I received an e-mail yesterday from a fellow who attended several of my classes at Life on Wheels, informing me that he is getting out of the RV lifestyle after two years on the road.

That happens sometimes. This fulltime RVing isn’t for everybody. Some folks try it and find that they miss the family and friends, and usually the grandkids, that they left back in their hometown. Others find a place they really love and decide to settle down there permanently. Sometimes a couple discover that while they do okay in a house or apartment, living in the close confines of a motorhome or fifth wheel trailer is just too much “togetherness.” There are also those who just don’t adapt well to the mobile lifestyle, and once in a while we hear from people who say they just cannot afford the RV lifestyle.

In this gentleman’s case however, his reason was that he is just, in his words, “tired of throwing money at this damned RV to keep it running.” We know what it’s like to have a lemon RV; our first motorhome was a Fleetwood Pace Arrow Vision that just disintegrated going down the highway. After eighteen months on the road, we finally dumped it and bought the MCI bus that we converted and lived in for over eight years.

However, after reading more of his long e-mail, I quickly realized that this fellow is unrealistic in his expectations for any RV, or any other vehicle, for that matter. Here is his explanation of the money he was “throwing” at his RV to “keep it running,” cut and pasted from his e-mail:

We’ve had this ’98 American Dream for two years now, and it had 82,000 miles on it when we bought it. We have put another 17,000 miles on it since we started fulltiming. In that time I have had to have the windshield wipers and arms replaced, for $75, replaced the switch for the automatic step for $49, replaced the water pump for $149, oil change and filter for $199, generator oil change $99, replaced two steer tires $800, and replaced original TV with LCD flat screen $500. And that doesn’t include fuel or campground fees!”

Now, I was never very good in math class, but according to my trusty calculator, the above comes to $1871. That’s not bad for two years of fulltiming in a twelve year old motorhome with almost 100,000 miles on it!

I would assume that the tires were probably the original ones, and if they were, they definitely needed replacing. We just replaced all six of our original tires, with less than 40,000 miles on them. The tread was still excellent, and the sidewalls looked fine, but I considered it an investment in our safety.

I do not see the windshield wipers, step switch, or water pump as extraordinary replacement items. Things do wear out and break down once in a while. As for the oil changes on the motor and generator, those are maintenance items, and  a part of owning any vehicle, whether it be an RV or a passenger car.

I’m not sure if the final item he listed, the TV, was a replacement or an upgrade, so I won’t comment on that. The original TV in the front of our Winnebago motorhome just gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago and we had to replace it. Again, things do break down once in a while.

Anyone expecting to buy an RV and never having to spend any money on its upkeep is just not going to happen. Especially an RV that experiences the wear and tear of fulltiming, instead of just being a carport queen that is only used for an annual vacation and an occasional weekend at the lake. When you factor in that this fellow bought an older RV with a considerable number of miles on it, I would be amazed if he didn’t have to spend some money on it.

I’m curious, how many of you fulltimers or extended time travelers  have an annual budget for maintenance and repairs, or have an idea of what you spend in a year for upkeep. Care to share?

Bad Nick doesn’t have an RV to take care of, so he spent his time yesterday posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Shake And Bake Celebrities. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – My mind works like lightning, one brilliant flash and it’s gone.

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I was listening to one of comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s segments on Blue Collar Radio on Sirius yesterday, and he said comedians don’t have to make up jokes, all they have to do is look around them and write down what they see. I agree completely.  

We have seen so much insanity and nonsense just going about our day that it would make great stand up material. And what we don’t see, our readers share with us.

Take, for example, this photo I received yesterday from Gypsy Journal readers Dennis and Donna Miller. They spotted this while vending at the Iowa State Fair. Now, that’s Redneck Engineering if I ever saw it.

Or how about this one, taken in Michigan? How do people come up with stuff like this? Why do people come up with stuff like this? Wouldn’t you like to be parked next to them at your favorite campground?

Compared to those two examples, this homemade VW camper looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

I think the bus conversion crowd, of which we were a part for many years, has some of the finest (or worst) examples of ingenuity I have ever seen. While there are many, many well planned and well built bus conversions out there, we have seen some that left us scratching our heads and saying “huh?”

One such rig that comes to mind was a fellow with an MCI 8 like ours that we ran into at Elkhart Campground. He couldn’t wait to show me his water tank system. Instead of installing his fresh water tank in his rear bay, like 99.9% of bus converters do, he had mounted a group of large diameter PVC pipes, capped on each end, on the roof of his bus. He had them plumbed together and a green garden hose going down the side of his bus and into a hole he had drilled in the side.

He explained that this way, he didn’t have to buy a fresh water tank, he had more bay space available, and it was gravity fed, so he didn’t have to buy a water pump. And because he had painted the tubes black, they absorbed the sun’s heat, and he didn’t need a water heater! Sure, he had to crawl up a ladder with a hose to fill his “tanks,” and sure he was a little top heavy, but think of the money he saved!

We have also gotten some laughs at the way people handle walking their dogs in RV parks. In Crystal River, Florida, we saw a gentleman who had trained his dog not to go potty until he put a paper towel under its rear end. Once he did, the dog squatted, did its business, and the man picked up the towel by the corners and deposited it in the trash.

Another fellow carried a wooden pole with a small shovel looking device on it, and his dog was trained to deposit only onto the shovel blade, making cleanup quick and easy. Well, except for that crappy shovel he had to stick in his RV’s bay.

What dog obedience school did these folks take their pets to? It’s only been in the last year or so that Miss Terry taught me to go inside when nature calls, instead of heading for the nearest tree. I’m glad she did, because we were in the desert at the time, and the nearest tree was 150 miles away!

Thought For The Day – If the shoe fits……buy it in every color.

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No matter how long you’ve been a fulltime RVer, you can still forget the simple things. Or at least I can. Tuesday night Miss Terry was washing some dishes and noticed that our water pump was making a low moaning noise. Hmmm…. I like to think that I’m the only reason moaning noises are coming out of our bus. I decided I’d better check things out.

I grabbed a flashlight, went outside and opened our water bay, and sure enough, our freshwater tank was almost empty. It was late in the evening, so we decided that we’d skip our baths that night and wait until the next morning to refill the tank.

So yesterday morning I got out my 50 foot water hose and stretched it out toward the nearest water bib here at Show Low Lake Campground. Way too short. No problem, I got out my backup 25 foot hose. I was still short, by about five feet. I started to get out my backup to my backup 25 foot hose, and discovered that it was missing. Then I remembered lending it to someone at our Gypsy Gathering rally in Casa Grande, but apparently I never got it back.

So it was off to Wally World for a new hose, I needed one anyway to replace the one I lost, and you can never have too much water hose, right? Back at the campground, I finally could fill our holding tank, and it was a good thing I did! If Miss Terry doesn’t have her morning coffee, she gets a bit testy. Throw in the fact that if I don’t get my shower, I get a bit ripe, and it’s not a recipe for romance.

In case you are wondering how we could run out of water, I have a good excuse. Nick happens. It explains a lot that goes wrong in my world.

We don’t have monitors on our fresh or waste water tanks. They never work anyway, so when we built our bus conversion, we didn’t mess with them. I have enough aggravation in my life already, I don’t need the hassle of tank monitors to add to my stress level. We know about how long we can go on a tank full of water before it’s time to refill, and I can open the bay and look at the tank if I need to be sure. This time around we were just so busy that it got away from us.

In case you’re new to RVing and don’t know it yet, holding tank monitors never work. Especially the ones in your waste tanks. I have seen newbies fret themselves into a tizzy over the fact that they just left the dump station, and their monitors still show the tank is full, or half full, or whatever. If you live this lifestyle long enough, you learn to ignore the monitors. Otherwise it will drive you to drink.

Over time (and not much time at all), gunk builds up on the contacts inside of the tank and give false readings. I’ve heard of a hundred ways to clean the contacts inside a holding tank, from pouring ice cubes down the toilet and driving around to knock the crud off, to filling the tank with water and baking soda, or bleach, not to mention all of the commercial chemicals you can waste your money on. Trust me; none of them work long term.

If you spend much time in an RV, you’ll get to know about how long you can go before you need to dump, depending on the size of your tank and how many people are in the RV. Of course, if you drink a gallon of that stuff my doctor made me drink before my colonoscopy, all bets are off. Either get a full hookup site, or park at the dump station, because you’re going to need it!

Experienced RVers can usually tell when the black tank is getting full based on the way it sounds when they flush. Or you can just follow Uncle Nicky’s RV Potty Rule, which I’ve shared with hundreds of Life on Wheels students, but am now going to tell you too, “If you flush the toilet and your butt gets wet, it’s time to dump!” Trust me, it’s much more reliable than any darned holding tank sensor on the market!

Thought For The Day – I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.

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