Fuurther

7.25.2020

One Cat, Two Dogs and Two Old Goats

Can you say, “Learning experience!” I am so glad we didn’t light out on the road immediately because we would have had a much more frustrating time and difficulty repairing things. We’re still here in Oakhurst getting used to things.

#1 Throttling. No, it’s not what I want to do to Marty after he’s told me that story about “Bert and me” for the hundredth time! Throttling is what the internet provider does when too many people are surfing the web in any given location so everybody can have a little bit of internet and no one is shut out. It’s extremely frustrating because I’m used to the delicious speed of cable and because I believed them when they told us that our plan was “Unlimited”. Riiiiight! Unlimited, yes, but not fast. All the time. We stream too many movies!  Anyway, now we know. Luckily, we are happy to get up early while everybody else is still sleeping. Then it’s fine. By the way, we love our Verizon JetPack mobile hotspot. We’ll see how it works when we’re out in the boonies.

#2 Dog Needs. Dogs have needs! Who knew? Just joking, actually. We know dogs have needs but we’ve been used to having it easy because back at our Madera home we had a big fenced back yard where they could run free. We never needed to take them for walks. We also had a large dog pen where they could sleep at night. They never slept in the house. Here we have to keep them in our trailer because the durn High Sierra RV Park managers have a rule stating that dogs must be in the unit at night.  Marty went to the trouble to build a really nice, roomy cage in the back up the pick-up but that doesn’t work here unfortunately. At O’Dark Hundred Teddy bounds at the screened door to be let out to pee so Marty put in a metal screen.

#3 Trailer add-ons. We bought a trailer with bunk beds so we would have more space to store stuff. When you plan to be gone for a long time and will be in remote areas far from services you need to have tools and materials! Think of us as the Kilchers on wheels! We added these handy-dandy little battery operated lights so we could see what we forgot we had and subsequently need that’s stored in The Cave.

#4 Breakage. The fridge door handle broke almost right away. So annoying! We had to open it with a paint scraper to depress the latch. But it’s under warranty, right? Right! And yet… Ha! Turns out it’s extremely hard to get replacement parts from the manufacturer because of COVID*. Too many people aren’t working. So, we’re going to have to fix it ourselves. Want to go on the road in your own RV? Be Handy!

*I’m getting really, really annoyed with this COVID thing!