We had pleasant weather yesterday. The temperature reached the mid 70s with a light breeze. I started the day with a free waffle, coffee and orange juice breakfast at the clubhouse.

I shared a table with a group of people from Nebraska. They’re all retired and spend their winters here. They talked about the cold nights and the amount of propane they’ve been going through in the last month. We have a 42-gallon propane tank that I’ve only  filled once. We’ve used a little over a quarter of a tank in a year. I asked one of the guys how big his tank was. He said it was 22 gallons and he needed to fill it again less than a month after the last filling! I guess they must have their thermostats set high with the furnace running all night.

We prefer to turn the heat off when we go to bed and get under our down comforter and quilt. It’s cold in the morning – the temperature in the coach these last few weeks has ranged from 47 to 60 degrees, but we’re warm and snug in bed. We turn on the heat pumps when we get up to bring the  temperature back up again. We used the furnace a couple of times at Hidden Shores when the outside air temperature was too cold for the heat pumps to run efficiently.

I also have to wonder about the level of insulation in their rigs. Our Alpine Coach has good insulation and dual-pane windows. The roof is five and a quarter inches thick, the floor two and quarter inches and the walls are two inches thick.

After lunch, I went back to the clubhouse for a meeting. I haven’t had a meeting on my calendar in several months! It’s probably more accurate to call it a discussion rather than a meeting. It was roundtable discussion with a facilitator. The subject was full-time RVing. The attendees were full-timers and those interested in becoming full-timers. There were approximately 40 people there, less than half were full-timers. I attended to see what I could learn.

I spoke on a couple of topics – more than I thought I would. There were some misconceptions regarding domicile. I spoke up and explained why and how to establish a domicile state and the pitfalls that can arise if you leave connections to your last state of residence. It was interesting to me that all of the full-timers there, except for one, chose South Dakota as a domicile state. I expected to see Texas and maybe Florida represented. The one person that wasn’t domiciled in South Dakota was from Nevada and still calls it home. I also spoke a little on the subject of banking on the road and why I keep accounts in two different financial institutions.

There was plenty of discussion around various state laws. I showed the State Lines app from the folks at Technomadia. This app takes a lot of the guesswork out when you cross state lines. The discussion lasted for about an hour and a half.

I spent the rest of the afternoon kicking around the park and meeting neighbors. It was so nice out, I sat out side and read for an hour. Then I caramelized red onions on the grill before I grilled a salmon filet. Donna served the salmon on a bed of arugula with the red onion on top. It was different and quite tasty!

Grilled salmon with caramelized red onion over arugula

I should have paid more attention to the weather forecast before we went to bed. I woke up at 11:30pm to the sound of our window awnings banging about. Wind gusts up to 30mph from the east were flapping the awnings hard. I got up, went outside and retracted the window awnings. We have open sites on our east side and no protection from the wind. I could feel the coach rock from the gusts.

It’s still windy this morning, but the wind speed should be down to 10mph or less by noon. We’re thinking about taking the scooter out for some sightseeing this afternoon.