Yesterday was a big day in my new fulltimer life: I hauled the fiver on public roads and no one died. I didn’t even ding it. No problems at all, really. One of the fiver’s brakes was a bit squeaky, but that could just be rust. I hope.

The truck handled beautifully. It accelerated well and, more importantly, decelerated well – the brakes worked better than I hoped. As Rosco, my driver trainer, a guy with 20 years of experience driving gas tankers, said, “You’ve got a nice rig here.” “Nice rig” is high praise, I think, among the trucker set.

The joy of my success was somewhat mitigated by a problem that surfaced after I had backed the coach onto our site-of-the-day: the front jacks, needed to raise the RV to ready it for unhitching, didn’t work.  No power.  I had this image of us traveling for days without being able to unhitch the truck. Or, more likely, delaying our departure (and missing our Saturday night going-away party) until we could get a repairman to find his way to Northwood.

But I tracked down the problem: a blown in-line fuse that I didn’t know existed.  Unfortunately, it was a 30-amp fuse, of which I had none.  But I did have 2 spare 20-amp fuses and they were sufficient (barely – I blew one and nursed the other by operating the jacks in short bursts) to lift the fiver off the hitch.  That allowed me to free the truck and hustle down to the local Camping World to get some fuses.  It is 16 miles away, but in NH that qualifies as “local.”

Today we are going to take it out for a second driving session.  And by “we” I mean Jett and me.  We’ll see how Jett does. She has very little experience in big rigs (unlike me, veteran that I am), so it will be interesting to see how white her knuckles get.

Last Friday was my last day of work.  For three months. Then I resume working in California. So my status is “not quite retired.”

I really intended to resign. I had my resignation letter typed up and in my hand.  But on the day I planned to hand it to my boss – just over four weeks ago – I learned that another member of our very small group was also leaving.  As losing 40% of her staff at the same time would be quite a blow to my boss, I started searching for ways to soften the impact.

Well, we knew we were wintering in California, somewhere south of San Francisco. We knew we had to work at least half the year to make ends meet. The home office is in Silicon Valley which is… south of San Francisco.  Hmmm…

I didn’t think the company would go for it, but when I told my boss that I had to leave Massachusetts in September for at least 3 months, I offered the option of a leave-of-absence.  That would simply many things for us: we wouldn’t need to scramble to find something to do, I wouldn’t have to take a big pay cut and benefits would extend indefinitely (though we would, of course, have to pay for COBRA during the LOA).  But then COBRA would extend for 18 months after I really did retire, which would get Jett much closer to her Medicare eligibility.

Much to my surprise, the company took the offer.  So I am on a three-month LOA.  I will resume working December 10.

Of course the company benefits, too.  They don’t have to buy me a gold watch.

I dinged the fiver. Not too bad – just the end cap of the canvas topper for one of the bunkhouse slides. But I feel like a babysitter who has dropped the baby.  If only I had been more careful…

The occasion was the tail end of a 3-hour driver training session at the campground.  I had already successfully pulled the coach off of its very tricky seasonal site, threading the needle between the tree and the stump that guarded the access to that location.  I had also backed it into a slightly elevated site.  Then it was suggested (by Nancy, the ever-helpful campground owner) that I try a different back-in site.  This one was on the other side of the pond, so I had to navigate the turn at the entrance and the narrow passage between the office and the garage.  It was the turn at the entrance that did me in. There is a tree there that leans into the roadway.  I was very aware of it and was concerned by the proximity as I started the turn.  But it was on the outside, so it wasn’t in the way, really.  Except that I underestimated how far the back swings out on a tight corner. I was going slow and barely clipped it, but it was enough to snap off the plastic end cap.  I also knocked off a sign that was screwed into the tree.

Nancy was apologetic, saying she should have been watching that side more closely.  But it was 100% my fault.  I need to watch that swing-out.

Jett wasn’t upset at all.  She rated my driving at 9.5. Other than that incident, I would agree.

But I still feel bad about dropping the baby.

One week from today Jett and I hand the keys to our house over to the renters.  At that moment we will have no place to live other than our fifth wheel.  This is a condition known amongst the traveling crowd as “sticks and bricks homelessness”, abbreviated to “s&b homeless” when talking to other RVers.  It seems that “s&b” is part of the lexicon of fulltimers and conveys a certain disdain for those who are stuck in houses that cannot move.

We are now down to those last, irrevocable tasks that will confirm our fulltimer status: giving away or storing the final pieces of furniture, selling the second vehicle, cancelling newspaper delivery, arranging for the cable company to remove their hardware.  I also donated four boxes of books – a mix of technical and fiction and over 300 in all – to a local charity.  That was hard for me as some of those books have been with me since college.  I had nearly a full set of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries – most of them printed over 40 years ago.  But there is simply no room in an RV for pleasure reading material (yes, we may take a campground directory, a couple of blogging texts, and perhaps a couple of issues or Reader’s Digest for the commode, but no fiction) – I will get paperbacks as necessary and will discard ruthlessly.  Perhaps I will get a Kindle.  But we are NOT turning our fiver into a mobile lending library.

I was feeling pretty confident that we wouldn’t have more stuff than would fit. But now, seeing the final set of boxes that need to be carted up to NH, I am not so sure.  It is going to be packed. We will probably have to do some final weeding that second week of September, before we hit the road.

Maybe we can have a yard sale at the campground.  Good stuff from the newly s&b homeless.

I gave my notice yesterday.  Four weeks until I am unemployed and income-less.  Scary.  And exhilarating.

As luck would have it, one of my few teammates (there are only 4 of them) gave notice last week – something that I learned just minutes before giving my notice.  That added a little extra drama to the day.  My boss was even more distressed than she might have been otherwise.  I tried to soften the blow, saying that I was open to alternative arrangements.  If Oracle would accept a 3-month leave of absence I would agree to work – probably in Redwood City, CA, the home office – for 4 to 6 months in 2013.  That would solve the income problem for most of next year.  But I don’t think they will go for it.

Anyway, it is another big step toward full-timing.  No looking back now.

It has rained every day for the last three weekends that we have spent in NH.  This is unfortunate, of course, as we have tried to show off our new traveling home to friends and relatives each of those weekends.  And I am still waiting for sun so that I can take a nice photo of the complete rig, to use in applications for workcamping positions.

But the weather hasn’t completely ruined the fun.  Last night we hosted a cookout for two couples that are dear to us.  We had to spend too much time under the awning, but we still managed to have a nice campfire (complete with s’mores) and vegetables for our steak tip dinner cooked over an open flame.  Add some wine and lots of witty banter and the result was a very pleasant evening.

And Gary, our chemical engineer friend, figured out how to light the oven.  Good to know.  That was our get-to-know-your-RV lesson for this weekend.

Last week’s lesson was the battery backup.  It began with Jett calling me in from outside with news that the outlet used by the coffee maker was not working.  I dutifully checked the breaker/fuse panel and, sure enough, one of the fuse warning lights was glowing red, indicating that it was blown.  But when I removed it and took a look it didn’t seem blown.  I replaced it anyway, but without any effect other than to extinguish the warning light.  Hmmm…

I then noticed the little sticker on the outlet that informed me that the outlet was GFI-protected.  So I began a search for the GFI, thinking that it needed to be reset.  No GFI in the kitchen.  One GFI in the bathroom, but I was unable to reset it.  Or test it.  Double hmmm…

Now it was time to test the other outlets.  None were working.  That is when I noticed the little orange light on the refrigerator that indicates it is running on propane.  So, after working the problem for about 30 minutes – and about 30 seconds before Nancy appeared at my door to tell me that the power was out in the campground – I concluded that we had lost power and were running on battery backup.

It is somewhat comforting, I think, to know that we can lose power and not even notice.  And I now know that the battery backup works, but only for the 12-volt lights.  And I know where the GFI is (and, yes, it did work once the power came back on).  It is a little weird to have the GFI in the bathroom controlling the outlets in the kitchen, but I am ok with that.

But why was that warning light on? I haven’t figured that one out yet.

But you might have to learn how to fold one.  Yeah, I bought a folding bicycle.  I decided that I needed something other than my behemoth GMC 3500 diesel dually to take to the corner store to get a quart of milk.  And when we are in Venice Beach I will be able to keep up with the rollerbladers.

It has 20-inch wheels, 6 speeds and weighs 35 pounds.  Comes with a storage/carrying bag.  I will carry it in the bed of the truck, on top of my golf clubs, next to my air compressor.