How do you define fulltime RVing?

I call it FREEDOM.

No lifestyle can give you the freedom that we who live with wheels under our houses enjoy. Freedom to go wherever we choose to. Freedom to stay as long as we want to. Freedom to decide we want to see what’s over the next hill, and head there on a moment’s notice.

We have literally pulled up at an intersection and done a mental flip of the coin to decide which way to turn, north or south, east or west. This is a concept that those who have never experienced such freedom just cannot understand. We have the entire continent as our back yard. If we want to spend some time living on the seashore, we can go there and stay as long as we like. If we want to experience the Rocky Mountains, all we have to do is point the nose of our RV in their direction and go.

No long term planning is required. We don’t have to close up a house, call to have the newspaper delivery stopped, arrange for someone to pick up the mail and mow the lawn in our absence. All we do in unplug an electrical cord, disconnect a water hose, stow the satellite dish, hook up our tow vehicle and away we go! And we don’t have to rush back after a few days. We can stay until we get bored and want to head off to our next adventure.

We have been to places and done things that many people can only dream of. We have explored the back roads of New England, walked the Freedom Trail in Boston, kayaked the blue-green waters of the Florida Keys, stood in solemn reverence at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, tapped our toes to jazz in the French Quarter of New Orleans, and dipped those same toes into the Pacific Ocean on a beach in Oregon. We have had dolphins swim alongside us in the Gulf of Mexico, listened to coyotes howling in the Arizona desert, and elk bugling in northern California. We have explored historic battlefields, Presidents’ homes, and National Monuments. We have traveled the Oregon Trail, the Natchez Trace, the Lincoln Highway, and Route 66, all at a leisurely pace that allowed us to take our time and enjoy the trip.         

Fulltiming also gives us the freedom to spend time with friends and relatives scattered all across the country. We have looked up long lost friends, renewed acquaintances with cousins we had not seen in years, and have enjoyed getting to know them all over again.

At the same time, our lifestyle allows us to be there for our family when we are needed. A few years ago we were in Texas when we got the news that Terry’s father needed surgery. Within a couple of hours we were on the road to Arizona to be at his side, and were able to stay there until the crisis had passed. When my daughter had her second baby, we had the freedom to return to our old hometown and be a part of the experience.

And the greatest thing is that whenever the urge strikes us, we can do it all over again! Or we can take an unknown road over the horizon to a brand new adventure. What price tag can you put on this freedom? All I know is that I would not give it up for a million dollars.

Thought For The Day - Opportunities multiply as they are seized. They die when neglected.

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I’ve talked about solar power before in the blog, so I apologize to those who have already read this information. But this time of year it is a subject that comes up in my e-mail often as RVers spend time boondocking in the Southwest. So here we go again – is a solar system a good investment for RVers?

In my opinion, solar is only a very expensive supplement to a generator. And if you are not going to do extensive boondocking, it is a waste of money. Even if you do a lot of boondocking, solar is still only a marginal investment.

When we designed our bus conversion, we built it for extended dry camping. We do a lot of boondocking compared to many RVers. Everything from overnighting in a WallyWorld parking lot or rest area, to weeks, even months, spent living off the grid. Our longest straight boondocking stint was over seven months, and we have done another five month stay without being hooked up anywhere, as well as many of two to three weeks at a time.

We know hardcore boondockers who go to bed as soon as it gets dark and wake up when the sun rises, to take advantage of every moment they can without having to use their lights, so they can extend their time between battery charging. Some actually live like that fulltime and never use a generator. To each his own, but it’s not for us. We want to enjoy our time boondocking, not change our lifestyle to squeak five more amp hours out of our battery bank before we need to recharge.    

We use a lot of power. We live the same way dry camping as we do plugged into a campground’s umbilical cord. Terry makes coffee in the morning, our internet system is up and running, I work for hours on my desktop computer, and we watch television for two or three hours in the evening.

Before we had solar, we ran our generator three to four hours a day. When we added three 100 watt AM Solar panels, we dropped to about 1½ hours a day, cutting our generator time in half. Since then we added two more 120 watt panels. Now we run our generator less than an hour a day. This is based on days with maximum sunshine. A cloudy day may give us very little solar input, requiring more generator use. And yes, we do get cloudy days in the desert.

During peak times, with a clear blue sky and with the sun directly overhead, we have seen over 30 amps going into our battery bank. But that does not happen 24 hours a day. It doesn’t even happen eight hours a day.

Obviously our solar panels don’t do anything overnight. But as the sun rises and begins to hit the panels at an angle, our meters will show a fraction of an amp coming in. As the sun rises higher and more sunlight hints the surface of the panels, it will rise to an amp or two. This increases over a period of a few hours until we reach maximum input. Then, as the sun begins to sink lower in the sky, the amps we are taking in start to drop off, until the sun is low on the horizon and we are down to almost no input.

Our panels are mounted flat on our roof. We could get a few more amps out of our panels if we had them on mounts that we could raise, but to be honest, I’m too lazy to mess with crawling up on the roof to elevate the panels, and I’m too cheap to buy an automatic system to raise them.

We have five solar panels, two state of the art solar charge controllers, a top of the line Magnum Energy inverter, and three of the biggest absorbed glass matt (AGM) batteries they make for RV use. In total we have between $8,000 and $10,000 worth of solar setup, inverter, and batteries, not counting installation. Even when gas was over $3 a gallon, we could buy a lifetime of generator fuel for that much money, and still have the bucks left over to replace our generator if it ever wore out.

So if you want solar and can afford it as a supplement, go for it. But just understand that solar power is not “free.” In fact, it can be darned expensive!

Thought For The Day - Whenever you see a successful business, it is because someone once made a courageous decision.

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I have to make a correction to yesterday’s list of vendors for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally. I reported that Donna Tuffenkjian would be representing Arbonne skin care products. Actually Donna’s last name is Scaturro, and most of the RVing community know her by her nickname of Cookie. I apologize for the confusion.

Okay, the question of the day is, who makes the rules? I never get invited to the meetings when whatever secret society it is that determines such things get together, but apparently there is a set of rules some of us never got the memo about.

I bring this up, because a lady wrote to ask me what makes a fulltime RVer. She is a traveling nurse, who spends an average of four to six months in a given location on a work assignment, then usually takes a few weeks off before moving on to her next assignment. She has lived in her Class A motorhome for over five years and has worked in hospitals from Oregon to Montana to Alabama to New Mexico,

Apparently she was at a social hour at the RV park where she is staying, and mentioned that she is a fulltimer and explained her lifestyle. Immediately two different people informed her that she is not a fulltime RVer, because she remains stationary for long periods of a time.

Who makes these rules? What defines a fulltimer? To me, if you live in an RV all of the time, and that RV moves from place to place occasionally, you are a fulltime RVer. At least that’s my definition. But again, I don’t get invited to the meetings that determine such things.          

While we’re at it, I have had people tell me that the correct spelling is full time or full-time RVer, not the compound word fulltime that I use. Likewise, I write motorhome, and it should be two words, motor home. I’ve been told that neither fulltime nor motorhome is in the dictionary. Hey, they are in mine, I just wrote them in myself! I’ve seen both words written both ways in RV publications and on the internet.  Besides, it’s my newspaper and my blog, I’ll blend whatever words I want, thank you very much. I have to have some perks in life – sometimes wandering around the country at will, living with a beautiful, intelligent woman, and getting paid to do the things most people do on vacation just are not enough.

Another bone of contention I have heard around campfires and happy hours are the maps many RVers put on their rigs to show which states they have visited. Who knew there were map police?

One author wrote in a book about her RV life that when they started out, she and her husband filled in states on the map as they drove through them. But then at a happy hour somewhere, someone mentioned that they were doing it all wrong. Apparently you should only put a state on your map if you spend the night there. So her husband, being an obedient little RVer, scraped off the map and bought a new one, upon which he dutifully filled in only the states they had actually spent a night in.

She said that things were going along just fine until some prankster in another RV park explained the “nookie rule,” which states that you can’t fill in a state on your map until you make love there. She said her husband was back outside scraping off states and saying “Honey, we need to go back to Oklahoma!”

Thought For The Day - “Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and just give her a house.”– Lewis Grizzard

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I have traveled all over the world and seen some marvelous sights in my life, but I don’t think anything compares to a sunset in the Arizona desert. Each one is a masterpiece. I happened to look out the window yesterday evening as the sun was setting here at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande and saw this beautiful sunset. I had to grab a camera and get a quick shot.

We are getting down to the wire on our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, and new registrations are coming in every day. I don’t think this year’s rally will be quite as big as last year, but we’ll still have a good turnout.

Several new vendors have registered recently, including Henderson’s Lineup, who specializes in RV suspension systems; M&B Enterprises, which sells diesel engine filters and other diesel performance equipment; Reggie Collins, representing SMI towed vehicle braking systems; Lois and Mort Jensen, selling RV vacuum systems; Donna Tuffenkjian, representing Arbonne skin care products; and Tim and Crystal Ryerson, with inflatable boats and RV interior shades, to name just a few.

Many of our regular vendors will also be here, including Too Crazy Ladies selling name badges; Jaimie Hall-Bruzenak with the RV Author’s Co-op; Phil Botnick doing RV repairs; Mike and Pat McFall with Pressure Pro tire monitoring systems; and Jack Ingle from AON RV Insurance. Those are just a few of the vendors who will be offering some great RV products at the rally.

Yesterday Terry and I ran up to Sam’s Club in Tempe to stock up on rally supplies, including coffee, creamer, sugar and Splenda sweetener, cups, and all of the other things needed for the morning coffee and donuts. We also placed an order with the Casa Grande WalMart bakery for all of the donuts we’ll need every morning.

Just as we were getting back to the fairgrounds and discussing our options for dinner, my buddy Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety called to say he was headed to the fairgrounds. I asked Mac if he was buying dinner, and he said yes, so that settled that matter.

Mac is the premier RV fire safety expert in the country, and he will be teaching two of his fire safety classes at the rally. Folks, if you have never been to one of Mac’s classes, you need to make it a priority. And even if you have been to one, it’s never too early for a refresher. The classes are hands-on, and you will learn how to save your rig, and your life, in the event of a fire. We have had two fires in our bus conversion, and we were fortunate both times in that Terry reacted quickly based upon the training she received from Mac, and had them out in seconds.

Thought For The Day - Heroes are the people who do what has to be done, when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

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In yesterday’s blog, a reader named Chris asked if we had it to do over, would we still buy a bus. In hindsight, yes, we would. I also got an e-mail from a fellow asking how much it cost to keep a bus running. I’ll try to give you an overview.

Our bus has been our home for over eight years and has served us well. She is 33 years old, and with over a million highway miles (yes a million) under her belt, she is old and tired, and requires some babying and coaxing now and then. We have to work within her limitations, but as long as we understand what those limitations are and exercise a little patience now and then, she’s probably good for more miles than we’ll ever be able to travel.

Bus conversions have many advantages. Since we built our conversion ourselves, we were able to customize it for our own lifestyle, rather than settling for a cookie cutter design someone at an RV factory (who probably never spent a night in a motorhome) decided would work. We also accomplished it for a whole lot less than we could have paid for anything on an RV dealer’s lot. You can see the complete story of how we built our home on wheels at this bus conversion link.

Among the advantages a bus offers are tremendous payload capacity. If we can find someplace to stuff it in or tie it on, we can carry it without worrying about weight. While many RVers have to travel with very little fresh water onboard due to weight limitations, we keep our 110 gallon tank full, so we can stop wherever and whenever we want to, and not worry about having hookups.

Likewise, we are not limited in our choice of tow vehicle. We tow a ¾ ton extended length Ford cargo van, usually loaded with hundreds of pounds of newspapers, kayaks, bicycles, and until recently a full size 1100cc motorcycle.

Buses are also some of the safest passenger vehicles on the road. Built to Department of Transportation standards, our bus has a series of metal frame members that cross the roof about every 28 inches, creating a super strong roll bar. Unlike a fiberglass RV, our body is steel and will not disintegrate in a crash.

However, buses also come with certain limitations. Most bus conversions (with the exception of professionally built units) do not have slide-outs. Many older models, including ours, are only eight feet wide. The extra six inches in width that most modern RVs have makes a surprising difference in living space.

Our old 8V71 Detroit Diesel engine is underpowered, and tends to overheat when we are climbing, in spite of all of the upgrades we have done. And they have never made a Detroit Diesel yet that doesn’t leak oil. You can tighten nuts and bolts every day of the week, steam clean it until it resembles a hospital operating room, and the next morning you’ll see oil dripping. There is a saying among bus nuts that if your Detroit Diesel stops leaking oil, put some more in, because it’s empty. Only I would buy a white van to tow behind a leaky old bus, but the good news is, it will never rust!

Overall, if you get a good bus to start with, it can be fairly inexpensive to maintain. We average about 15,000 to 20,000 miles a year. Every year we spend about $500 on an oil and filter change, replacing the two fuel filters, a lube job, etc. In normal use, you can expect about that.

But every year we have done a major project or upgrade. One year it was new brakes and six new tires, at about $5,000. The next year it was a complete suspension upgrade (new air bags, radius rods, new bushings, etc) for about $7500. Last year we replaced the steering box for about $3,000 and put on two new front tires for $1400. This year we had the rack run (like a tune-up for a diesel engine), replaced the starter, rebuilt the governor, added an engine block heater, repaired our Jake brake, installed a sight glass to make it easier to check our radiator fluid level, replaced our old style canister oil filter with a new style screw-on adapter with filter, replaced our power steering reservoir, and replaced several hoses. That was about $2,000.

But one thing to keep in mind is that on a bus, most of these repairs and upgrades are a one time thing. Once you do them, you never have to do them again, because in RV use, they usually will never wear out again.

Realistically, I would think that if you budget about $2,500 to $3,000 a year for upkeep on a bus, you’d be okay. Keeping in mind that a major failure (engine or transmission) could blow that right out of the water.

Thought For The Day - Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.

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