Talking To Myself

We arrived in New Mexico at our first workamping assignment last July, so I thought I'd do a little recap of some of my thoughts on our first nine months on the road.

What do I wish we'd done differently? 

We left a few things at my parents' house that were of sentimental value, but also breakable. I wish we'd packed them up and brought them with us.

We had a nice mattress on our bed in Ohio and we ought to have switched it for the sleep number mattress that came with the MH. Sleep number beds seem to be popular in RVs because they are very light. Less weight = less gas usage. However, uncomfortable mattress= not sleeping well= cranky campers.

We had two cars, a Dodge Magnum and a Chevy Aveo, we assumed we would get a tow bar and tow the car, so we sold the Magnum and kept the Aveo. When we left, we were in a time crunch and money crunch. A tow bar, even used, was over $1,000. The Aveo gets 35 mpg so with lower gas prices and the fact that we were going to be driving a few hundred miles and then parking, spending money for a tow bar didn't make sense. The downside is that when we travel I am in the car while Chris drives the MH but it's not like we are vacationing and I have to spend our two week trip to Yellowstone looking out the window of the Aveo. Anyway, if we'd realized that we were unlikely to get a tow bar, we would have kept the Magnum instead. The gas mileage isn't as good, but it's more comfortable.

When we applied for this job in North Carolina, we were very tired. We'd been working long, hot days in New Mexico, then working at Amazon, so this job which only required one of us to wake up, put on a KOA sweatshirt and sit in a room for 2.5 hours seemed like a good idea. For the first month, it probably was because we did a lot of sleeping and catching up on things and with people that we'd missed out on while we were in the Amazon work cave. But, in retrospect, we probably ought to have picked a job that gave us more to do and also included earning money beyond getting our site for free. Frankly, we're a little bored and this area isn't particularly interesting either so we'll keep that in mind in the future.

Also, having the alarm go off at 5:15 am every day is a bit of a drag even if you're the one who gets to roll over and go back to sleep.

Next time...things that have surprised me.