A descriptive look at traveling and full-timing with our second RV, a fifth wheel toyhauler.
Laura and Sasha started this adventure in April of 2005
for a two week vacation in a truck camper.
Laura & Sasha's Excellent Adventure
Full Timing in 2009!
January, February, March, April, May, June, July,
August, September, October, November, December
Welcome to 2009 - Really Full Timing and changing our lives.
Laura and Sasha's Excellent Adventure - Winter in Loudoun County, rest of year Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and then ROAD TRIP!
Well, we are back at it again, for 2009. Right now we are living in Loudoun County in a basement apartment. You can read about the move in on the December page, and what has been happening starting in January.
Check out The NEW YEAR of Full Timing for 2009 starting in January.
We will be living in Cape Hatteras for these Months: That's right, 7 months in Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Oh we can't wait to get there. Loudoun was good, but North Carolina is great!
May working hard on programs!
June start of the summer programs
July start of the hot season
August start of everyone coming down to visit
September - Fall programs and the count-down to being unemployed.
And Part of October! - Getting ready, packed and out of Cape Hatteras for a fabulous road Trip!
Road Trip of November and December! With Expenses up now, showing how much it really does cost to put solar panels on your rig!
Here is the words from the home page, now on the Full Timing 2009 page. The home page will have 2010 happenings, so be sure to check it out. (Remember, it is like a blog, the top is the latest and greatest, the bottom is the older stuff.)
December: Over three weeks in Texas! And two of those weeks in Livingston. We got everything that we needed to get done for becoming Texas residents, and are now heading back towards Nevada.
I am not sure if I told everyone about my volunteer job, so here it goes! I got a volunteer job for the winter at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. I will be at the visitor center in Boulder City area, and we will be living onsite. Don't have much information about it yet, but check back in the next couple of days.
We are also moving faster than when we were coming out to Texas, we have already gotten to Sonora, TX (middle Texas) after just one day of traveling. Of course that one day was about 400 miles, even though we were the Crack of Noon Club yesterday.
There are going to be a few more changes to the website. I will be having Sasha do a couple more pages (sometime in Mid-January), as many people commented about the nice job he did on the About Us page.
I also will have a couple of small pages for the expenses, including the yearly expenses for 2009, plus the Expenses for each month in 2009 on their own separate page. We seem to get lots of questions regarding expenses, so I will try to make it easier for you to see it.
And finally the home page will not be as long come January. But this page you see now will be the Full-Time RVing 2009 page and we will have new things on the home page. This will take a while of course, but I hope to have it all done by mid January. (It ultimately took a bit longer to do, but thems the breaks!)
We are in TEXAS - actually going to stay her for Christmas, lots of activities and fun happenings. Pictures up in a couple of days!
We are now in TEXAS! so we have a new page up and lots to talk about. We are heading towards Livingston, TX, the Full-timers paradise, for those into using Mail Forwarding services with Escapees. But to the journey to Livingston, check out the Texas page.
New page About Us is now up, written by Sasha Jevtich. I think he did a good job with it, and such a nice picture too. Taken with our camera on a monopod when we went hiking in Joshua Tree.
We are back on the road. We spent a good week in Joshua Tree area and now it is back on the road for us. I have made up a new page, called Arizona and New Mexico and talk about our traveling adventures some more. Right now, December 7th, we are bedded down for the night at a Flying J Truck Stop with a bit of a windy situation. We probably will not be driving tomorrow as it is supposed to get up to 60 miles per hour wind gusts. Seems like Kansas all over again.
We went on another hike in Joshua Tree and we have more pictures.
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Expenses for November are up, the explanations are also up! Have to upload when we can, the internet is running slow. Finally got the words in, hopefully will find someplace to upload, thanks for your patience.
The expenses are up. We went on a hike on Tuesday, into Joshua Tree, went about 5 miles round trip. Boy, we are sore considering we have not really hiked for a while. So first check out the California page for pictures on the Salton Sea and Slab City, and then check out the new page about Hiking 2009 - the hike of Joshua Tree, first day plus some other pictures before our camera battery died. Boo, Hoo, just as we were going through Joshua Tree NP.
Joshua Tree National Park, going on a hike on Tuesday. Also our expenses for November are quite a doozie, read about them on the November page (should be up by December 2nd), and we will have a new page up about the hiking in Joshua Tree. Also will be up hopefully by December 2nd, if I am not too sore.
Ok, we have been in California for a while now. We had two new stops, never been done before, one at a Casino, and one at a Denny's. Read about it in the California page.
You might also notice a few more ads, it is now the holiday season. So if you are going to buy from Amazon, why not go through the link on the side here? I get a slight affiliate fee, but it does not cost you anything extra. I think it is something like 4 cents on the dollar. I also talk about this in the Google Adsense page, and will be putting up a new page soon about making money on your website. (Just realize, most people do not earn a living with their websites, unless they are selling stuff. People just do not click on ads as much anymore.)
Updates on the Oregon page, we are heading to California next!
Alright, I have been updating other parts of the website, while we have been at Henderson's getting the truck taken care of. The Helpful Articles now has some of the pages such as Checklist for Full Timing, Google AdSense, and other stuff. I had a question asked about making money on this website, and I talked about how we do that on the Google AdSense page. (Just so you know, we hardly make anything, but if you want to try for it, Go For It!) But just so you know, the navigation has changed just a little.
We have figured out what we are going to do next, which is why there will be a California page soon! We are going to go to Chico, California and get an auxiliary fuel tank put into the Ford F350 truck, so that we can go further distances. That will be good because then we are going to go to Texas to become Texas residents. We hope to have these things done by the second week of December, then spend the next couple of weeks someplace fun. If we are lucky, I might have a volunteer position in Nevada for the winter. One can always hope.
Lots of pictures have been put up on the Oregon page. Here is one of our pictures of the solar panels while we were at AM Solar. Check out more pictures on the page; it might take a while to load, there are tons of pictures on there.
We are now 11/20 at Henderson's getting work done on our truck they are putting in an exhaust brake. We will have pictures of where we are soon as it gets sunny. (Right now rain, no good.)
We have finished with Solar and have gotten down to Henderson's in Grants Pass. Check out Oregon's page to read up on what is happening next.
The Oregon page is coming up next. I will have some pictures shortly, but this will give you an idea of where we are headed next. Just got the schedule up and running here. Once we have the rig test done we will take the suggestions of the Henderson's into careful consideration and decide what to do next.
OK! I got the Pictures up - Especially interior! Check out Norm&Lou page to check it out!
Got to see the silhouettes of both Mount Hood and Mount Rainer on the drive today, November 11. This area truly is God's Country - Where you are constantly staying WOW and where you mouth stays open in wonder. It is no big secret why I have such a dry mouth, has nothing to do with this cold I have but instead has to do with the beauty that we are seeing.
OK, now I promised that I would get pictures up today, but unfortunately, the area where we parked for the night has very slow connection speeds, so it will probably take all night for the pictures to upload if they do at all. I will get the website words up, and hopefully sometime tomorrow the pictures will be up as well. Thanks for your patience!
Does it seem like we left the planet earth when we got into Idaho? Or at least stopped posting when we got to Post Falls, Idaho? Well, have no fear, we are fine and dandy, having a grand old time getting to know Norm and Lourdes, Post Falls tire stores, thrift stores, and big box stores. I will explain all in our new page called Norm&Lou.
Also, we have the expenses for October up, we did not "buy" the toy hauler camper until November 1st, so you will have to wait until November expenses...well, it was not too bad a price, actually pretty good as far as we are concerned, and everything else, is icing on the cake. The fact is, we got ourselves a pretty good deal, and founded a new friendship with Norm and Lou. I think that the price of the camper is worth it all.
Also too, I know many are asking for interior pictures, and they will happen. I just got socked with a bad cold, so my focus level is a bit low. But in the next couple of days it will happen, I promise!
We have Left Utah and are now in Idaho (October 27). We went to Craters of the Moon National Monument on Tuesday October 27th, I will have pictures up either on Oct 28th or Oct. 29th. But finished up with the Utah page, check out the pictures. Also, if you know what kind of bird is on the last pictures of the Utah page, please email me and let me know - I will quote you as a bird expert! I took three pictures before the bird flew off.
We have been in Utah for the past couple of days. Check out the Road Trip page and the Utah page. We are staying with Bo at Yvonne's house here in Liberty Utah. Very neat house, excellent views and some good hiking. It took us about 4 days to really get acclimated to the elevations here. We are at about 6000 feet above sea level and only 10 days ago we were at sea level. So it has worked out well here. We will probably be leaving in a day or so, because the winter weather is coming soon. We would rather not be here when the snows come. But check out the pictures, I added quite a few especially to the Utah page.
Pictures added, we are now in Wyoming!
More stuff on the Road Trip Page, but we are in Nebraska now.
Road Trip 2009 is now up, will be adding to it later today.
October 14th - It took us about 8 hours to get out of Hatteras! We had a few problems, basically that it started raining again. Kind of hard to get things done in the rain. Sasha had to finish organizing the trailer, and then we had to get the truck under the camper - that was very difficult as we have not done it in so long. But we left Buxton, NC at around 5 pm, with strong headwinds trying to push us back.
October is here, and I won't be working starting on October 14th! Last day of work is October 13th, and Sasha and I will be working furiously to get gone by the 14th or 15th. It is actually October 9th - I have been working for the past 6 days, been a bit tired and not wanting to write, but I now have the September expenses are up, and my creative juices are flowing again. I guess that is what happens when you are about to embark on a road trip!
I have taken out a few pages as they are not relevant anymore. The Frugal Grocery Shopping List - well, I haven't been able to do frugal shopping in a while, as we lived in a semi-resort type town, so I will put that on again once I have shopped properly.
I also had a few questions emailed to me and so have updated the Questions and Answers page as well.
September is Here! And it is already like fall - or at least seems that way. Only a high of 79! And only a little bit humid! OMG I can not believe it. No more snorkeling, and only one last Cast Netting, sigh, the end of summer happens Labor Day for us here at the beach. Night Driving on the beach happens in the middle of September as all of the birds that have nested have grown and all of the turtles have gone into the ocean.
Augusts' expenses are now up. We have found August to be very hot and humid, staying in the camper more often than not, plus we had two major storms here, one was Hurricane Bill, who stayed off the coast but still did damage to the beaches and the other was Tropical Storm Danny who pretty much petered out right along the coast of North Carolina. Of course with Danny, Sasha spent a good part of two days securing our site, putting everything in the trailer or truck, filling up the water tank to make us heavier and things like that.
We also saw Bo when he came down to visit, and we went up to Todd Ottenstein's house and business in Corolla, NC. He has an awesome house, very green with his own wind turbine for his business and his house. It is very cool, maybe some day others will follow suit. They really should around here as the wind blows almost all the time.
July's expenses are now up. While I am not writing in the website every day like I did before, I am trying to explain our expenses. So you still get a little story about how our month has gone. August is proving to be hot, which means by the end of the day, we take a shower, eat and fall into bed. Sasha is still getting used to working as manual labor kind of job, although he likes what he is doing, it is very tiring. He is out in VERY hot weather, we are drinking lots of water, and now starting to drink Gatorade because we are sweating so much. Thankfully, when my parents came here in July, they gave us back Sasha's old bike. He pumped up the tires and it works great, and I having been using that to get to work, rather than walking.
Sorry seems to be the big word here. It has taken me a while to realize this, but it seems that since I have been working the full time Park Ranger job, the website has languished. It was great when I was volunteering, as I had more time. But now I come home tired and do not want to write in the website as it seems to be more work than pleasure. So I am taking a break.
The website will be updated with the expenses only, because I do believe that is important and valuable to others. I will get pictures up when I can, as well as the books that we read. I have been reading constantly, which is always good, but then I do not get to the website.
Sasha has also been volunteering at the park, and we are looking for volunteering opportunities for this winter. I am applying to jobs, but it might be a good idea to take a little break from paid jobs for volunteering gigs instead.
June's Expenses are up now and July's will be up soon. Thanks for looking.
OK, I know, have not be on to update, but had a few problems with my computer. You would think that the Dell would actually work longer than six months...but I guess not. It is still not completely up to speed yet, but I am working diligently to get it there. Thankfully, all of our data is backed up on multiple external hard drives so I did not lose anything, but it can be so frustrating sometimes. Thankfully, if this is all that I have to be frustrated about, then life can't be too bad, right?
I will have July's page up soon but right now I have June's expenses and the rest of the story up. We did some travelling, and bought a bunch of provisions, and the prices for food around here (YIKES!) We very rarely eat out anymore.
Yahoo, June is here, and we have lots of programs! I just did my night program (had about 12-15 people for it) and although it went well, I have room to tweak it some more, and will probably do that. But the explanations of May's expenses are up and I will try to have some pictures of what we have been doing in May and June in the next couple of days. Have fun and enjoy the beautiful weather!
May's Expenses are up, I will have explanations probably on June 2nd. I was reading a really good book, LA Times, the link is on the May page, really, really good, I read it in 2 days. Sasha had already read it and told me about it. I also have been working on my programs, I have two to now write before the weekend, the night program and a pirates program, hopefully they will be done by Friday.
Programs galore, including Snorkeling in May. Lots of reading both fun and for work as well. I love getting back to reading, always great to expand the mind.
More insights and great pictures in May, check it out! Also, I took out the old computer that was showing on this page, and put in the new - Sasha got for his retirement (from me and him) a Mac Book, 13.3" all aluminum frame. He got his refurbished, but that is not available on Amazon. So I put up the new one instead. He is really loving the Mac, organizing our pictures like crazy. So I have put some more pictures on the site.
OK so I lied, did not get most of it up earlier, but now May is up. I have been working very diligently on my programs (and playing a bit on Facebook) and so have not been working on our site as much. But I got the April Expenses up now, with explanations. I hope that May's expenses go down as Sasha has retired from the Audio Visual industry and we will no longer be getting that paycheck.
We are also quite psyched, we reached another financial goal in April. We keep thanking to the spirits that be that we sold the house when we did and started on the journey again when we did. We realize that lots of people are in serious financial trouble and I plan on having more frugal tips within the pages, some of the things we are doing, that anyone else can do too.
I hope to have May up before May 15th, but it is a little slow going. We have also been reading reading reading - me like crazy about books on the geology and nature of the Outer Banks, Sasha the April and May book of the month - Dream West.
I also hope to have lots of pictures for May - one can only hope they get on there before June.
The expenses of April are finally up!
May will be up shortly, still trying to get April all squared away, but should have at least some of it up by May 3rd.
April: lots of news to report, so please check April to see it all!
April 6th - Started working with NPS - Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Read all about my first and second day.
April is here - with rain and all! First off, Happy Birthday to Lindsay, my niece, she turns 5 today!
Regarding the paperwork: they managed to get it done in about a week! I start work on
April 6th! So we are getting things ready including moving me, the camper and trailer down to Cape Hatteras the weekend before. As it is March 29th as I write this - we have less than a week to get ready, really only a couple of days. Really hard to move everything in the camper and trailer when you are still having to live and use the bed and stuff.
Sasha has to continue to work at his full time job in Sterling, VA until April 24th, then he will be moving down to Hatteras as well.
Check out March for some pictures of Square Foot Gardening at my sister's house. But we will be full-timing come April, and oh, I can't wait!
Late BREAKING NEWS - I received and accepted a job with the National Park Service. Forget what I had down below, this is new - I received the paperwork for a job offer with Cape Hatteras National Seashore! Yahoo! What is really fabulous - it is a higher level than the other ones that I applied for - You are now checking out the website of a PARK RANGER! I am so excited. I have to fill out the paperwork, get fingerprinted, and send the stuff back, and then they do a background check, but I am looking forward to it all! More breaking news will be happening soon, but THIS IS BIG!
March is Now UP! I will have some clothing - at Our Shop. So far I have put on a few hoodie long sleeve tee shirts, a men's T-Shirt, a mouse pad, and a cotton tote. But look for more items coming soon. Also, we would love some input as to what to put on the t-shirts. We are into recycling so we have that, but also our rig, but again, we can get smilies on there, and other stuff. I'll try to make them as affordable as possible.
February is now UP! As well as the expenses for the month. It seems that February was an expensive month, because we had to pay our taxes. First time since we have been married that we had to pay taxes. Seems we do not have as many deductions as last year (no duh, no house!) so Sasha's work did not take out as much. Actually, I think this is better; I'd rather get more money throughout the year and have that money earning interest, than give to the government interest free. So February is an expensive month for that reason only, otherwise it would have been on par with the other months.
Excellent NEWS - Laura got a new job offer! Yahoo! I am so excited, finally got a job offer with a National Park: Alibates Flint Quarry National Monument and Lake Meredith National Recreation Area (two parks in one) in Flitch Texas. So we are Texas bound in 2 months! All the paperwork has to go through of course, but I am not worried. I've been a good person for a long time. So now we are really getting organized and ready.
I put a new link up from Amazon. This is the computer that Sasha is going to get (gotta love Amazon - they have been doing well while lots of companies are not) in the next couple of months. It is an excellent computer for the cost, used mostly for surfing, watching shows, and it has a ton of storage, but nice and small. For those that can't stand the little screens of iPods and phones, this is the next best thing. 2 USB ports, Bluetooth, WIFI, and a pretty good battery, so we will probably get it in the next couple of months.
By the way, January's expenses were up, but the words beneath were the words from December. Sorry that it took me a while to notice that, but it has now been fixed and there are explanations of what and why we spent what we did.
We have been getting ourselves and our pictures organized. It is taking a while for that to happen. We have pictures on my computer, on several hard drives in different places and on other computers. So it makes it all quite fun. We have been playing on Facebook quite a bit too, we are just slightly hooked. Reconnecting with old friends is always fun.
We are now on Facebook! Sasha's Brother Bo stated we should belong, so we decided to check it out. We are on it now, me as Laura Capuano Jevtich and Sasha as Sasha Jevtich so if you are on it, do a search to find us and let's become friends. We decided that we should each have our own profiles, it was becoming confusing with both of us on the same profile. So I will have his little link on the side too, in the next day or so.
I am also setting up a page for eco-friendly stuff that you can buy. It should be up later today, I was trying to put our website on some of the stuff, but I'm not sure if this would work. Probably could get it on the T-shirts but not too much else. Anyway, that page should be up later.
Also, Quarter 4, 2008 is now up and revised and NEW this year, the Yearly Expenses for 2008. You can see the total spent for the categories and the averages, because so many people had asked about that on the forums that I go to.
Revised book for Your Money or Your Life! The book came out in December 2008, it is newly revised, and with investment tips for this recession time period. Same ideas, but updated. I plan to check it out at the library first, then buy a copy.
January is now up, with expenses showing. We managed to spend less than our investments gave out, so that was a good sign. Now, if we could only keep this up! Also, want to thank whoever it was who bought stuff on Amazon, you managed to put me over the top to finally getting a check from them. It has only taken 2 years!
January calls for something new, a frugal grocery shopping list, pre-made with the prices you should be getting for some of the most common types of foods.
Also, this poem sums up our year in review.
Wrap up Poem for 2008 - Christmas Poem
Just a Small Tidbit of Our Year
Well, the first three months of 2008 were really really cool,
My volunteer gig with NPS as a host of 1930's cabin,
But we spent time hiking, reading lots of books and gabbin'.
The work was enjoyable, but it was time to move on, fool,
To a work-camper experience, a campground with a pool!
So from April to November, I worked in a campground store
But we took a vacation early on - to the Mid-Atlantic Truck Camper Rally!
We saw lots of rigs, I gave a Seminar and it was great seeing everyone but then we had to dally,
On back. We picked and dried lots of fruit, to tide us over the winter more
But then our slide-in camper surprised us to our very core!
We sprung a Leak, we needed to find a new home.
Thankfully, we found one in Leesburg, near where we used to live
Our Camper's in the shop, our trailer's in storage, time is slipping like a sieve
I'm applying for NPS jobs, Sasha's planning for early retirement and we are wanting to Roam
We are Looking Forward to 2009, And so we wrote this Poem!
OK, I tried to make it rhyme, and gave you a few hints to make it so, but you get the point, Right?
We wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year!
Please check our Adventures for the Spring of 2009, we think it will be a great year for us (Now I'll go knock on some wood, don't want to jinx ourselves.)