Fulltiming:
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
2 Too Many Cats at Home
The 4 Cats are adapting well to motorhome fulltime life. Here are the 4 boys napping:
Far left is Mad Max the Mixed Manx. He wags his stubby tail like a dog when he is happy, is solid muscle, and is a tazmanian devil if you pick him up when he doesn't want to be picked up - but is a great lover once he knows you - if you don't pick him up. His mamma was a wild cat, and he is semi-wild/domesticated. He is second youngest.
Next to Max is Dusty, the pure grey cat. He is large and soft, and very meek. He is the youngest and defers to the other cats. He does not meow - he squeeks. He does not like to be held at all - but does like to be petted.
Next over to the right is Squirrel, a Maine Coon Cat Mix, second oldest. He is huge and heavy. He moved into our house in TX when he was a young cat, because the teenage boy in his house next door was abusive to him. We kept taking him back to the neighbors, but he would be back at our back door peering in within 5 minutes. We finally asked if we could adopt him because he spent 95% of his time with us anyway. He likes women much better than men thanks to the kid next door.
The cat on the far right is Mischief, aka Grey Cat. He is 17 years old, healthy, and alfa cat most of the time. He and his brother found us in Germany. They were raised on a baby bottle by friends when mama cat was lost, and we adopted them when weened.
Grey and his brother are/were super friendly and love to meet new people, to be carried around, and to sleep with his people. We think Grey is super friendly with others partly due to being raised by humans, partly due to his travels, and partly from meeting so many people when our children were young and living at home, and we were also socializing with many other military families overseas and stateside.
After a couple of years in Germany, we took Mischief and Trouble to Turkey with us. In Turkey we lived in Izmir, a city of 5 million people. We had no screens on the windows in our rental apt on the 6th floor. Grey's brother Trouble fell off the window ledge when he was chasing a pigeon, and hit the sidewalk. He survived that, but lost 8 of his 9 lives and passed away several years ago at age 14.
From Turkey, Grey and Trouble traveled back to the US to NM with us, then to TX, then back to NM, where Trouble finally passed away -- partially due to his medical injuries in the long fall to the sidewalk in Turkey. Grey and Trouble also traveled widely in the US in our two motorhomes. Trouble was the best traveler of the bunch.
Trouble in our last motorhome:
Far left is Mad Max the Mixed Manx. He wags his stubby tail like a dog when he is happy, is solid muscle, and is a tazmanian devil if you pick him up when he doesn't want to be picked up - but is a great lover once he knows you - if you don't pick him up. His mamma was a wild cat, and he is semi-wild/domesticated. He is second youngest.
Next to Max is Dusty, the pure grey cat. He is large and soft, and very meek. He is the youngest and defers to the other cats. He does not meow - he squeeks. He does not like to be held at all - but does like to be petted.
Next over to the right is Squirrel, a Maine Coon Cat Mix, second oldest. He is huge and heavy. He moved into our house in TX when he was a young cat, because the teenage boy in his house next door was abusive to him. We kept taking him back to the neighbors, but he would be back at our back door peering in within 5 minutes. We finally asked if we could adopt him because he spent 95% of his time with us anyway. He likes women much better than men thanks to the kid next door.
The cat on the far right is Mischief, aka Grey Cat. He is 17 years old, healthy, and alfa cat most of the time. He and his brother found us in Germany. They were raised on a baby bottle by friends when mama cat was lost, and we adopted them when weened.
Grey and his brother are/were super friendly and love to meet new people, to be carried around, and to sleep with his people. We think Grey is super friendly with others partly due to being raised by humans, partly due to his travels, and partly from meeting so many people when our children were young and living at home, and we were also socializing with many other military families overseas and stateside.
After a couple of years in Germany, we took Mischief and Trouble to Turkey with us. In Turkey we lived in Izmir, a city of 5 million people. We had no screens on the windows in our rental apt on the 6th floor. Grey's brother Trouble fell off the window ledge when he was chasing a pigeon, and hit the sidewalk. He survived that, but lost 8 of his 9 lives and passed away several years ago at age 14.
From Turkey, Grey and Trouble traveled back to the US to NM with us, then to TX, then back to NM, where Trouble finally passed away -- partially due to his medical injuries in the long fall to the sidewalk in Turkey. Grey and Trouble also traveled widely in the US in our two motorhomes. Trouble was the best traveler of the bunch.
Trouble in our last motorhome:
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Progress towards the fulltiming goal
We are still living in the motorhome on the side yard of our "sold" house for now. We sold all the furniture, did a yard sale of the bulk of the "stuff", and donated a large car load to charity. The house is almost empty.
We are still arranging and re-arranging our motorhome storage space for the stuff we are keeping with us, and have a storage facility for stuff we are keeping but not taking with us.
The house inspections are complete, the appraisal covered the sales price, and everything is progressing nicely.
We move to a local campground for about 6 weeks on Feb 22 before the house closes on Feb 27. We are doing all the change of address, email change etc. We still have final vision, dental and medical appointments, and Dan works until 6 March, Sandy 19 March.
We are doing a few motorhome upgrades in the meantime (new fresh water/grey water/black water monitor, and a tow brake system install).
We are working on establishing South Dakota domicile. We have mail forwarding from Rapid City, plates for the motorhome and tow car so far. We will make a quick car trip to SD for drivers license and voter registration late March. Dan's sister lives near Rapid City, and has invited us to stay with her while we do the change on the documents. In our research, SD, FL, and TX had the best domicile for full time RV travelers. Dan's sister in SD sealed the deal for us.
Our son Shaun will stay in our motorhome with the 4 cats (2 too many) here in Albuquerque for the 5 days it will take us for a quick car trip to SD to accomplish the final changes on domicile.
Thanks for joining us our journey. For those of you with blogs, we are reading your posts as well. What a wonderfull advantage cell phones and the internet have given us for full time RV travel.
We are still arranging and re-arranging our motorhome storage space for the stuff we are keeping with us, and have a storage facility for stuff we are keeping but not taking with us.
The house inspections are complete, the appraisal covered the sales price, and everything is progressing nicely.
We move to a local campground for about 6 weeks on Feb 22 before the house closes on Feb 27. We are doing all the change of address, email change etc. We still have final vision, dental and medical appointments, and Dan works until 6 March, Sandy 19 March.
We are doing a few motorhome upgrades in the meantime (new fresh water/grey water/black water monitor, and a tow brake system install).
We are working on establishing South Dakota domicile. We have mail forwarding from Rapid City, plates for the motorhome and tow car so far. We will make a quick car trip to SD for drivers license and voter registration late March. Dan's sister lives near Rapid City, and has invited us to stay with her while we do the change on the documents. In our research, SD, FL, and TX had the best domicile for full time RV travelers. Dan's sister in SD sealed the deal for us.
Our son Shaun will stay in our motorhome with the 4 cats (2 too many) here in Albuquerque for the 5 days it will take us for a quick car trip to SD to accomplish the final changes on domicile.
Thanks for joining us our journey. For those of you with blogs, we are reading your posts as well. What a wonderfull advantage cell phones and the internet have given us for full time RV travel.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wireless Internet
We now have wireless internet connectivity in our motorhome.
We installed a Wilson Truckers Cellular Antenna on the roof of the motor-home, and fed the cable from the cell ant to the lower front compartment just to the right of the drivers seat. We installed a Cyfre direct wire amplifier CA1819, hard wired to 12 volt, that the ant cable feeds into.
We then installed a Cradlepoint MBR1000 modem/router/wifi. The cradlepoint is also powered by 12 volt.
A Verizon service, USB 727 broadband card plugs into the Cradlepoint, and the amp plugs into the ant port on the USB727. We secured the net with wifi security.
Verizon has a $60 5 GB per month limit before excess charges go into effect.
We now have a transportable 12 volt powered internet system that "should" work everywhere we can get Verizon cell service. The roof ant, and amp, will help us get a good signal as we travel. The Cradlepoint router lets us network our 2 laptops and HP printer in a wireless network.
Cyfre amp from: https://www.maximumsignal.net/
Ant, cradlepoint and USB 727 card from: http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=index
Verizon service info at: http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/s...+internet+plan
The 3g store can bundle the router and the USB card, and get the verizon service started if this interests you.
We should now have internet connectivity anyplace our cell phones work. With the roof antenna and amp, it may even work places our cell phones cannot connect.
Dan: drw907 @ yahoo.com
We installed a Wilson Truckers Cellular Antenna on the roof of the motor-home, and fed the cable from the cell ant to the lower front compartment just to the right of the drivers seat. We installed a Cyfre direct wire amplifier CA1819, hard wired to 12 volt, that the ant cable feeds into.
We then installed a Cradlepoint MBR1000 modem/router/wifi. The cradlepoint is also powered by 12 volt.
A Verizon service, USB 727 broadband card plugs into the Cradlepoint, and the amp plugs into the ant port on the USB727. We secured the net with wifi security.
Verizon has a $60 5 GB per month limit before excess charges go into effect.
We now have a transportable 12 volt powered internet system that "should" work everywhere we can get Verizon cell service. The roof ant, and amp, will help us get a good signal as we travel. The Cradlepoint router lets us network our 2 laptops and HP printer in a wireless network.
Cyfre amp from: https://www.maximumsignal.net/
Ant, cradlepoint and USB 727 card from: http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=index
Verizon service info at: http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/s...+internet+plan
The 3g store can bundle the router and the USB card, and get the verizon service started if this interests you.
We should now have internet connectivity anyplace our cell phones work. With the roof antenna and amp, it may even work places our cell phones cannot connect.
Dan: drw907 @ yahoo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)