RV FAQs

Do you drive the motorhome?

No, I don't. It's forty feet long and we tow an SUV behind, making a total of over sixty feet. That does not bother me much, but the thing being almost the whole width of a lane, does. People ask what we would do in an emergency. We'd call for help, just as if we were in a house, or in trouble in the car on the road. Especially if we are far from home, no way am I going to try to drive the motorhome, under stress, to a hospital. I wouldn't know where the nearest hospital was! A misconception is that we are on the road a lot. More often, we are parked somewhere, jacks down, hooked up to electricity, sewer and water. In an emergency, we'd take the SUV. If we didn't know where the hospital was, though, we'd call for help even then.

How do you get your mail?

We use a re-mail center. All our mail goes there, and at our request, junk mail is thrown out. When we know we are going to be someplace for awhile, we call the center and give them the address of where we are. They then package it up and send it to us. We can also ask them to do that weekly if we know we will be somewhere for quite awhile. It doesn't cost very much, surprisingly, especially since they throw away all the junk. When I want to order something bulky (like books), I have them sent to my daughter's place. She holds them until we show up.

How do you pay your bills and do other banking?

We have all income automatically deposited. We use a debit/credit card which takes the money directly out of the checking account when we use it, and we get a statement every month. The card is also used to withdraw cash from any ATM. We have recurring bills paid automatically, and we write checks for the others that come in sporadically such as insurance or taxes. It's much, much easier than I bet it was before ATMs, debit cards, and automatic withdrawals and deposits.

How many miles do you travel each year?

The first was wild--we put almost 20,000 miles on it, traveling all over. The next year we headed out from Texas (our home base) to the west coast, and we only put about 5,000 miles on it. Same for the next year going to the east coast. I think our average, unless there something unusual occurs, will be about 5,000 or so miles a year. And we always go back to Texas in November and December, sometimes earlier, and sometimes staying through January in the DFW area. Then we travel and sightsee along the way to the northern part of the country, then come back to Texas.

Back in Texas, we see our "old" dentist, eye doctor, and other doctors for those things that need checking every year. We visit with our "kids," Christmas shop, and enjoy the holidays with family. Then we head south for the rest of the cold months, then follow the sun north.

An impression some folks have is that we travel every day. That is rare. We might travel two or three days in a row, but then we stop somewhere. We might stay a week, two weeks, a month or six weeks, rarely longer, in one place. But we have talked about making longer stays after we have seen the whole country.

We make reservations wherever we go because we have such a big rig and are towing a car. We can't back up the rig more than a few feet with the SUV in tow! Would have to unhitch the car. So, we want to be sure there is a place for us when we are ready to stop. We have a cell phone and call on it for reservations. We can book months in advance, if we want to.

How do you do your email?

Many campgrounds have a phone line for use by campers to hook up to the Internet and get mail. We have a national email service which has local numbers for most areas in the country. Unfortunately, we can rarely "surf the net" there because other campers want to use it as well. If the campground doesn't have a phone line, we use our cell phone with a PIMCA modem and a special connecting line to hook up. This is quite slow, so again, all we can do is email. If we are near friends or relatives, we can ask to use their phone lines, but we do this rarely. And once in a great while, the campground actually has a system where you can hook a phone line right into the motorhome and use it 24/7. That is what happened when I decided to build this website. I probably couldn't have done it otherwise.

Where is your favorite place?

We have talked about this, and we don't have one. There are so many wonderful places, and they are all different and have something unique to offer. We do like to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter, so we follow the sun as much as possible. We both love the ocean, so we always enjoy being near it and smelling that salt air. But the Painted Desert stands out in my memory as one of the most unexpected incredible places we have been (haven't been to the Grand Canyon yet, but it's on our list). Also the redwoods were fantastic.

We are at a campground in Myrtle Beach right now that is at the top of our list as one of the best because it has wonderful, spacious sites with a concrete patio, gravel, level spots for the rig, and, AND a private wooden deck overlooking a lake! Four egrets nest in the tree next to us every night. There are three or four osprey who fly around and dive for fish. Turtles and ducks. Other birds as well. And it has a phone line, plus all the other hooks-up we like to have. Plus, the ocean is only blocks away.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. I cannot possibly list everywhere we've been and everything we've seen. We can go from wilderness to a wonderful show in the city. We can laze around or run around. We can go where we know lots of folks and do a lot of visiting. Or we can go where we know no one and chill out. There is no other way to do all of this. No packing and unpacking. Sleep in your own bed every night. Kitchen and bathroom privileges where you know where everything is.

This is the ultimate freedom lifestyle. What do you give up? Large spaces to take care of. Stuff to clean. Responsibilities for things.