The question is…Why are we doing this? Why would we swap our large comfortable home for the tiny living space in our motorhome? I still ask myself the same question occasionally. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. Are we really “living” in our motorhome? Have we really been doing this for almost 18 months? The answer to both questions is of course, “Yes.” We had a beautiful home in San Diego…spacious and comfortable. Why did we trade that for an extended years-long trip in our motorhome, living in an area not much larger than 350 square feet? Not because we want to do it forever. We don’t. We will buy another house and settle down for the next chapter in our lives when our Great American Adventure is finished. And not because we’re avid campers. We’re not. The idea of roughing it in the great outdoors isn’t something that appeals to us at all.
And the answer is…It’s really fun! RVing is not parking in “trailer courts.” It is not being parked in the woods, building campfires and singing “Kumbaya” every night, either. It’s not roughing it. And it’s not spending endless hours on he road. It could be these things, but that’s not how we see it and not how we’re doing it. We do this because we enjoy a mobile lifestyle. We see it as living in a small condo that we take with us from place to place. A safe, cost effective, hassle free way to see a lot of this beautiful country of ours.
Motorhomes come in lots of different styles and models.
AN RV IS A HOME-AWAY-FROM-HOME. It is our air conditioned, climate-controlled, convection oven-equipped, Corian counter-topped kitchen. It’s our surround sound, flat screen television living room and separate dining area, our queen sized bed in a separate bedroom and our full bathroom. It’s our high-speed internet access, and a place for our cameras and electronic toys. This is our private beach house, our mountain chalet and our desert vacation home. It’s whatever we want it to be. We have the choice of having it all…great weather, beautiful scenery, adventure, educational opportunities and fun. Our home on wheels gives us the freedom to roam America’s highways and byways and the flexibility to go anywhere we want whenever we want to do so…from Alaska to the Florida Keys and everywhere in between. That’s what appeals to our Gypsy instinct and satisfies our need to see and experience new places, new foods, new people and new things.
Our first rig was a 28 foot Class C Four Winds Dutchmen.
IT ALL STARTED ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO. I think it was a Sunday afternoon. Doesn’t matter. We decided to take a drive and perhaps see a movie. Not finding anything playing at the local theater that interested us, we just kept driving. Perhaps we were headed to the beach or maybe to the Gaslamp Quarter downtown. I don’t know. What I do know is that at some point we looked up and saw a sign that read, “Huge RV Sale. Going out of business.” (At the time, gas prices in San Diego were off-the-charts-high…pushing $5 a gallon. I think the RV dealership was going out of business because nobody could afford the gas to run one of the things.) I said to Florence, “Why don’t we stop at the dealership and take a look?” “Why in the world would we do that?” she asked. “I don’t know. I’ve never even looked inside a motorhome. It might be fun.”
OUR FIRST MOTORHOME. Three hours later we owned our first motorhome! We didn’t have a clue how to run one, maintain one or anything else, but we were giddy with excitement. When you realize that travel doesn’t have to mean tickets, itineraries, airports, lines, security checkpoints and endless expensive meals at restaurants, a kind of wanderlust sets in and makes you feel almost heady. We shortly decided that a trip up the Oregon coast was in order. We’d heard it is beautiful and decided that exploring it in a motorhome would be a great way to see it. Boy, were we right. When we left home, we planned to be gone about three weeks. We didn’t return for about two months.
And another funny thing happened along the way. After we’d explored every nook and cranny of the Oregon coastline in our new motorhome we realized that we might just be on to something. We had discovered an entirely new way to travel…to vacation, to see places our way at our convenience for as long or as short a time as we wanted. We were lovin’ it…having a ball. We were getting hooked.
Our second RV was a 32 foot Class A Fleetwood Southwind. We loved it!
OUR SECOND ONE. After driving all the way down the state of Oregon as we headed toward our home in San Diego, we had a little mechanical issue. New RVs, just like new cars, always have a few bugs. So, we stopped at an RV dealership in Medford, Oregon not far from the California border. We were told that the repair could be done in about 3 or 4 hours. We told the guy to go ahead and get started. Although we had a toad (tow car) we really didn’t have enough time to do much exploring. So, the service advisor suggested that we just make ourselves comfortable in the showroom. Well, you can probably guess where this is going. Yep, you got it. Within about 6 hours we were the proud owners of our second RV, having traded in our first one even before the end of its maiden voyage.
Motorhome number 2 was a Fleetwood Southwind Class A rig. We absolutely loved it. We took several long vacations in it. We joined a group of San Diego RV campers and spent one long weekend each month camping in the San Diego area. We made some great friends in that group. We took short trips to the beach, the desert, the Colorado River and the mountains. We enjoyed the Class A far more than our first rig, which was a Class C. We were higher off the ground when driving. We had a better view. We had more room inside.
Our current RV is a 41 foot Class A Monaco Diplomat diesel pusher.
AND OUR NEWEST ONE. One day in 2012 we were sitting on our front porch in Deerhorn Valley enjoying the view. Watching the Red Tail Hawks soaring in the blue sky. Looking at all the beautiful blooms emerging in our rose garden. Feeling very happy with where we were and what we were doing. But there was something I’d been thinking about…something that was nagging me. I wanted to explore America. Really see it all and meet the people out there. Learn what motivated them and what they believed. And at the same time I’d been thinking about how we really didn’t need as much house as we had. Or as much land. Or as many vehicles. Or as much “stuff.” For sure it was nice, but the time and expense to keep it all ship-shape was considerable. Our ranch hand lived with us 5 days a week and worked every day on the property. Our housekeeper was ever-present and our utility bills alone usually topped $1,400 per month. Life felt excessive. Why not sell our home, downsize, buy a larger motorhome (Number 3) and spend a few years traveling the country? I could hardly believe it when I said it out loud: “Hey Florence, why not do this?” Her response was, “That’s the craziest idea ever. Let’s do it.”
So here we are. It’s good to be here.
