The Cat

Since hunkering down to our work-camping commitment here at Indian Skies RV Resort, time just seems to have flown by. We have been super busy, not just working but in our personal lives too.

Oh yes, there have been plentiful occasions for dining, karaokeing, dancing, making new friends, catching up with friends we have acquired during our travels, and happy-houring with our fellow resort residents. Living in a 55+ resort allows little time for rest, or blogging!

In between all this social activity (and some sickness), Richard and I added to our extra-curricular workload by buying a park model in the Resort. We intend this being our base for the foreseeable future. From now on, we will be part time RVers only – a significant life change.

Of course, we still intend to travel in the summer months, but no longer need as big a travel trailer as the 38 foot long 5^th wheel Sundance we lovingly nicknamed the Jet, in which we began our full time RVing life three years ago.

So after renting it our for a few months, (which gave us extra cleaning and preparatory work!) we put the Jet on the market and it sold within three weeks of going onto Craig's List. On Monday Richard transported it to its new home in Show Low, in the White Mountains of Arizona, close to where we spent last summer. Here is its final resting place. 

It will be shaded, and no longer baking in the desert, which will be much better for it.  And the new owner has two cats, so I know it will enjoy their company.

We are currently in the final stages of acquiring a smaller 5^th wheel (as we no longer need to carry all our worldly possessions with us) and hope to pick it up next week. This 2016 Sabre Light 25RL is only 29 feet long, which makes it much lighter, more easy to tow, and much more maneuverable when backing into a camping space. 

However, we are losing almost ten feet (3 metres) of space. Here are the layouts of the Jet and the Sabre so you can view the differences.

New Sabre floor plan

The Jet floorplan

Compared to the Jet's 8 foot wide double door wardrobe and separate chest of 4 drawers, we will be left with three drawers and a tiny hanging area 

– but we will be packing only clothes needed for the trip, so should be OK. Some careful planning needed, methinks.

There is no full bathroom - the shower is incorporated into the bedroom, with the toilet and sink being in a separate room. With only a sofa and no extra armchairs, we lose sitting space too, 

but the main thing for me is that, with a separate double sink work area and another counter top on the other side beside the fridge and stove top, the kitchen work-space area is still plentiful. After spending nine months in an small tenement apartment in Glasgow, Scotland, whilst waiting for visa approval, I realized that lots of kitchen countertops was a top priority for me. There will still be ample storage space underneath the bed and in the underbelly of the Sabre for other necessities like extra clothes, shoes, grill, outside chairs, etc

So now you know what we will be living in as soon as we finish up here in the beginning of April, let me tell you about our summer plans. We hope to spend some time sightseeing on our way to Idaho, where are going to take another work-camping position for the months of May and June. The weather will be much cooler up there than in Arizona, so we might just hang around in this sate as long as we can.

July we will be coming back to Indian Skies for the month, to cover for the park's managers as they take some time off to visit their family in Michigan. We have never spent a summer month in the Valley, as the greater Phoenix area is called. Temperatures can soar into the blood-sizzling zone, so we are looking forward to that with some trepidation. As we have had pointed out to us, living in incredible heat is similar to living in incredible cold. You just exchange heating for air-conditioning and stay inside! I have a feeling we shall be doing our work in the early cooler hours and spending a lot of evenings in the pool.

In August we shall head for Colorado for a mini-family reunion, and some more pleasant mountain weather. And before we begin work again at Indian Skies in October, I shall be flying to Australia to visit my new grand-daughter Chloe, and help celebrate Maddie's third birthday.

So for now, back to work, but let me just clarify the title of this blog... given our propensity for renaming our vehicles, the Sabre will be called The Cat. Get it?