Planning To Head West

July 10, 2020July 10, 2020 | jamiefeinberg

It’s taken us long enough, but we’ve finally made up our minds (so far!) about where we are headed next.

As with much of full-time RVing, it’s subject to change and dependent on weather and our Florida neighbors and of course on our wonderful RV/home and how happy it is when it’s time to leave and travel across the U.S.

The Colorado Springs area has been one of our absolute favorites, although we spent less than a week in the area, and based on our research and what we know so far, it’s a top contender for a place to settle down, either part-time or all year. It’s also one of the more affordable parts of Colorado, a state we absolutely adore and full of TONS of favorite places worth of day and weekend trips. So we’ll be calling our favorite campground at the beginning of August to make a reservation. With limited campsites, we may or may not get an acceptable site, but we’ll give it our best shot!

In the event that our top choice campground isn’t available, we aren’t comfortable winging it for WiFi heading into the winter (see what I did there?), so we’ll instead make our winter home Las Cruces, NM, a community we love with great weather and some of our favorite places to eat and enjoy frozen custard.

Our plan will be to arrive on or around October 1 at our new destination, whichever community that may be, and we’ll be taking some time off of work to make the travel days even easier. Unlike some past travel days, we’re planning out our route very carefully, including anticipated stops for gas, to avoid extra exposure and stress due to COVID-19, and we plan to quarantine ourselves for two weeks when we reach our destination to avoid infecting anyone at our new destination.

We anticipate that we may choose a campground midway to flush our tanks and such, but otherwise we anticipate relying on Harvest Hosts as much as possible – it’s so fun to get goodies like wine and treats instead of paying for a campsite!

We’re so thankful for the flexibility that RVing allows us. Please send us all of your good thoughts and prayers and vibes for a safe and easy transition. Hoping our tires & overall RV are happy, that our car is too, and of course that we’ll all stay safe and healthy throughout our adventure.

Keep fighting for what’s right and staying safe during these challenging times, friends. Sending you hugs & thanks for reading!

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Supporting Our Blog

We are so thankful for your support of our blog and our careers! You can help by doing any or all of the following:

Purchase one of Ross’ albums!
Become a patron of our work!
Make purchases via our Amazon website links. There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds can support our travels. Begin your Amazon search here.
Make other purchases using our affiliate links. Capital One 360 is one everyone can take advantage of to save money! Signing up with Dosh is a great way for everyone with a smartphone to support us, and we also have options for aspiring virtual assistants as well as occasional and full-time RVers to save money.
Listen to, subscribe and review our theater comedy podcast, Finishing The Season!
Subscribe to our blog, as well as perhaps InSearchOfAScoop.com, and recommend our work to your friends and family.
Take music or theater lessons (group or private) from us, either in person or via Skype at TinyVillageMusic.com.

Happy New Year and Next Steps

January 3, 2020January 10, 2020 | jamiefeinberg

Wow, it’s hard to believe 2019 is ending and 2020 is beginning! We have managed to fit so much into this year, it’s really been a banner year for us. So here are some of the highlights of where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished this year, with a few musings for the future.

We started the year off in New Mexico, and we actually spent almost six months there, with ample time in Tularosa/Alamogordo and Deming, where we threw down routes with a state park pass for hiking and history and trips to Tucson, AZ (the desert museum is always our favorite), El Paso, TX (free theater, yoga and flying out of the airport to NH), Las Cruces, NM (ukulele festival and of course all of the free museums and parks) and Silver City, NM (performing, good eats, amazing shops and ice cream). We also spent time in neighboring cities, including a few visits to Roswell to perform, explore and eat excellent ice cream. In May and June, we shifted north, basing ourselves south of Albuquerque mainly, with visits to ruins, time in Taos (the best chocolate ice cream ever!), Santa Fe art explorations for our anniversary and of course a full week falling in love with Albuquerque during the Senior Olympics. We performed a lot throughout New Mexico, with the anchor being at yoga studios, which meant meeting people and, for Jamie, lots of free yoga classes!

At the end of June, we headed north, dusting off our Harvest Hosts path rather than going the campground route, and fell in love with new parts of Colorado, including Pueblo, Old Colorado City in Colorado Springs and a variety of Denver suburbs, with an RV park bordering a huge park perfect for Jamie’s walks. While staying there, Jamie flew to Slovenia, and while Ross’ promised work fell through, he took advantage of the location to see more of the music and comedy scene in Denver and get further work done on his ukulele course. We also performed together in Denver at Your Mom’s House.

After Jamie returned, having said her goodbyes to her grandfather, it was a quick dash out of Colorado, with the next month spent exploring Boulder, CO (complete love and wonderful performing experience!) and a visit to Tillamook and the coast for a few days. We also stayed at a winery with hookups, washer dryer, an open schedule and the nicest people imaginable, and our Tillamook location was perfect for the beach and had absolutely amazing food and drink for purchase.

From Boulder we enjoyed the gorge as we headed north (oh, we also boondocked on the gorge, just amazing!) and spent wonderful time with family in the Eastern part of the state. They catsat for us while we spent almost a week in Seattle, having an absolutely incredible time with Jamie’s cousin, enjoying a Star Wars stage show, outstanding ice cream and our first pho in addition to a great performance. We also fell in love with Seattle, made easier with a gorgeous week of weather, and Ross bought a new game system. When we returned to Ross’ family, via some delicious ice cream, we had some RV trouble, and a generous gift made it easy to get back on the road quickly.

Then it was time to head back. We spent a great night at a brewery in Missoula (with okay beer but tasty seltzer and a great location), and Jamie and Ross went into the town and walked her old haunts, getting ice cream too of course. The next day, Jamie got a call that her grandfather had passed away and the funeral would be in four days. So it was time for quick decisions.

While Ross would take a more typical pace across the country, with a stop to see friends in Iowa, Jamie raced, loading up on a gluten-free bagel sandwich with lox in Missoula, MT before departing at noon Wednesday. She made it with minutes to spare to an 11 a.m. funeral on Saturday in New Hampshire! She also got some tasty ice cream and a nice walk in Wisconsin as well as tons of city driving experience along the way. Ross’ mom acted as her travel agent, booking motels as needed on her path.

Jamie was reunited with Ross and Squeak about a week later, and the fall was full of teaching artist work (ukulele for Ross, theater improvisation for Jamie), performing for yoga and at Amphora (so much delicious food and drink!), teaching, socializing and of course producing the musical Goblin Market at the Hatbox Theatre.

After a full fall, with amazing Hatchland soft serve and Sweetly Offbeat gluten-free cheesecakes, we spent a quiet Thanksgiving together before heading south. We spent time with Ross’ sister and husband and Jamie’s cousin and wife and new baby, visited an awesome cheap winery, had an incredible visit to Savannah where Ross declared we could move there based on the dessert cafe alone and then made it all the way to central Florida, where we are now, in time to visit Galaxy’s Edge, eat a cookie butter sundae and eat a s’mores sandwich, amongst other things, at Disney World before year’s end.

We’ve accomplished a lot this year. We’ve quadrupled our virtual income. We’ve seen tons of bucket list places and found several new places we’d consider moving to. We produced a show we are incredibly proud of.

We also hit a few snags along the way, as Jamie learned the importance of narrowing her focus as a VA and of putting excellent business management practices in place to make her as successful as she can be. Meanwhile, a ukulele course we’d hoped to finish in quarter one is still in process a year later. We’ve also had to let some of our projects, like this blog, slide sometimes to meet our deadlines. But we’ve learned a lot, grown a lot and truly accomplished a lot along the way.

Thank you to everyone who has taken lessons from us and hired us for work this year. Thank you for all of the generous gifts and for cheering us on along the way. We’ve passed the three year mark and while our path is still somewhat unclear, we are narrowing in on next steps as we prepare to settle somewhere, at least part-time, in the relatively near future.

As we gear up with ambitious plans for growth and fun in 2020, we thank you and wish you an incredible year. Happy New Year!

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Supporting Our Blog

We are so thankful for your support of our blog and our careers! You can help by doing any or all of the following:

Purchase one of Ross’ albums!
Become a patron of our work!
Make purchases via our Amazon website links. There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds can support our travels. Begin your Amazon search here.
Make other purchases using our affiliate links. Capital One 360 is one everyone can take advantage of to save money! Signing up with Dosh is a great way for everyone with a smartphone to support us, and we also have options for aspiring virtual assistants as well as occasional and full-time RVers to save money.
Listen to, subscribe and review our theater comedy podcast, Finishing The Season!
Subscribe to our blog, as well as perhaps InSearchOfAScoop.com, and recommend our work to your friends and family.
Take music or theater lessons (group or private) from us, either in person or via Skype at TinyVillageMusic.com.

Return to Denver

July 26, 2019July 26, 2019 | jamiefeinberg

Well, we’ve been parked in Denver for the last three weeks, and as usual for Colorado, we loved it!

Though I was traveling most of the time, we had a great time, enjoying an awesome park with four lakes next to our campground, performing at Your Mom’s House and the All Terrain Yoga at the Boulder Farmer’s Market and visiting new and favorite spots for ice cream, gluten-free treats and hard cider as well as open mics.

The only bummer in the area was that Ross’ favorite bar is desperately raising money to stay in business. We love you, Dungeons and Drafts!

We also got to catch up with my friend from high school, Melanie.

Here are a few highlights from our time!

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Supporting Our Blog

We are so thankful for your support of our blog and our careers! You can help by doing any or all of the following:

Purchase one of Ross’ albums!
Become a patron of our work!
Make purchases via our Amazon website links. There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds can support our travels. Begin your Amazon search here.
Make other purchases using our affiliate links. Capital One 360 is one everyone can take advantage of to save money! Signing up with Dosh is a great way for everyone with a smartphone to support us, and we also have options for aspiring virtual assistants as well as occasional and full-time RVers to save money.
Listen to, subscribe and review our theater comedy podcast, Finishing The Season!
Subscribe to our blog, as well as perhaps InSearchOfAScoop.com, and recommend our work to your friends and family.
Take music or theater lessons (group or private) from us, either in person or via Skype at TinyVillageMusic.com.

We’re Back!

October 12, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

Hi all! Wanted to get out a quick blog to say we are back in NH and as busy as ever! A

We owe you updates on Rocky Mountain National Park and our epic cross-country trip with three cats. Here are a few photos to wet your appetite. And thanks for reading!

Return to Boulder

September 15, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

We recently returned to Boulder. We visited some of our favorite spots, including the bookstore and a delicious fast casual Brazilian restaurant called Five on Black where almost the entire place is gluten-free.

Unfortunately our yoga class was canceled due to rain, but we did visit a tasty chocolate food truck to sample drinking chocolate and a truffle, and we still had a fun gig at The Laughing Goat.

We also got to meet Shack, a wonderful blues performer who opened for us. He’s extremely talented and will be representing Colorado and competing at the international competition this year! We’ve only got a few weeks left here, so we are doing our best to make the most of it and not get stressed about the silly stuff. We are also continuing to work on booking gigs in our free time.

We are excited to return to New England. From visiting family and friends to eating at our favorite places and cooking with local produce, there’s a lot to look forward to. And we have tons of teaching and performing to do too!

Thanks for following our journey, and let us know if you have ideas for us this fall.

A Day in Denver

Botanical Garden, Denver, CO I Ross and Jamie Adventure

August 31, 2018August 28, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

Last week I had a dentist appointment for a cleaning, twenty minutes north of Denver, so Ross and I used it as an excuse to spend the day in the area.

We first headed to the Denver Zoo, which was Ross’ top choice for the city. While there, we had a wonderful conversation and catch up with Katherine and Morgan, our bosses at Musicalarts, the studio we taught at in Exeter. We loved seeing them, even if it was way too short, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon seeing animals, including an elephant presentation, and eating BBQ and ice cream (from God Save the Cream, a Denver company).

The zoo is really wonderful, and being there brought back memories of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and of course Animal Kingdom at Disney World.

After our zoo adventure, we headed to a gaming store for Ross, where he found a Gameboy game he’d been looking for. Then we headed to the Denver Botanic Gardens, which are definitely the most stunning I’ve ever seen. Here we met up with Melanie, a classmate of mine from high school. Melanie and I hadn’t seen each other in about sixteen years, but our conversation was easy and natural, and after closing down the gardens, she agreed to join us at our next destination, High Line Creamery, for some ice cream. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of Melanie.

Melanie and Ross each got a (reasonable) double scoop, and I got a (not so reasonable) ice cream flight. In fact, the two of them wanted some real food, so I sent them next door to grab burgers (closing time was approaching) while I finished my epic flight. (You can subscribe to In Search of a Scoop for all the ice cream details.)

It was an awesome night, and it reaffirmed a) that we have awesome friends b) that RVing is a great way to see them and c) we love the Denver area.

It’s so strange to realize the summer is quickly coming to an end. And with it, the end of our time in Fort Collins gets closer. We will definitely miss this area, and we know we will be back, but we’ve got some wonderful ukulele classes to teach and performances to share, and lots of family and friends to visit with.

I hope you’re all had a great week and find your own adventure too!

A Long Day in Longmont, CO

August 17, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

We love it here in Colorado, and we are particularly fond of Longmont, a community in between Fort Collins and Boulder. I recently shared our suggestions on what to do in Longmont with Outdoorsy readers. Enjoy!

And thanks for stopping by.

Spins on S’mores and more!

July 6, 2018July 5, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

We’ve been truly enjoying our time in Colorado. We keep falling deeper and deeper in love, to be honest. But it’s not all fun and games out here. We’re both working full-time jobs and also continuing our variety of remote work to make a solid income.

We’re continuing to actively book work for the fall and winter too. We’ll be in New Hampshire in October and November, and in the Southwest (mostly southern New Mexico and hopefully Tucson) beginning in December. We’re also looking for work in Austin and en route from there to Austin in March, April or May. Let us know if you have any leads or ideas for venues!

My latest blog for Outdoorsy explored five tasty variations on a classic s’more. Enjoy, and have one for me!

Still Roughing It in Fort Collins

May 11, 2018May 9, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

We are so delighted to be here in Fort Collins, with full hookups, but we’ve still got lots of RV issues that need addressing and questions that need asking. The biggest annoyance? Our gray water tank hasn’t been able to flush since before we reached Fort Collins- it’s an issue with the valve release, we believe.

No gray water tank means we have no easy way to wash hands or wash dishes. And that got old about a week or so in. After all, we’ve got a pretty nice RV…to have to live like you’re tent camping inside it is absolutely a first world problem, but it gets frustrating, especially when you live in that RV year-round and not just on weekends.

We’ve got a growing list of additional, urgent repairs. We need the housing under the house batteries, which rusted out almost completely and is currently held in place by a fake tourist license plate, replaced in a more secure fashion. We need our house batteries looked at and almost definitely replaced. We need our fantastic fan cover (the one over our living space) replaced – it ripped, probably due to wind, in Florida, and of course we realized it in the middle of a horrible rainstorm. (Thank you, Ross!)

Add to that the usual maintenance – general inspection ideal, and oil change necessary – and we’ve got a lot to do before the winter.

How we do it is still to be decided. We know we will find a Mobile RV tech for the gray tank. My personal hope is we love that RV tech so much that we then ask him to do the other stuff on our list. If he’s able to, we can then take the RV in for at least an oil change when we leave Fort Collins…or even wait and do it in the winter, provides everything else is running well for us.

Our schedule is super-roomy currently, so if you’re in Denver/Boulder/Fort Collins etc., we’d love to get together. But when we are done here in late September, we’ve got a very tight schedule to get to New Hampshire for two months of ukulele classes for older adults plus other gigs and projects.

So I’d really love to get all the repairs done prior to departure, drop the rig off in storage for a couple of months (or possibly at a cheap, safe RV park if that feels like a better fit) and then run back to New England for the fall.

If by any chance you have RV mechanic recommendations in CO or NM, let us know. Otherwise, thanks for reading, and here are a few kitten photos for your troubles!