2023 Travel Plans Thus Far

It’s time to look at the big board!

2023 Travel Map

After the turn of the year our first stop will be Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Our good friend is getting married and I’m part of the wedding party.

Then we’re back home for a few days before heading west to Reno for building materials as well as medical appointments. Living in a small town means that for certain types of medical care, we need to travel to one of the larger cities around us. It’s not a problem as living in a small town also means access to hardware stores and building materials is limited as well. So the second week of January we’re off to Reno for doctors visits and additional building materials.

After Reno we’re heading south to Las Vegas, Nevada to visit friends, then across to Tucson, Arizona to take Interstate 10 all the way to Orlando, Florida for the afore mentioned wedding. Along the way we plan on stopping in Austin, Texas for a few days to visit co-workers, New Orleans, Louisiana, because we can, and then to the wedding.

Once the bridge and groom have left for their honeymoon, we’re going to point the compass northwest and head to Saint Louis, Missouri to visit friends and slowly make our way across the planes states homeward bound.

Back home we will deep clean the Airstream, correct any problems that need correcting, turn on the sprinkler system for the trees, and get ready for our trip to Goldfield for a camping event, more than likely via Seattle, Washington, for fun.

Then we’re off to Canada for camp before heading to Austin for work.

Anything after August next year is nebulous except for Chicago in December.

Land Project: Scope Creep…

When we purchased the land our plan was to have a place to park the Airstream while traveling, but then things got out of hand…

We knew at the very least we would need electrical service installed, a well for drinking water, and someplace to stay that wasn’t the Airstream which we could attache a septic system.

Electrical Service:

Electrical services started with trenching and laying the underground conduit for the wires to be run, then setting the meter box and running the circuits to the garage. Our utility wouldn’t activate the power until we had passed several inspections including depth and quality of the trench, the conduit itself, and the meter box and circuits. All of this took about four weeks.

We saved a lot of money on the project by doing all the work ourselves.

Cottage Construction:

As the garage and backhoe were looking kinda lonely, we ordered up a cottage that we would eventually build out as an office and place to clean up and sleep.

Over the next year and a quarter we will install electrical, insulation, walls, ceilings, and floors. I’ll make a longer post about that project sometime in the future.

Well:

The final thing we did during the six months covered by this post was have a water well installed.

Like I’ve said, it’s been a busy couple of years…

Where have we been the last two years?

Busy…We have Been Busy!

In August of 2020 we purchased about ten acres outside of Winnemucca, Nevada in upper Pershing County Nevada. It certainly didn’t look like much, but it was ours. The goal was to clear some land and have a place to park the Airstream that didn’t cost over $200.00 a month. Our plans were to bring water, power, and a septic system to the land.

Backhoe Purchase:

In order to clear the land, build roads, and dig the ditches and trenches necessary to achieve our goals we needed to acquire a backhoe loader. This gem was found in Las Vegas and transported up over Thanksgiving 2020.

Land Clearing:

Over the next eight weeks we lived in the Airstream, traveling for work and pleasure, but spending every free day clearing the land and laying our internal roads. Lots of diesel and grease were used. In January of 2021 we made an epic road trip to bring our Ford Focus Electric to the land – details here.

Garage:

In February of 2021 we had a garage delivered.

The next big projects were bringing electric to the land via Mobile Solar Generator (story here) and digging up for NV Energy to lay power lines.

More on that in our next post. Not bad four our first six months…