All fulltime RVers have experienced it. We will be talking to somebody about our life on the road, and invariably they will ask us where our favorite place in the country is. We always reply that just as we could not choose which one of our children is our favorite, it would be just as impossible to choose just one favorite location. But, we sure can tell you some our least favorite places!

While this list reflects just our impression, and we know RVers that love some of the same places we dislike, here are our Top (or actually Bottom) Ten, in no particular order.

1. The Rio Grande Valley in Texas – Most RVers just refer to it as “The Valley,” a stretch of land that begins down in southwest Texas at Brownsville, and stretches north past Mission. This is a popular snowbird roost, where you can find RV parks in every price range, and with every kind (or lack of) amenity. A lot of people love it, but to us it was just crowded, lacking in scenic beauty, and unappealing in every way. What grass there is was full of thorns that stab your feet, and the general RVer population is so old that people joke that “every time you hear an ambulance siren, another RV site just became available.”  

2. West Texas – Just because you drove north out of the Rio Grande Valley doesn’t mean you’ve entered the land of milk and honey. West Texas is endless miles of boring scenery, road kill, and not much else.

3. Chicago, Illinois – We’ll drive 75 miles out of our way to avoid Interstates 80 and 90 through Chicago, and have, many times. The traffic is always hectic, and it has some of the most aggressive drivers in the world.

4. Utah – How can I dislike an entire state? Well, easy… it is Utah, after all! Yes, there are some beautiful places, such as Zion National Park, but overall, my impression of the Beehive State is pretty negative. I remember a trip to Saint George years ago, when Miss Terry cut her arm on a broken rack in a supermarket. When she went up to the Customer Service counter to get something to contain the bleeding, the manager and his staff were more worried about who was going to pay for the paper towels than they were about the woman bleeding all over their store. Things like that leave a permanent bad taste in my mouth.

5. Southern California – With the possible exception of the coastline at La Jolla, I’d have no problem if we gave the rest of California, south of Pismo Beach, back to Mexico. It truly is the land of quakes and flakes.

6. Montgomery, Alabama – When we visited Montgomery a few years ago to gather some stories for the Gypsy Journal, we were amazed at how consistently rude so many people were. At the Rosa Parks Museum and Dr. Martin Luther King’s house, now a memorial to the Civil Rights movement, the people on duty absolutely refused to allow us to even take the standard tour of their facilities once we told them that we were there to do a feature story for our publication. We managed to get a few stories in Montgomery, but we would have loved to hang around longer and cover all that the city has to offer. But, we kept hitting brick walls at too many of the places we wanted to write about.

7. El Paso, Texas – I lived in El Paso for a short time as a kid, and I didn’t like it then. Time has done nothing to change my mind. Traffic is always terrible, the city has no aesthetic charm, and I would not be comfortable staying anywherin the city overnight. However, if you like truck stops, fast food restaurants, strip clubs, and rundown strip malls, your opinion may be different than mine.

8. Billings, Montana – Even before a local campground owner convinced the city to ban overnight RV parking (a move that was quickly rescinded when RVers from across the nation let the city fathers know that we would all boycott their town), I have not liked Billings. We have stopped there several times, and received anywhere from poor to rude service in restaurants, shops, and even motels when we were traveling without our motorhome.

9. Houston, Texas – This is another big city with nothing to offer except heavy traffic and rude drivers. It’s always a pleasure to be driving away from Houston, instead of toward it, and it’s even better when we can avoid the city all together.     

10. Lewiston, Idaho – While the surrounding area is beautiful, with some of the most impressive scenery in the West, we found Lewiston to be a dumpy little town, with the nauseating smell of the local paper mill permeating the air.

Okay, that’s my list of my 10 Least Favorite Places. What about you? What are some of the places you have visited and are in no hurry to get back to, and why?

While I was working on this list, which I admit some may find to be a bit negative, Bad Nick was on a roll, putting together a fun little Bad Nick Blog post titled I Need Therapy. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Worrying works! 90 percent of the things I worry about never happen.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I got an e-mail yesterday from a couple who bought a new motorhome last year and have been unhappy with it ever since. They said that both the dealer from whom they bought the coach and the manufacturer have both refused to address their complaints. This is not uncommon, and it is part of the reason why I have said for years that the worst part of the RV lifestyle is the poor quality of so many RVs on the market, and the total lack of support from so many dealers and manufacturers after the sale.

However, there is a flip side to this coin, and in this case, after reading the detailed e-mail the couple sent me, my first response was “huh?” Their first complaint is that the motorhome only has a 75 gallon fresh water tank and a 50 gallon black tank. They do not feel that this is adequate for their needs and they want the manufacturer to put in larger tanks.

Huh? Didn’t they read the specs on the rig before they bought it? That’s about average for most motorhomes, and about what we have in our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage. We get along just fine. Assuming that there is even room to do so, why in the world would they expect the manufacturer to change out their standard tanks for larger custom tanks, and absorb the cost?

Another complaint is that the rooftop air conditioners did not keep the motorhome sufficiently cool during a trip through Arizona, Nevada, and southern California last summer. The fact is that RVs are not terribly energy efficient, they have poor insulation, and on a very hot day, their air conditioners will typically only lower the ambient temperature about 20 degrees. So on a 100 degree day, which is not at all uncommon in the Southwest during the summertime, the best they can expect is about 80 degrees inside the RV.

Their third complaint is that the motorhome is only rated to tow 5,000 pounds and they want to tow their full size pickup behind them, with a full size Honda Goldwing motorcycle in the bed. The combination far exceeds their towing capacity. Their e-mail says that they were aware of the towing capacity when they bought the motorhome but “any motorhome sold today should be able to pull at least as much as we want to.”

I wrote back and told this couple that they really needed to be realistic. I think they are expecting way too much, and if I were running the dealership that sold them the RV, or the company that built it, I would not be able to help them either. I think they bought the wrong coach to start with, based on what they want to tow, and I wonder how much experience they have with RVs and how much research they did before they bought it.

They reminded me of two other unhappy RV owners I have come across in the past; one was a guy whose cats clawed up his sofa, and he wanted the factory to give him new one under warranty; and the other was a fellow who made several modifications to his rig himself, and butchered the job, then wanted the manufacturer to make it right under warranty.

I think one of the good things that will come about from the downturn in the RV industry is that several companies who made shoddy products and ignored customers’ valid complaints have fallen by the wayside, while the companies that made quality products and stood behind them have survived. But there are some customers that no company will ever be able to satisfy, no matter how hard they try.

Before I close, I want to tell you about an interesting new program that I just learned about called Harvest Hosts, which is developing a network of RV friendly farms and wineries that invite RVers in self-contained rigs to visit and stay overnight (no more than 24 hours) for free. The farms and wineries don’t provide any services, just a safe and unique setting where you can park overnight, shop for local products, and experience what the local farm or winery has to offer.

It sounds like it would be an interesting change of pace from typical RV parks and campgrounds. As I said, they’re new and have some growing to do, but check out their website at www.harvesthosts.com and let me know what you think. I like the idea.

Thought For The Day – When you go into court, your fate is in the hands of twelve people who aren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Our Gypsy Gathering rally ended yesterday, and in spite of morning rain and afternoon wind, RVs departed the Mercer County Fairgrounds here in Celina, Ohio headed in every direction. The greatest majority of them are headed south.

That’s right, it’s time for the annual snowbird migration. Over the next few weeks, every highway in the United States will be carrying RVers away from the snow and cold weather that will descend on the northern portion of the country in the months ahead.

Some will be headed to Florida, others the Texas Gulf Coast or the Rio Grande Valley, while others will spend their winter in Arizona, New Mexico, and southern California.

Many RVers have a favorite campground they return to every year to spend the winter among friends, while others (Terry and I included), prefer to wander around from place to place during the winter months, stopping here and there for a few days or weeks at a time.

Our current plans (which are always chiseled in Jell-o) call for us to start the winter in Florida, where we will spend some time in Key West, and the rest just aimlessly exploring. I’m sure we’ll show up at the Escapees Sumter Oaks campground near Bushnell, and the Thousand Trails Peace River preserve in Wauchula. Our pals Jim and Chris Guld say this is one of their favorite kayaking places. We spent three weeks in Crystal River a few years ago, and may go back and see if we can spot a manatee or two.

When we leave Florida, we’d like to stop at the Escapees Plantation RV park in Summerdale, Alabama. We have always enjoyed the Alabama Gulf Coast, and we’re ready for a return visit.

We have to be in Yuma, Arizona for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in March, so we’ll probably start heading west in late January or early February to give us plenty of time to get there without being rushed, and to have some time to spend with our family there before we get too wrapped up in rally activities.

So where do you plan to spend the winter? Are you a snowbird who goes to one place and stays put, or do you flitter about like Terry and I do?

Speaking of our rallies, we have some news to share on that front. We have set the date and location for our 2010 Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. It will be August 30 to September 2 at Elkhart Campground, in Elkhart, Indiana.

We chose these dates and location for a couple of reasons. One frequent comment on our rally feedback forms is that many attendees want full hookups with either 30 or 50 amp electricity. At Elkhart Campground we will have both partial and full hookup sites, with attendees’ choice of 30 or 50 amp power available.  This will also place rally attendees and vendors in the area in time for the Escapees Escapade rally in Goshen, Indiana two weeks later.

We have also made a change in our vendor policy for future rallies. In the past we have limited vendors to only one vendor per type of product at each rally, but starting with Yuma, we will be allowing competing vendors to register, as long as they are not selling the same name brand products.

For example, if a vendor is selling Brand A dry wash products, we will also admit a vendor selling Brand B dry wash products. This has been a frequent demand by rally attendees to give them more shopping options, and after talking to the vendors at this rally, they say they think it’s a good policy change. We do too.

Thought For The Day – I’m a walking storeroom of facts, I’ve just lost the key to the door!