Our first videocast is out!

We’re so excited. Our first videocast is out!

We’ve been wanting to do a podcast and video since we started the RV lifestyle, but it’s been tricky to pull it all together – what with traveling so much, dealing with winter challenges, and figuring out what formats we wanted to use. We finally decided to just go for it. At 37 minutes, our first vid is a bit long, but we needed to catch everyone up on our first 7 1/2 months.

Going forward, they’ll mostly be short, quick hits, and we’ll show you all kinds of cool stuff – like how the rig is decorated, how we handle various RV chores, what our campground experiences are like, product reviews and more.

So, please take a few moments to watch us and share, share, share!  Thank you!

Working at HDU

Mike has been a contract technical trainer at Harley-Davidson’s University for eight years, and he never tires of being on such hallowed ground. HDU is located at Harley’s corporate headquarters on Juneau Avenue. It’s the site where the first factory – a wooden shed – was built in 1903 in the backyard of the William C. Davidson family home. On a couple of occasions, when I’ve been traveling with Mike, he’s brought me there to see the classrooms where he teaches and meet the Harley staff he works with, many of whom he’s known for decades and are now good friends.

I joined him there this past Friday. He had just finished up a four-day class the day before, and he was tidying things up. We brought our hotspot iPad, and Mike parked me in the third floor breakroom to do my work while he tied up loose ends.  With all the friends that stopped by, what should have taken just an hour or so ended up taking all day. It was a hoot! We ran into Becky in the Red Brick Cafe and saw the new Street bike all studded out for ice racing. Kathie, who handles admissions and scheduling for HDU, treated us to lunch at the cafe, and we chatted about social media and shared road stories. The Red Brick Cafe is awesome. Lots of great selections, including a salad bar and a pizza counter. The Margherita pizza I had was freshly made and only had 282 calories in the whole pie! Back in the breakroom on the third floor, longtime pal Anthony pulled up a chair, and he and Mike told stories of the bad old days. It might not have been the most productive day, but it sure was a good one!

Coast-to-Coffice: Urban Joe Cafe

Winter in Milwaukee is never a treat, and with a polar vortex descending on the city not once, but two times, this winter’s been worse than ever. The coffices in town have done a great job of making their places even more welcoming to compensate for the dismal conditions outdoors. Urban Joe Café, in West Allis, for example, serves warm apple cider that takes the chill off as you sink into a cushy, overstuffed chair – after plugging in and connecting to the free Wi-Fi, of course.

With only 50 seats, Urban Joe’s is small, but the thoughtful layout and muted earth tones make it feel spacious. Owner Joe Tairi is very friendly. If it’s not too busy, you might just find him tapping away at his own laptop across from the counter. Come for lunch as well as work because the sandwich selection is excellent, including vegetarian options. Everything is made with fair-trade or organic ingredients as much as possible.

West Allis is named for Edward P. Allis, who ran a late 19th century Milwaukee manufacturing firm. From Urban Joe’s giant windows, looking through the falling snow, the historic facades of the Greenfield Avenue business district create a softly blurred picture of the city in Allis’s time.  If you squint, you can almost see men in top hats and women in bonnets strolling by the shops.

Urban Joe’s is exactly what a coffice is supposed to be: a comfortable place to work with good food and drink and a refreshing view.  Well done, Joe. Well done.

Celebrating Love

Hi, Everyone! Today I’m guest posting over at God Life Happy Wife for the CELEBRATE LOVE series. Just in time for Valentine’s Day (which also happens to be Mike’s birthday!), I’m sharing my love story.  I talk about how giving it all up to move into an RV with Mike got me more than I’d ever dreamed.  It hasn’t always been easy, so I offer some tips on making our relationship work in such close quarters.

Seven months ago, I did something crazy. I gave up my high-paying job, my house and the community I’d lived in for 12 years to move into a 300-square-foot RV with my husband, two dogs and a cat. Permanently.

Mike has been traveling nearly every week for his business as a technical trainer since we began dating.  Before the motorhome, he was gone during the week, back on the weekends, while I worked at my day job, took care of the household, and did freelance writing and taught painting classes on the side.  The lifestyle got old, so we decided to buy an RV and travel as a family to Mike’s gigs.

It sounds romantic: two lovebirds and their fur babies traveling the country, working side-by-side during the day and walking hand-in-hand at night. Despite that rosy image, it wasn’t easy for me to make the leap. Part of me felt like I was giving it all up. Giving up everything I’d worked for, my friends, my beloved community.

Would it be worth it? Would Mike and I survive being together all the time when we’d hardly spent more than a week together for our entire relationship? And doing it all in a hallway on wheels??

Read more >

Coast-to-Coffice: Anodyne Coffee

Anodyne Coffee’s unusual name was inspired by turn-of-the-century medicine bottles that were imprinted with the word “anodyne”, meaning “to soothe or cure pain”.  Read about this sleek Milwaukee coffice with its upcycled furniture and robust beans over at the Coffice Girl blog.

Warrior RV Park (Tulsa, Oklahoma)

Mike was working at Myers-Duren Harley-Davidson, so our next stop after Waco was Tulsa. We chose Warrior RV Park because it was fairly close to the dealership, had good reviews, and was reasonably priced. $28 a day included a pull-through site with full hook-ups and a grassy strip with a picnic table.

Warrior RV Park has 38 pull-throughs with 30- or 50-amp service and concrete pads that are 8 feet by 15 feet. There are also 17 back-in spots with 30-amp service.  There’s a dumpster on the back side for trash along with a larger grassy area for walking the dogs.  The highway runs next to the park, so it can be loud.  Our rig’s insulation kept the road noise to minimum when we were inside. A bathroom/laundry building is roughly in the center of the park.  The park has decent free Wi-Fi and a ridiculously large selection of free cable channels.  We especially appreciated the propane tank on property because we wanted to have plenty of propane as we headed out to Milwaukee.

My memories of our stay in Tulsa will always be bittersweet. We had to say goodbye to our Charlie kitty while we were there.  He developed a saddle thrombus in the afternoon on January 14th that cut off the blood supply to his legs.  Mike was able to leave work early, bringing the Jeep with him, and we took Charlie to a vet Mike’s students had recommended.  The vet and his assistant were very kind, but there was nothing they could do to save our boy.  Since Charlie was 23 years old, we knew his time was going to come soon.  It still broke our hearts, though, to have to let him go.  He was with me for half my life, and he’s irreplaceable.

When I learned that the wife of the couple that owns the park rescues cats, I gave her Charlie’s leftover food and made sure to buy a chocolate bar that she sells for fundraising.  I rescued Charlie all those years ago, and it made me feel good to help someone else trying to do the same.

Finding the humor

We’re back in Milwaukee, and it’s zero out. Yup. You read that right. It’s ZERO degrees here in Milwaukee… during the day. Which means it’s -15 or -20 at night. Not fun, especially in a motorhome. Especially in the midst of a second polar vortex that’s making winter here even more arctic-like than in years past. In this weather, frostbite is a risk and not just for us. At potty time, I carry the bark babies out, plop ’em down to do their business, and quickly cart them back into the rig.

It’s not like we didn’t know we’d be dealing with crappy weather when we decided to go mobile in a hallway on wheels. For at least one week a month, from October to March, Mike teaches at Harley-Davidson’s service school on Juneau Avenue. It’s been that way since he started his biz, and there are no indications that it’s going to change. Milwaukee at this time of year is just going to be cold and snowy. No way around it. We planned for it buy purchasing a higher-end rig with good insulation that was designed for heavy-duty full-timing.

All the knowledge and planning in the world doesn’t make it any easier to live through, though. The bottom line is that it sucks.

We’re getting better at managing it. After our last stay here in December, Mike learned how to insulate the water hoses. He also replaced a part on our pump that had frozen and broken. We added electric and propane space heaters to the rig to supplement our propane furnace. That way, we wouldn’t be running our propane tank down to nothing every couple of days, which would mean unhooking, bringing in the slide, and driving the RV across the park to refill because they don’t deliver.

But last night our furnace broke. (Not sure what happened. Mike has been researching it, and I know he’ll get it sorted out soon.) Then there was apparently a TINY section of uninsulated hose which froze, so we couldn’t use the park water. Shortly after we switched to the pump to use our fresh water tank reserves, that froze, too.  Once again, we have no water coming into the rig. Praise be for bottled water! Then this morning, while we were getting dressed for work, Mike noticed my Sorel boots were smoking. They were too close to the propane space heater and nearly caught on fire! (For those of you concerned about fire safety, all of our space heaters have tip-over protection, and we don’t leave the propane one on when we’re not in the rig.  We normally allow plenty of room around the propane heater, but we’ll be even more careful about that going forward.)

Thankfully, we’ve been warm and dry. We have plenty of food and bottled water. We have our furry family. Best of all, we have each other, and we balance the workload. I take the bark babies out, and Mike troubleshoots in the bays. Both of us suffer a little, but it’s a shared burden. After it’s all said and done, we cuddle up with each other. And we laugh about the fact that we both somehow thought this was a good idea!

It’s not easy to find the humor in these situations. Try to anyway.

Laughing about it means you’re pretty bad ass and should be wearing a cape and a tiara. Laughing about it means marveling at the fact that you’re sharing an extraordinary journey with an amazing partner. And that makes it all worth it.

Just another day at the office

Mike’s technical training job takes us all over the country to a variety of Harley-Davidson dealerships.  He recently wrapped up a gig in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at Myers-Duren.  It’s one of the oldest H-D dealerships, opened in 1914.

The custom-designed, art deco shop at 48th & Peoria has something unusual out front: a Biker Penguin.  The penguin sculptures scattered around town were a part of a 2002 fundraiser by the Tulsa Zoo, designed to draw attention to its Black-Footed Penguin exhibit.  The giant penguins were purchased for $3,500 or adopted for $2,500.  The original 100+ penguins have dwindled to around 50, and some are hidden away inside local shops to avoid vandalism.  So it’s a special treat to able to enjoy the Biker Penguin up close and personal.

Hanging with a one-of-a-kind, seven-foot Biker Penguin: just another day at the office for Mike!

Art on the road: Je t’aime

A colored pencil and Sigma pen original artwork

Coast-to-Coffice: Grouchy John’s

Las Vegas’ independent coffee shop culture has been growing, and Grouchy John’s is a great example of that.  Grouchy John’s began as a mobile coffee truck.  In late 2011, namesake owner John Ynigues opened up a brick-and-mortar location in Henderson, complete with a drive-thru, and Grouchy John’s was promptly voted Best New Coffee Shop in 2012 by Las Vegas WEEKLY.

Like many of these independent shops, Grouchy John’s firmly believes in community partnerships.  So, the coffee is brewed with beans from Colorado River Coffee Roasters in Boulder City, and pastries come from neighborhood bakeries.  The idea is to support good people and local businesses so the money stays in the community.  That’s one of the primary reasons I like to work in these places.

Of course, ambiance is just as important as what’s in the cup, and Grouchy John’s is definitely a creative gathering space.   It’s very homey.  Games and books are available for your entertainment.   If you need to pick up a gift with your latte, Grouchy John’s has pieces from local artists on the walls that are available for purchase.  If you’re a social media passionista, following Grouchy John’s on Facebook or Twitter will make you privvy to specials and give you glimpses of shenanigans going on at the store.

Those wanting to use the free Wi-Fi can plant themselves at a high countertop by the window or at one of the small tables.  Those looking for conversation can relax on leather couches.   Grouchy John’s an excellent place to get away from the chain experience and give your hard-earned dollars to a locally owned neighborhood shop.