Living the RV Dream with Amy & Greg Coleman
Written by Amy Coleman | Content Writer & Rising Spirit RV Park, Long-Term RV Park Resident.
Travel. That is what most full-time RVers want to do. Strike out on the road, see the country and the beauty of our amazing national parks. We were no different from others in this goal.
So six months after moving into our RV, we took off for a trip to California, Washington State, Montana, Yellowstone, and Colorado. What we didn’t count on or prepare for was what we encountered on that trip.
It happened to be the summer that California, Colorado, Washington, Wyoming, and Montana were on fire. We sought places that weren’t burning and enjoyed as much of our beautiful country as possible.
We made it to Buena Vista, Colorado for our first leg of the trip. There, we spent 10 days at a lovely campground. My sisters flew out and drove to Buena to meet us for a special “sister’s week”. The beauty of Colorado is not taken in on one trip, and we didn’t even try!
After a week with my sisters, we started the journey to Sacramento, California to visit my son and two other kids for a 60th birthday celebration (mine). That leg of the trip allowed us to experience more mountain driving, a tire blowout that ended up getting us a bent axle. We got to experience traveling on Interstate 5 and some beautiful wine country visits with my kids. The most difficult part of the trip was yet to come.
You’d think a blowout and bent axle was difficult enough, but there were more first-trip mishaps to come! As I said, California (especially Northern California) was literally on fire that summer. We drove through and past raging forest fires. We were fortunate enough to be able to find campgrounds to stay in that were removed enough from the fires that we were never in any real danger.
We continued to make our way north to get to the Seattle, Washington area. On our way there, we had another blowout. This one damaged our camper and required all four tires to be replaced. Unfortunately, the folks who replaced the tires (on the side of the highway) did not notice the bent axle. So we drove off from there thinking all of our problems were solved! We spent a week in the Seattle area visiting dear friends and enjoying another beautiful campground and the wonderful Cascade mountains.
As we made our way across Washington State, we had ANOTHER blowout. We were about 3/4 of a mile from the campground we were planning to stay in and had to drive on the rim to get us there. Of course, the rim was destroyed and we had to replace the tire and rim, AND get the bent axle repaired. The unexpected surge of spending depleted our available savings and forced us to look for another way to finish out the summer. So we decided to become Workkampers. Work camping is when you spend time at a campground for an extended period of time and work there in exchange for your site rent, water, and electricity.
Greg started searching for positions to finish out the summer as we traveled to the Bozeman, Montana area (Two Forks, MT) outside of Yellowstone. Of course, Yellowstone and Glacier were BOTH burning and closed. I did manage to find a festival where I could set up a booth to sell tie-dye and earn a little extra cash to keep us sustained! Finally, Greg found a work camping opportunity for us.
We were hired by a great campground in southwest Colorado and ended up working there to finish out the summer. We worked in Bandera, Texas the following winter and returned to Colorado for two more summers and house sitting for the owners of the campground in Colorado over one winter.
Though we loved being able to enjoy the beauty of Colorado and the new friends we had made, what we missed … terribly, were our grandchildren. So we decided it was time to go home to Texas.
During the summer of COVID, we made plans to return to Texas for the winter so then we could at least do drive-by visits with three of our five grandchildren. In the process, we decided to stay in one place for the foreseeable future. That led us to look for the right long-term RV park to call home. And Greg’s work began in earnest once more.
~ Living The RV Dream with Amy & Greg Coleman | Rising Spirit | Liberty Hill RV Park | Check out the Rising Spirit RV amenities!
Rising Spirit is a long-term RV park near Austin and Georgetown located in Liberty Hill. Our thriving RV park near Georgetown, Round Rock, and Austin has recently expanded due to high demand. Contact our leasing office at (512) 229-6510 for availability, reservations, and to schedule a tour.
Amy Coleman, Content Writer | RVer and Long-term resident at Rising Spirit RV Park in Liberty Hill, TX