RV Park Bulldozed to Build Another Strip Mall

A nice RV park located in Sisters, Oregon is closing to make room for more retail stores. When I first heard this it made me mad. I thought, “I'm a full time RVer, if they plow under all the RV parks there won’t be anyplace for us to stay.” Then I put on my thinking cap and came up with a different view. First, I will now be able to park in the shopping center parking lot for free unless there is an ordinance against it. Second, this should encourage land owners and developers to build more RV parks. That’s right, it makes perfect economic sense to buy a piece of land somewhere in the growth radius of a town and make it into a revenue producing RV park while you're waiting for WalMart to make you an offer. There are few buildings that will need to be demolished and you can take tax write-offs and make money while you wait for the big contract. So how about it land owners? Get off the dime and start building RV Parks everywhere! Keeping you entertained - Jim Twamley, Professor of RVing and ROAD Scholar

Fulltime First Day on the Road

Many fulltimers were inveterate RVers long before they jumped into the lifestyle fulltime. However, we're finding a lot of young people these days who are selling off their homes, or getting out of rented homes and apartments and moving directly into an RV. Older ones too, on reaching retirement are ready to hit the road, and sometimes do so without prior RV experience.

If you can, "practice" the fulltime lifestyle by moving into your RV in the driveway or an RV park near your old home first. It'll give you an opportunity to learn how to get around in your rig, and establish what new ways of doing things you'll need to cover. If you have to move into your rig directly, make sure your "first day on the road," is a SHORT one--no more than just a few hours. Leave yourself plenty of daylight to get some of the immediate bugs worked out. Not only that, you'll feel a lot less pressured and you can enter the ranks of the fulltimers without unnecessary stress.

Dry Camping? Remember Your Battery

While many fulltimers rarely stray from an RV park, there's a lot of beauty that can be reached only when "dry camping" or boondocking. If you're new to the idea of RVing without hookups, a good reminder regarding battery life.

RV batteries take a LONG time to charge, particularly if you're trying to charge them with the typical RV converter-charger. Here's a scenario: "I've been out here a couple of days and my lights started going dim. So I fired up the generator and it's been running for hours, but my battery is still low!"

The standard "factory equipped" converter-charger rarely sends more than 3 or 4 amps to the battery when "shore power" or generator power is available. At that rate it can take many, many hours to really charge up the RV battery. If you don't have solar or wind power and don't have a built-in high current charging system, here's how to make your RV generator help out:

Use a fairly high current freestanding battery charger--like you'd pick up at an auto parts store--and hook it directly to the RV "house" battery--the one that operates your interior lights and water pump. If you need an extension cord, be sure to use a suitably "gauged" (heavy enough) cord for the charger.

Reflections on Too Much Highway, Way Too Fast

My friend Dick Budrow would have taken a look at us, and with a quick sniff rolled out the pronouncement: "You look like a couple of vagabonds, and smell like unwashed camels."

It's no way to live--running down the road with deadlines ahead and too much pavement to cover in the time allowed. I don't know about other fulltimers, but five hours in the saddle is just way too much time behind the wheel. But to try and meet appointment deadlines in the Northwest, that's about what it's taking to make the deadline.

Drive. And drive. And drive. Make the occasional fuel stop and grumble about the high prices. Find a suitable place to drop anchor. Make a quick meal. Try and unwind. Then fall into the sheets with road weariness. I know the Israelites wandered 40 years in the wilderness; still I think Moses had them sit tight for more than just a night before moving on to the next stop.

This day to day grind causes you to miss too much. Driving so fast with the "next stop" in your sights doesn't allow enough time to smell roses, or anything else--other than yourself and the exhaust pipe of the guy ahead of you. Of the two, I'm not sure which is worse. I know I'll be kicking myself for a while over the one that happened yesterday: Driving across an empty stretch of Nevada I came upon a "deer crossing" warning sign. Sure enough, some frustrated hunter had used the sign for target practice--but he didn't just put the obligatory single shot through the deer's heart area: He roundly and precisely put shots all around the silhouette of the critter. Would have been a great addition to my "sign" photo collection. But I didn't have time to stop and shoot the sign myself.

On the return trip, I promise myself, things will be different.

Generator University Revisited

A while back we mentioned a free school for generator technicians, put on by Generac Power Systems. As you may recall, the company is looking to fill positions in its own dealer networks, and with a paucity of interested folk, the company rolled out the red carpet to people with a mechanical aptitude, a handle on basic math, and an enjoyment of working with their hands.

The company not only provides free tuition, also rooming and some feeding. The hitches? You'll have to provide your own transportation to and from Wisconsin, be 18 years old with a high school diploma (or GED), and pay $200 up-front for books and materials. This latter will be refunded to all who successfully graduate from the course. The early classes of GEN-U were in and out in four weeks; the company now tells us they've refined the course work: You'll graduate in three weeks with knowledge of sizing, installation, troubleshooting, and repair.

Interested? Send an e-mail to genu@generac.com and ask for more information.

Going fulltime? What do people say?

RVtravel.com blogger and author Jaimie Hall offers a brief insight into how people react when someone announces he or she plans to travel full-time with a recreational vehicle. She also tells of how her decision to sell her home and travel with an RV benefited her in an unexpected and special way.

"Stilted" Campers? RV Park Thinking Amazes Us

It's been a long time since we've tried taking a truck camper into an RV park. Last time was years ago when we reviewed a new RV park, and the management--knowing who we were--was on their "best behavior." Most times we don't "do" RV parks, preferring boondocking or public parks.

Not long ago we attended a convention in Glendale, just outside Phoenix. On arrival at the RV park our "hosts," on learning we were truck camping, told us we had to leave the camper on the truck. "You can't leave it up on stilts," said the registration clerk, "otherwise the wind can blow it over." Stilts? Wind blow over? We were a bit baffled, but since we had other transportation to the convention site, it wasn't a big problem.

Back on the road, we landed in the Las Vegas area at day's end. With the monsoon season in full blossom, the humidity would have made a Mississippian happy. Not wanting to run a generator all night to run the air conditioning, we drove on into the Sam's Town RV park. A familiar refrain hit the air as soon as we mentioned we had a truck camper. "Of course," said the clerk, "you can't take the camper off the truck."

Hello? Maybe our lack of experience with commercial RV parks leaves us in ignorance. Is this the common attitude of RV park owners? Are we--heaven forbid--"camper trash"? Are these excuses of "wind will blow you over" rooted in real experiences that park owners have dealt with, or just that, a flimsy excuse to somehow hide the real issue at hand? We may never know. Maybe some RV park owner lurking here will leave an anonymous comment and clue us in.

Over the years we've cut the camper loose from the truck dozens of times. And yes, we've actually left the camper sitting around in some pretty gusty winds--right on the edge of Washington's Snake River for example. We've got enough smarts not to leave the rig stuck up high on the jacks like some kind of "America's Got Talent" routine. In addition to keeping that center of gravity low, we also bolster the support of the corner jacks with additional supports under the camper "tub" area.

What's your experience?