Augie Doggio!
About us...
Jackie and I got married in 2005, each of us bringing a child to our relationship, her son Zach and my daughter Halley. Currently, we are "Empty-nesters" now retired. Back in 2012, we purchased a truck, along with a very large 5th wheel. We sold our house so that I could work out-of-town, and take Jackie with me. After living in the 5th wheel for a year at the beach and a winter on the north bank of the Columbia River, we decided that a 5th wheel didn't really work for us. So we sold the truck and trailer and purchased a 41' diesel motorhome. The coach is much more solid, with the same amount of living space and we are much much happier. We live with our two dogs, Bob and Lucy (both are Chihuahuas), and our cat Abbott, (unfortunately we lost him to cancer in the spring of 2021 and just lost Lucy in November or 2022). Maybe next fall we'll find a new playmate for Bob, but for now, it's just the two of us and Bob. We both retired early in 2017 and are currently living on the road. The original plan was just to travel and see the country but after a few months on the road, it became more about enjoying the people we meet along the way.
After a couple of years of traveling and 140 campgrounds under our belts from BC to Mexico (but never in), to Key West, to Maine, we decided that we needed to do something more than just travel. In April 2019, we volunteered to be camp hosts at Silver Falls State Park in the Oregon Cascades. That was so fun that we picked up another couple of months, this time at Beverly Beach State Park south of Depot Bay, Oregon. We left there and started working for Thousand Trails at the Bend/Sunriver resort. At the end of the summer, we transferred to Thousand Trails Palm Springs. Currently, we are on our fourth and final season at the Palm Springs Resort (me working as a ranger and Jackie in the Rec.) After two summers at the Bend/Sunriver resort, we decided that was enough, there. In the spring of 2021, we purchased a lot in the ORI Motor Coach resort here in the Palm Springs area, which we rented for a season and opted to live in it this season while working across town at Thousand Trails park. To stay in our resort, we needed to repaint our coach, which we did over the summer of 2021, so you'll notice the color change in our motor home when I post future campgrounds. Working for the resort in Palm Desert has been a lot of fun but it has run its course. We have met more great people as they come and go in and out of the park than we ever did while traveling. Our future plans are to continue our travels for a few months every summer and enjoy our Winters in the Coachella Valley.
The Dogs
Campgrounds We've Visited
After four years of RV shows and every RV dealership within two hundred miles, we finally found what we thought would be the right RV for us. We thought that it would be best to have a fifth-wheel to give us more living space for the dollar. I thought that I needed an office and a separate bathroom. So we decided on a toy-hauler. Unfortunately, our first choice wasn't the best. So now that we had the truck and 5th-wheel, it was time to down-size out of the house. The first thing to go was my daughter. Boy, that sounds bad. But she was agreeable and thought that moving out of her parents home would be so cool. Then we put all of our furniture on Craig's List. Then came three weekends of garage sales. Thanks to our special friend Shelly, it was fun. Also, thanks to my mother's help too. On the fourth weekend, we had a garage sale where everything was free. Please come and take it!! I stripped all the old PC's of their hard drives and loaded them in the truck and dropped them off at the Goodwill. Once all the sales and trips to the Goodwill and Salvation Army were complete, we called the "Got Junk" people and they came with a truck to haul away everything we couldn't get rid of. This still was a full truck that set us back $560 in itself. Which was about the same that I got for the scrap wire in the garage. It is amazing the stuff one acquires over the years. Now we were down to just the stuff that we wish to keep. My mother has a large garage separate from her house that she was kind enough to let me store all my woodworking tools and memories in. Finally, we loaded the RV and we were set to be full-timers (tied to a job until retirement). Labor Day 2012 we hit the road for the Oregon beach.