5 years in: RV there yet?

Still no.

We were originally thinking it would be a one-year thing. Maybe two? We certainly didn’t imagine it would be a two-RV thing. But we were quite happily wrong, and we’ve now got enough events planned for Year 5 that there’s no way we’re giving this up yet! we’re now almost 3/4 through a year in which almost every planned event has been cancelled, so we’ve had to punt. A lot. And we’re too skittish at the moment to put much of anything on the calendar for Year 6.

We are grateful that we’ve managed to see as many friends and family members as we have — in very small groups, and mostly outdoors — in 2020. But the coronavirus pandemic has caused an indefinite delay on our biggest plan for this year, which was to begin an annual vacation tradition with both sons and their girlfriends. Sigh. Maybe next year.

We did get bonus time with one set of ’em, and yes, it now seems ridiculous that I was worried when Austin/Travis County was at 90 confirmed cases. They have since surpassed 22,000.

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So to celebrate our nomad-versary, I shall regale you with our Amusing Tally of Miscellaneous Statistics, updated for 2020. 

In four five years, we’ve used, purchased, worn through, or replaced for any number of reasons ranging from the mundane, to the catastrophic, to just not getting the right thing the first time around (or second, or third…):

• 2 trucks
• 2 fifth wheels
• 5 mattresses
• 3 air compressors
• 4 bike racks
• 6 mobile internet solutions
• 18 22 RV tires
• 24 truck tires
• 4 bicycle tires
• 3 toilets
• 8 RV batteries
• 2 truck bed tool boxes
• 2 auxiliary fuel tanks
• 2 Tonneau covers
• 4 RV pin boxes
• 2 GPS devices
• 6 RV axles
• 4 RV awnings
• 4 driver’s licenses

We’ve also held memberships/accounts with:

• 3 RV insurance companies
• 3 cellular service providers
• 2 RV owners’ clubs
• 4 RV travel/social organizations
• 2 mail forwarding services

And in addition, we’ve experienced: 

• 2 major breakdowns (roadside assistance and/or towing required, not just Tim’s sweat and skills)
• 4 6 workamping jobs
• 3 RV rallies
• approximately 54,942 62,600 RV travel miles

I’ll spare you a full reprint of our prior annual reviews, which included answers to the 13 Questions We Hear All The Time, but I’ll update the three two that need it.

How many states have you visited in the RV, I mean like, for more than just a rest stop?

By my count, 37 39: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

My criteria for counting a state as visited are a bit fluid, which I know will drive some people a little nuts. Did we stay overnight? Long enough to do the weekly laundry? Go on a hike or visit a national park? All of those are valid to me. Just driving through on the way to elsewhere, with a potty break at a gas station? Not so much — otherwise, we’d have counted Mississippi about 8 times by now, instead of zero.

And the RV has to have stayed inside the state border too, not just us. Otherwise, we’d have been able to add Hawaii and Rhode Island last year.

What’s next? (entire section updated)

After another week here in Montana, where we are happy with lower population density and temperatures than we were enduring in Texas, we’re going to spend some time in Wyoming and Colorado as we make our way back to Texas in September.

It wasn’t our original plan to go back this fall (am I the only one detecting a theme here?) but we’ve been able to schedule some non-critical yet important medical and dental appointments that were impossible to nail down when we were there in June/July.

So it’ll be San Antonio from mid-September until Halloween or so, and the course of the pandemic will determine where — or if — we go after that.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter for between-blogging updates.

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Other updates: We started full-timing in August of 2015, but I didn’t think to do an annual review until the end of 2016, and it was just a listing on Facebook of places we’d visited. After that, I started using a quarterly format for the where-we’ve-beens and what-we’ve-dones.

• 2Q 2020
• 1Q 2020
• 4Q 2019
• 3Q 2019
• 2Q 2019
• 1Q 2019
• 4Q 2018
• 3Q 2018
• 2Q 2018
• 1Q 2018
• 4Q 2017 (doubles as 3rd installment of our Amazon Camperforce write-up)
• 3Q 2017
• 2Q 2017
• 1Q 2017
• 2016