Repairs and Upgrades for the Roadrunner

We are cooking!

In other words, we feel as if a lot of things are getting done here at the Tiffin Service Center at Red Bay.  David and Craig worked on some smaller items while they ordered the windows.  We got a couple of bay doors adjusted and the water anode replaced.  We had the generator switch in the bedroom replaced, the light for the water pump in the bathroom fixed and the toilet replaced.

Next David and Craig replaced every window in the coach except for the windshield.  The new windows are definitely better quality and will hopefully take care of the fogging issue in the double panes.

Last night, Chris came over and took out the three burner stove and the oven.  He built a cupboard in its place right above the furnace.

Then he installed a new cooktop/ 3 burner stove.

Chris took the oven and stove out side and struggled with it through the door.  It was really heavy.  Pam got to work putting pots and pans into her new kitchen cupboard and realized Chris had taken the oven outside and it had a lot of things still stored inside!

A couple of cast iron skillets in the oven really makes it heavy!

In the bedroom he removed the TV cabinet and will scale it down and make another cabinet with doors.

We made the decision to remove our Corian kitchen table.  It will give us more room and we can use the computer table and put the leaves up to

This morning we rolled into Bay 29 for new shades.

We spent all day there and got day/night shades installed.  All the valances had to be modified so it was quite a job.

That captures what we did the last couple of days and the things we got replaced and or modified. Feels like we have a new home.

Thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles today!

Ops Check on the Radio

It started out as a beautiful day.

We did our regular routine here and went to the 9:15 AM church service in Novi at OakPointe Church.  Then we ran a couple of errands and went back to the Roadrunner to watch some tennis or golf.

And then the clouds rolled in and we kept getting interrupted to see tornado and heavy thunderstorm warnings.  There sure seem to be a lot of those here lately which I understand is a little unusual for this part of the country.

We watched the weather move its way in our direction.  I checked out the new NOAA weather radio and cranked it up.  Sure enough it said we had 17 minutes until the 'conditions that may produce a tornado' would be right on top of us.

We moved quickly and got our important documents, wallets, radio and headed for the nearest cinderblock bathhouse and restroom.  We pulled up right next to our neighbors Jim and Alice who arrived a couple of minutes before we did.

We headed for the men's restroom since the ladies restroom was already full of people.

We had 11 minutes until it was supposed to pass nearby us.  We talked and stayed away from the windows and about that time a guy flushed the toilet and came out of the stall and said, 'for a minute, I thought I was in the wrong restroom'.

Oops!  Note to self ~ announce your arrival when you gather in the restrooms to wait out a tornado warning!

It was anti-climatic.  We did not see any high winds or dark funnel clouds.  It was rainy and cloudy but that was it.  Which is fine with us.  The good thing is that we feel as if we are learning how to be safer and what to do in those kind of emergencies.

We got back to the Roadrunner, opened it up a bit and the rain drizzled on and off most of the rest of the afternoon.

Pam was at her best cooking up 'chicken schnitzel'.

Pam wanted me to mention how she has increased her counter space a bit.  She removes both corian countertop pieces from the top of the 3 burners and leans them up against the wall out of the way until the kitchen is cleaned up.

What she has started doing is placing one of those pieces diagonally across the sink to increase her usuable countertop space.

She could use the corian pieces that fit over the sink but she decided long ago she didn't want to take them down and find a place to put them every night.  So instead she does this.

That is it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles.  Hope you have a great week!

Roadrunner Reflections - First Year Do Overs

First - let me say 'Thank You' and Welcome to our newest Follower:

Melanie Ditmars

Glad you're following and we appreciate you signing up!

Over the past year of the Roadrunner era, we have learned a lot.  And we keep learning.  I am not one to wring my hands and live in the past about what 'woulda, shoulda, coulda' happened.  We try to conduct our due diligence, think about it, talk about it and then 'pull the trigger' ~ do it!  As with most things in life sometimes it doesn't quite work out the way you thought it would...

Roadrunner Resets:  Do Overs....If I had it to do over I'd:

1. Get an Apple computer and shelve my Dell PC.  Apple is more convenient, less hassle.  I use the computer every day.  With my PC I had to worry about a lot of anit-virus stuff and the darn thing crashed at a couple of inconvenient times.  So far the MacBook has been great.

2. Get a laptop that is not so big.  My Dell PC has a 17" screen and takes up a lot of room.  A 14" screen is fine.  I thought I wanted a big, powerful laptop but the smaller computer works fine and is similar in size to the size I starred into at work for years.  I like the smaller one.  (Can you say iPad?)

3.  Keep my toolbelt.  Can't believe I got rid of that because I thought we wouldn't have enough room.  I threw away. Wow - that was one I wish I'd kept!  It takes a couple of years to break one in right but what are you going to do? Get another one and keep it!

4.  Keep our plastic folding saw horses.  We gave those away also, but we could have room for them and they would be handy to have.  With our NOMADS work, we have used a lot of Joe's tools and sawhorses.  He tows his truck behind his motor home and we aren't going to be doing that.  Those plastic saw horses would have come in handy more time than I can count.

5.  Spend a little more time and due diligence setting up our budget.  I totally missed the food cost with zero money set aside for eating out.  We are about $370 a month (on average) OVER on food.  Eating out is a big chunk of our expenditures.  We are about $400 OVER on RV Maintenance per month.  On a conservative note, we are about $500 UNDER on diesel fuel.  Totals:  $4300/month which about $1000 over budget.

6.  I would have signed up for the local county school system bus driver training course.  Our neighbor Debbie has worked there for years and she suggested (on the day we pulled the Roadrunner up in front of our house to load the last of our belongings into it) that idea.  It would have been nice to have thought about doing that about a year before we started full-timing.  Another option would have been to set aside about $700 and take an RV driving course.

7.  Once we bought the MacBook, I should have signed up for the training.  For $100 I could have gone in and taken a lot of classes and gotten some 1 on 1 help.  Instead I have to settle for the free ones.  You can't beat the Apple Store Genius Bar!

8.  Kept more appliances.  Yes!  We got rid of our electric skillet, big (12 cup) coffee pot, blender, and vacuum cleaner.  Now we have new ones and we have found places to put them all!  But who knew?  When you look at your 2200 sq ft sticks and bricks house and then walk through a 400 sq foot RV, you know most things are not going to fit.  As far as all that 'stuff' we got rid of--we not missing anything :)

That's all I can think of ~ I am sure there will be more.  We are excited about this lifestyle and this time of year.  It is summer in Michigan.  Yesterday Pam put away the ceramic heater and pulled out the fan!

And it was a beautiful day.  I polished 1/2 of the Roadrunner,

watched a neighbor and his grandson catch a fish in the lake,

mowed the lawn (which I love),

we had Rod over for flank steak on the grill

followed by time around the campfire as we watched more neighbors go by for an evening cruise on their pontoon boat.

It was a fun  81 degree day!

Thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles!  And thanks too for all those wonderful comments!  Keep them coming!

Roadrunner Financials - February 2010

During February, we spent the majority of our time at Agave Gulch FAMCAMP.  We love Tucson and have some friends there and in the surrounding area so it was the perfect place for us to stay for a while.

The highlight of the month was seeing so many friends in Tucson, Maricopa, Scottsdale and Tempe.

While in Tucson, we also went to a number of museums, National Parks, hiking trails, played some golf and worked out a few times.  The weather was pretty good although it rained a few more days than I expected.  Surprisingly, we could see the snow in the surrounding mountains at the upper elevations.

Overall - it was our best month for expenses since we began full-timing in May of 2009:

Overall, we where a whooping $1060 under budget.  It helps when you have a $1000 budgeted for diesel and you don't drive it anywhere during the month.

Good news are areas where we are under budget- 

At Agave Gulch, our campground fees were $6/night in the overflow area and $17/night in the full hookup sites.
The other area we did well in was medical.  Also - not budget related but significant for us was that we changed from Tricare Prime to Tricare Standard.  That allows us to find a doctor that takes Tricare insurance anywhere in the country.  We have additional co-pays (up to $300/yr) and a deductible limit of  $3000 per year.  That gives us additional flexibility instead of being tied to a doctor and facility in a specific area of the county.

Biggest expenses for the month - 

- We played golf three times at the Davis-Monthan golf course and spent $140.
- We continue to spend more than we budget of food and were $130 over our $400 budget.

Large 'One Time Cost Item(s)' - 

- I got Pam's MacBook fixed and took the technician's advice to purchase a separate external hard drive for my backups ($118)
- We bought a small standup vacuum ($90)to clean the large areas of the Roadrunner. 

Monthly average since we started tracking in June 2009 - 

The monthly averages shows a lower monthly average than in January.  The average is down $237.  We still are a considerable amount above our target, but are confident we can get closer to our average number of $3320/ month.

Thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles today!

Beautiful Day for Backing up My Apple

It was another nice day in Tucson I am glad to say.  We did a lot of exercise yesterday so decided to take a day off and let the muscles rest (that is my story and I'm sticking to it :).  

We went over to the swap meet again to look for a small wallet.  We looked pretty hard but we didn't find anything.  I think my interest in these things is waning.  After a while it all looks like a lot of stuff I don't need...

La Mesa RV in Tucson was nearby so we stopped by to see if there free lunch was as good as the ones we had at the La Mesa in Quartzsite.  

Yep- Dave was the cook for the day and he did a great job on some tasty hamburgers.  We also took a look at a new Class C Cambia.  With three slides it has a lot of room for a small vehicle.  (No we are not in the market for one, just curious on what is out there.)

Next we were on a mission to get some Christmas pictures printed so we found the closest Costco.  When we got there I was disappointed to find out that I had not saved the file properly to my thumb drive, so we headed home.

I still don't know why I could not access the picture file on my thumb drive.  It worked fine at home.  Nevertheless, I save another folder of the same pictures to my thumb drive again and also to a memory card just in case.

Back at Costco, it worked like a champ.  While the photos were being printed we checked out a nearby Thrift Store and I found a denim shirt.  I have been looking for one for months.  I got rid of two when we were downsizing and wished I had kept one.  Perfect shirt for when we volunteer.  So that was $7.99 well spent.

With the new dark colored carpets, the lint shows up easily.  Our handheld vacuum does a good job with most things but I decided to get Pam a new little vacuum.  We looked at Costco but didn't see anything small enough.  At Best Buy it was a different story and we got a nice little Eureka that folds up and has a lot of suction.

I also picked up a new external hard drive for the MacBook.  Brandi at the Apple Store Genius Bar suggested I get one that was formatted for an Apple.  But the Apple guy at Best Buy said I could save myself $20-$30 myself if I formatted it myself.  He showed me how to do it and I fiddled with that for about an hour before I figured it out (I think) and started backing up my machine.

Pam wanted to wash and clean the car.  While she did that, I worked on the computer, gave myself a haircut and helped her a little with the car after she was almost finished with it :).

We had some great roast beef sandwiches for dinner and watched some TV for the rest of the night.

Hope you all have a great day here on Super Bowl Sunday.  Who are you rooting for?

Thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles today.