It Isn't All Fun and Games!

We were so excited to have our motor home home! (Is it breaking some grammar rule to repeat the word "home"?) Now Denisa could start measuring cabinets and plotting the strategy for the best use of storage space.  We could wash off the accumulation of bugs on the front and make her shine.  We had friends and relatives make special trips to tour the wide expanses of our new home with her slides out.  What fun!

But to be fair, there are some downsides to those months of storage before beginning our journey.  The first heart-stopper came when Denisa noticed some curious black bugs inside.  When the bifocals were readjusted, it was determined the "bugs" were actually mouse droppings.  Eek!!  After googling everything we could find on how to keep mice out of an RV, we developed an arsenal.  Because we used all of them immediately and at the same time, we have no proof if any of them were useful.  But the following is the list of all we implemented:  essence of peppermint oil (not peppermint oil for cooking) on cotton balls; green irish spring soap; moth balls (only on the outside around the tires or other possible points of entry); another mouse repellent product that we discovered smelled like peppermint when we opened the package; glue traps; and mouse traps.  We caught two mice the first evening in the mouse traps.  We haven't seen any of those "black bugs" since that time, so we think the arsenal is holding up.

It's at this point in the blog that I intended to have a picture of the products in our arsenal.  But that isn't possible since the arsenal and the motorhome have spent the last six weeks at Campingworld.  There were two things that needed to be fixed before we started our journey, and we were glad to have the time to get that accomplished before we started living in it.  But through a comedy of errors (that are no longer funny to us) we are still waiting to get her back home.  The parking spot that we are renting by the month has been empty for well over a month and we haven't gotten to start moving things in like we had planned.  We hope there are no mice at Campingworld!

The mice were probably just trying to come in out of the cold, which brings us to the other downside of storing a motorhome.  It had to be winterized to protect the pipes and appliances from damage from freezing water.  Mark took over the research and put together a three page list of procedures.  Our winterizing was made more complicated because we have a washing machine, as well as an ice maker in the residential freezer.  Denisa was in Tulsa for a wedding the weekend before the first cold snap, so she's not even sure what went on to get everything cold-worthy.  But she's certainly appreciative of all Mark's work!  Since we are hoping to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter, we are hoping this is the last time we will winterize.  From now on, the term "winterize" means driving south.