Ruth,

First and foremost: THANK YOU, for sharing the "other side" of FT RVing life, especially when working and needing to be in certain places at set times and having access to mobile connectivity constantly almost in your case. It's good to read the good, the bad and the ugly for those of us about to jump off the cliff so to speak.

FWIW, I so sympathize with your comments on it eating up your vacation time and weekends during breakdowns. I remember all too well when we purchased our MH - thinking brand new = no issues. Well, within less than 3,000 miles (that included delivery from California to Langley BC and BC to home in AB prior to any vacation), we were towed enroute to Hells Canyon back to Spokane big Workhorse chassis filthy place I recall. Tried to tell us we'd put dirty fuel in it and wanted to charge us almost $300 just for changing the fuel filter and diagnosis. I had receipts from reputable gas stations, called warranty and said if there's dirt in the fuel tank it's there from when you built it to which warranty said "I tend to agree with you based on the low mileage you've also done thus far". Anyway zero charge, managed to get a few more miles under our belt and she died again. This went on for the first almost 2 years on every trip, and we'd just travel overnight when it was cooler as she seemed to die during the heat of the day. We were continually towed and it totally ruined every vacation/trip, which we had limited time being workaholics back then. To say I ended up in tears more than a few times is an understatement, and rued the day we ever bought a MH. No one worked out what the true problem was.

Finally one day we made it about 200kms down to Milk River Alberta, limping in to the FORD regular garage there. He said he couldn't help, but it sounded like a fuel pump issue. The tow call never came out as it was promised, so the next morning we limped over the border praying not to break down until past, finally got to Great Falls Montana, she died at the Traffic Lights and the Fire Brigade blocked the intersection to allow us to limp after a wee while into a gas station, to later on that night we made it to South Dakota and parked outside a service there. Next morning first thing we went in and said "enough is enough", this has totally ruined all our trips for over two years and someone suggested to check the fuel pump. They did, they replaced it (there was a huge pile of defunct fuel pumps in the place!) and apart from a new engine a couple of years ago due to faulty clip failure, we've had zero issues going forwards.

Now hubby wants a newer Tiffin or Entegra DP, and I'm a nervous wreck of changing knowing the intricacies of this puppy nowadays and having gone through what we did at the front end. It truly is a miracle we still love RVing but like I said, "once all the continual breakdowns were behind us", it's been a wonderful lifestyle. Just hoping and wishing it continues that way for many years to come as we start to go into FT. Hubby says he can't believe how much more reserved with all problems, I have become since those earlier days (LOL). My most common saying is "it is what it is, just gotta deal with it and move on". Easier said than done, when this calm on the surface duck is paddling like crazy underneath!

Thanks so much Ruth for all you and so many others share on your journey, it is really appreciated to open our eyes to all aspects and the challenges you have faced. IIRC Cheryl bless her has had a lot of issues at the front end with her unit as well, but don't see her write much here any more, so not sure if she is still FTing it?

Fingers crossed that all these issues are now finally behind you and you can move forwards with none for some time to come! As for whether to commit to a more static homebase, only you can decide what's best for you and Dale in that regards. We are all of different and varying personalities on which straw will break which camel's back so to speak based on pros and cons of the lifestyle.

Safe and happy travels moving forwards for you both,

SD.

Barb and SD,

Thanks for the encouragement, I really do appreciate it. I think if we can get through the next few weeks I might have a better perspective on things, but knowing that over the next 3 weeks we've got 1000 miles to travel, with a planned vacation in the middle of that, and an art show in California at the end of the trip is just turning me into a ball of anxiety. My corporate job has been super busy for about 2 months straight so that hasn't helped things.

I know it's a balance and we are truly trying to find the right balance again. Love this life, love discovering new places, but I can definitely say some of the joy has been replaced by frustration.

Thanks again for the encouragement.

Ruth, while I can't speak to the RV repairs causing you no apparent end of grief, we have certainly had our own share of "when is this going to end" so we can get to the good stuff. Over the last 8 years, Cindi was downsized out of a nice job, and while trying to put a plug in that hole in the dike, we faced hits to our savings, Cindi lost her mother and dealt with the loss and those emergency expenses etc really major car repairs, and our 2014 pitbull assault and the medical and legal dealings with that. Through it we reprioritzed our goals and are back on track financially. Through it all we were like you, wondering what the next shoe to drop would be. We decided not to stay in that mindset as it would surely come to pass and all we'd get from it was vindication we were right and more "crap" was headed our way... proving what? We should live in fear of the unknown? Taking charge of the here and now is a powerful force for living, anything else is just creeping death. You'll get through this rough patch.... believe it and it will come and take each day as it comes and treasure the positive, learn from the negative.... and move on. The beauty of stepping in "poop" ocasionally is that it reminds us to pay attention and, also important, that it washes off.

Stay strong.

FWIW, Brian

 

Thanks for the feedback.

Still processing through all of this as we plan for the future. Are we happier on the road than being stationary? Yes, but to be perfectly honest, when balancing the repairs and our work, it's actually been more stressful. I need to figure out a better way to balance that in the future and probably just move into a hotel sooner and be prepared to stay longer when it appears the repairs are going to really disrupt my work schedule.

Financially we're still saving more living on the road than when we had a house, most of the repairs were covered by warranty, but we did choose to replace both axles and all the bearings when one failed so we wouldn't have to worry about the next failure. Our assumption after a bit of research was that the second one would fail and we decided we didn't want to continue down the road with a ticking time bomb. Overall we've spent about 4K on unplanned repairs this past year which was higher than our budget, but we were fortunate to have the money in savings and our contingency funds.

Just hoping we have this year behind and can continue down the road with a bit less time being stuck unexpectedly where we didn't plan or necessarily want to be. We had a wonderful evening earlier this week with friends who have just bought a house in Tucson, going from FT to PT after 4 years. As we visited their new home base it made us realize we're not ready for that. I don't want to think about buying furniture, decorating, etc. Through our conversation we were reminded of so many reasons we didn't want a house at this time and left happy for our friends, but still not being ready to make a commitment to a house again.

We were celebrating last night, finally made the move between AZ to Northern CA without a mishap!!! After the truck engine dying a year ago when we were making the same trip and then the reverse trip last Fall with a bearing failure, and the ongoing hydraulic issues this spring, we were a little concerned about this last move.

We took a week's vacation so we could enjoy a couple of stops, including the Grand Canyon, made a couple of other stops along the way, choosing our driving days on the days that were forecasted to be the least windy days and ended up getting in a day early just to avoid driving on a day with wind warnings. And now we're "settled" for 5 weeks, first time in 6 months we've been anywhere for that length of time and thankful to be here.

For now we have decided against any kind of "home base", just not ready for that, but we are starting to replan our travel / repositioning days. Most of the year our moves are short, but we have 3 to 4 major repositioning moves each year of 800-1000 miles due to the art show schedule so we're starting to rethink that schedule for 2017.

Life is good and we're happy to be living it mobile!

 Aussiesteve, a deliciously funny perspective and reminder to not take ourselves too seriously, it will make us even more crazy than we sometimes already are.