Proving that blogging is the first thing to suffer as soon as stuff gets interesting, we’ve been horribly quiet over here lately. It’s been a whirlwind of activity as we’ve purchased our trailer, set it up and hit the road for our first work trip.
After much going back and forth, we decided we wanted the Airstream Flying Cloud 27FB. It’s a nice compromise between the compact length of the 25FB and it’s slightly awkward sleeping accommodations and the spacious 30 foot which would severely limit some of the places we would like to go. As soon as we were sure that our house sale was going through, we began a nationwide search for our perfect trailer. We finally found the one we wanted at Colonial Airstream in New Jersey. Even though neither of us have any real towing experience, we went with that old adage about fortune favoring the brave, and dashed to the East Coast to pick up our new home and bring her back to Oklahoma!
Thankfully, we really needn’t have worried as much as we did. Between our truck which is a bit of overkill for a trailer of this size and the very nice ProPride hitch that we sprung for, the towing experience has really been uneventful which is to say wonderful!
It took us five days to get the trailer back which was a great chance to test all of the equipment and get some good practice hooking and un-hooking the trailer. We were wimps though and passed on trying to back it up for the first week.
While in Oklahoma, we’ve settled into a nice place in Luther which is close to my parents and also easy to get into the city for work. We spent three weeks in Oklahoma getting stuff organized, installing the various cellular and WiFi antennas that we will need to keep us working on the road. Then it was off for a short two week trip to try all the stuff out and get our feet wet!
We’ve spent the last week in Gunnison, Colorado which is on the southern side of the state just down the road from the ski town of Crested Butte. We stayed in an RV park on the outskirts of town while we looked for some places to do some dry camping the following week. First lesson learned, don’t count on RV Park WiFi. This is one I had already heard from other full-timers, but I had hoped that we could make it work. Unfortunately, the park WiFi was extremely throttled and usage was very limited. Combined with a lack of usable cellular signal, our first week of on the road working was a bit tough. We also got our chance to work on our first trailer repair. During the antenna installation, we didn’t entirely seal up the access hole to the inside of the trailer, which made for an alarming leak that we think we now have under complete control.
It hasn’t been all work and learning though. This weekend we got a chance to head up to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison for a little sight seeing. Grace wasn’t too thrilled with the steep drop offs (She is very, very afraid of heights.), but she humored me. It’s some amazing sights to be sure!
For this week, we’ve moved about 20 miles up the road to a small National Forest Service Campground right by the Taylor River outside of the small hamlet of Almont, Colorado. It’s a beautiful spot with enough sunny spots for me to try out the solar panels and with the beautiful, rolling sound of water running through the rapids just down the hill from us. This is the sort of place I’ve been dreaming of when we started thinking about this change of life. Can’t wait to spend a week here to find out just what it’s going to be like!
