[Archived]

Tom,

I agree with you. Campgrounds have their benefits, especially if you would have otherwise had to run your generator. Yes, Jon I know we don’t use our generators enough. From Florida, to Virginia, through Canada, and around Alaska we haven’t used a free campsite yet, other than my daugther’s driveway. That’s 7,165 miles paying for campsites 61 nights at an average cost of less than $39 per night. Sure, you couldn’t get by for that little a night at Disney or most of southern FL in winter. When you don’t need campground amenities you can certainly get by for less a night.

[Don]

Just so it is clear, our priority is to overnight in campgrounds. There are two things that cause us to go to plan B. We want campgrounds within a few minutes of our route. After driving all day the last thing I want is to have to wiggle around on narrow roads for XX miles so if the directions in the Woodalls or Big Rig book shows the camground to be close and easy to get to, we spend the night in the campground. If the campground is not quick and easy to use we also move on. We have been in campgrounds where it is not only a pain to get to and in the site, but the check in process takes more time than what is reasonable for 8 hours of ground and electric. You all know what I mean when I say we have to fill out our life’s history on the registration and then have to listen to a 1/2 hour orientation that includes the combination to the laundry. All I want is someone to take my money and give me a site number. I get grumpy as the day wears on.

One of the best deals we had for overnight parking was a hotel along a route we used often. It was a Best Western somewhere in KY that had a large parking area. You pull into a spot, go in and give the clerk a $5 bill and you had a spot in private property, well lighted for RVs. The second best was Agrirama on I-75 in south GA but I understand that might not be available and that had full hookups for $20. Second best only because you had to fill out paperwork.

But if a campground doesn’t work then a rest area is the next choice. But only if I can get an end spot so my risk of damage is cut in half. I usually have my generator running by the time I turn into the space and at the slightest hint of any peril, whether it is Tom’s lot lizards, or beggars, or dangerous drivers we are gone.

We know from experience stopping early gets us relatively safe end spots in rest areas or truck stops but if we are overnighting in those places it is because there was no convenient campground.

FWIW the last time I ran the numbers and based on current diesel prices a typical 12 hour stop using the generator 100% of the time will cost about $220. I never make overnight parking decisions based on cost.

This fall I may mooch off of the generosity of BCO.

[Archived]

“You all know what I mean when I say we have to fill out our life’s history on the registration and then have to listen to a 1/2 hour orientation that includes the combination to the laundry. All I want is someone to take my money and give me a site number. I get grumpy as the day wears on.”

Used to boon-dock with a guy named John and his wife Wanda who pulled a fifth wheel about the size of DisneyWorld. During the course of the day, usually early, she would come on the CB and repeatedly ask “Where are we going to spend the night?” over and over.

Finally out of desperation, I would say, “look in your mirror, you see that?” and she would say, “See what?” and I would say, “that is where you are going to spend the night.”

In all honesty I have more problems in paid for campgrounds than I have in trucks-tops. Where you park in a trucks-top determines what may or may not happen, that has a lot to do with it. I am a back of the lot kind of guy myself.

We were at the KOA in Williams, AZ, outside of the Grand Canyon and the WIFI wasn’t working so I go to the front office to tell them about it. I run into this obnoxious ##@#$#@! that seems to be an expert on every known subject in the world.

He hands me this sheet of paper and says, “this is what you need.”

It is a start up instruction sheet for WIFI and it is numbered with things to do. Now at this point I tell him I have been computer literate since the mid eighties, I don’t need any sheet.

The first number, #1, says “turn on computer.” (If I am lying I am dying.) Ten minutes later when I get back to the bus, the wife said to me, “Well, how did it go?” After a slight pause I say to her … “Pretty good, at least I did not KILL him.”

I know all about cranky, look it up in the dictionary and your picture or mine will be there. In it not easy being old skool in this day and age, no sir. Things are surely a lot different than they used to be, eh?

For what it is worth, we just finished nine days in Houston area this spring, and we ran the genset continuously the entire trip, never shut it down one time in nine days. No big increase in fuel consumption that we could tell. I do however get tired of the constant din or drone of the engine, that gets old after awhile.

But it beats sweatin’

BCO