November 19, 2018 we completed our very first RV trip!
Trapper’s aunt and uncle volunteered their driveway to us (for as long as we needed). Our initial thought was it would be a great place, warmer, and we were familiar with the area. Plus, we could take a minute to regroup and get some kind of a plan in place.
Not more than 15 minutes after arriving we start the unhooking process of the 5th wheel and as we are lowering the landing gear we hear this gosh awful grinding, popping, screeching sound!
Yep, the electric landing gears broke. If they were going to break this was the best place we could have been! Luckily Uncle Ralph is a machinist and pretty much ended up making the parts to fix the landing gear. Finding parts for a 21 year RV is a bit difficult! So for roughly 5 weeks we sat in the driveway with just about every tool we have on board outside under the RV – it was a daily work grind.
During all this time we also installed our solar and finished running wires and hooking everything up. Our goal for traveling is being able to stay unplugged for as long as possible – so the solar was a must.
I finally got brave enough to attempt cooking and it was much better than expected! I LOVE the propane stove and oven. Now, I wish we had changed out our electric one in our house years ago.
The only difference in cooking is that I can’t make large meals that will produce leftovers. There’s not enough space in the fridge for a bunch of leftovers or containers.
Living small does come with a few compromises but mostly it’s a positive thing! We’ll talk about that later…