We are Full Time RVers!

It's been a whirlwind few days. On Saturday we left Portland and headed for Myrtle Creek to pick up our belongings from Chantal and James house (our home address). It took a couple of hours to pack the truck, making sure everything was secure and protected from the elements for the 500 mile drive ahead of us.

On Sunday we drove from Myrtle Creek, OR to Meridian, ID (just West of Boise) in 10 hours. Upon arrival at our hotel we had to unload the truck completely because our stuff would not have been safe left in the bed overnight. We then drove the half mile to the RV dealer, who was closed, and saw our home sitting in the parking lot. That generated a lot of excitement and nervous energy!

After a night of so-so sleep we reloaded the truck with less attention to detail because we only had to drive a short distance. Thus started an 8 hour day at the dealer.

A lot of stuff had to happen before we could hit the road: we unloaded the truck contents into the RV's storage bays, we had the fifth wheel hitch installed in the bed of our truck, we had an inspection and instruction session (the instructor was not as thorough and knowledgeable about our rig as I would have liked, being a newbie), we had them fix a few minor items that showed up during inspection, we had to shop for various items we needed immediately in order to live in the RV, we had to take care of the financial transaction, and we had a lesson in hitching up.

We finally departed the dealership at about 5pm. We were really thankful it is summer so we had a lot of daylight left. It was slightly nerve racking to drive across town during rush hour, our destination was about 12 miles away.

We are staying at  Boise Riverside RV Park, which is right on the Boise River and the 27 mile long Boise Greenbelt trail system.

Even though we had a pull-through site reserved, it still took two trys to get parked properly! One definitely has to turn wide with a long rig. There are a lot of things you need to be aware of when getting situated in a campsite, and as newbies we were a bit flustered! We had to watch for trees, space for the awning, where the steps/door would open up, placement adjacent to the utility hookups (water, electric and sewer), room for the two slides to open, and ability to access the storage bays if the utilities were in the way. And that was just at this camp site, others will have additional nuances.

Then we started unpacking...overwhelmed fairly describes what we were feeling at this point! ALL of the stuff we had packed in our big truck was now piled inside our new home; we could hardly move inside. We got the basics taken care of like the bed made and clothes available, and some kitchen stuff situated before crashing from exhaustion. It had been a long day with a big lifestyle transition and the place felt pretty darn small with all our belongings piled around.

On Tuesday morning we discovered the water heater had been turned off at the dealer and that we were supposed to turn it back on when we arrived at camp...Hans had a cold shower before we discovered that! We had to go out for breakfast so we also did some grocery and miscellaneous shopping before heading back and tackling the unpacking. It took all day long, but by the end of the day we were probably 95% done. Here's our cozy new home  (these are pictures of our rig from the dealers website):

2013 Keystone Montana 3000RK floorplan

Main living area w/kitchen, dining and living room

Bedroom w/king bed

Shower and sink in bedroom, toilet is in it's own small room behind the sink

We are feeling much more comfortable with all our stuff put away and will shop for a number of items that will make life in our new home as comfy as possible. As we have read on others blogs: this is a lifestyle, not a vacation! The last few days have been full of "work", now we need to add some play!