A Lifestyle Review

Although we love hanging out at Lake Mead and visiting Las Vegas very much, the wind here can be very harsh and drive you indoors.  Where we park at Government wash has some awesome views down over the lake but the parking area is mostly up on a ridge which is open to the breeze.  Today was one of those days and we just hunkered down for the entire day.  If we were out in the desert we could show you pictures of dust, but it isn't even dusty here.  So today there are no pictures to show what our day was like.

I didn't know what I was going to blog about today so I thought I would write down a few of my thoughts on why we do this kind of fulltime RV lifestyle.  If nothing else it will justify our actions to me once more.  Just today I told Sue that I have absolutely no regrets for choosing this lifestyle, and hope that we can enjoy many more years enjoying it.  She agreed with me that as long as this is something we can do and enjoy doing, we will continue.


The vast majority of snowbirds tend to come south in the fall and get a good deal at a snowbird park somewhere and stay for the entire winter.  We have considered this but don't believe we are ready for the shuffleboard life style yet.  Both Sue and I have nomadic blood flowing in our veins and after a few days in one spot we are ready to move on and check out what is around the bend.  That is why the park life just won't work for us just yet.

We have decided to live a bit more independently away from the monthly payments that was part of our old life.   We have decided that our rent bill will come in the form of a diesel fuel cost instead.  We exchanged our power bill for a one time set up cost for solar power and live entirely off the grid whenever possible.  Our water and sewer bill comes in the form of a federal or state pass which allows us access to parks all over the USA, most of which come with a free dump station and fresh water source.  Our biggest cost next to fuel is medical insurance.  This is the one area that is always an unknown from year to year.   With my health background our insurance runs us about $2500.00 Cnd for the 6 months we are down here.  There are many who opt not to have insurance at all, but we have talked about it, and at this point it is not a risk we wish to take.  We don't really have a cut off number where we would not come anymore because of that cost but if it rose to much we would have to discuss that issue.  We justify our insurance cost by saying this is covered by the insurance and taxes we would have paid on a house.   At the end of the day if you do all of the addition and multiplication, our lifestyle probably does not actually cost a whole lot less than being in an RV park, but the sights we get to see as we travel around. are hard to put a value on.   The freedom we have to come and go as we please can not be measured in dollars.  The sights we have seen already since Dec 2015 are amazing and I am glad that this blog has recorded most of them to look back on.

The most amazing thing about our travels by far, are the people we have met along the way.  Everyone seems to be pretty much on the same wave length when it comes to why we are here and how we operate on a daily basis.  There are an amazing amount of people who live full time in RV's both in Canada and the US and we learn something about the lifestyle from every person we meet.  The biggest issue to the majority of people is how much we all miss family when we are away for the 6 months of the year.  Most agree that with modern technology we get by, and that it is part of the price we pay to be on the road.  We have found that Facebook is a wonderful way to stay current with all the grand kids activities and the odd facetime keeps us up to speed.  We just make sure all of them get bigger snuggles and extra ice cream in the summer time.

We do enjoy meeting the locals when we are camped around communities.  You can learn a lot about the community by going to the local restaurant or grocery store in the area.  These people are a wealth of information about local attractions, and where there are spots to boon dock.  We sometimes even get invited to spend time with them at their homes or go along with them to events that are happening in the community as was the case in Magnolia Beach this year.

One of the neat things is catching up to people along the road that you know.  Being involved in the blogging community has certainly made it easier to keep track of where people are and to make our paths cross.  This year we have not been very successful at doing that with old friends, but there is always next year.  What has happened this year is that we have made a lot of new friends who we will look forward to catching up to next year.   While we were sitting here in Lake Mead today, a lady we met at Blogger Fest 2017 came walking over to see us.  It was great to see Ariane again and she does a couple blogs.  Penny Wise Paws and she also does one called The Frugal Humanist.  I later went over to their happy hour and met her husband Micheal as well.  They have friends here from Germany who are touring the US.

We do miss the steady friends you have when you live in one area and we do notice that friendships we had in the sticks and bricks environment do suffer a bit, not because we unfriend them, but because our lives are not on the same wave length any more.  We do have the opportunity to catch up each summer when we return to Rivers, but it is never quite the same because of the absence.  We do not miss the scheduled lifestyle you tend to lead and the expectations that are on you to contribute of your time when you live in a specific community on a full time basis.  We do still want to have a place we call home, not a house but rather a comfortable place that you always head to when you are done doing whatever you do.  Our home for the summer right now is Rivers Provincial Park and our house is the Ponderosa.  When someone asks us where we are from we always answer without hesitation, Rivers.  However when we turn out the lights at night, it doesn't matter what part of the world we are in, we are home!!!

The view out our window today:

Our Location Today: Government Wash Road NV, near Las Vegas NV. 36.1257 -114.8342