CHALLENGES

This page will consist of random thoughts and will be updated as they occur in no particular order.  I'll date them just so you'll know which ones have been added since last reviewed.

May 4, 2006

Good grief!  Why do I even bother to keep this page here, eh?  Haven't used it for so long........ Well, maybe something from the past may trigger something for you, and the space isn't a big deal, so I'll keep it here. But I probably won't be updating it any more, as the challenges I've listed here are about all there is!

September 1, 2001

We have a bent awning rod, and the locking cap is worn out as well.  Seems nobody "carries" the parts, so they have to be ordered.  That means we'll have to wait until we're going to stay someplace long enough for somebody to order the parts so they can fix it.  That and the rear lock for the living room slideout.  Not the first time we've run up against this, but it is one of the challenges of fulltiming.  Now that we're in the PNW for a while, we'll get that kind of thing taken care of, but it'll mean breaking camp and dragging the trailer into a shop someplace.  We'll try to time it between campgrounds, but you can guess how much fun that will be if the shop orders the wrong part or the wrong part gets shipped or it's late or the person in charge of finding it among the items in the shops last shipment can't find it, or, or, or.

June 14, 2000

Mail.  The hassle isn't in finding a service that will forward it to us, it's staying someplace long enough to get it forwarded to us!  We use the Escapees service, and except for the extra postage, it's cheaper than having our own P.O. box someplace.  We ordered a bunch of stuff like the rubber treads for the stairs and the water filters and stuff like that and had it sent to my son's place in Sacramento so we could pick it up when we got there.  That worked slick enough for us, and only a minor inconvenience for him.  I'd asked him if it was OK if I had a package forwarded to him, and after getting 1/2 dozen or so, he'll never let me live it down.  Punishment fitting the crime.  The park where we stayed the week in Sacramento would accept mail and we had a batch forwarded there.  Now that we're going to be here for a few days it would be nice to get the mail, but the park doesn't accommodate that.  Next time we'll be able to get our mail will be the 24th or so.  Not that 10 days without mail is a big deal, it's just one of those things that gets worked around when you're fulltiming.

Phone.  We have the AT&T One Rate plan for our cellphone, and it's working pretty good for us at the moment.  We expect to be "caught" by the company because we don't live in an area they service.  Our "domicile" is in Seward, AK, and our mailing address is Livingston, TX, and ATT doesn't offer the service in either place.  I bought the phone and service when we lived in Auburn, WA, but we've had friends who have had their service cut off because they don't "live" in a service area.  None of us fulltimers "lives" anywhere!  The games we have to play.....  I have no idea what we'll do if we get cancelled.  Barb Hofmiester just got nailed, and she's spitting mad about it, and I suspect we'll hear more about it during these next few weeks of rallies and conferences.  Somebody will figure something out.

Domicile.  Where are you going to call "home" for vehicle and drivers licenses?  As a fulltimer, we obviously don't have a "home" that stays put for any length of time.  Many people use their old home town or the home of a relative.  Many will use their mail forwarding service as their "home" for legal purposes.  The fact seems to be (and I'm not offering any legal advice here) that a fulltimer can pretty much choose anywhere they want.  The trick is to make sure that ALL of your "stuff" is in the one state.  Don't try to be cute and have a drivers license from one state and the rig licensed in another state, and your voting registration in another, etc.  We happened to choose Alaska for a variety of reasons.  The "different" license plate was actually a factor for me.  The biggest reason, however, was because Alaska is the only state in the union that has no sales tax and no personal income tax, and I hate taxes.  The state also has what is called the Permanent Fund Dividend, where the state will pay an amount each year to all residents.  Since we won't qualify for residency, we'll not be applying for the dividend, so that wasn't a factor for us.  The negative side of choosing Alaska is that when we want to get our Commercial Drivers Licenses next year, we'll have to go to Seward to do it.  If we get chosen for jury duty, it can be a sticky issue as well.  Making bank deposits are a royal pain in the neck.  We have to make any deposits via snail mail, and who knows when the bank balance will show the deposits.

Banking.  Speaking of banking, much of that problem has been made much easier by the electronic age.  Barb's pension is automatically deposited, we have several monthly bills that are paid online.  Annual payments for insurance are split between online and snail mail.  Having some sort of overdraft protection is a handy thing because in our case we can never be really sure what the balance actually is.  The reason for that is because whenever we buy fuel (at about 100 gallons per fill up) we try to buy it through our fleet discount plan (Pacific Pride) and they seldom post the price of the fuel, and it's taken right out of our account through our debit card.  The company we use sends us the invoice twice a month, but who knows when we'll see it.

July 5, 2000

Repair work on the rig.  When the generator was installed the installer failed to plumb the exhaust, and I really didn't know it until Marc Duske and I were fooling around with it and comparing trucks in Bend, OR, early on.  The Onan (manufacturer of the generator) dealer in Sacramento said they'd order the needed part, and the rest of the system would have to be fabricated.  Several days before we were to pick the part up and go to Fresno to have it installed by the body builder who'd installed the generator, the dealer assured me it would be there.  When we went to pick it up the young man who was to have ordered it admitted that he'd failed to do so, but would be willing to pay for overnight shipping because of his mistake.  Since we had to leave that day in order to keep our appointments, that wouldn't work.  I left a voice mail with my contact in Fresno telling him to order that part for us, and when we got there he didn't have the part and his parts department people said they'd look and let us know where one was.  They called the next day (we'd left Fresno already, heading for Gillette) to say he'd found one in Peteluma, CA, and he could have it shipped anywhere we wanted.  For $95!!  Since I already knew it was a $30-$40 part, I declined.  On Monday I got hold of a dealer in Casper, WY, who gave me the name of the dealer in Billings, MT, who promised to have the part by the time we got there.  They did and we got the generator operational the day before we got here where we need it every day for several hours.  Long story to simply show the hassle that can occur when you're on the road all the time.  By the way, the fellow doing the work in Billings was super friendly and let me play a roll in how the system was plumbed.