November 10, 2020

Meet “The Beautiful Beast”


Permiteme presentarte mi Casa Rodante
Allow me to introduce our NEW home on wheels!

Affectionately named: “The Beautiful Beast”


2020 Entegra Accolade
Super C Diesel

What a year it has been.  By now, we would have been nicely settled into Mexico had the world not turned on it’s head in 2020.  And this beautiful and affectionately named “Beast” is what we would be living in.  We’ve sure been through a few RV’s....but this was always our “dream”.  She’s a “Super C” diesel beauty!  We thought we had our final RV when we bought our Newmar BayStar Class A motorhome in late 2018, affectionally named “Cassie”.  That was one beautiful rig as well, but after a year with it we came to the realization that the class A (think Greyhound bus style for those of you who are not RV’ers) just wasn’t for us.  We much prefer the feeling of having the engine out in front of us, rather that sitting on top of it with only the large windshield between you and the vehicle in front of you.  With this realization and some calculations, we headed to Traveland and swapped out “Cassie” for “The Beast”.  All in all, even though we didn’t know 2020 was going to turn into such a mess, the extra time at home means extra time working when we otherwise would have been on the road.  So, financially at least that helps in paying down the bills.  

Enough about the fun of 2020 and talk of bills....ugh.  Let’s get to the fun stuff...a photo tour!

Here’s the kitchen looking into the living room.  I love the huge stainless steel sink and the gas burner stove that is nicely hidden under matching countertop covers (see pic below).  The covers adds a nice amount of counter space when not using the sink and/or stove.

Yes, thats a full size residential fridge with ice maker and water dispenser 😊 

View from another angle
  

Here is the kitchen dinette, directly across from the sink and stove.  This folds down into a bed.  There is also an enormous pantry you can see to the right.  It has loads of storage room inside.  Oh, and of course HeyZeus photobombed me! 😻 

We have a great sized L-shaped couch situated across from a nice size flat screen TV with DVD player and also an electric fireplace.  The longer portion of the couch can be converted to another bed.  This rig sleeps WAY more people....do you hear that Man?  😃 ❤️ 


The view from the couch looking toward the TV and electric fireplace.  The door you can see to the right of the TV is a half bath.  Yes, this rig has 1.5 baths! 

The theme I chose to decorate is intended to be ocean/tropical. I had the blue and green ocean themed pillows already in our last rig, so added accent deep navy blue blankets and blue/green abstract art to compliment.  I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!  It livens up the drab brown.  We have talked about the potential to paint out some of the brown cabinets to lighten up the interior.  There are so many RV’ers doing that now with their rigs.  We might do it one day, but for now have decided we want to live in it first for a chunk of time so we can get a better sense of what/if we want to change anything.

Moving on...next we have the bedroom.  It has a huge king size bed that will come in handy with all the furry beasts we’ll have.  So far we’ve still got four cats; Sweety who is 15 and a half, Lou who is 10 and of course HoseHey and HeyZeus who are just 1 year old.  If Sweety is still with us by the time we can leave, she will most definitely be coming on the journey.  The only questionnable one is Lou.  We’ll have to see how well he does in the RV.  He hasn’t been a fan of travelling before, so we are a bit skeptical.  When it comes to the little rascals, they’re going to be fine.  We’ve been spending lots of time with them taking them on rides in the Jeep to get them comfortable to the movement and the sounds.  They love going for car rides!

The picture above is looking into the bedroom from the living room.  I just had to have this poster when I saw it!  It is so “us”.

Above is the view of the bedroom looking out of the rear bath.  There are windows on either side of the head of the bed for ventilation, nice bedside ‘tables’ to put water, glasses, iPads etc, more storage above and also under the bed.  And, my favourite painting on the wall. I’ve had it for awhile, and it fit in perfectly with the ocean theme.

Opposite side of the bedroom. Large dual wardrobes, lots of drawers underneath and another nice sized TV with storage behind it as well.





Here is the rear bath, there is a nice large shower with skylight, porcelain toilet, medicine cabinet and a set of drawers for storage.


What’s behind those doors you ask...?

That’s right, a combo washer/dryer! How cool is that?

One of the great things about a diesel Super C is that it’s on a Freightliner Chassis which, among other things, means it has a TON of carrying capacity.  All our other rigs we were right to the limit in terms of how much weight we could carry.  We had to make decisions on what to load and what we could buy based on those weight restrictions.  We were literally within 100-150 lbs of our limit all the time...and that wasn’t even as full timers!  In this rig, it is a MUCH different story.  All loaded up as it is now, we still have 2200 lbs we could add.  That extra capacity also allows for things like the porcelain toilets, the quartz counter tops and so many other extras.  Oh, and did I mention it can tow 12,000 lbs!  Previously we were stretched trying to find a vehicle our other rigs could tow safely.  That said, we did land on the two door Jeep Wrangler last year.  And, even though we can now tow a larger vehicle like a truck (which we would have preferred), I think we’re sticking with the Jeep.  We love the versatility and manoeuvrability of it, not to mention how nice it looks behind this rig!

Ok, moving on...we still have the 1/2 bath and the front of the rig to show.  I’m not going to show the crazy amount of storage in the outside bays, you’ll have to trust me on that 😉.

This is the half bath, located behind the TV in the living room.  Kinda hard to take a picture because it is small.  If you look at the sink, near the top of the rim you can see what looks like clear plastic all along the top rim.  That’s actually an accent light!  Both sinks have them.  There are also nice accent lights throughout the entire inside of the rig.  We love this 1/2 bath option.  Not only does it make it easy to get to a bathroom while in transit when the living room and bedroom slides are in, it also will likely double as a litter box room once we get to our destination.🐱 


These next two pictures (above and below) are from the actual add posting before we bought it which is why you don’t see our personal touches.  But, they give a good view of looking from the front all the way to the back, and then from the back all the way to the front where the cab as well as the bunk over cab is.  In these pictures, all the blinds are down so the only natural light you see in these is coming from the front.  But there are many windows to let all kinds of natural light in...or out as needed!

In this picture the L-shaped couch is “put away”. The corner piece you can see in this shot pulls out to give more space.  You can see it extended in the pictures above.


This is another picture from the add listing.  In this you can see the huge over cab bunk that holds an incredible 700 lbs!  And, we just LOVE the window up top, a new feature.  It adds so much beautiful natural light!  It also has an automatic blind you can close.

Above is a close up of the dash with the console we added.  We also applied carbon fibre vinyl to the dash to cover up the ugly faux brown marble type background that was behind the instruments.  You can see what I mean if you look at the photo of the dash above.  We love how the vinyl carbon fibre wrap looks!  You can also see the great window shades that came with the rig to give you privacy.

And finally below you can see what the cab looks like now with the black seat covers we bought and the arm rest covers that I made to match.  The seats are leather so we wanted to protect them from wear and tear...not just wear and tear from us, but also the furry beasts and their claws.  In this shot you can also see the handy overhead compartments.


So, that’s “The Beast”!  We can’t wait to get to use her for our big adventure. All we need now is for the borders to open!

Until next time/Hasta la proxima vez!

November 8, 2020

Feline Fun in the Fall!




HeyZeus - 1 year old

The boys are such good sports!  They’re getting used to me always having a phone or camera in their face beeping as I madly try and get the perfect shot. These pictures were taken in our backyard yesterday. This maple tree had just enough beautiful changing leaves on it to create the perfect backdrop.  I just love fall and all the gorgeous colours.  With the wind this weekend, there won’t be many vibrant colours left as all the leaves fall to the ground.  This isn’t much of a blog post, more like a short fall photo album 😊 

HoseHey - 1 year old



Hey, did you see that bird?

Beautiful boy!

HeyZeus, he blends into almost any background.  Chameleon cat? 

HoseHey in the plum tree, it’s already lost all it’s leaves

Our front yard. I love the contrast of the deep green with the yellow, orange and red leaves on the trees around us

Maple tree in backyard.  Soft ethereal light filter

Love the colours in this shot.  Taken at Beban Park near our home.  I lucked in with an empty parking lot!

Beautiful tree at Beban Park

HeyZeus in the next door neighbour’s front yard.  He loves to sit on these boulders under this perfect little tree. A great spot to sit and watch passers by. We’re thankful for great neighbours who don’t mind us hanging out in the front of their yard.  It creates great entertainment for their two toddlers who just squeak with excitement everytime they see the cats out for a walk. 

HoseHey out for a walk at the park.  I love how you can see his markings in this light. What is really hard to capture on camera is the golden hair he has.  It is literally gold and sparkles in the light!


Can you see me?  Don’t tell my brother where I’m hiding!’




‘Did you hear that....I think it was that pesky squirrel who likes to harass us!  Did you see where he went?’

That’s all for today!  I was grateful to get a chance to take some beautiful shots of the boys while the fall colours are still around.  I can’t believe we’re approaching mid November.  What a whirlwind of an absolutely insane year.  We were supposed to be in Mexico by now...but with the borders still closed, we have no choice but to wait it out here.  A new countdown has started, hoping in 2021 we’ll be able to hit the road.  All in all, not much any of us can do.  We try to look at the positives and one of those is getting these furry kids accustomed to the RV, driving and exploring.  We’re making good progress! 

Until next time/Hasta la proxima vez!

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