Week 1

May 16th, 2024

Well, here we go! 

I set out today for the maiden voyage. I am feeling pretty confident. I have been working on this RV non-stop for months now and I think I have all the bugs worked out. I have plenty of food, full water tanks, empty waste tanks, and full tanks of gas and propane. 

My first stop is Balanced Rock park just east of Twin Falls, Idaho. It’s only about 2 hours away from home here in Boise, so if anything major goes wrong, I won’t be too far away from civilization. I didn’t dilly dally much on the trip here. I did stop along the way to check out Thousand Springs, which was quite pretty. It’s a bit of a geological phenomenon where countless little waterfalls are pouring out of the canyon that line I-30 near Hagerman. I snapped a few photos, but they really don’t do the sight justice. 

I pulled into Balanced Rock around noon and there were already several campers set up there. I headed to the end of the short road that leads through the canyon and found a nice big spot right next to the creek. This area is really cool. To get here, you dive way down into this massive canyon and then a little dirt road peels off along the creek. The canyon walls jut straight up on either side and the rock formations here are just staggering. It looks like part of the canyon could peel off at anytime and come crashing down on top of you. The weather pattern here is really cool too. This canyon basically acts as a wind tunnel and there is a constant breeze blowing through that ranges from mild to quite intense. 

I got all set up and began settling in for my 7 day stay, which is the maximum at this location. It is a very good thing I showed up when I did. By the evening, the park had pretty much filled up… if I had waited any longer I think I would have been totally out of luck. But as you can see, I ended up with a pretty decent spot: (The second picture is from above on Friday where you can see how crowded it started getting on the weekend.)

I spent my time here basically just trying to get into a rhythm of living my life normally out of an RV. I woke up and made breakfast, ran, worked out, went for a few hikes, read (a lot), played with Danny, cooked dinner… you know, just day to day life type of stuff. The idea is to think of this as a lifestyle and not a vacation. The main goals of this first trip are to 1. get acclimated to this lifestyle, and 2. read the Bible in its entirety while I’m out here. 

So far, this is pretty cozy! This area is quite beautiful and very peaceful. I am really liking sitting next to this creek and pouring through the Bible for hours at a time. All of my daily processes are going smoothly. Cooking my meals, is taking a little practice, but I’m getting this little RV oven figured out pretty quickly. This had been a pretty relaxing spot for the most part, except for Friday and Saturday when it got really filled up with weekend camper’s who were up quite late listening to music and partying… but even that wasn’t really an issue. 

I should note: there are no hookups here… I chose this place specifically for that reason. I have 1200 watts of solar panels on the roof of my RV and a 500 amp hour battery bank set up. This location was chosen specifically to test out the capabiities of this system. I get about half a days worth of sunlight here. I wanted to see what this system is capable of doing in these conditions. So far, it has been bang on. I am able to do all of my cooking, have all the lights on, run my internet, watch movies, pretty much anything I want in the evening and then the system fully recharges in the 7-8 hours of sunlight I am getting suring the day. I am so pleased with the results so far and so thankful to God for helping me assemble this system. 

I’ve explored the area quite a little bit. There is a little hiking trail that heads along the creek through the canyon that has some pretty beautiful scenery:

On Sunday, I decided to unload the motorcycle and head into town to attend church service. There is a tiny little town just east of here called Castleford which has a lovely little Baptist Church in the center of it. The congregation was small, and mostly elderly, but they were all very kind and welcoming. Nearly every worshipper came up to shake my hand or pat me on the shoulder to welcome me. During worship, we all sang hymns together to the tune of classic organ music. It was a nearly picture perfect recreation of what I imagined church to be when I was a child. After the service, I had a nice conversation with a fellow who sat in front of me named Gary. Gary had lived there for nearly all of his life and clued me in on a great little road through a canyon to the south that he used to like to ride his motorcycle through. I took note and marked the area on my maps app so I could visit it later. It was a great experience… my first random church pick on this adventure, and what a lovely little place it was:

After Sunday, the park pretty much emptied out and I had the place mostly to myself. On Tuesday, another RV just like mine pulled up and parked in the campsite next to me. His RV was a Fleetwood as well, a little longer at 35 feet, and he had a motorcycle strapped to the back just like me. I met him the next day, a really nice fellow named Keith, who has been full time RVing with his dog for about 8 months. We chatted at length and I picked his brain as much as I could for advice and information on this lifestyle. We made pretty fast friends as we showed off our rigs and talked motorcycles. We ended up going for a row in our kayaks up the stream that evening an just hanging out. It was really cool to have already made a new friend out here so quickly on my first trip out. I found out he was planning on heading down to Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir the next week, which was my next planned destination as well. We decided to plan on meeting up there and do some more kayaking and fishing, here’s a shot of us and our equipment:

This first week out was really eye opening. I had such a nice time in this location. I got to go on some really amazing runs, see some beautiful sites, relax by the creek in the sun, and even made a new friend. Danny seems to have taken well to this lifestyle as well. He gets to run and play and explore all day, and at the end he crashes super hard giving me some much appreciated peace and quiet.

My next stop will be at a church in the nearby town of Buhl. The pastor of this church is a member of Harvest Hosts and allows RVers to come stay on the church property for a few days at a time. I’ll be staying there Friday and Saturday night and attending their church service on Sunday, it should be great! After that I will head to a State run RV park in Twin Falls that looks pretty nice. Should be an interesting week!

Thank you God for guiding me on this journey, and to this place. What a wonderful way to begin my new adventure with you.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with my eye.

Psalm 32:8