HOW DID YOU END UP WITH A CLASS A??

Recently while reading one of our favorite RV forums here on the internet, RV NET http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm I came across the topic, "How Did You End Up With A Class A Motorhome?" There were quite a few responses & I found them all interesting so decided to throw my 2 cents worth in as well. Well, you know what my 2 cents worth ends up being. On & on & on I go. How do people keep things so short & concise?? Well anyway, figured I may as well copy & paste it into the blog here in case it gets booted out of the RV forum...............................

Guess it started with an old beat up Volkswagon hippy van back in the late 60's. It was pink & white & somebody had painted "Van-go on the front. Next was an orange Volkswagon camper van in which I took myself out to the east coast of Canada & back in 86. That was followed by a full size Dodge conversion van which I took a real beating on. A few years after meeting Kelly in the early 90's we bought an old 79 Dodge 17' Centurion Class C. It was a bit of a beater but we did manage a few local trips with it & that little rig was instrumental in putting us on the one way RV path of thinking, forever. Next came a 24 Prowler TT. Nice clean rig but I wasn't crazy about the hooking up arrangement. We became busy around that time & didn't use the trailer a lot so finally sold it. But, the RV bug never leaves you alone. Not ever, not never. A year or so later we bought another Class C but by the time we got down into Texas for a quick holiday in December of 05 we new it's 21 foot length wasn't big enough. It was a Ford Gulf Stream & we sold it a few months after returning home. It had some issues. Then in August of 2006 came the opportunity to finally move up the ladder a bit. But, what to get. Our choice was narrowed down to either a used fifth wheel or a Class A. We had tried all the rest so it was time to have a go at something different. Back & forth & back & forth we went weighing out all the pros & cons & comparisons. Read all the RV forums, talked to RV owners, & read the RV mags trying to make sure we made the right decision. Class A motorhome or a truck & fifth wheel combo. No room for error this time!! After many discussions we finally made our choice...........Truck & fifth wheel it was. (GMC truck & Rockwood trailer) Off we headed for the American southwest for a couple months. I don't know just where or when it was that we both began to realize it, but maybe it was the look on our faces after awhile somewhere between Texas & Arizona that told us.....oooops. You know that kind of look. It comes over your face when you finally come to the realization that you have just made a very big mistake. I won't go into all the details of why we knew we had made a mistake because I don't want to get pounded out by a lot of fifth wheel drivers out there. It's a great way to go but it just wasn't for us. We returned home around the end of January 07 & a short 3 & half months later we traded that truck & fifth wheel in on a 2003 33' Class A motorhome. This past winter we spent over 4 months in the southwest again & have never once regretted our decision to move to a Class A. It's been a long expensive road from the pink & white hippy van to our Damon Challenger but we are finally happy campers.............well, maybe if we had a little more length:)) Awwww nuts!!

COMMUNICATING WITH THE RIG & A STORY ABOUT MY OLD DUSTY HAT

No, that's not dirt on my hat, it's just good old wild west Arizona desert dust!!

From where I sit in my big cushy recliner in the living room watching television I can glance out the window to the right & see the motorhome sitting in the driveway staring back at me. Sometimes we just kind of blankly look at each other & sometimes we sorta kinda communicate. It's the same questions on both our minds. If & when we get rolling again, where are we going & how much is the gas going to cost to get there!! What if we get 3,000 miles from home & the gas prices double or triple in the 5 months we are away. Would it be cheaper to put the rig into storage in New Mexico for 7 months & bring the car home until returning back in the fall. If we could return at all. Some folks in the neighborhood have already sold their rigs & bought or rented mobiles in the south for the winter months. Some have downsized their units, some have given up & put the "for sale" sign in the windshield. Others have resigned themselves to spending the coming snowy cold winter at home in hopes things will turn around for the following year. And others have shortened their travel routes & restricted themselves to the Georgia/Florida corridor instead of the long haul to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or California. I guess it all boils down to preferences, gas prices, & how much change you got in your pocket when October & November roll around. For now, all we can do is play it one day at a time...................

I've had some humorous comments from other RV folks about my mishap with the motorhome's bin door & the pine tree & that reminded me of some other really dumb things I've done. It takes me back to December of 06 & Jan of 07 when we had a truck & fifth wheel while touring around in the southwest. We were camped at Hickiwan Trails RV Park in Arizona (our first time there) for a few days. I kept a blog at that time as well & here is what I wrote, dated January 8 2007:

Boy oh boy oh boy, did I ever do something dumb last night. I had been re-organizing my wallet after cleaning sand out of it in the afternoon & laid it on a small wood table beside my lawn chair. Max, in his quest to get a game of sticks going, bumped the table & knocked my wallet over the edge into the doggy guys water dish. No problem I thought as I lifted it out, but noticed it was already pretty wet inside. In order to dry everything out I made the first part of a big mistake. I laid my wallet on the tonneau cover of the pick-up truck to dry. Laid out some credit cards, driver's license, CAA card, etc. The tonneau cover is black & felt warm from the sun so figured everything would dry quick. Well, you probably know what's coming. A couple of hours later just after supper I decided to head down the road to update the website at a remote wifi spot near another campground. Out I went, jumped in the truck, & took off out of the park & down the highway. When I reached the wi-fi site I stopped, got out of the truck, walked around to the passenger side to access the computer, glanced at the back of the truck & "OH OH!!" In a sickening flash I remembered my wallet & cards that I had laid out there earlier, and..........they were all gone. Jumped in the truck & raced back to the trailer, rushed in & told Professor Rockhound (Kelly was collecting a lot of rocks at that time) what had happened. I knew the only hope I had of ever finding anything lying on the ground was to get an expert ground scanning person involved. She quickly headed out the driveway to the highway in full scan mode. I took the truck & started driving the highway shoulder & immediately found my Scotia debit card lying right in the middle of the highway. Continued up the road aways & turned around. By the time I got back to the area where I found the debit card I saw the Professor busily scooping things off the highway & alongside the road. Oblivious to traffic, she was on the job!! By the time I got the truck stopped she had already retrieved my wallet which had been lying open upside down in the eastbound lane. I probably drove over it myself in my rush to get back to the trailer a few minutes before. She had also found what was left of my driver's license. It was the only thing damaged. I found one more card on the southbound shoulder & that completed everything. We were only moments away from complete nightfall but the eagle eyed Professor had saved the day. Nothing missing from inside the wallet either. Both American & Canadian money were intact. It sure would have put an unfavorable dent in our vacation plans if all had been lost. Thanks to our superb ground scanning Professor Rockhound, we were spared to travel another day. It was a close call & I had to promise that I would not be so dumb in the future. Well, that didn't work because here's what I did just a few days later.
Decided to clean up the cab of the truck so opened the passenger door to pull the floor mat out. I was wearing my black cowboy hat which I had just purchased near Carlsbad New Mexico a few weeks before. As I bent over I knocked my hat off so just reached down, picked it up & casually tossed it around the corner onto the tonneau cover behind the cab. Sound familiar!! Finished the clean up & went inside the trailer. Kelly said she was heading into Ajo for some groceries & would be back in an hour or so. I had some stuff to catch up on with the computer so said, "ok, see ya later." It was probably about 10 minutes later when the hair on my head almost stood straight up as I suddenly realized............my hat was on the back of the truck!!!! Oh noooooooo!!!! I rushed out of the trailer, down the road, around the corner & up to the highway vainly looking off in the direction Kelly had traveled with the truck. No black object on the road or shoulder resembling a cowboy hat. Walked a short distance along the road but knew it was futile. My hat was gone forever & that's all there was to it. I'm not a hat person & this cowboy hat was the only one I had ever stuck on my head that I thought didn't make me look like a total nerd. I was like a little boy who had just lost his most prized possession of ever. And I was sooooooooo mad at myself because of the wallet incident just a short time before. Why didn't I learn my lesson that time about setting things on the back of the truck. I beat myself up so bad for the next hour that I was barely human by the time Kelly got back. I was in the trailer slumped in a chair when I heard the truck pull in. How was I going to explain to her that she had probably married the dumbest creature on the planet. The thought did occur to me that she was most likely quite aware of that already:(( The screen door opened & Kelly came in with a couple bags of groceries and there perched atop her beautiful blonde head was............................ my cowboy hat:)))))) At that moment I was the happiest little cowboy kid west of the Pecos.

It was a movement in the rear view mirror that caused her to look as she was accelerating down the highway after leaving the park. That movement was my cowboy beginning it's take-off roll across the tonneau cover runway in preparation for lift off into the big blue Arizona sky. She quickly backed off the gas, slowly braked & pulled over to the side of the road & retrieved my precious hat. Now she was faced with a decision. She could turn around & bring the hat back before I probably even knew it was missing or she could keep on going & let me stew about my missing hat until she got back. She made the right decision. She cranked up the burner, continued on her way, & let me stew for an hour real darn good!! Do you think I learned my lesson?? Say, did I tell you about the time I.................................................:((

This was our truck & fifth wheel before we had the motorhome....................

BANKRUPTCY OF PURSE OR BANKRUPTCY OF LIFE!!

Let me start off this blog with a quote that Kelly found on the internet this morning. It is from actor and adventurer Sterling Hayden's book, Wanderer:
"We are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, and playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.Where, then, lies the answer?
IN CHOICE!!.Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?" (end of quote)

With our economy (& lately our weather) seemingly headed into the dumpster of disaster I once again turn away from CNN's daily reports & consider the fate of the proverbial Ostrich. There he stands, head buried in the sand, oblivious to the world's troubles around him. Is his head in a state of bliss & serenity under that sand? Has he discovered a new & wonderful world down there? Does that Ostrich truly understand something the rest of us do not? His reaction to his environment is not considered the norm which in turn leads me to something else someone said on the internet lately under the title, "Advice For People Who Don't Want the Normal." It applies to us at the moment & probably to a lot of other RV type people in the same boat facing the same decisions about their future......... "Go today, not tomorrow. The hardest part is untying the dock lines. If you wait a few more years for the stock market to come back...your Social Security to kick in...your retirement to vest at a better rate...or to finish a few more projects to make the RV perfect, you might be waiting too long. Health issues for one spouse or the other can potentially put your dreams back on the shelf in a heartbeat. Nike said in their commercials, "Just Do It".

"Just do it!!" Oh, if only it were that easy, but for all we know, maybe it is. I've been doing a lot of reading on the RV forums of late http://www.rv.net/ & people are in various states of lifestyle changes right now mainly because of the rising price of fuel. For RV owners it's a difficult time & puts new meaning into the saying, between a rock & a hard place. Can't afford the price of fuel but can't sell the RV either because they have basically all turned into big white elephants sitting in driveways across the land. Good time to buy an RV if you got some extra gas money in your pocket but not a good time to try & sell one, even at give-away prices. Therefore, it's the rock & a hard place syndrome, but I can tell you, we have no intentions of trying to sell our motorhome. We have a very big deterrent up here in the north for about 5 months of the year & it's called, WINTER!!!! With the price of fuel constantly rising it's beginning to make the long trek to the southwest in November seem like an improbable if not impossible venture, or as in the quoted words above, we "just do it!!" For us at this point it may seem improbable at times but it definitely is not impossible, so we are thinking forward & continuing to do more small renovations & improvements on the rig. I have already re-organized about a third of the basement storage space for this coming winter's journey to wherever that might be. The rig is due for some maintenance work so that has to be done yet as well. We want to keep our big white elephant in tip top shape. Afterall, it carries a big trunk & may become our future home someday.........................:)) (now if only we could just feed it peanuts instead of gasoline) The photo is from atop our rig in the driveway. I had to shrink wrap the solar panels because of sap dripping from pine trees close by & gumming them up.........