our leveling jacks failed to work properly, which prompted us to make an appointment to get them fixed as they are under warranty. Well there are only THREE places in the US that we can go to to get the work done, unless we want to go to an authorized dealer and wait weeks or months to get paperwork approved to get repairs paid for. Yes. Welcome to RV life. This was June, and the only appointment we could get was OCTOBER 22. In TEXAS.

No problem, we thought. We could wait, and in the meantime generate a list of all the other little things that would surely accumulate during that time for the REV group to fix. We’d go right after the balloon fiesta in NM, and have enough time in between to see Big Bend National Park, Guadaloupe Mountains NP, and Carlsbad Caverns.

Well due to the “incident” in Albuquerque with our tow hitch, we got delayed, which meant we had to SKIP Big Bend and Guadaloupe, and basically rush to the Caverns before taking the rig in to get serviced.

Welcome to Parking Lot Purgatory.

This is the REV group where we got to spend NINE days in their “campground” which is basically a fenced in parking lot with electrical and water hookups, and one dump station.

Notice the line of RV’s waiting to get serviced every morning…

The drill goes like this. You wake up early, drive your HOUSE next door to the facility by 7:30 am and LEAVE it there. That means kids up, dressed, and ready to kill time for the WHOLE DAY. Oh, and make sure you have everything you need with you because you can’t just go back to your HOUSE which is being serviced. Find a breakfast joint and go from there.

The thing is, there is pretty much nothing around and we’re about 40-60 minutes from Dallas and Ft. Worth. OK, so things open by the time we have breakfast and get to the metropolitan area, but the kicker is we have to be back by 3:30, because they close at 4 and if you don’t get your HOUSE in time, well, you have no house. That means quitting whatever fun thing you are doing in town just at you’re really getting into it… “wait, it’s 2:30? Crap, we have to go now!” Yeah, that.

Then you get to kick it in a parking lot with all the other poor folks and trade RV repair stories for the rest of the day, because you’re not driving back to Dallas. Or Ft Worth. So you set out your chairs and have ice cream.

Or clean the floor mats (love the barbed wire!)

Or clean out and dry all the things that were in the bay that had been leaking…(yeah, another thing on the list)

Or just kill time

NINE DAYS. We did this for nine days. I was pretty good up until day four. Ugh. I won’t go on. Luckily the sunsets were nice.

We had to stay over a weekend while the REV group was closed. I thought it would be fun to band together with the other RV’ers and pool our funds and hire a taco truck and have a block party.

Just kidding.

So there you have it. Parking Lot purgatory. There will be another post on how we killed time in TX while we waited.

For now, enjoy these goodies from our day to day life in the RV over the past 5 months.

Like GROCERY SHOPPING!

Or the occasional Target run (you need a LOT of space to park)

And I think we probably hit every REI in the Western region of the US.

And yes, Walmart. Sometimes you just need to stop for RV stuff, and their parking lots are seriously the most RV friendly. I swear, the kids can play almost anywhere now.

We have to fill up the tanks…

and wash the windows

And when we need propane, we need to exit the rig while the tank gets filled

We also need to DUMP the tanks. (Take a guess what the BROWN hose is for.)

We cook…

Do dishes

And yes, Laundry. Our rig has a washer/dryer. I will go on the record to say I seriously poo poo’d this appliance when I first saw it and thought it was ridiculous to have in an RV. I was SO WRONG!!!

The bathroom is small, but we can shower, and Forest can take baths in this…

The kids fight (big brother visits and the NERF wars are ON!) OK, they bicker a LOT too…

The kids play…

And even I get to play sometimes

We go to the “Hair Salon”

And the “Dentist”

We practice piano (yes, that’s a full 88)

Do homework

And work on the blog while Alan drives

We learn Cinema 4d with Dad

We read

Sometimes alone…

We fix things (ok, Alan pretty much does that. )

And do repairs while on the road. On  a driving day while at a rest stop, we discovered our sink was leaking all over the floor. A good HOUR later, it was fixed. Our slides were in so it was really tight. And annoying. And made for a very LONG driving day.

Amazon can be a life saver for those very specific hard to get items for the RV. A BIG shout out to the friends/relatives who let us use their addresses.

And sometimes we have to ship to the UPS Store. Like when we finally broke down and got a new mattress. Once again, 2 weeks in to the trip, the “awesome” mattress proved to be a foam piece of junk that sagged and left Alan in pain every morning.

Say hello to to sleep number RV style!

Back problems solved. Alan is a 65.

I’m a 45

And the kids got some great boxes to play with….

Sometimes the RV is neat…

And sometimes it is not.

We’ve had birthdays

We’ve had tantrums

just a few

 

Ok. He’s three. We’ve had our fair share

But all in all there has been a lot of this…

And there you have it. Some slices of life in the RV.

Thanks for sticking with us on this crazy trip of ours. It’s been a real adventure for sure.