April Snow, Brings May Flowers?

Our previous post was the April 1st fools on us and we have received many comments about what happened with our updates. The editorial staff schedule (ugh uhmm, e.g. Jason) publishes this each time we make a move from one campground to another. Otherwise, this blog might become a publication of what we had for dinner each night. (Stir fry with chicken tonight, thanks for asking.)

Given that, we have now made our move out from River Falls for the summer. We were starting to get the itch being back in River Falls for the eight weeks. The weather over that time was pretty ugly with two major blizzards, but fortunately pretty warm conditions given what it could have been. The River Falls City Parks and Recreation staff have been absolutely amazing and accommodating, we cannot speak more highly of their flexibility and their dedication to the maintenance of the park. They even provided a bit of excitement when they got their big snow plow stuck in the campground when they went off the pavement. There was that much snow, they couldn’t tell where to actually plow!

Over the past weeks we have laid low, trying to save money and have been enjoying time with family and friends in the area while Jason is working “physically” in the office for a while. He has appreciated the time of connecting again face to face with the other staff there. Barb has been enjoying her time with our daughter and with her sister while being local here. Barb has made a few little overnight trips around the area with her sister for various events.

We have enjoyed numerous baseball games at the First National Bank Baseball Field just across the road from us. High school and Fighting Fish community games are very frequent there. We are in the middle of everything here, the playground, volleyball, softball and baseball. Unfortunately, being in the middle means people are constantly walking through our campsite on their way to something else. We even had trash left on our table from someone having a smoke there. The plans for the city to move the campground up and out of the center of the park will be great.

We have decided, for now, to keep the 5th wheel. We did an upgrade to our mattress that came with the RV to one from Mattress Insider. The mattress that came with the RV was a year old already and seemed pretty comfortable. It wasn’t until we got the new one in place that we realized how bad the old one really had become. It is hard to find the right mattress for an RV, they have odd sizes depending on slides, the platform and other space concerns. Even harder to find one that would compare to a residential grade. We had learned about Mattress Insider from RV Love’s post about it for their class A motorhome. The mattress would actually be a great one for any home use too, they are well made and not just an RV thing. They ship them in a super tight roll to you and you just unroll it out on your bed. (If you are interested, follow this link for a 5% discount from them on your order.) We are also contemplating adding a second air conditioner to the rig, the black exterior really heats up quickly in the sun. Otherwise, the trailer is doing well for us.

Enjoying the bottle of Route 66 Rootbeer from Eureka, MO, by the snow piles at Hoffman Park, River Falls, WI on April 20th, 2018

What happened to the idea of the camper van? They are really popular right now and the price on them seems pretty high while at the same time it seems like 5th wheel trade in values are lower. So we are just waiting for the right time. We have made several more donations from our six month purge, more things we haven’t used in the first leg of Our Next Chapter of life. We really feel at this point we have things we are keeping just because we have the space, if we had to we could easily purge those things and get into the space. We will keep our eye open for the right time. Our travels westward this summer will be telling to how quickly we want the flexibility of the camper van.

We have made a few decisions for the immediate and more distant future. We have made our plans for the fall to return to Pigeon Forge, TN, and then Winter Garden, FL, booking out a month and then two months at each of those. It will be nice to return and enjoy re-exploring those areas, especially since we were only in Pigeon Forge for a week in 2017. More immediately than that we will be heading to Cody, WY, for the Cody Stampede Rodeo over 4th of July after we spend a week in Deadwood at the Black Hills Xscapers Convergence and doing some boondocking at Ten Sleep, WY. From there we will end up in Madison, WI, area for two weeks while Jason has meetings at that university. Not sure what route or what we will do in between Wyoming and Madison, we are just winging it.

We will return back to River Falls early in August and will head south again in October 2018.

CampgroundHoffman Park
City of River Falls, WI
Nights Stayed
Parking SiteSite 1, Electric Only
Restaurants
Attractions
WELS ChurchesFaith Evangelical Lutheran Church
545 Apollo Rd
River Falls, WI 54022
Remember for Next Time
AT&T Coverage4G LTE is good
Verizon Coverage4G LTE is good
WiFi CoverageFirst National Bank Field has WiFi, but we were too far to really use it, plus our unlimited options we really don't need it.
Anytime FitnessRiver Falls has a gym, but Hudson is larger and cleaner
Mail ServicesLocal mail we have delivered Barb's sister's house