Tag: Rio Bonito

Since we won’t be spending the summer in Canada, we’ve been looking at how to keep the RV cool when the temperatures start hitting 100°. Last Summer we were in Dallas when the temperatures went over 110° and the temperatures inside the RV got over 90°.

The steps we took to try to keep cool this were:

1. Get as much shade as possible
2. Install fans
3. Optimize the A/C flow to the areas needed

Getting As Much Shade As Possible

So we started out by finding an RV site that had at least some shade. We searched around the RV parks in Liberty Hill, and was blessed to find one fairly close at Rio Bonito II. It isn’t full shade, but has a lot of afternoon shade.

The next step was to install our ShadeRV roof shade. We had purchased this while we were in Dallas. To be honest, I’m not sure how much good this does. It definitely keeps most of the roof out of the sun.

Installing it isn’t very tough. It just rolls out from one end to the other.

Installing Fans

The next step was to install fans in the living room and office.

Optimize A/C Flow

The final, and perhaps most important step was to make sure that the air conditioning was functioning efficiently and delivering the air to where we need it.

Our RV has 3 air conditioners, one each in the

• Bedroom
• Living Room
• Office (garage)

The air conditioning ducts on most big RVs is configured in a big loop, referred to as a “race track”. Each A/C unit outputs its air into the same loop. So the trick we discovered to getting the most cooling where we want it is to

• Close off any vents in areas that we don’t want or need cooling
• Set the thermostats so that all 3 A/Cs run when needed.

The living room is the largest room in our RV, and it’s also where we spend most of our time. It also has been the warmest room, and is difficult to keep cool in high temperatures.

The bedroom is the smallest room, and is usually too cold when the A/Cs are running. So we modified the vents in the bedroom to allow reducing or blocking the airflow to the bedroom. This involved the simple application of some white duct tape.

When the airflow is blocked from the bedroom vents, the A/C’s output gets routed to the next vents down the line which is the living room, right where we want it.

So today got up to 98°, and the RV remained quite cool. I guess we’ll see how it does when the temps go over 100°, but I’m feeling pretty optimistic.

We had been planning to hold off retiring until my birthday next year, but changes in circumstances have prompted us to go ahead and retire this year. So as of February 23, 2024 Ron is officially retired.

Ron’s teammates at HEB held a retirement celebration for him a couple days before then, and Shelley was able to attend also. Even better, Ron’s boss Pat surprised him with an HEB Swoon award. His coworkers had a lot of nice things to say about him. It was really nice, and a great send off.

Ron’s retirement celebration and award presentation

So What’s Up Now?

First Ron is going to need to wrap his head around the fact the he doesn’t have to work anymore. He’s started working on establishing healthy routines: daily walking, exercise, Spanish lessons, and practicing piano. He’s also enjoying getting around to doing some RV projects that he never seemed to have time to do before.

Travel?

It feels weird, but we have decided that we’re tired of hauling the RV all over the country. We’ve been very blessed to be able to do a lot of that over the past 13 years, but we think we’re going to do more flying. We love living in the RV, so we’re not planning on getting a house or apartment or anything like that. And we still love to travel, but Shelley’s health currently limits how long we can be away. She gets an infusion every 3 weeks, so we’ll be doing shorter trips, and probably flying.

Living in Liberty Hill, TX

At the end of 2023 we moved further out into the country to Liberty Hill. It is still a fairly small town with that great small town feel, but it’s growing quickly so we don’t know how long that will last. We had initially moved to the LHTX Rv Resort, planning on spending summers in Windsor, Ontario. But that won’t really work with the new treatment schedule. That means that we’re going to be spending summers in Texas, so we had to find some shade to park the RV under. Luckily, there was a shady spot available at the Rio Bonito RV resort nearby, so we booked it and moved in within a month. We’re planning on staying here for a while.

Since we’re not going to be towing the RV all over the country, we don’t really need the expensive monster truck anymore. So we’ve decided to sell the truck once we’ve gotten all our stuff moved to where we need it. If we want to move to another RV park we can hire someone to do that for us. We’ll still want a 2nd vehicle as a backup, so we (er, Ron) decided to get something fun like a Miata.

We’ve also found a new church home: The Grove here in Liberty Hill. Ron has joined the Men’s bible study group, and he is looking for other ways to get plugged in. We don’t know if he’ll be joining the worship team or whether God has something new and different for him. Shelley is still building up her strength after some health setbacks, but the outlook is very good and the progress so far has been amazing. Thank you everyone that has been praying for her, it’s working. It shouldn’t be long before she becomes more active also.

God is being very good to us. What a blessed life we have!