TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Look Before You Leap

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 7, 2009

Remember the slogan, "See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet?" Well, my husband Ron and I decided to see the U.S.A., not in a Chevrolet, but in our recreational vehicle. I know it doesn't rhyme and doesn't sound quite right, but then our experiences with our RV was never quite right.

I came up with the idea to write this column when a Sun City Center friend told me her new husband had always wanted to camp using a recreational vehicle; so at the age of 79 he bought one. I said to myself, "Good luck; you'll need it." because my experience as a first-time senior RV'er was . . . let's just say . . . action packed.
Hubby and I had put a down payment on a winter home in Naples in 1996. After becoming more familiar with the area, we decided we might be able to afford a condo there, but we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything in Naples, as it's a very wealthy community. You would think we would have figured that out first before buying, but we hadn't. All was well, though, as we got our down payment back. We decided to look for a more affordable way to see the U.S.A. Our first mistake!

Ron and I were eager to get our retirement adventures started, so we talked a lot about what we wanted to do. Travel was always at the top of the list. One day during lunch, I opened the discussion again with, "Ron, have you ever thought of traveling around in an RV?" By three in the afternoon that day, we were the proud owners of a barely used Bounder motor home. Did we shop around? No. Did we have any idea what an RV cost? No. Did we have any idea what features we wanted? No. Several more mistakes.

With great enthusiasm we attended a two-hour orientation about our new fun-mobile. The lecture was over my head. I assumed Ron was grasping it all, but instead he was daydreaming of our first trip and figured he would be able to handle any problem with his native intelligence. That's how we ended up immediately taking off on a three-week trip, having no idea what we were doing.

At first, Ron drove the 36-foot Bounder with car in tow, just the way he drove his car - 70 miles an hour and changing lanes constantly. I held my breath a lot. Finally, I said that I wasn't having fun because I was so nervous over his driving. We agreed he would drive 60 mph and let the other cars pass him. That worked well, and I finally relaxed.

I could relate many fiascos we had, but instead I'll just describe a couple. Early on I decided to learn more about our new vehicle, so I started reading the owner's manual. Most of it was still a mystery. One confusing aspect was all the sources of power - some things were run by battery, some by plug-in electrical power, some by propane, and then there was the fuel in the gas tank. I had a difficult time keeping track of what was energizing what. All the food in the fridge got hot once when I failed to switch from electrical power to battery. Or was it propane?

Before we got too far into our trip, we were on a two-lane road on the outskirts of a small town. As we approached an old railroad underpass, I noticed the sign said tunnel height was ten and one-half feet. Remembering reading our dimensions, I said to Ron that we were going to get stuck as our RV was eleven feet, including the air conditioner on top. He pooh-poohed me. I screamed so loud that he slammed on the brakes just as we were entering the underpass. We narrowly missed getting stuck. However, we were still in a big mess. One can't back up a motor home when towing a car. For a two-lane road, there was a lot of traffic. We found this out when many drivers starting blowing their horns at us.

Soon several carloads of county cops arrived. We all stood around trying to figure out what to do. It was pretty obvious that local law-enforcement had never faced this problem before. I was proud of myself, that after about a half-hour of horn-blowing and much discussion, it dawned on me, a novice, that we should remove the trailer and then we would be able to backup the Bounder. As with our discussions, this didn't happen at warp speed, but finally we were able to get on the road, without being banned from ever entering Hendricks County again.

Then there was the time, with my Pekingese in my arms, I opened the RV door and stepped out. My dog was as shocked as I was when we picked ourselves up off the ground after falling three feet. The steps had never retracted before; however, that time, I must have turned off the wrong switch the night before, because the stairs were certainly nowhere to be found that morning.

Even though we had many scary and exciting moments, including a "wheel-off-the-edge-of-the-road" U-turn in the middle of busy Gatlinburg, we had an incredibly fun year of traveling, sightseeing, and meeting other campers. We camped in some awesomely beautiful spots. One memorable site was on the banks of Lake Barclay in Kentucky.

It's said that the two best days of RV'ing are the day you buy the unit and the day you sell it. Boy, is that true! Our adventure was ended by Ron's stroke, and we needed to give up the Bounder. As I couldn't drive it, I had to sell it while it was parked on an ugly storage lot. Talk about romancing the stone! I had to use my best marketing skills, as the Bounder had no slide-out rooms, which was the newest rage in RVs at the time. Believe it or not, we sold the unit for the exact amount we paid for it the preceding year. Divine intervention helped I'm sure. And definitely a lot of dumb luck.

Rosie Clifton is the author of "Kissing Lots of Frogs, a Long Journey to Love." She may be reached through her Web site at rosieclifton.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT