When you get ready to go on your own RVing adventure (For Full-Timers Only)
I browsing through our posts and decided to reignite one of the older ones I published. Today we are remembering back to September and December of 2011 and our first RV campground. Reading some of my thoughts about getting ready to leave our long-time home may help you with your own experience. I only mention just a few of the many decisions we had to make. After that I have a quick review on our very first RV trip. Enjoy!
From my Journal
Christmas is behind us and the New Year’s is looming. We are in the process of making our New Year’s Resolutions and one of those, for me, is the clean out my room and decide what I want to keep, what I want to sell, what I need to throw away, and what I need to bring with me. Of course, I will have to bring my laptop, some clothes (Good thing I am not a clothes horse), my printer, load up my KINDLE with reading material, and of course, our craft supplies. I am a pack-rat by nature and have a tendency of keeping everything. I have all kinds of stuff crammed into boxes and on bookcases that I will have to go through. Most of it will need to be tossed. I just hope I don’t throw away something important.
Most of our pictures are scanned into my computer and I have them backed up on an external hard drive as well as burned onto a disk. I cannot stress how important that is. I cringe every time I think about the 2 times my computers crashed and I hadn’t backed up my files. I lost a few photos that will never be replaced. With all the websites that I own and write for I have to back each of those sites with their accompanying databases onto my laptop and external hard drive and then onto a DVD. External hard drives are not the most reliable medium but are very necessary for quick retrieval of data stored on them and can hold all of your stuff in one place. You just have to be very careful not to drop or bang it on anything. You can add things to it every week in an hour or so depending on how many files you copy over.
DVDs are now limited to 4GB of space. That may sound like a lot but for me, with all the pictures, music, and videos I have it takes a few DVDs to back up my stuff, and once you finish the burning process that is usually it. Re-writable DVDs are okay but still a bit expensive. Regular data DVDs can be burned once, place in a plastic case, and stored until needed. Unless they are badly scratched or broken you can always copy your data back without too many problems. Just make sure you “COPY” your data and not use your computer’s BACKUP feature. The Backup programs for most computers are used strictly by that computer’s version of the system software or program that you used. If you have a replacement or new computer there is no guarantee that you will be able to RESTORE your files. Anyway, I will have to make sure that all my files are copied over to the external hard drive and burned onto a new set of DVDs. The DVDs will probably be stored and if needed I could always ask my oldest daughter to send them to me wherever we happen to be at the time.
To that end, we will be looking for storage units within the next week or so. Committing to a storage place is important if you plan on coming back to your hometown after traveling. We have to consider how big of a space we will need, whether it is climate-controlled or not, who will have access to it while we are away, and the whether space is secured. We are looking for a place down the street from our house and close to where my oldest daughter lives. She will be able to check on it once a month or so and put things into it for us. Let’s face it when you travel you do have a tendency to collect new stuff along the way.
It would be nice to be able to send that extra stuff home for storage. RVs and travel trailers are extremely limited in space and weight so we have to restrain ourselves as much as possible. Climate-controlled spaces are more expensive, of course, but with all the books, DVDs and computer equipment we have to have a climate-controlled unit. Some of our local storage places are offering specials when you pay months in advance and/or half-priced months for signing a short-term lease, etc. We will be looking into those as well. Shopping around and comparing is key. Don’t be too quick to settle for something that doesn’t suit you or costs too much. After all, if you are not able to pay for your unit and cannot get your stuff out before the end of your lease, they will sell your stuff or just throw it away. You will also have to get insurance for your stuff in the unit. Usually, your homeowner’s insurance is supposed to cover any losses from a storage unit. However, since we are selling our home then we will have to look into another avenue.
Ichetucknee Springs State Park
Now onto a quick review of our first adventure in the RV. We decided to go to someplace close. Since the kids wanted to come as well and it was August or September at the time we went to Ichetucknee Springs State Park. No, they do not have camping spaces inside the park but they do have a private campground quite close, near the morning entrance for floaters. Of course, today there are several others to chose from.
It was just a weekend trip. We camped for 2 nights and went to the park Saturday morning, very early. We had rented some floats the night before. The campground needed some upgrades at the time as far as the bathhouse and even the road near the dumpstation. We almost got stuck in the mud pulling out from that area. I saw on Facebook last week that Ichetucknee Springs Campground is constructing a brand new bathhouse on the property.
The trip there was uneventful except going over the Buckman Bridge for the first time I was very nervous. The AC in the driver’s area never worked so that did not help. Backing into the camping site took a couple of tries and dumping the tanks was also an adventure. The trip coming home was a lot more windy so the dang RV kept swaying back and forth. I was determined not to go back over the 2 Mile long bridge into Mandarin so we went the backway all the way home and over the two-lane bridge from Green Cove Springs into Fruit Cove. I do not recommend that one either. My oldest daughter helped with some of the driving. We did make it home in one piece and had our first and last campout, as a family, every since.
You can read the full review – CLICK HERE.
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