Friday, May 7, 2010

Not really roughing it : )

We married late in life and although we had camped in tents and RVs my wife said her idea of roughing it was a nice Hilton. After going to a number of RV shows and walking through a lot of different floorplans we finally decided we could have a nice RV and just take our Hilton room with us as we traveled across the country. That is how we ended up with our Carriage Cameo, or what we call our condo on wheels.

Being a fully enclosed fifth wheel allows us the capability to do what is called boondocking, that is parking without the electrical, water and sewer hookups. So far we tried this once at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Illinois when we were bringing the Cameo back from the dealership in Michigan where we picked it up. It was the first time we tried this and it was a disaster. We talked about this in an earlier post, http://bobandjotravelblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/2-weeks-of-full-timing.html, but this experience has made us very cautious to repeat roughing it in that manner. Running the battery down and not getting much sleep due to the parking lot and lack of circulation was so much fun!

Our reaction was to go clear in the other direction, every night that we have parked for the past 8 months we have had full hookups (electrical, water and sewer) at the site. We have two options when it comes to electrical hookups, either 30 amp service or 50 amp service. So far we have been able to get 50 amp service which allows us to use all of our appliances, even both air conditioners at the same time if need be.

This may change this summer as most of the parks that Bob has found in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are 30 amps and a few do not have sewer hookups at the site. This will be a new experience for us as we may have to worry about running the microwave and the toaster at the same time for example, oh the inhumanity. Now that is really roughing it!

Till next time,

Bob & Jo

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1 comment:

  1. You really need to come to Yuma next January and boondock with all of us for a few days. We might just change your mind about how great it is. And we have such a good time doing it. Jim and I are currently "boondocking" in a casino parking lot in CA. They have strict rules about quiet time and lots of security roaming around. And the generator means we can run the everything we want to.

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