FullTime Living is good stuff

 FullTime Living is good stuff. 

#fulltimeliving #vanlife #traveler #nomad #camping

Hickory Ridge Lookout

Hickory Ridge Lookout Tower ride.

Firewood regift from random horse camper. Harley his wife and group of horse people pleasant morning chat. Sunshine! 

Took Fatass out for a ride. 6 miles to a lookout tower. Wasn't expecting it to be so crowded. Oh well. Didn't climb it. Too many others going up and down . Not sure if I would hit with a panic attack from the height. Which would be dangerous for Pete who I would be carrying.  Oh well. 

Fatass seems to eat battery much faster than Fatso. Even on the single motor setting. Maybe the meters are off, inaccurate.  12 miles total should not have even dinged the capacity. But the meter showed a whole bar of usage. Not good. Oh well. Good ride. All gravel forested roads with mild hills. Probably will make a GravelNuts route of it.

#HoosierNationalForest #gravelbike #dispersedcamping #minivanlife #HickoryRidgeHorseCamp

One seedy dog

Pete's magnetic fur lures every seed within a mile. Four miles worth of deseeding ahead.

Low key day. Zero sunshine. About zero connectivity. Anker is below 20%. Banks are at 13.4v, but readout doesn't show how full they are. Maybe I need a better setup. 

Stayed in until 1. It was drizzling on and off. Came out and made an early campfire after the rain stopped. The clouds remained. 

Rest of the day was gathering wood, burning wood, made dinner, cleaned up dinner. Messed with keeping the fire going. Brushed my teeth. Went back inside at 730 to listen to downloaded podcasts. Pretty much a do little day.

 Routine cold day

Lots of horses today. It's nice. Pete is doing great with the horses, but the handful of dogs that came through got him riled up. Still working on that.

Didn't do much beyond the daily things. Coffee and clean up. Lunch soup and clean up. Made the bed. Deseeded Pete a bit more. Whittled on my new walking stick to smooth it out. Gathered some firewood. Planned out a bike ride to the observation tower. Dinner and clean up. Lit the fire. In to bed by 7:30. It's cold out.  57.

#hickoryridgehorsecamp #dispersedcamping #minivanlife

Weed seeds lured in Pete

 Weed seeds! 

Pete's magnetic fur lures every seed within a mile. Four miles worth of deseeding ahead.

It got cold, really cold here fast. Too fast. Low 30s. But probably shouldn't move on to warmer Tenessee till the 3rd when I have an emergency fund. Crap happens. It's only 11 days away. 

This horse camp is okay. It has a vault toilet. And a trash can. And sunny spots to charge up the batteries. Luxury! 

I may try out the electric blanket if I get enough battery charge. For the most part the bed is pretty warm, even with one blanket covering. There are several layers and a self inflated mattress beneath me. The phone thermometer read 75 degrees in the blankets and 55 in the cabin. It was 34 outside at 8AM. Brrrr! We didn't get out of bed till 10. But it still wasn't even 40 by then. 

More horses today. Pete is doing great! Not charging. Not barking. Whimpering and wiggling in my arms. But not much. There is hope for Assateague someday! 

Went for a long walk with Pete on a trail. I found a great walking stick laying on the trail. Trail ferries? God almighty! I needed it. Right hip acting dumb. Right foot, too. 

Pete got loaded up with weed seeds. Ugh. What was I thinking? Hours of deseeding ahead. 

Great trail.  Would be great on Fatass. But no ebikes allowed. How ignorant. I'm writing Indiana an email!

#HickoryRidgeHorseCamp #vanlife #fulltimelivinig  #dispersedcamping
#minivanlife

Paradise is a vault toilet

Paradise is a vault toilet. 

We are out of the woods and into a horse camp.

So apparently the house batteries did not charge up all the way. This morning they showed depleted. Down to 10.8 volts. The Anker was at 70%. Interesting. 

The morning was spent getting Fatass and the generator mounted securely on the rack. And covered. It was an hours long project. The cover is great, and needed, but there is a problem getting it on properly without covering the tailights and license plate. I might move the whole tailight assembly high on the rear hatch door. It seems the most sensible thing to do to be able to completely encase Fatass and the generator inside of the cover. It's kinda important. Especially out west in the sandy desert areas. The dust just grinds everything down to ruin.  

Made it to Hickory Ridge Horescamp. Luxury! Gravel pads. Vault toilet. Trash can! And sunny spots. I may stay here for a few days to let the house batteries charge up. I'm not sure what to expect at Meriwether. Shade or sun? Crowded with fall sightseeing campers, especially with the next nearest free campground temporarily closed. Not having a site open for me would be a minor catastrophe because there are no funds available for a paid campground until November 3rd. 

Maybe I might hold off until the 3rd and try to stay in Indiana. But it is getting so cold here. 30s at night 50 60s in the day. Brrr. I maybe should have left sooner. In September.  We shall see. 

Lots of sunshine here. And  horses! Pete was whimpering quietly behind me like a little kid getting ready to burst. I looked up from what I was doing and there was a pack of horses walking by. So far... he is doing great and not going crazy like he does watching horses on TV.

 #HoosierNationalForest  #fulltimeliving #minivanlife #HickoryRidgeHorseCamp #dispersedcamping 

Not out of the woods, yet.

 Not out of the woods, yet.

Spent the day breaking down camp. Windy day, made for a few challenges but nothing major. 

It is getting beyond chilly here in the woods. Cold, even Pete is shivering. I put his winter coat on him. Put mine on, too.  

Everything packed in pretty well. Probably, I have too much stuff for the typical minivanner setup. But, that's okay. I'm not minimalistic by any means and am looking forward to some decent ride time on Fatass and getting some quality gamer time in Destiny when I can afford a paid Campsite. 

No need to charge up the batteries. Got that done yesterday. Tomorrow either we make a run for Tennessee or we land at the horse camp if there are sunny spots. Looks like the temperatures go up into the week. Right now, it's too cold for my comfort.

#dispersedcamping #SundanceLake #minivanlife #fulltimeliving #camping

Hoosier National Forest has no mammals? What happened to all the furry critters?

 

Hoosier National Forest has no mammals? 

What happened to all the furry critters?

 
#vanlife  #HoosierNational #SundanceLake #bigfoot #fulltimeliving

Cold, but clear.

 Cold, but clear

Cold but clear. No more rain with the high in the mid 60s. 

The generator ran for five hours on a tank of gas. With an hour more and the two hours from the evening before all of the batteries were topped up with eight hours of generating. Betsy's house bank, Fatass' batteries, and a battery brick for gadget charging cost about a gallon of gas ($3). Not bad. 

In Tenessee, I hope to score a sunnier spot, although even with that the weather forecast looks to be uncooperative. Cloudy, rainy days in the mix. We shall see. 

I have about 10 days to go before funds replenish. Interesting.

#dispersedcamping  #travelingnomad  #minivanlife  #HoosierNationalForest  #FullTimeLiving

Rain. Cold. Gas and screws. A day in the life Full Time Living

The temperatures drop to near freezing as the rain continues for another day in Hoosier National Forest. The supply run to town scored screws to fabricate a mount for the generator, some gas, and some food. #SundanceLake #dispersedcamping #HoosierNationalForest #minivanlife #generator 

Rain was the main event of the day. It eventually waned at 4PM. The other two camps cleared out leaving us completely alone here at Sundance Lake. By 5 I had the generator up and running charging the battery system. 

It was a bit cumbersome at the gas station trying to pump gas into the generator's tank. Spillage. I did get some in, and did get the 1 gallon gas can filled with the rest of the $20 going into Betsy's tank.

Funds are uncomfortably low. Just enough to buy a few needed groceries, screws to fabricate a hitch platform for the generator, and gas to get to Tennessee this week. 

With what was in the generator's tank I got two hours of runtime. Tomorrow I will fill it up and see how long it runs and how much it charges the batteries.

Locked out. Gas run. Tombstone pizza.

 

Full Time Living in a minivan. The adventures of Pete the poodle and Jef continues in Hoosier National Forest. #minivanlife #FullTimeLiving #HoosierNationalForest #dispersedcamping #SundanceLake

Saturday October 18th

I made the shopping trip into town. Desperately need gas so I can charge up the main battery bank so it can charge the solar generator so it can keep the freezer freezing. The banks did great. 5 days till they depleted because of no solar input. Way too shady here for Pizza. Tomorrow will be the maiden run for the generator. Fun stuff.

I pan baked another Tombstone. My second stovetop attempt and last one. Couldn't use the electric pizza oven. No solar. It turned out okay. Better than nothing!

Always carry spare car keys in your pocket. Some fellow campers got locked out of their truck... door key broke off in the lock. Everything was inside it.. including the phone charging cable for their dead phone. I let them use my phone to call for help. Maybe I could have wire hangered the lock, but it was a borrowed truck and the owner lived locally. Sometimes wire hanger attempts go bad. Damage to lock linkage inside the door, torn weatherstripping, scratched interior was weighed against a set of keys showing up in an hour. What's an hour?

Today is Pete's Birthday

Today is Pete's birthday. He got extra bacon and lovin from the other campers at Sundance Lake.

 

Today was also a recovery adventure for neighboring campers. Their 2/wd Ford diesel pickup truck became stuck straddling the narrow gravel road while trying to back their popup trailer into the site. It was stuck real good. 

They walked down to ask if I knew much about camping. I do. But the question should have been, do I know much about vehicle recovery. I do! From watching hundreds of YouTube videos I learned a lot. 

First, the trailer was jacked up off of the hitch and rolled back into the site out of the way. Next, a series of techniques were applied to get the Ford loose from its slippery trap. I tried jacking it up and placing boards under the tires. It just spit them out. We tried digging around the front and rear wheels, but the tires had no grip. I tried wedging a short steel grill I found in the woods at my site as a recovery board. Several times. It was too short to dig in and was repeatedly spit out. 

More digging. More wheels spinning. I noticed the rear end of the Ford was fishtailing left and right quite easily every time a new technique was tried. A risky plan came to mind. I saw it on a recovery video. 

The plan. The lady keeps those tires spinning while the dude and me push on the rear drivers side of the bed. If all goes well, we will be able to push the rear end of that Ford a whole 90 degrees back onto solid pavement. 

It worked. Nobody got run over. Eventually the right rear tire caught some dry gravel and the Ford was able to line up on the road. Glad it worked. I didn't want to have to bring ol Betsy over to pull that heavy ass diesel around.

Sundance Lake, Hoosier National Forest

Sundance Lake in Hoosier National Forest has free 14-day dispersed camping that is what boondocking is all about. Great spot for a little bit of gravel riding, camping, and enjoying Indiana's pieces of America's National Forest. 

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8AqPgrC/

https://youtube.com/shorts/k5KHhqBvBI8?si=nyUPCSQNBv8XCgW-

@FullTimeLiving.life

#cyclenutsusa #SundanceLake #HoosierNational #dispersedcamping  #vanlife

How to bake a Tombstone Pizza on a campstove with a skillet

How to bake Tombstone Pizza on a skillet with a campstove. @FullTimeLiving.life

#tombstonepizza #campstove #fulltimeliving #camping #pizza

Lazy day 4. Made bacon eggs potatoes for brunch. Dragged some scrappy wood from the forest. A broken up pallet and an uprooted tree. Fun stuff to burn while making the sight look nicer. Imagined a way to mount the generator onto the bike rack receiver. 2x4s. Some tape. A couple of ratchet ties should do it. Maybe gonna try to pan bake a tombstone later for dinner. Not getting any solid sunshine here to charge the batteries. Oh well. Generator at some point. Maybe Sunday. Rainy Sunday I will make a trip into town for gas and water and trash dump?

Fattire ebiking in Hoosier National Forest

Pete and me took Fatass out for a ride on day 3 at Sundance in Hoosier National Forest. Gravel roads and trails made for a great ride. 

Day 3 and all is very well. Made spaghetti for dinner and bacon eggs potatoes for brunch. I am guestimating that I will have to make a resupply/trash drop-off maybe by Monday. Rainstorms Saturday rain Sunday.  Crummy forecast. Not sure how the roads will look. But the rainy days may be a smart time to go to store. Not too many people will be looking to camp. Concerned about loosing this site. Weighing if leaving the tent a screenhouse and even Fatass locked to a tree to secure the camp. Hmmm

Dispersed Camping Hoosier National Forest

 Full Time Living - day 2 Hoosier National Forest Indiana dispersed camping Sundance Lake

The camp is built! Probably I will stay here the full 14 day limit. Rain storms coming this weekend. Then sunny and 60s for the week after. It's a great site. A bit too shady. But maybe if I am conservative with power the batteries will maintain enough juice to keep the freezer solid. I can propane just about everything else. Good day. Looking forward to riding with Pete tomorrow on Fatass.

 @FullTimeLiving.life

#FullTimeLivingLife #dispersedcamping #minivanlife #Indiana #SundanceLake

Full Time Living day 1

Full Time Living day 1 - Sundance Lake, Hoosier National Forest

Day 1. It all came together today. Right now I am camped at Sundance Lake in Indiana's State Forest. 14 days of free camping in the woods without a soul in sight! The whole checklist fell right into place. I should have checked it just once more because I forgot to get gas for the generator. Hopefully I won't need it. We shall see. Tomorrow I will get the rest of the camp built. The kitchen screenroom, the carpeted entrance to the bedroom minivan, and the portable potty tent. It has begun!

#fulltimeliving #dispersedcamping #HoosierNationalForest #minivanlife #FullTimeLiving.life

SKIP AHEAD 13 YEARS AND...

It is 2025 and I am in Hoosier National Forest sitting in my screenroom pecking away on a laptop, updating this very old website from 2012 - Full Time Living. Once upon a time I owned the URL FullTimeLiving.com, but I let it go. Yo Daddy holds it ransom, up for sale to the first one to pay $5,000 to buy it. Nice. I checked my host provider, Netfirms. Same deal. Five grand to buy it and $21 a year to keep it. I went with a new URL - FullTimeLiving.Life

Full Time Living in RVs has taken off like a rocket since 2012. So has van life, car life, bike life, suv life, any kind of vehicle life, and minivan life. That's where I ended up after doing trailer home life since 2014, in Betsy, the mini van. I bought the Flamingo, a 70 foot single wide trailer home from the 1970s, selling  the 35 foot motorhome I had been living in full time. 

Why? Why what? Why was I living in a motorhome or why did I sell it and move into a trailer home? I was crazy with love for a woman who lived in the area. It seemed like a good plan. Move closer, with a bit more stability in a trailer that I had no way to move without hiring a semi-truck for thousands of dollars. Maybe she would take me a bit more serious as a proper suitor. 

Nope, that did not happen. Probably, I was more attractive as a nomad to her than a nester. So, that fizzled out over the course of a couple of years. By then, the Flamingo was looking pretty fine with all the work put in to make her attractive. A comfortable nest. Like a proper nester would do. 

Much came and went over the decade in Flamingo. There is a lot to be grateful for over the time there. To much to speak of here. After the loss of my beautiful Kitty, life in the Flamingo would never be the same. Left without a reason for being there the itch to get away, to wander, to explore, to seek adventure bubbled up. The short of the long is now I am in Betsy, the minivan, with Pete the poodle fulltime living on my way to warmer zones for the winter of 2025/26. 

When did FullTiming start for me? Or, better yet, why did it take so long!?

 Full Time Living

2006 FullTiming Lake Milton, Ohio

In 1993, I bought a 1978 Itasca Class A twenty-five foot motorhome. I thought it was going to be so cool to take my wife and children out on the open road up to the tops of mountains and down to the deepest valleys; out to wilderness destinations and in to towns and cities near and far, big and small, exploring America, the beautiful. And, it was.

Little did I realize at the time was that I had actually purchased my dream home and that, fifteen years later, here would I be surrounded by thousands of miles and moments of great memories of time shared with my loved ones, living the life of a full timer. 

Some would say tough luck brought me to this near nomadic, pseudo-hermit type of lifestyle. Some would say that I have become a 'fool-timer', and not a full-timer. I say, not! Choice led by circumstance led to contentment. Life is good.

I've only been full timing since 2003 - five years. Snowbirding has not yet become part of my routine, although, the thought has crossed my mind many a cold wintry day here in Ohio. Maybe, some day. But, for now I am settled in a good spot on a friend's piece of land with plenty of firewood to burn away those dreams of warmer winter climates.

Sometimes, when I slip into a not so gracious moment and begin grumbling about everything under the sun, I wonder what has become of me. I am living in an aluminum can on wheels with a cat. 

Psychology might have been a pragmatic course of study back when I was in college. Not so much for illuminating what exactly is going on in my own mind, but, in the mind of those whose facial twitches betray an undercurrent of disapproving puzzlement when they learn of my unusual living arrangements. If only I could read a face, just for my own entertainment value. I love a good laugh. Who better to laugh at than myself. That, I am fairly sure, is not a sin, whereas, it is almost impossible to laugh at someone else without stepping into some bit of sinfulness. And, I do love to laugh.

I really don't have to live like this. It is not always an easy 'road to travel'. Nor, is it an easy task to convince the scoffer that full timing makes sense. To which end I can only reply, 'My mind's made up... don't confuse me with the facts'.

This blog is my story.

<a reprint from 2008>