Tag Archives: amarillo

Rock me, rock me, roll me through the night

It rained last night. I figured that it had since it was so windy I felt like I was on the Titanic. What if the RV tips over?

The wind blows from the west most of the time so if the RV tips, it will tip onto the door. Then Boo Boo and I would have to climb out a window.

This is the exit window. It would be easier to climb out of it if was across from the island so I’d have something to stand on to reach it.

And of course, it would only tip while David was away so I’d have to figure it out myself.

And live tweet the event.

Someone would probably still have to send help. 😉

These are the things that I think of when it’s super windy. And it’s windy here a lot. 🙂

 

Life on the loop

We’ve been in Amarillo since Saturday. After some initial problems with the delivery of our RV (that we purchased sight unseen),  we’ve started to settle down here on Jewels Loop.

I love it here. I really do. 🙂

While it’s been extra hot in Oklahoma, it’s been hot here, but not that hot. I love it when the heat index (what it really feels like) is lower than the actual temperature. And that’s most of the time. 🙂

I have almost everything unpacked and put away and I think this RV will work just fine for us. We still have a little trouble getting Boo Boo to understand that he can’t sit right on top of us but I think he’s still a little confused about what in the heck we’re doing here.

One habit he grabbed hold of right away is coffee outside in the cool morning.

We go for our walk. Three laps around the park gives us the equivalent mileage to what we used to do back in Bartlesville with him. Then we come back, I make more coffee, and we sit outside. He practically stands at the door waiting while the coffee is brewing.

I like waking up and seeing who pulled in overnight. I’m absolutely amazed at the number of Class A motorhomes that are parked here every day.  Especially when you consider that they cost more than our house in Bartlesville!

The people here are SO nice. There was:

  • The unknown man who helped me heave-ho the extra a/c into my car at Home Depot. He didn’t work for them, he just happened to be going into the store at the time I was wrangling that bad boy into my back seat while trying to keep it upright.
  • Vanessa the server at Ruby Tequila’s who offered to give us any recommendations or answer any questions about Amarillo that we had. As a lifelong resident, she felt she could help us with doctors, churches, etc. But what she really did that was special was save us from having to sit by a table full of unruly kids with inattentive parents. I will always love her for that. 🙂 I filled out the compliment card that came with our bill and gave her mad props.
  • Haley the cashier, also at Home Depot, who helped me to use the remaining balance of of two of those awful debit rewards cards that AT&T gives you instead of a plain old check you can deposit into your account. I wanted to kiss her! I wrote to Home Depot corporate to sing her praises.
  • Jacob, the guy behind the meat counter at Amigos (the Mexican grocery store where I am always going to shop). He was so friendly, telling me how to use the carnitas meat I had just had him get for me. We talked about barbecue sauce and I’ll be bringing him my recipe when I go back to the store.
  • Matt, the RV fixit guy. We had to call him because the Co2 alarm started going off for no apparent reason. David was halfway out the door to San Angelo so he called and then I waited for Matt to arrive and save my life. We were talking and I told him we are RV virgins and know virtually nothing about what we are doing here and he basically gave me what amounted to an RV 101 class. He didn’t have to do that and I appreciated it so much! Oh, and also appreciated him being able to replace the Co2 sensor and stop the beeping. 🙂

Can you see why I like it?

People in RVs smoke. Not all of them but a lot of them so we still smell smoke a lot. And I still get irritated at the people who speed through here when the speed limit is 10 mph (hello there are kids on bikes!) but for the most part, I love living here.

It’s quiet. We see plenty of dogs but not a one of them is outside barking 24/7. I love the constant breeze that blows. I LOVE that we can sit outside, even when it’s still in the 90’s, and be relatively cool in the shade.

I’m happy. 🙂

RV crazy?

We very well may be but we are now proud owners of an RV. Believe it or not. And I know plenty of people who will not believe that I am going to live in an RV.

David had been interviewing for a position in West Texas. We talked about it a lot and finally decided that buying an RV would make more sense at this point in our lives when we are ready to downsize and head towards our retirement goals. (10 year plan, folks, don’t freak. ;-))

It took me just a little bit of time to wrap my head around the idea but then I realized it could be fun.

Thus began our five state tour of hundreds of RVs. We drove to Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Texas. Of course we looked around Oklahoma, too, even if it wasn’t the first state we looked in.

We wound up buying an RV from Georgia. LOL! 😉

RV crazy? Um, yes, most assuredly. 🙂

We had pretty much narrowed down our search when we drove over to Amarillo to check out the RV parks to see where we would park this RV we couldn’t make our minds up about purchasing.

We’ve decided on the Oasis RV Park in Amarillo. It’s on the west side of town just past the Cadillac Ranch and before New Mexico.

Photo courtesy of thisoldcampsite.com.

I like it and the lady we met, Gail, was so nice and helpful. I think it’s going to be nice to be her neighbor. As we were pulling out of the park after taking a tour around Gail came out of the office and flagged us down. She said that if we bought an RV locally, they could deliver it for us and set it up. Oh? Hmmm. And all of a sudden we weren’t sure we had a first choice. It opened us up to getting a bigger trailer and having someone pull it for us. David has a 1/2 ton pick up and it’s not big enough to pull everything so basically we’d been looking at lightweight bumper pull trailers. Now, we could expand our search. Hallelujah! Like we hadn’t already looked at 893 RVs.

Immediately, like in the hotel with the slowest wi-fi ever, we started looking at other options.

So what did we get? We got a 5th wheel Sportsman by KZ. It’s a 2005 model because I detest the inside of RVs and part of my fun is going to be pulling everything out and replacing it with tragically hip and incredibly cool alternatives.

Our biggest concern, of course, was Boo Boo. He’s a big guy and he sleeps with us so a standard RV queen size bed was just not going to cut it. This one has a king sized bed. By having the 5th wheel we’ll be able to have a bigger living area that is not only taller for us, but it will allow us to have two chairs and a couch so the three of us can all sit on furniture.

Here is the floorplan:

It’s going to be different to live this way but I’m excited about it. I think it will be an adventure and it will be fun. I always have fun with David and I’m looking forward to this.

So anyway, West Texas. It’s flat. And there’s not much out by where we’ll be living. The road is paved at the RV park but at the next intersection it becomes gravel. When I look out, all I see are amber waves of grain. I am about to become Little Trophy Wife on the Prairie. Except I’m not little. 😉

Note: If you are planning to buy an RV in Oklahoma, I can highly recommend Ralph Gray at Deans RV in Tulsa and Big Steve at Dave’s Claremore RV. Both of them listened to us and didn’t try to sell us something we didn’t want to buy. Thank you!