What does chicken, a scratched up RV and an electric blanket have in common?

I'm sharing the down side of the RV life this week. You just have to read this one. I promise it is not all meadows and sunflowers! Plus a quick meal when the fridge dies--AGAIN!

Feb 06, 2023

As it stands now, our Motorcoach is in the shop getting painted due to 2 little mishaps, (one my fault, the other not my fault) on the way back to Arizona. OK, do you want me to share? I think I should just so you know it is not all meadows and sunflowers living the full-time RV life.

If it is Ok with you, can we skip a health tip this week and I will share with you this little mishap of an adventure?

As we were getting ready to leave California after spending the entire summer there we did our usual inspections before leaving. Something you have to do after your coach has been sitting a while. Everything looked good, and I fired big Bertha up.

I could hear a hissing sound, and I was pretty sure it was the suspension airbag. Hubby, says I am being sensitive as usual. To exit from our friend’s home required fang dangling through a curved driveway with tons of trees It took us an hour to get in and just under an hour to get out.

The end of the driveway is a little bit of a hill and then a bit of a jump up to get onto the main highway. I guess the highway had been paved a couple of times and the driveway had not. I hope you get what I mean.

In order for me to get over the hump I had to raise the coach way up. This is done with a handy little button and the suspension airbag. It raised up, life is good, and I hit the throttle. Just as we were about to careen onto the busy highway from the driveway, the airbag released all of its air and down we went scraping the underside of the front of the coach and bent the frame where the generator is in the process. I would have shared a picture but I lost all my summer footage thanks to Apple (long story, not worth getting into).

A week later, yes, it took a week to find someone who would come to us, we got the airbag replaced and we were good to go. I insist on carrying an extra suspension airbag. The older the coach, the harder it is to find parts in a jiffy. This little disaster could have turned into weeks if we didn’t have one on board.

On our way finally, we toured along going through Nevada and I shared all of our adventures along the way with you all. At one point after Lake Havasu, we saw a Beef Jerky sign, and the hubby just had to some. As I turned left into the parking lot which was RV friendly, I was trying to maneuver around this massive deep pothole that would surely cause damage to the car and the back of the motorcoach.

As I am concentrating on the crazy crater size hole, my hubby is yelling at me to watch the poles. I saw all 5 poles altogether. His voice got louder and louder “watch the poles, watch the poles…” Not understanding, annoyed because I can clearly see the poles, I yell back “what freaking po…….” SCREEEEEECHHHHHHHHHHHERRRCCCCHHHHh . “Damn it!” I hit the brakes afraid to move. Hubby gets out, takes a look, and instructs me to put it in park. I get out, and investigate. My heart is pounding in fear and yet still in a state of confusion, I saw the five poles I kept saying over and over in my head.

What I did not see is the gate that was below my mirrors that our motorcoach is now intimately connected to. We unhook the car and slowly creep away from the gate and assess the damage.

I scraped my poor baby right down to the metal. Nice scratch marks along three bay doors, one dented and I took out the marker lights. Note the 3 bay doors in the picture above.

Yup, after a year of enjoying my perfect driving record, it was all taken away in a nanosecond. Not just once, but twice in one voyage.

Ahh, the perils of the RV life! Now, maybe if my hubby had yelled the gate or fence that probably would have had me more alert to what was going on. So, with my ego bruised, we limped back to Arizona, and me with my tail between my legs.

Oh, and we still went into the store to get beef jerky. I made him buy every stinking kind they were selling. Now when I look at a beef jerky package my face flushes with embarrassment.

When you live full time in a motorcoach, it is your home. Some places will allow you to stay in your RV while you are having repairs done. The paint place we could not. Not that I would want to anyway.

We were trying to figure out our options. The RV park where we are staying has mobile homes for rent, way too expensive, and a hotel, well, I could have done it with a HotLogic and mini fridge. Then I had a great thought, I knew my hubby’s parents had a motorcoach. I am super grateful we were able to use it.

Our Holiday Ramble is 20 years old, this one here is 30 years old and still going strong! This is our rolling home away from home for now.

It was not an easy feat to swap things out. We loaded up the car with stuff we were going to need. Then we met my father-in-law at the paint shop and we swapped out some remaining things and the cats, can’t forget the cats, who, by the way, were really confused. We drove the temporary motorcoach back to our RV spot. We were promised a 2-week paint job and it has morphed into 8 weeks. It’s been quite the adventure.

We had no heat for a while, then we had no electricity so the only way to cook was the barbecue. We got everything sorted out, we had heat, we had water, and I have a stove that only heats on max heat. Did I mention it’s been a fun adventure?

Of course this winter in southern Arizona it has been cold. We are on propane for heat and we ran out. No heat, no water, no stove for 5 days! I purchased a couple of Electric blankets to keep us warm. Now, if you know me, you are probably gasping at that last sentence.

The last thing I would ever want to be wrapping around my body is an electric blanket full of EMFs. It’s bad enough I am drinking out of plastic water bottles at the moment. I have one heck of a detox coming on once we are back in our digs.

There is minimal EMFs in the plug. The blanket is 0 EMF

Don’t panic, I got a nice coffee at the coffee shop warmed my toes, and did some research. I was hoping there was some kind of an electric blanket out there I could live with. Sure, enough, I found these electric blankets engineered for the lowest electromagnetic field radiation possible.

The blankets are machine washable which is a plus since my cat Jagster likes to suckle on soft plush blankets. Gross, I know. She also loves the heat and was happy to crawl under the blanket and keep warm. She would be sitting on the blanket come bedtime waiting for it to be turned on.

Jaggies was sleeping in the sun, so Zazu decided to model how much he loves our new soft and comfy electric blanket.

This is a throw-type electric blanket, but it worked perfectly for our double bed size.It comes with a plug in controller with three heat settings and heats up quickly. We found we only needed the first heat setting to keep warm. Because it turns off automatically after 2 hours, we put the electric blanket between our flat sheet and comforter and it retained the heat the entire night. I thought I would share a picture (above) of ours above, this is the Indigo colour on our bed.

The other thing I carry with us at all times is a portable fireplace heater. However, we could not plug it into our current coach because of its age. Most shore power also carries an extra outlet. I bought an extension cord and ran it through the window of the motorcoach to plug into the heater. Guess what? It didn’t work! It kept shorting out. My neighbour told me to let the park know and they swapped out the outlet and voila, we had heat.

We figured if we kept using the propane for the heat we would be filling up weekly. At night, we used the electric blanket in the back room and allowed the heater to run in the front part of the coach overnight. The heater did actually heat the whole coach, however, I like the room to be cold and hubby gets cold, so the electric blanket, truly was for him.

This is my little piece of heat in action. Keeps the coach warm during the cold mornings.

I bought this heater originally from Tractor Supply to keep us warm in Virginia when it was dipping below 32 and it helped kept the cold air out of the front of our coach while we ran the heat pumps. If only I knew it could actually heat the whole coach, I would have turned the noisy pumps off. Upsetting, it only lasted a couple of months. I found the same one, different company on Amazon and it has been going strong for a year now.

In our temporary home, it has done an incredible job of keeping the coach warm. This little heater is great for any type of space and is nice to look at, unlike some other heaters I have seen. It has been worth every penny.

The Mini Electric Fireplace has adjustable temperatures, high (1500W), or low (750W). We have been in the 30s overnight and would leave this on 750W and it was nice and warm in the mornings. You can also turn this on just for the flames without heat if you just want a little orange glow ambiance.

According to Amazon this silent energy-saving fireplace comfortably heats up to 200 square feet which is perfect for any RV or even a bedroom. It comes in wood, black or white, and one with feet. I loved the feet idea however, I like how compact it is without the feet and easier to store. The outside including the window do not heat up at all. This keeps me feeling secure and confident to leave it on overnight.

We are still waiting to get our coach back and I really miss my rolling home. In another post, I will share what I learned about prepping for a paint job.

Want to save money? Get a HotLogic and stuff it! Use checkout code HEALTHYGUT and save 10% off of your purcahse.

CLASS A RECIPE

Of course, because it was only going to be 2 weeks, I didn’t bring all my spices. I borrowed my mother-in-law’s HotLogic Max oven because I forgot my HotLogics (how? I have no idea).

In these crazy 8 weeks not only did we not have heat, electric and water issues, but we lost everything in the fridge and freezer, twice! Now I am just buying food for a couple of days just in case.

I have been still cooking from scratch but keeping it basic with tons of leftovers. I even cooked a pizza on the barbecue. Hey, when you desperately want to satisfy a craving, you will go to any means to do so.

As I was preparing for this Monday morning I opened the fridge and it went kuptuzz again! Of course, I had chicken, cauliflower rice and some leftover veggies. After cleaning the frosted fridge again, I knew I was going to be lazy about putting the chicken on the barbecue later and just went with the HotLogic.

Since I have to empty the fridge again, I took a gander, and guess what I came up with? Almost the same ingredients as last week. Sweet peppers, onion, oh, a carrot, garlic, I always have garlic, ahhhh, some frozen riced cauliflower, wilted green onions, and parsley and it looks like I have a meal to cook for today. OH, Siracha! Ya, let’s add some siracha! This time I added the riced cauliflower to the dish instead of on the side and it was fine. The picture only shows one piece of chicken because I separated this into two dishes.

Took me maybe 20 minutes (including clean up and photos) we will eat this tonight with some salad on the side and the other chicken is going into a cooler with some dry ice. If I get some red ruby shoes and click them three times will it get us our motorhome back quicker?

What is in my fridge

1 HotLogic Max Oven

Glass dish

Non-bleached parchment paper

Prep time 10 minutes

Cook time 4-6 hours

Ingredients

1 lb chicken breast, they were thin ( 3 or 4)
4 sweet peppers red, sliced vertically in half
1 carrot, sliced thin
1/4 cup of onion, big chunks
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tb Sriracha
2 tb olive oil
1 tb back pepper, fresh cracked peppercorns
1 6-cup dish
2 cups frozen cauliflower rice
1 clove garlic
2 tb butter
2 cup glass dish

Garnish

2 Green onion, green and white parts
Handful of parsley
Siracha sauce to taste

I added the parsley and the onions to cold water and they pepped back up from wilted!

Cut the peppers into chunks and lay them inside the 6-cup dish. Add 1/4 cup of onion and lay the chicken on top.

Mince the 4 cloves of garlic or run it through a small-holed cheese grater. Add it to a little bowl, add the 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the sriracha sauce. Mix the ingredients. With your hands massage the oil mixture into the chicken on both sides. Sprinkle with freshly cracked black peppercorns.

Add the cauliflower, pats of butter, and garlic on top. Cover the dish with non-bleach parchment paper and then the lid.

Add the dish to the HotLogic Max oven and plug it in. Cook for at least 4 hours. Before serving, stir the cauliflower to mix the ingredients. Chop up two green onions and a handful of parsley and add to the cauliflower and mix in.

To plate, add some cauliflower to a dish, add a piece of chicken, and spoon over the chicken the delicious sweet pepper melody. Squirt a little Siracha sauce on top and you have a nice sweet and spicy dish.

Enjoy!

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