Happy New Year! No hangover since I can’t drink so all is good there.

It is so true that the older you get the faster time flies. Just wait…you will see. Apparently, it can be explained by something called “Weber’s Law”. Just like they always told us in school we would need it…math. Shoulda paid more attention I guess.

I go to sleep at night without the dogs on my bed, and I wake up with at least one of the dogs snuggled up next to me – usually Rider. Somehow I do not feel it when his 55lb. ass jumps up on the bed in the middle of the night so I don’t wake up. When I do wake up next morning he is there, and sometimes I roll over and look and he has his head on the pillow. Rotten li’l bastard. I don’t want the dogs on my bed but if I don’t know he jumps up I cannot tell him to get down.

I am tired of monkeying around (see what I did there?) with the dog hair on my bedspread so I wanted to get a sheet to cover it up; it is easier to toss that in the dryer to de-hair it and keeps my bed cleaner. I do not need anything fancy to accomplish this so I went to a thrift store and came home with this duvet cover to put on my bed. It had a matching flat sheet so I put that on the bed in my trailer for the same purpose. Gotta keep it light and have a bit of fun in your life!

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We have lowered the price on the house a little bit to start the new year running so hopefully it helps. This being probably the worst time of the year to sell a house is not helping, but unfortunately it is what I ended up having to do. I am really hoping to get out of here soon. Starting a new chapter in a new state would be an awesome way to start 2026.

I have been pondering places to eventually end up a little more often lately. My criteria is pretty specific and there are really not many options I will consider. I can only realistically consider a few places. I would certainly rather be living on the west coast of Ireland or maybe someplace in The Netherlands but that is just not feasible for me beyond my dreams.

We will see where I end up at some point but I have it narrowed down a little. I just gotta sell this house so I can begin the next chapter. With my trailer I don’t need to find a place that fast, but I am keeping options open – if you find a great deal you gotta move on it.

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Speaking of trailer, I had a bit of a scare a few nights ago. I was in the trailer watching TV and the furnace is on. I fell asleep for a few minutes (have not been sleeping well). I woke up and all was fine. About 10 minutes later the damn propane/carbon monoxide detector went off. I got up to check it and could not get the alarm to shut off. I shut everything down and came back inside. I am glad I woke up; that would have been a bad way to start the new year…

This also happened last week the day I winterized the trailer. I have been in there watching TV with the heat on and never had a problem until that day. I had the door open when winterizing and the furnace was on (didn’t realize it). I think what happened is that the furnace vents outside right next to the door – which is horrible placement. I think the fumes came in before I got the thermostat turned off but by then it was too late; fumes were already in there. It was also very windy, but I have never had that cause issues before.

Add to that the propane heater is not like a regular furnace and does not “circulate” the hot air per se. It blows it around but it is the same stale air moving around since there is no fresh air brought in. The fresh air feeds the burner and it does exhaust outside.

I do not know how long carbon monoxide takes to dissipate but the trailer is completely sealed up when the door and windows are shut. I went in there to check earlier and it was fine so I decided to test it out.

I had left a dinette drawer open that opens into the front storage area. That should not have affected anything but I shut it to have everything as close to normal operation as possible. I turned up the thermostat a little to see if running the heat a bit would trigger the alarm again. Later I checked again and all was fine so I turned up the heat to normal temperature (I wanted to watch TV later anyway). I checked that and it was at temperature with no alarm. So far…so good. It was fine all last night while I was in there watching TV and there were no alarms this morning when I checked. I upped the thermostat again and will be checking it all day to make sure there is no problem.

It is scary when it happens, but it can also wreak havoc on a trip. It is expensive when you CAN get a service appointment, but you can probably find it yourself – at least you can troubleshoot the issue. Besides, what if you are boondocking miles from anywhere in cold weather and have an issue like this? You cannot just let it ride – you have to be resourceful.

You cannot be inside if the alarm goes off so you have to air your rig out, stay calm and try to find the issue using logic and common sense. It never happened until the day I winterized so that narrowed it down quite a bit. I know that the way the furnace is built there is not much of a way for exhaust to back up inside – this design has been used for years and is proven. The cooking stove was off and there are no other sources of exhaust fumes so the only logical thing was the open door.

I had issues with carbon monoxide in my old trailer that I posted about in my trip through Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area June 21 & June 22 of 2020. I thought it was the furnace and spent a pretty cold night trying to sleep, thinking it was the furnace. I discovered while testing that my furnace was not the issue and I got warmed up. I found that my water heater had a mud wasp nest in the exhaust tube and it backed the exhaust up into my trailer through the dinette seat. One of the insect screens had fallen off and the insects got in and built a home. I removed the mud nest and the issue was fixed. Even though I got it fixed I ended up taking a much-needed “saucepan shower” outside to keep my wet-bath dry. If you look at the posts you will see a picture of what a “wet-bath” is.

I think that on the next somewhat warm day I will open the trailer up and air it out completely to start with a clean slate. During my investigation I decided to open up a window and turn on the bathroom exhaust fan to outlet fresh air in and perhaps it helped. I figure completely airing it out all day will get rid of the last of it.

So a bit of excitement lately, though not the kind of excitement one really needs in their life.

I wish all of you a healthy, happy and prosperous new year! Thanks for being a part of my blog.

Shawn