Updated 5/16/11
The Curtis Family – Christmas, 2007
Taking Your Home With You
by Roy Curtis
Most folks write about their experiences after retirement, and that is great. Oh, yes, Sherry and I did the motor home bit. We gladly sold the house in Fair Oaks (near Folsom) and hit the road. We bought a new coach, big enough to live in, and put a new car on behind that we could tow, and over the next 6+ years, we covered about 100,000 miles, and really enjoyed ourselves. The only advice the dealer gave us was to “keep it between the lines with the dirty side down”. I guess the advice was fairly good. The only problem in the 100,000 miles with two motor homes was a rock came through the windshield once. No injuries to either of us, except the pride thing. That smarted a bit.
We treated the motor home with a lot of respect, not only because of the big investment, but it was our home, our ONLY home. When you go in, and close the blinds, you are home – quite literally. Never once were we on a gravel road or doing something that might damage it in any way. We did have a couple of experiences that became rather worrisome, but overall, no problems. One of the times, we were on one of the less traveled 2-lane roads, and while I will never admit to going over 55, we were moving right along. We saw a rail road crossing coming up, but thought nothing of it. As we went over, I saw that there was a bad drop
on the other side, and we were going to get a big bump. We did, and when the front wheels of the coach came completely off of the ground, I had visions of the car coming through the back of the coach and resting (comfortably, I might add) on our queen bed, I remember wondering how I would get that car out of my bed. Fortunately, it didn’t come in, just followed on the tow bar like it was supposed to. We stopped and really looked things over, but no damage.
We made 4 trips across the United States, and enjoyed every mile. We normally didn’t start driving until around 9 in the morning, and experience taught us that without reservations, we should start looking for an RV park sometime before 4 in the afternoon. We saw a lot of the various places by finding a place to park the RV, taking the car and driving where we wanted to go. We never got more than about 200 miles away from the RV with the car, but when we got back, we just hooked up and drove the next day down the road – of course, looking for another place to park.
Once, (somewhere) we pulled out of the park and got about 15 miles down the road, we saw an ad that said “Fishing, no license required”, and it was in an RV park. I doubt we drove over 20 miles that day. My wife caught one about 6 inches long, and I got a little “wanta-be”.
We also used the motor home a lot while we had sickness in the family. My wife’s mother was in Sacramento, California, and her brother was a helicopter pilot in Orange County. He was sick with cancer, while her mother’s health was failing from age. We made multiple trips between the two places, and had it not been for the motor home, we could not have afforded it. That was one of the big pluses of living in the RV full-time; Just take your home with you.
We have since quit driving, and live in South Eastern Arizona where we bought another house and enjoy the country life. It is different though– when we go grocery shopping, I plan 125 miles to Tucson (round trip). We have talked about selling out down here and going back on the road, but we live 5 miles from our 4 youngest grandchildren, so it is just talk and no more. I will never willingly live in or near a big city again.