Moving into the RV

We have often been asked how we went about moving into the RV.  Believe me, moving to a different house is probably much easier than having to get rid of everything and down sizing to about 350 square feet.  Selling the house was no different than what anybody else goes through and then the hard work sets in.  The big plus was for our kids -- they don't have to get rid of a bunch of our stuff when we are gone.  At least not right now!

Believe it or not our Sunday School class and many of our friends bought all the furniture we had for sale.  I saved some of the older stuff for one of my kids when he was ready to get his own place as well as much of the kitchen stuff I wasn't taking so that part was easy.  We setup all the other stuff on shelves and tables in the garage and let folks come by and get what they wanted.  I hate garage sales - too much work - so didn't have an official garage sale.  Unfortunately, very few of those items were taken off our hands.  But low and behold one of our friend's church was having a garage sale to raise funds for a youth activity so we donated all the stuff in the garage and got ourselves a tax receipt.  Sweet. 

Now for the items we weren't quite ready to get rid of.  We had some things that were family items or had a lot of sentimental value.  Only a couple of pieces of furniture and the rest were all items that could be boxed up.  So we rented a small storage facility near the house and put all the items we were keeping or giving to our son into that facility to get them out of the way.  In the meantime we built a large storage shed on our RV lot in Sulphur with a full loft.  When that was done we moved the items we were keeping to the loft in that storage unit and we were then able to get rid of the storage unit near the house. 

We downsized our clothes as well.  First we got rid of anything we didn't use or didn't fit and donated them to the church's care center.  Then we had to look seriously at what was left and pare those down as well to just what we really needed.  Closet and drawer space in the bedroom is at a premium - especially closets.  We store the out of season clothes in the storage bays under the motorhome which gives us more space.  So lots of shoes had to go.  Just the basics got to stay.  It will be nice when we are completely retired and can get rid of 'work' clothes!

The last big items we had to deal with were books and photo albums, both of which are way too heavy and take up way too much space to take with us.  We sold some books to a local book store and donated some to the local library and I purchased a Kindle.  I can store lots of books on that!  The photo albums were stored in a friend's garage - bless them - while I take time to go through them and scan the photos we want to keep. 

We found a great RV park to live in between Blanchard and Newcastle for the next five years and I'll tell you more about it shortly.

On moving day we pulled the motorhome up to the house and got to work.  I told John that he could start loading his electronic stuff (which I thought he had also pared down).  I started in with all the inside stuff.  It wasn't long and John informed me that he was done but that all his stuff took up every single storage bay underneath!  NO WAY was my reaction.  He agreed that apparently he still had too much stuff and agreed to go through it all again.  Over the next few months he actually got all his electronics down to one storage bay.  Wahoo!  The motorhome was already well outfitted with dishes, kitchen stuff, etc since we used it so much.  So I was only trading out a few kitchen and bathroom things for better items but most of the items getting moved were clothes, electronics, pet stuff, and so on.  In a day we had it loaded and organized.  We then headed for our new location in the RV park.

We had searched and searched for a decent RV park as we didn't like the ones located in the city.  The little gem we found is down in a wooded valley at the intersection of two highways and is lovely.  It is not really a vacation RV park.  The majority of the folks that are here are contract workers who move from job site to job site.  Just a small handfull live there and probably have no intention of leaving.  Several full-timers or retired folks stop here for a few days to a few weeks while passing through the area to visit friends and relatives.  The rent is about half of what everybody pays by the month in town and includes most of the electricity which is amazing.  There is a huge tornado shelter that everybody can fit in.  It's the box from an old semi sunk into the side of a hill.  Yes - we were in it twice in our first year here.  Most of the time the tornadoes seem to follow one of the highways by us and go around us.  It also has a nice clean laundry and areas to walk the dogs. 

When we first checked out this park we noticed there were four metal canopies in the park so discussed having one built for us to protect our RV from snow, ice and hail.  Since we told him we were here for 5-6 years he agreed to build one and the cost of rent with the cover was still very affordable to we are parked under a great cover.  The two cars, motorcycle and room for other storage all fit as well.  We have a large propane tank that we can connect to and only need to fill it about 3 times a year.  The propane guy comes through the park every Wednesday during the cold months and we just leave a message at the office if we need the big tank or the one on board filled.  It's awesome service!  They just leave a bill on the door.  We are able to have container gardens and bird feeders.  So far I have seen six different wild bird species AND six very large turkeys (5 females and 1 male) landed outside the window last week.  John suggested dinner!  We have excellent security here and can actually leave everything unlocked if we want to.  We also have an RV mechanic who owns his own RV sales/service place that makes house calls.  Ahhhh - life is so good!

We have been here since September 2011 so we are finishing up our second winter and love it.  Our new RV that we purchased in January 2013 has double pane windows and a fireplace so we are always quite cozy on those really cold days.