Episode: 3710
Title: HPR3710: Changing Plans Again
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3710/hpr3710.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 04:28:24

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,710 for Friday 21 October 2022.
Today's show is entitled, Changing Plans Again.
It is part of the series Travel.
It is hosted by Aoka, and is about 21 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The Summary is.
A more trip change than on the road.
Hello, this is Aoka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio
and another exciting episode.
This time in our ongoing series about my RV travel.
Last time we had completed planning out an entire trip
from leaving Michigan at the beginning of December to getting back at the end of March.
It looked great, but one of the things you have to be flexible with is life changes.
And as John London once said, life is what happens while you are making other plans.
I had a medical problem come up that required surgery.
And it wasn't anything I could postpone.
And in diagnosing the problem, they took X-rays and those disclosed a possible heart problem
that meant I would have to meet with my cardiologist.
Neither of these ended up being anything major and more really more annoying than anything.
But you know, it had to be dealt with.
The biggest problem with my cardiologist, for instance, was getting an appointment
in something less than two months' time.
I was able to do it by visiting him in a more remote location from the main office
because he had an opening there.
And other than a small change in medications, when I told him we're applying to go out west
and do things like hiking, he thought it was a splendid idea and encouraged me to keep doing it.
But our original department, departure date of December 2nd was thoroughly thrown out the window.
And we now had a date of December 20th to shoot for.
Now, how do we arrive at December 20th? It was a combination of things.
You know, we knew we were going to be canceling a lot of stuff.
And Perump was no longer going to be our first stop.
The simplest thing to do was to say, well, can we make our stop after Perump, which is Lake Havasu?
And we thought, yes, we can do that.
And then, well, how many days travel is it going to take to get there?
And taking that backwards meant December 20th was going to be our departure date.
So, that meant calling all the places we had booked for the first few weeks.
We canceled the Perump stop. We were able to reschedule all of the other stops going out from Michigan.
And by doing all of that, we could hit our reservation in Topak, Arizona, which is the Lake Havasu area.
As scheduled, and all subsequent stops without making any changes.
So, that is what we decided to do.
Now, one of the things that I can mention at this point is that we didn't really have any trouble doing that.
You know, you keep, in the United States, we were, you know,
keep hearing stories about how there were so many people RVing and reservations were impossible to get.
And if you didn't plan a year in advance, you wouldn't get anything and stuff like that.
I got to say that was not our experience.
Now, we weren't necessarily looking for the most high-end resort kind of destinations.
We were just looking for places that gave us full hookups and had a base for which we could explore the area.
And there were lots of those, and they were quite good.
Most of them were quite good.
There were a couple that we probably wouldn't go back to, but, you know, mostly we enjoyed them.
So, with everything replanned for a December 20th departure, we had to get our butts in gear.
Our RV and truck were in a storage lot about a half hour from our house.
And that was not ideal for preparing for a trip, so we brought them to our house.
That meant parking on the street.
And since we have a small suburban lot, there's, you know,
the RV is larger than our driveway.
Annette meant, you know, we had to prepare all of that.
We did some tree trimming because otherwise we couldn't fit the RV in front of our house.
There's a tree that's there.
Then the truck went around the corner.
We have a little dead end street right around the corner.
And so we parked it there, it wouldn't bother anyone.
In the RV, we had to start loading all kinds of things, linens for the bed, towels, clothes, dishes, books, DVDs, a gaming computer.
Well, you get the idea.
We had prepared a lengthy checklist.
Now, for mail, that was a concern.
We're going to be gone for a few months.
We did as we put in a temporary change of address with the post office.
And had arranged with escapees, which is a group that we belong to.
They offer a mail service in Texas.
So they gave us basically a PO box that they manage.
And all of our mail was sent there.
And they would hold it all and send it back to us when we were ready.
We had a job of that, by the way.
When we got home, we got our mail only a few days after asking for it.
Now, one of the things in hindsight that we will do differently is we could pay an additional $10 a month to have the mail scanned.
Now, they just scanned the outside for the $10 a month.
And then, if you see anything, it's like, oh no, I need to see what's going on in there.
For an additional $0.50, they will open it up and scan the contents.
And we're probably going to do that next time.
You know, just in case, because there were one or two things that ended up being an issue.
I'm having to do with our home mortgage.
It was stupid.
But we paid off our home mortgage while we were on this trip, which is a good thing.
But I had everything set up that they would automatically take the monthly payment out of our checking account without me having to do anything.
I thought, oh great, you know, we can go on our trip and not have to worry.
Well, the very last payment for some reason, the bank that we have the mortgage with is, well, that last payment is different from your standard monthly payment.
So we can't take that.
So all of a sudden, I'm getting messages that say, hey, what happened to your mortgage payment?
What the hell is going on here?
You know, we got it sorted out.
But that's an example of the kind of thing where, you know, I'd have gotten something in the mail that told me there was an issue.
And that would have gotten it solved sooner.
So anyway, that was the mail.
We also turned off water in our home to avoid any potential problems.
And turned down the thermostat to the mid-50s Fahrenheit.
We don't need to keep the house super warm when we're not there.
We disconnected the batteries in our cars, so they wouldn't drain while we were gone.
Made sure that we have a backup battery for our sump pump, and we checked the fluid level.
Made sure it was full of the distilled water.
Then we prepared itineraries for our trip with locations and phone numbers, which we gave to some family members.
You know, just in case something came up that, you know, they needed to reach us.
They would have a way to do that.
We also had our cell phones, and that would have been the best.
But again, we didn't know some of the places we were in.
I've been thinking specifically of Clifton, Arizona in hindsight.
We really did not have cell coverage at all there.
So it was impossible for us to make or receive phone calls.
There were more things we did.
You could probably do a couple of episodes just on all of the things to do when you're preparing to go away for a while.
But I'm going to put a link in the show notes for an example of the kind of checklist that we use,
is one on the internet called the ultimate RV packing list for a first time camper.
So with all the preparations, you know, how did things go?
Well, at this point, I'm going to start reading from the diary I kept.
Now one of the things I have done on every trip that we go on is to keep a diary.
And that goes back to when our first trip out to San Francisco, where we got engaged and then our honeymoon.
And by keeping a diary, one of the things that's nice is I've got a record of what happened.
You know, if we ever want to look up something later on, we can do that.
And I've always been very glad that I did it.
So I kept a diary on this trip.
So picking that up, I'm going to start with Saturday, December 18th.
So we picked up the RV from the storage lot and brought it home so we could load it up.
We can park it on the street in front of our house, but the street here has on either side a rain gutter
that is supposed to pitch down towards the storm drain.
So that meant that if we parked it on the street, it might not be level.
So we put some boards down and drove on to them.
That turned out to be a mistake, something we won't do again.
Because one of the boards got the full weight of the RV on one end, which rammed the other end up into the stairs into the RV and broke them.
Not the best start to our trip.
Well, Cheryl went to camping world and picked up a replacement set of stairs.
All right, that's good.
Sunday, December 19th, Kevin got to work on removing the old broken stairs and got most of them out.
But the last few bolts we could not move at all, it would take someone with better equipment to get those last ones out.
We're going to try finding a repair site on the road, foreshadowing.
We did ultimately do that now, very nicely.
But right now, most places are very busy, so it may have to wait.
For now, we're using a folding step ladder.
We did get everything loaded into the RV, though, so we should be good to go tomorrow.
Monday, December 20th, we went out to breakfast with our friend Joe and then back home to the RV.
While bringing the truck around, we broke the antenna for the serious exam on our truck.
And then locked ourselves out of the truck.
It was just...
Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.
But it is what it is.
First, you know, so how are we going to get in the truck?
We tried the freight lighter place, which is fortunately near our house, and they made keys based on the vehicle identification number of the truck.
But it appears the locks on the truck were changed at some point.
So we got a tow truck out, and the driver was able to use some magic to open the door.
Wonderful, that's one problem solved.
So then Kevin went to get the antenna fixed.
Well, Cheryl went to get three duplicate truck keys made so that we can put one in the file cabinet at home, another in the RV, and one for the purse.
Now, we've made a lot of mistakes already.
And this is going to be a warrants and all story here.
So when we make mistakes, I'm going to talk about them.
Now, I work on the principle that I used as a project manager that everyone makes mistakes, and that is okay.
What is not okay is when you don't learn from them.
So, by the time all of this got sorted out, our 9 a.m. plan departure turned into a 2 p.m. departure.
Now, we called the RV park in Tara Hoat to say we would be arriving late, and they said, okay, fine.
There won't be anyone in the office, but we'll put the usual paperwork in a box outside the office.
And we got there.
It was about 8 p.m. in December, where we are at 8 p.m. it is very dark and very cold.
Now, we damn near froze that night because we couldn't get the heat in the RV to work, and just had the electric space heater.
We piled a lot of blankets on the bed and managed to sleep.
Now, this campground is called Tara Hoat Campground, but I can't say much more because it was cold and dark when we arrived.
And we left eagerly the next morning to get into the blessed heat of the truck.
So, Tuesday, December 21st, we got up at 6 p.m. still very cold and had breakfast.
Then it was time to hit the road to our next stop.
Using RV trip wizard, we had planned out our stops so that we would drive for about 5 or 6 hours a day, which meant around 300 miles.
Most problems with towing RVs come from driving too fast, so we set a target of 16 miles an hour.
Add in a couple of stops for fuels and bathroom breaks, and you can easily take 6 hours to drive that distance.
Now, we got to our campground in Missouri, which was Lamplight Lane RV Resort, had about 3 p.m.
Calling it a resort is more marketing than anything. It's a small campground, but we did have full hookups.
The owner was very friendly. We set up quickly.
The reason we were able to set up quickly on these is we were not unhitching the RV from the truck. We left them connected.
So, really all we did was put in the electric and the water connection so that we had those available.
Now, while driving to this campground, we had the happy thought that maybe if we turned on the propane, the RV heat would work.
And that proved to be the solution. So, we had a warm RV all night and a nice hot shower in the morning, and all was right with the world again.
So, yes, this is just an example of learning experiences.
We've never had an RV before, and we didn't quite know what to do. Eventually figured it out.
Now, Wednesday, December 22nd, our daily pattern settled in as going to bed around 9 p.m. getting up at 6 a.m.
Having a leisurely breakfast, I get to do Spanish lessons, and then we would hit the road around 9 a.m.
And this would get us to our next stop around 3 or 3.30 so that we could set up in daylight and then make dinner.
We both brought along lots of books, so that is a frequent evening activity.
But we also have some DVDs packed for a change of pace.
Actually, at a certain point, we just got in the habit of watching something from a DVD every night over dinner, which ended up being a very pleasant kind of thing to do.
We have some TV shows where we've got a full season of something, and let's watch one program over dinner each night.
So, that is kind of our daily schedule there.
Now, our trip on Wednesday 22nd took us from Missouri to Oklahoma to a spot that is between Tulsa and Oklahoma City called Oakland RV and Mobile Home Park in Chandler, Oklahoma.
Now, nice place. We started to see a lot of windmills, and like when you see windmills, you've got to kind of think there's going to be a lot of wind.
I previously had that experience trying to ride a bike in the Netherlands and discovered that we were on a boat and bike tour and the tour guide referred to it as the mountains of the Netherlands.
Because, you know, going into a strong headwind is about the equivalent of trying to pedal a bike up a mountain.
So, Oklahoma was windy. It was not the worst. Amarillo was even more so, and we encountered lots of winds while we were out there.
Now, sadly, the plug-in-powered cooler we bought decided this would be a good time to die.
But the RV refrigerators working fine for us, so it really was not a catastrophe.
We discovered that, you know, we're using electricity when we're at the campground.
So, we're running off of, well, the U.S. standard is 120 volt.
So, we're running off of the 120 volt over there, and then when we get into, you know, we disconnect everything and drive, you know, we're not driving for a super one time.
Like I say, you know, six or seven hours maybe.
And for that, the refrigerator is carefully closed, and RV refrigerators, the door really locks as a solid block, because you need to do that.
And between that and our solar power, you know, when we get to our destination and we turn the electric back on, the contents of the refrigerator are just fine, so that's not an issue.
Yeah, now Thursday, December 23rd.
Today's trip took us from Oklahoma to Amarillo, Texas to the Oasis RV resorting cottages.
And if we thought Oklahoma was windy, it was nothing compared to Amarillo.
I have expected to be blown to us. We heard the wind howling all night and the RV was shaking.
Of course, one of the reasons the wind is so strong is that there's nothing to stop it.
Oklahoma and North Texas are just flat land and all directions.
Part of the fun of a trip like this is seeing how the country changes as you drive through it.
We're mostly trying to get to our first real stop, so we aren't sightseeing right now, but Cheryl has been taking pictures through the windshield as we drive.
This is Huka for Hacker Public Radio signing off and is always encouraging you to support FreeSoftware.
Bye-bye!
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