"16/50 BRRRRRRRRR!!!!

We told everyone that we are going to winter in Missouri and try something different and people thought we were nuts. Well it is definitely different. Since this RV adventure began we have wintered in Florida every year except once. That was the year we worked at Amazon in Kentucky, and that was only until December 22! This year we are planning on staying the whole season here in Forsyth.

Mary did her usual research on line about preparing an RV for winter weather. A list was made of all the things we needed to purchase and install to be ready to survive the cold winter. As usual we put everything off until the last minute and only started our preparations once the temperatures started to drop. As you may have seen on Mary's FB page the bottom was enclosed with styrofoam insulation. This helped quite a bit keeping the space under the trailer at least 10-15 degrees warmer than the outside air. Next we put window insulator kits over the windows. You know, the plastic that sticks to the sides of the windows and then shrinks taut when heated with a blow dryer. That did wonders stopping the drafts that were coming in around the windows. Also, before we left Florida we stocked up on pool noodles. When cut to size they work great to fill in the gaps around all the slide outs.

Well we thought we had done really well at winterizing our RV for the winter. But not yet! We already had a heated hose from our stay in Kentucky and figured that would do us here in Missouri. Not quite! The other morning, when the temperature had dropped into the mid 20s we woke up to a little surprise. Mary had no water to flush the toilet. Fortunately RVs have a fresh water holding tank, so a flip of a switch and the pump kicked on and we had water again. But now we had to make sure it didn't happen again. With some pipe insulation and fiberglass batting we went to town on everything that gets water to our home. Any exposed hose was covered, our water filters were wrapped, and we even wrapped and covered the park's pipe that comes out of the ground. This morning we woke to an outside temperature of 19 degrees, under the trailer it was 39 degrees, and we had running water. SUCCESS!

Inside the trailer it is a whole different story. Our electricity is free since we are work campers and we get compensated for only so much propane each month. Because of this we use electric heat as much as possible and conserve our propane. At night that means we lower the furnace thermostat to 50 degrees and enjoy the warmth of our electric blanket. In bed it is heaven, but out of bed.....brrrr. This morning while we had outside temp of 19 and underneath temp of 39, inside it had dropped to 51. When we wake in the morning the thermostat goes to 70 and electric heaters are turned on. Once we are up and moving the furnace gets shut down and the electric heater keeps us around 65 degrees.

I think that is enough about our winter survival trials for now, so until the next blog from our home in Missouri because.....

Home is where we park it,
Frank and Mary