Here was our New Year’s dinner I cooked. 5 lbs of crawfish and corn on the cob……It was good……………
I can’t remember when I last stayed up to midnight to welcome the New Year. While in AZ in years past we would watch east coast TV stations and that wasn’t a guarantee for me to stay awake. We are not in AZ as planned due to medical reasons. We are still in Livingston, TX. The actual reasons are unimportant other than saying old age stuff. We have to return to Livingston, TX in March for some more testing (me) and then the doc’s will decide if they need to sharpen their knives or not. Welcome to full time RVing and getting older. If you are young and can come out now and play (full time), do it.
As most of you know we are no longer owners of the RV Driving School. One of my instructors and wife, George & Valerie Mayleben, purchased the entire business and all rights to it just not part of it. I think it’s the only ethical way to do business unless both parties agree to do something else and put it writing. I know I don’t like to be blind sided thus won’t do it to someone else. Get it in writing - At least that’s what Judge Judy would say! I thought we did 5 years ago! Damn still learning who are friends are……anyhow life goes on for us with real friends in tack.
Yes, I don’t have a job. I need a job to make some fun money. We can survive without a job but I would like some pork for my new Bradley Smoker. Thus need fun money. We work for food then I will cook it for everybody. I burnt my last Lowe’s Masterbuilt smoker up. I’m taking this smoker with us. I took out the underneath freezer and put in the smoker. 
I do have my Weber grill with us also.
Diesel fuel is coming down a little bit. I usually use the fuel prices in CA as an overall guide to see if prices are coming down. Right now all diesel prices at Flying J in CA are under $4 a gallon. That’s OK considering what prices have been. Here in Livingston fuel is $3.57 and gas was $2.95 but just shot up to $3.05 a couple of days ago. Diesel stayed steady. The “Beast’s” tummy is 150 gallons and right now it’s pretty hungry.
The other day (bored) I figured out what it cost to move the Beast down the road. Figuring only fuel, maintenance, tires (pro rated), insurance, miles per gallon, it cost right around 70 cents a mile. Damn that’s expensive. I better stop doing that kind of figuring before I realize how expensive RVing can be. We might have to set for 3 years before we can move again.
This year I have an Excel spreadsheet that I’m gonna keep track of all of our camping costs plus others. Then next year we will start dropping memberships. The ones we know we will keep are Thousand Trails, Passport America & Coast To Coast. These we use pretty often. We have a few others like RPI, AOR, ROD that I can think of off the top of my head. The business paid for their yearly dues but we probably won’t down the road.
The first 18 months of full timing we kept track of every penny. Yep we could afford it but no meat in the spaghetti sauce. Then we started doing work camping jobs so we could add meat to the sauce. We’ve been working ever since at our leisure and liking. We like to work and meet people. Out here in the RV world of Full timing it’s neat to meet other people. If you meet them once, you will meet them again. I normally don’t remember people’s names that’s Carol’s job. I remember their RV. That’s the way my brain is wired…so be it.
Carol is gonna try and speed up her 10 Jan appointment with the Doc but it depends if they get the results back on her special tests. One time we left and halfway to AZ the doc called and said to return to TX. That was a big scare. We did and we think it’s the same ole same ole thing that has been dormant for years. New doc….
These bees attacked our bird feeder… 
Then our cat, Patches, wanted to make love with this bird.
Well, that’s it for my first blog in months. Don’t forget my email is dennisrving@gmail.com….
