July 2015 – Live Love RV

July 29, 2015August 14, 2017

Reno

Well, we’ve been in Reno for a little over two weeks now. I have done a lot of sight seeing, museums, street party festivals, dinners out, craft beer tasting and doggie hikes. Andrew does join me in the evenings and weekends, but he’s mostly busy with work. I think he enjoys working from the different offices and I defiantly enjoy living in the RV.

I’ve gotten better at food prep and cooking in the RV. I’ve made a lot of dinners, and even a dessert in the toaster oven! I have a microwave-oven combo appliance but I only use it as a microwave. It dries out everything I try and bake!

Recipe for Lara’s garbage:
Basically this is thrown together with what I have left over from other recipes, and it was delicious!!
Bunch of scallions (chop and cook white part with corn, set greens aside).
1/2 can corn
Saute in a pan with peanut oil on medium to low heat…

While that’s cooking up, gather the rest:
Halve small tomatoes and cut pineapple chunks into smaller pieces (I often have fresh fruit cutup in the fridge)
Handful of chopped walnuts
Chop cilantro (half a bunch) and set aside with scallions greens
Ginger (dried seasoning sprinkled in)
Po Lo Ku Trading Mushroom Seasoning (a tablespoon-ish)
Soy sauce (a few splashes)
Fish sauce (a couple splashes)
Orange juice (a little pour)

I have a turbo handheld blender, so I used it on the corn and scallions… But not over doing it…
Then add the ginger, mushroom seasoning, soy and fish sauce, orange juice, walnuts, pineapple and tomatoes to the pan, a couple minutes to cook up.
Finally, add the scallions greens and cilantro… A couple more minutes and it’s done!

The Mushroom Seasoning is something I found as a result of dinners with my Qigong sisters! This stuff tastes so awesome, I add it to almost all stove top recipes.

We’ve done some great walks and hikes in Lake Tahoe and the National Parks in California (Reno is soooo close to so many awesome places!)

We booked two different RV Parks for our stay here. I didn’t want to be stuck in a crappy place for a whole month! So the first park (Rivers Edge) was not great… They said they were dog friendly… No dog space anywhere on the property… So, not so dog friendly. The one perk was it was on the Truckee River. That was a beautiful site to see everyday. This new spot is at Sparks Marina RV Park and it is across the street from the Marina. The RV park is great with an awesome dog play area and turf in place of grass so sitting outside is pretty pleasant!

Other exciting news is the beginning of Andrew’s tattoo cover-up at Marked! This original tattoo is a long story from high school… The cover up is a tree, one branch living, and astronomy background. It’ll be finished (hopefully) in October.

July 21, 2015August 14, 2017

Renovations

Bathroom
The bathroom had an ugly piece of art that we removed and replaced with a double towel rack because the over the door hooks don’t allow the bathroom door to close.

Bedroom

We don’t watch TV in bed so we removed the bedroom TV to create space for framed family photos (currently at home but we will want them in the RV eventually).
The closet rod fell on our drive from VA to TX, so we bought a piece of MDF board and glued and screwed it to the wall. This gave a nice base to mount a center support for the rod. Also, the original hardware was thin, cheap plastic and we replaced that with heavy duty metal. After hours of ironing I rehung the clothes and it looks great!

I also didn’t like the headboard, so I pulled that out. It was the same ugly fabric as the valances pictured below and a place where I’d like to hang some of our artwork one day. For now it is an empty space! Ahhh.

Front Shade
Another item to break was the front shade. On a shorter trip last month the entire thing came loose and fell while andrew was driving. Lucky I was able to hold it up and out of the way until he pulled over. The shade is connected on the driver side to wires hidden behind the dash for power to be rolled up and down. This had to be detached and lucky for us Andrew had all his tools! We later fixed the issue, rehung the shade, only for the motor on the shade to stop working. That was enough for me. We took it out, again. We bought the longest curtain rod we could from Target and installed that using small L-brackets we took from a different improvement project and were able to hang real curtains. My next job is to wash and dry the curtains before hemming them. Experience has taught me this lesson the hard way… I want the curtains to shrink up before I hem them. Not after!

The L-brackets came from a dismantling of the window valances. I know they are boxes around the window so the roller shades will stay put while driving, but they were big and ugly! I decided the bedroom only needed the top box to hide the hardware of the double roller blinds and removed the side pieces. When we have the slide in, and we are driving, the windows next to the bed cannot even be seen! The third window will eventually be covered with window film that looks almost like stained glass. In any case, the roller blinds can be up when we drive as it is completely dark back there and so privacy won’t be an issue. This change gave us the extra L-brackets for the front window curtain installation. I also decided, while everything was off the wall to cover the valances with beautiful teak fabric I found when we were vacationing in St Augustine over Spring Break. I love the way they look!!
Before:

After:

The window valances in the living room only had the side pieces and they really are needed there so I took them down, removed the extra layering effect and covered them with the same fabric. Then I rehung them up side down and backwards! Now they are simple rectangles and look great!

July 15, 2015August 14, 2017

Reno… I’m in love

We arrived here Sunday and checked in early to our RV spot. The park is OK… They say they allow dogs but the dogs cannot use any part of the property on a walk and so each time I take them out I literally run past four rows of RVs and through a stone parking lot to ensure the girls don’t accidentally pee on the property. Not so great. The great part is everything else!

Our RV park is literally on the Truckee River… So at the end of that run I’m on an awesome bike path next to the beautiful river. There are many homeless living here and all seem to be rather friendly or keep to themselves. The river is shallow at this spot so I’ve taken the girls for a couple “swims” where I get wetter than they do! They both generally dislike being wet!

I’m also pretty lucky because the weather is unseasonably cool! You know, 90 as a high and not whatever it normally is here! Yay!

Right now they have Artown going on which is a daily selection of art everywhere… And I do mean everywhere! I’m at Dreamer’s Coffee House enjoying a painting contest and eating a delicious bagel sandwich with my American and next I’m off to River Edge Art and Garden tour. Available for free is performance art, sculpture, paint… I’m so in heaven!

Time to get off to my day!!!