Preparations for travel underway.

We have begun the process of packing for our scheduled departure from Bird’s Hill Park on October 13. A few days ago we took down out dining tent and washed it and then put it away. We have been going through the cupboards and closets and pulling out stuff we haven’t used and discarding it. (Giveaway, trash or charity). Today I began the biannual exterior maintenance the trailer requires by getting up on the roof, cleaning it, inspecting everything and putting the solar panels down in travel mode. While I was up there I also cleaned the gutters. The entire chore took me under two hours which is one of the really nice things about living in trailer. The maintenance is so trivial compared to home ownership. As always during these biannual roof inspections I found a small hole and it is patched. I will need to wash and wax the exterior before we leave and our first step on the way out of Winnipeg is to get our wheel bearings repacked with new grease, our trailer brakes checked and one bent axle with balding on the interior tires replaced. We are also adding a lockable toolbox for our batteries on the front hitch. We have not had any batteries stolen but it hasn’t been for lack of trying on the part of the human parasites. Estimated cost is about $1200 and I have the money in a savings account. Ouch but still far less than some of the prices I paid for work on my house. Travel trailers have a life expectancy of ten years. Ours is halfway there. I am wondering if it will make though because it is starting to show some signs of wear. We put a lot more miles on this thing that most people do. I have six short term savings accounts and each month I tuck a little away in each account. Car maintenance, travel health insurance, emergency savings, major health care expenses, vet savings and my favourite, travel expenses. Traveling is costly, most because is typically uses about 2/3 of a tank of gas a day and that adds up fast when you are traveling for five or six days. We take a lot longer than that to get south but we do linger a lot, stopping for two nights instead of one when the weather is cooperative and the stopover is nice.

I am beginning to get rests, ready to head out on our next adventure. It’s cold at night, The trees are almost bare now. It feels like winter is coming in and it’s time to be heading south. The only hard part is thinking about being away from my family. I will miss them a lot when I am south.