Our year three travels are about to begin. At the beginning of May in 2023 we began living on the road. The first year we were adjusting to this lifestyle, the fifth-wheel life, travel weekends, new procedures for all of the above. We were also seeing a ton of new places and visiting a lot of national parks. The second year we spent time searching for a summer property and then got sidetracked by hail damage. Scott tracks all of our time spent at various stops, which places we’ve stayed, for how long, and how much they cost. Our first 469 days on the road we had 44 travel days, an average of 1 travel day every 10.7 days. This past 9 months (279 days since the hail) we’ve had 12 travel days, averaging 1 travel day every 23.3 days. But the average isn’t really a good measure here since we had three long stays: Colorado (61 days), Texas (104 days), and Tucson (75 days). The long stay in Texas was planned but Colorado and Tucson were for hail damage repairs. Over the next 43 days as we head to Oregon we will have 8 travel days, 1 every 5.4 days. This third year will again be looking for property and seeing friends and family. We still have plans to do a midwest loop, a west-coast loop, and two eastern loops so we can visit more parks but we’re realizing it may take more than five years to see it all!
Speaking of hail damage repairs, you may remember the fifth-wheel got fixed in Colorado but the truck did not. Well, the side mirrors got replaced but the rest had like a six month wait to get repaired in Colorado and we knew there were no places in Texas close enough to get the work done there. We had an appointment at an autobody shop in Tucson to get the repairs started the Monday after we arrived. Their assessment of the damage was more than the insurance was willing to pay. We have now paid off the rest of the bank loan so we own the truck outright and are in process of getting the title signed over to us so the insurance can pay us the salvage amount. We will then need a new title, which if issued in Oregon would be a salvage title, and if issued in Texas would be a regular title since superficial damage that doesn’t impact drivability doesn’t result in a salvage title. It’s unclear whether a salvage title issued in Oregon could be turned into a regular title in Texas. Either way, we’ll be getting a new title with just us as the owners. Our insurance will still cover us and the truck is still in great running condition. This will complete our hail recovery, though we will have to live with the scars…
It’s also time for an update about our bike purchase. They’re trek hybrid bikes, not e-bikes as we had been debating. We’ve taken them out for a few short rides and are still working on getting the fit adjusted for maximum comfort. The bike shop at which we purchased them offered a tune-up 30 days after purchasing so we just dropped them off for that. They found an issue with the crank on Scott’s bike. It was covered by the warranty but would take Trek two weeks to get the part to the shop. We are hitting the road on Friday so that wasn’t an option. Luckily the part was under $30 and the shop had an extra they could use to replace the faulty one. So that’ll be fixed before we leave.
To go along with these new bikes we also needed a bike rack. When we originally purchased the bikes we also purchased a rack recommended by the person helping us at the shop. Unfortunately when it came in we realized it was for a typical hitch (1.25″) and we are not typical. Betty has a 2.5″ hitch and the fifth-wheel has a 2″ hitch. The bike rack fit a 1.25″ hitch but had an insert that allowed it to fit a 2″ hitch. It also said “not for use with fifth-wheels” which was a bit worrying since that was where these bikes would spend a lot of time. Instead of trying to make that rack work we returned it to the store and ordered a different one that was more compatible with what we needed (this is the one in the photo). The new rack has a 2″ hitch insert so it’s perfect for the fifth-wheel and our truck came with a 2.5″ to 2″ down-conversion hitch piece so it fits there too. It’s also specifically made for use with RVs and fifth-wheels, so we feel much more secure about the bikes on travel days.
I think I’ll leave the detailed travel update for another post (we’re headed to Oregon with a stop at Lassen Volcanic national park) and end with another project I’ve been working on. We have two different styles of windows that open in the fifth-wheel – awning windows (we call them pinchers) that open outwards from the bottom edge when you turn a crank, and sliding windows that slide upwards. We have four slider windows, two in the main living room and two in the bedroom. We use these slider windows all the time as they give a nice cross breeze. Unfortunately they’re terribly designed. They stay up with a plastic peg piece that fits into a hole in the frame. This plastic peg has now broken off of almost all the pieces in our two main slider windows.
We were using a stick to brace the window but that’s not a great solution. These peg braces are in a track where they slide freely but are impossible to remove from the track unless you remove the whole window AND the window frame from the wall. That didn’t work for us. Instead, we decided to go DIY. I removed the metal lip of the track in the middle (by grinding it down) so I could remove the plastic peg and replace it with a reconstructed peg I made out of a metal rod that fits perfectly into the bracing holes in the frame.
I’ve made all four new pegs but I’ve only replaced them in one window. The track lip removal is tedious and noisy and recently we’ve had our reflective coverings on all our windows because it’s been super hot here. Speaking of, our reflective window coverings are another work-in-progress. I’ll share that project in a future post once I’ve taken some photos.