RVing

RVing is the friendly term owners of recreactional vehicles use to identify their hobby. My wife and family have experienced over 40 years of RVing. The idea of owning a recreactional vehicle was probably embedded in my brain at a very eary age. During World War II, soldiers in the South Pacific used personal "Jungle Hammocks" to sleep in while away from base camp. This current photo is an example. About the time when WWII ended, I purchased one from our local Army Navy Surplus Store using the money I earned from working at the service station up the street. I slept many nights in our back yard much to my Mother's fears. The one I owned had a rain cover over the hammock instead of the netting shown in the photo. After I got married something reintroduced a camping life discussion with my wife Shirley and me. I asked her if she ever thought she would like camping. Her response is a quote here, "Sure, as long as I don't have to sleep on the ground." After that, I started looking for a "Popup" trailer (a tent on wheels) because we sure didn't have the money for much more than that. Our youngest child, Elizabeth, was only about 18 months old at the time. In short order we purchased a Starcraft Popup Trailer from a dealer in Gonzales, Louisiana. We enjoyed it for about two years. This is a photo of one camping trip enjoyed with our friends Fred and Claire Bahlinger. I estimate this photo is about 1968.            It didn't take long before our family was ready for something better, especially air-conditioned.  About 1970, we purchased a new Holiday Rambler trailer from Blanchard RV Sales, Baton Rouge. It is the RV that our children most attach to because it is the RV that our family traveled during our children's childhood.            About ten years later, say 1980, I received a substantial bonus from my work in the form of a corner lot on the boulevard in the Kennilworth Subdivision, Baton Rouge. Thinking this was going to be the place of our next home, rather, we were so well established in the Westminster Subdivision that both Shirley and I decided not to build in Kennilworth. Shortly after that decision, we sold that lot and bought a new 31 foot Airstream.       That was the good news, but the not so good news was that our chidren were building relationships outside the family and were reluctant to go camping. This was happening over a period of a number of years, but about ten years later we sold the Airstream and took time out for our children because by then they each had married. The remarkable thing about the sale of the Airstream was that we sold it for about $2,000 less than we had paid for it. That made our ownership less than $20 a month. In 1993, Shirley and I decided we wanted to get back into RVing. By then, motor homes were the rage for camping, so we bought a new 1993 Holiday Rambler Endeavor Motor Home. We kept that motor home ten wonderful camping years. We had joined the HRRVC camping club and attended as many RV rallies as we could, taking us to many places in America. The Endeavor motor home did not have any "slides" making the interior less expansive than the newer motor homes. Slides were portions of the vehicle body that expanded out making for more interior space. In 2003, we traded for a new 2003 Holiday Rambler Vacationer with two slides; one in the living area and the other in the bedroom.   Shirley died of cancer May 30, 2012 and we sold the Vacationer about six months before she died as it was of no use then. Aftere her death, my children encouraged me to attempt to reconnect with our RV friends, friendships built over some 40 years of RVing. I thought that perhaps being a windower, going back to a trailer would be all that I needed. So, I bought a new Dodge Ram truck and a Surveyor Select trailer during a visit to Dallas. I used the trailer one time going to a Good Sam Rally and decided that without Shirley, I wasn't up to it. Maybe later! I sold the trailer and traded the truck for a personal auto SUV in 2013.