My wife is a very hard woman to shop for, because she doesn’t want very much in the way of material things. Whenever I ask her what she wants for Christmas, her birthday, our anniversary, or whatever, she always says she has everything she wants.

Once in a while, she’ll let me buy her a bottle of perfume, and I’ve managed to get her a few pairs of earrings over the years, but that’s about it. I guess I should be grateful, she’s not only easy on the eyes, she’s easy on the pocketbook.

I, on the other hand, am easy to shop for. I want everything! I’m like a chimpanzee in a department store. If it lights up, makes noise, goes fast, or tastes good, I want two of each. Why do you think my friend Brenda Speidel calls me Gadget Boy?

I love wandering through the tool section at Lowes and Home Depot, even though I know it’s kind of like going to one of those stripper joints. Most of what I’m seeing I have no idea what to do with, and I’d probably just end up hurting myself if I tried.

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Of course, living in a motorhome (not to mention being of modest means) does put some restrictions on my wants and desires. I really miss my hot tub, from our life before fulltiming, but I just can’t figure out where to put one in a Winnebago.

Actually, there really is very little I want, and nothing I need, that I don’t have. Most of my wants are not things, but rather experiences. I really want to do some kayak fishing, someday I want to catch a fish from an ocean pier, I want to take a cruise, and I want to see Alaska one of these days.

But, if I had to choose one material thing I’d like Santa to bring me, assuming the big guy could figure out a way to slide down the chimney our motorhome doesn’t have, I guess it might be a DVR so I could record some of my favorite television programs. I know a lot of people don’t care all that much for television, but after a lifetime in the small town newspaper business, I’m a news hound and I like to watch the news, if for no other reason than to see who we’re at war with this week. And there are several silly sitcoms, and a drama or two that I enjoy watching. It’s kind of like junk food for the brain.

Of course, it wouldn’t do me any good to get a DVR anyway, according to Dish Network, who told me last week that you can’t watch TV in an RV! 

How about you? What do you want for Christmas?  A new RV? A flat screen TV? A GPS unit? Maybe a new laptop computer?

Or are you like me? Does your wish list include more experiences than things? Tell me about some of them.

Thought For The Day – Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to shop.

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I always enjoy talking to new RVers or wannabes about the fulltime lifestyle, and hopefully, I can help them avoid some of the mistakes we made as greenhorns by sharing our experiences with them. But sometimes I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall, and I want to ask them “Do you want me to tell you what I know, or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?”

A couple of weeks ago, at a fuel island, I had a conversation with the fellow next to us, who was driving a fancy new diesel pusher. He told me that he and his wife have been fulltiming for several months now, and that they are about to throw in the towel because it’s just too expensive. “How can anybody afford to pay $1,000 to $1,500 a month on campgrounds and still put fuel in the tank?” he asked me.

I told him that I don’t know anybody who spends even half that much on campgrounds, and he asked me how we do it. I told him about all of the ways we save money on camping fees, from free campgrounds, to discount programs like Passport America, camping at Elks and Moose lodges, fairgrounds camping, and boondocking.

“My wife would never do any of that,” he said. “We joined Passport America, but we pulled into one campground and she said “No way” and we drove right back out. We have never boondocked, she wouldn’t stand for it. We only stay at four star rated RV parks, because she doesn’t like the looks of the people at other places. It’s costing us a fortune, but what else can we do?”

I felt like telling him that his wife needed a lesson in reality, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. It was obvious that she wanted nothing to do with the RV lifestyle, and that she fully intended to have a miserable time of it until she finally made him miserable enough to give in and go do whatever she wanted to do instead.

This can be a very affordable lifestyle, if one takes the time to learn about the many ways you can keep camping costs low. But, one has to be willing to settle for less than upscale RV “resorts” (and there are a lot of excellent campgrounds that don’t get a four star rating), and flexibility is also a major asset to have. But some people, like this lady, just will not be happy living the gypsy lifestyle, and that’s fine too. It leaves more opportunities for the rest of us.

I also had an interesting conversation with a couple while I was doing some genealogy research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City a while back, but I really had to bite my tongue to keep from bursting their bubble. They noticed my Gypsy Journal t-shirt, struck up a conversation, and told me they had just purchased a new diesel pusher, and would be taking delivery in three days.

I congratulated them, and the husband told me that they looked at a lot of RVs, both new and used, and decided to go with a new motorhome because, while they don’t plan to become fulltime RVers, they will be traveling six to eight months a year. “We just don’t want to mess with repairs and stuff,” he told me. “With a new motorhome, all we’ll have to do is turn the key and go the day we pick it up, and not have to worry about anything being broken.”

I told him that he might want to be prepared to spend some time going back to the dealer once they take delivery, because every new RV that hits the street seems to need a certain amount of time to get the bugs worked out of it. I told him that many experienced RVers seem to feel that once you buy a new rig, it takes at least six months just to get all of the stuff fixed that should have been handled before it left the factory.

“No way,” he told me, “That’s why we bought a new diesel pusher. With the money we’re spending, I guarantee you that it will be ready to roll the day we take delivery.”

What could I do, except nod, wish them well, and also secretly wish I that could be a fly on the wall of that new motorhome about a month or two down the road, to see how their thinking would have changed.

Thought For The Day – A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be.

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We had dinner with our friends Jim and Shar Lewis yesterday, and since they have been bitten by the RVing bug, most of our conversation was about our lifestyle, and specifically what kind of RV they should be looking at, a motorhome or a fifth wheel trailer.

This is a subject that is always good for a spirited debate among RVers. They have never built a “perfect” RV and never will. Each type of unit has its advantages and disadvantages.

While we prefer diesel pusher motorhomes, we have seen some great fifth wheels that we admired. But for us, a truck and trailer combination would not fit our needs or lifestyle. We carry a lot of stuff with us, we do a lot of overnight stops at WalMarts and truck stops, and for us, a motorhome is the best choice. However, as we told Jim and Shar, everybody is different, and when it comes to RVs, there is no “one size fits all.”

I have heard it said that while motorhomes typically give you more cargo space in the bays, fifth wheels give you more living space, because they don’t have a steering wheel and cockpit.

My friend, the late Gaylord  Maxwell, founder of Life on Wheels, once told me that if you are on the go a lot, stopping for a night or two before you move on, a motorhome was the best choice, because he felt it was easier to park, level, and hook up to campground utilities. But, he said, if you stay in one place for a couple of weeks or more at a time, the fiver made more sense.

However, I know many fifth wheel owners who would debate the fact that their rigs take longer to park and hookup. I have never been any good at backing up a trailer, but I have seen many RVers who can slip a fifth wheel into places I would never consider, and make it look like child’s play. As one fellow told me, “it’s a lot easier to get into places when your house bends in the middle.”

Of course, nothing is set in stone. We know former motorhome owners who have switched to fifth wheels, and fifth wheel owners who have gone over to the other side as their needs and lifestyle have changed. Our friends Mike and Pat McFall from PressurePro have spent the last couple of years in a beautiful Teton Reliance XT3 that they pull with a 2001 Volvo semi tractor. As much as they love their rig, they recently decided to sell it and get a motorhome because their traveling style has changed. If you’re looking for a top of the line, well maintained fiver, check out Mike’s For Sale webpage.

We have known a few RVers who seem to switch rigs every year or two, though I don’t know how they can afford it. We started fulltiming eleven years ago in a Pace Arrow Vision gas powered motorhome, and when it literally fell apart around us, we built a bus conversion that we lived and traveled in for over eight years, Last summer we bought a Winnebago Ultimate Advantage diesel pusher. Our current rig has every feature and option we could ever want, and I expect we’ll be in it for many years.  

Okay, I’m curious. What about you? Which do you prefer, a motorhome or a fifth wheel, and why? And do you expect to change rigs anytime soon?

Thought For The Day – If we are what we eat, I’m fast, cheap, and easy .

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Saturday night when we got ready to take our showers, we discovered that we had no hot water. Because we are on 20 amp electric here at the Yuma Fairgrounds, we’ve been running the water heater on propane, so my first thought was that we had run out of propane gas. I went outside and checked the tank, because I learned long ago to never trust the idiot lights on RV control panels. But according to the gauge, we had over half a tank.

That led me to the second possible cause of the problem, which I had suspected all along. I opened the cover to our Atwood water heater compartment, and sure enough, discovered several charred wires.

This had happened last October at Elkhart Campground on a very windy day. Apparently the wind had blown the flame from the water heater upward and it fried some wires, which caused the thermal cut-off to short out. That time, it was an easy fix to replace the thermal cut-off, which came two to a package. (Apparently, they fail on a regular basis.)

Saturday had been a very windy day here in Yuma, and apparently the same thing had happened again. This time around I replaced the bad wires and the cut-off, and rerouted the wires to the top of the water heater compartment, hopefully away from the burner, and secured them in place. That solved the problem, and we now have hot water again! I wonder if this is a flaw with all Winnebago motorhomes with the Atwood water heaters, or just something in our particular coach.

I’m not sure which is scarier, the fact that the water heater can apparently flame up like that, or me actually knowing how to diagnose and repair something!

I have had quite a few e-mails from readers wondering how our encounter with the armed burglar has affected us emotionally now that it’s been about three months. They ask if we are now uncomfortable boondocking in out of the way places, or if we now feel paranoid about the same thing happening again.

To be honest, I think that while the incident has caused us to be more aware of things, I don’t think we have changed our lifestyle at all, except for the fact that I never leave home without a “personal protection device.” I never again want to find myself facing a thug with a gun, empty handed.

While inside our motorhome, I feel totally secure. It’s pretty hard to break into one of these things undetected, and I am a very light sleeper, so I have no doubt that I’d be up and waiting to greet anybody who tried to get in while we were inside the RV. I think we both feel a little bit of apprehension when we are away from the coach and return after dark. It reminds us of what happened.

But you have to keep in mind that we had well over ten years of fulltiming behind us before this incident happened, and we could well go another ten or twenty years before anything happened again, if ever. Then again, it could happen tonight. But we refuse to live our lives in fear of what might happen someday. We prepare for the worst, but expect the best.

Our friends Joe and Vicki Kieva have a brand new book out, Personal Security Tips For RVers, which combines their 45 years of RVing experience with Joe’s law enforcement and security management background, to present a practical and useful look at safeguarding yourself, your home, and your RV while you are on the road. It’s an excellent guide, packed with common sense and real world experience.

The Kieva’s book covers everything from how to respond to a criminal confrontation, whether or not to carry a firearm in your RV, important documents to have in your RV, suggestions for creating an Emergency Notification Card for your wallet, and advice on how to obtain medical care while traveling.

You’ll probably never have a problem like we did, but accidents,mechanical breakdowns, bad weather, and illness can disrupt any RV outing. It’s always better to be prepared ahead of time. Personal Security Tips For RVers is a valuable first step in being prepared. You can order a copy of the paperback book at  http://www.rvknowhow.com/books.html, or download it as an E-book for immediate reading at  http://www.rvknowhow.com/ebooks.html#security

Joe and Vicki will be presenting their excellent seminar on Personal Security at our Western Gypsy Gathering rally next week, and I plan to be sitting in the front row. I’ll save you a seat next to me.

Thought For The Day – The true traveler is without goal. It is the absence of goals which creates the ultimate traveler.

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Every RVer is different. Some of us like motorhomes, and some like trailers. Some of us like to move around from place to place, seldom staying longer than a week in any location, while others like to “put down roots,” and often stay several months at a time in one place. There are those of us who always want to see new places and hate traveling the same routes, or going back to the same RV parks. Others find comfort in the familiar, and have favorite places where they go every winter or summer. Some appreciate upscale RV resorts with every amenity, while there are those of us who prefer the small mom and pop campgrounds.

I say viva la différence! Wouldn’t it be a boring world if we all enjoyed the same things and went to the same places all the time? Not to mention crowded!

Even among fulltiming couples, preferences can vary. I love to be on the go, and if we stay more than a week or two in most places, I start getting hitch itch. Miss Terry, on the other hand, likes to find a nice place to nest once in a while. She enjoys having time to bake, crochet, read, and just relax. So we compromise, which is the secret to success for any snowbird or fulltiming couple. 

In Saturday’s blog, Ten Least Favorite Places, I wrote about some of the places we have visited and didn’t care for. I expected to get comments from readers who agreed with me, as well as from those who didn’t. I wasn’t disappointed.

Several readers agreed that they also don’t like the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and I heard from those who love it.

I was surprised to see that my friend Mike McFall agreed with me in his Mike and Pat’s Travels blog post yesterday, since they have a beautiful lot at Retama Village in Mission, Texas. But Mike said he’s no fan of the Valley, outside of Retama. Having visited Mike and Pat and seeing how nice Retama Village is, I have to agree that it’s the best thing we saw in the Rio Grande Valley.

The great thing about the RV lifestyle is that there is no “one size fits all.” Barring health or financial issues that might put a cramp in our traveling style, most of us are free to do it our way.

If we want to bounce around like pin balls from one corner of the country to the next, we can do it. If we like to find a comfortable place and hunker down for a season, there are plenty of RV parks offering monthly rates. If we enjoy watching the sun set over the ocean, or sunrises over the Great Lakes; if we are desert rats, or find comfort in the high mountains, we can go there. If we are history buffs, we can actually go to the places where our forefathers struggled to build this nation. If we love playing golf, what better way to enjoy our hobby than by following the sun all year long, playing in shirtsleeves from Connecticut to California?  

Don’t you love being a part of our great lifestyle, where one size does not fit all?

Heck, some of us even have alternate personalities. My alter-ego, Bad Nick, was at work yesterday putting together a Bad Nick Blog post titled Charity Begins At Home. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Never confuse a street address for where you actually live.

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