Survival of the Fittest!

5 Jan 10--The weather here is getting colder by the minute. Two nights ago there was a threat of a freeze, so we left the water running in the sink so as to make sure our pipes didn't freeze, but we got lucky and it never got lower the high 30s. Last night, however, it got as low as 28 degrees and the rest of the week is only supposed to get worse. They are speculating that we may even get snow flurries by Saturday...and a low of about 17 degrees Saturday night! They say we are breaking records every day, and even south Florida is not escaping the arctic blast!!!

We were anticipating being relatively warm in Florida, but we have been getting lots of advise from other full-timers both in person and in on-line RV forums. Last night we actually filled our fresh water tank and then unhooked our water hoses from the spicket outside. Lucky that we did because the park pipes were frozen this morning when we got up. Notice the icicle hanging from the hose connector.

Knowing that it was going to get cold, we made sure we had plenty of LP gas in the tank...a company comes out here every Wednesday to deliver gas to all the RVers who want it, so that worked out well. As long as the weather stays above 48 degrees we can heat the place using the heat pump (which runs off electricity), but once below that we have to run the furnace (which runs off the gas). This is the LP gas tank below.

We had also gone out and bought 2 spaces heaters, one for the front and one for the back of the RV. The furnace keeps the RV plenty warm, but it really burns thru the LP gas pretty quickly, so when we are home we run the furnace along with the space heaters to cut down on how often it comes on. We can't shut the furnace off completely because it keeps the pipes under the floor from freezing, which the space heaters would not.

I know you don't need all this information, and certainly don't need these pictures, but I just wanted to let you know that we are surviving comfortably, and that the key to all this adapt, adapt, adapt!!!