Dreaming of the Road

It has now been 10 years ago that Paul and I sold our house, all our possessions, and took to the road in an RV.  We managed to spend time in every state but Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota.  We spent months in California and Colorado and visited most National Parks and virtually every Presidential Library.  We followed the Oregon Trail, old Route 66, and Lewis and Clarke.  One year we did a literary tour where we visited the hometowns of our favorite authors: Mark Twain’s Hannibal, MO,  Robert Frost’s in Bennington, VT, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson in New England.

We stayed in Maryland for Christmas in 2002 and managed to encounter a snowstorm!

We had many adventures including getting caught in a mine shaft cave-in in Cripple Creek, Colorado. One time I inched my way along a narrow winding mountain road during a blinding snowstorm on our way through Arizona.  Another time, the wheels of our RV became embedded in soft sand in the desert with nobody around for miles and miles. We had no debts and no property or possessions to maintain.  It was a dream come true. We went through two homes on wheels, a Carri-Lite and a Hitchhiker II.  They were both 35 feet long and had slide-out rooms.  Once the slide-outs were open, we enjoyed as much space as a small apartment!

Here we are, moving from the old RV to the new RV

Alas, all things must end.  After 7 years of constant travel, in 2009 we settled down into a house.  Now our huge RV is in storage.  It takes us almost two days to pack it up and get it road-worthy.  Then it takes us two days to winterize it and get it ready for storage again.  Since we’ve been in the house we have taken it out on only 3 trips.  It’s time to downsize into a smaller unit!

To that end we visited America’s Largest RV Show  in Hershey, PA yesterday.  If there is a recession in this country, you would never know it by going to an RV show.  The motorhomes ranged from $100,000 to over $1,000,000.  There were many other types of Rvs priced lower but this is definitely not a pastime for people who are suffering the effects of the last economic downturn.  We waited in line for almost an hour just to get onto the parking lot!  By the time we were ready to leave it was almost impossible to get into any of the RVs to look at them, it was so crowded.

We want to get a small cab-over Class C motorhome.  So now I have my work cut out for me–I must write up my ads for our Hitchhiker II and place them on-line so that we can find a buyer or somebody who is willing to trade a small RV for a big one!  Any takers out there for a 2007 Hitchhiker II?  If you are interested, please visit my RV page.