Changes....

Road people usually have some fixed base of operations.  After all, our road homes do not have unlimited storage.   Some people maintain thier old house - known as a Sticks and Bricks (S&B) - some do not, opting instead for storage lockers, kids garages or casitas.

So we were presented with the dilemma of what to do.  We bought the RV with the understanding between us, that we would live in it.  We were not about to buy an RV and let it rot in storage.

We will maintain the old house.  Mail, packages, absentee ballots, Juror summons etc will continue to go to our current abode, where my middle daugher is  keeper of homestead in our absence.  However while middle daughter becomes the "Creature in the Basement" (obscure reference to an utter horrid made-for-tv movie), and hosts her parents, the upper part will be rented out, contributing to our cash flow - maybe help pay for the motorhome.

But to do all this requires disposing of 25+ years of accumulated ...ummmm...stuff.  I've already disposed of my beloved radios (R-390A/URR and Heath HW-16), Claire finally went through her 3rd grade class notes.

We decided that we will store very little.  Pictures will be scanned.  Extras, collectables, precious things we have gathered will be a) sold at the garage sale, b) disbursed to family that wants them, c) donated, d) freelisted and e) taken to the dump.  My professional books will go to work where they will stay until I retire or the boot me out - at which time I will pass them out to my colleagues.
Our furniture has been described as being from the "Early Dormitory" collection, so there is no great loss there.   But we have hundreds - maybe thousands - of books we will need to dispose of.  Very few books will go into the RV.  Kindles are much more compact.

But we've only scratched the surface.   And there is a lot more pain to come.   I really don't want to get rid of a lot this stuff.

There are some things that we must store and a few (very few) things we with which we cannot part.  My first rifle - no value to anyone but me.  Some things from my mother I am holding for my niece.  I'm not sure yet what Claire will store.

Since I am a landlord (how do you think we are paying for this?), I will store the tools I use to turn property around.

I didn't know becoming a Citizen of the Road would be this painful.

The Best Laid Plans....

Never say never...

I had a lot of experience with RVs as a boy.

Not all good experiences...

My parents owned a 28 foot Prowler travel trailer for a while.

I hated that Prowler for simply what it did to the ride on tow car.  We had a big Buick station wagon that we used for towing.  It was always overheating, the ride with that equalizing hitch was incredibly bad.  After the Arab Embargo hit, we never took it out again.   I think Dad finally let it go for payments.

My grandparents had both a truck camper (class D?) which they wrecked shortly after getting it (it was top heavy) and 28 foot Winnebago Class A - which I totally adored.

This led me, as an adult, to a aborted attempt to own a old Crossroads Class-A (never took it anywhere - just spent money on it and finally gave up) and then a 1990 Fleetwood Southwind 30E. 

I lived in the Southwind for 2 years while working a remote location.  I would go home for most weekends and return to home-away-from-home during the week.  It was very comfortable for me.  It was sadly lost in 2013.

But during that time, I learned a lot about RVs and what I needed in them.  For example I learned that levelers are not a luxury, but a necessity.

 So I had scoped out a fifth wheel, which looked to meet our needs.  The fifth wheel is a very stable trailer and had the advantage that tow vehicle can double as a run around car.

It made imminent sense to me and the Spousal unit.  We went so far as to identify a brand and a model line for the fifth wheeler.

Then came the Pleasanton RV Show...

While we were on our way to look at the Fifth Wheelers, the female member of the team, Claire, took a side trip to look at the Motorhomes.

Every once in a while you run into an RV that sings to you.  An Itasca Suncruiser 37F started singing to Claire.  We went back and looked at it near the end of the show and it was singing louder.  We went home and talked it out - madly researched it and went back to show the next day.   It was singing in harmony, with great gusto.

We knew about what they were selling for and we set a price.  Claire opened negotiations and I excused myself and went and sat in new Airstream with a TV tuned to the football playoffs.   She called me after 1/2 a football game to sign the papers.

We are now the proud owners of a 2015 Itasca Suncruiser 37F and are on the way to becoming Citizens of the Road.

Starting the Adventure

The decision to go full time has been made.  We just have to settle on a timetable....

Both of us are approaching retirement and once we've finished educating our last (current enrolled at Mills College - a very expensive private school) we retire to the road.

This was not a decision we made lightly. 

Did we want to be away from our Children and Friends? No.  But our friends and family made the decision for us and scattered on their own to all points of the compass.

Did we not want to put down roots?.  No.  One of us was raised as a nomad - never staying in one place more than a few years.  The other, one house through college.  We put roots down in our adopted home town of Castro Valley and roots are good, but overrated.  We will fondly remember our town and the characters in it, but we will move on. There is lot of places to be out there.  Plus the California lifestyle and the state in general is deteriorating.  Or as friend put it - swirling around the drain.

Do we know what we are doing?  Probably not.  We recently lost our beloved class-a motorthome (more on that sometime in the future).  But the motorhome experience taught us a few things:

1. It is hard and very expensive to find anyone who will work on a large Class A.  A lot of places change $300.00 or more just to open the engine hutch.
2. Its very expensive and very hard to find a big rig tow truck that is necessry to tow a Class A.  It is not uncommon for people to have to wait 3 or 4 days for a big rig tow to become available.
3.  They have massive blind spots.  Cars, at least in the bay area, do not respect blindspots.  We have scared the hell out of people with slow well signaled maneuvers in a class.  And no, we don't feel guilty - they were the ones in the blind spot.
4. Gas Engines do not do well in RVs.  This is a hotly debated point in the RV community but settled as far as we are concerned.
5. We don't want a Toad (RVism for a towed vehicle - typically a small car being towed by a larger motorhome)

So our next house will not be a Class A....