GR "Scott" Cundiff

1 hour ago, DesertMiner said:

Nice start.... could you touch on the “livability” of the two when setup for a stay?  What about setting up at your site? Heating and cooling of the different rigs? TIA

Thanks!  I do have a section on livability and one on setting up, but I added a sentence saying heating and cooling are pretty much the same with either one.

I know this topic comes up fairly often and that there are fans of both, but I thought our perspective might be interesting to some.  After several years fulltiming in a 5th wheel we made the move to a motorhome last winter.  I just did a blog entry comparing our experiences with the two.  Honestly, the jury is still out for us.  Since we are comparing two specific rigs, our conclusions might be different than that of others, still, since the blog is a work in progress I'd be interested in how our experience compares with that of others. If you are interested you can read the article here.

You'll get a bit of winter there, so you want to give some thought to how you will deal with freezing temps there.  I use this site to get an idea of typical weather for places I plan on visiting.  http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=36227&cityname=San-Angelo-Texas-United-States-of-America

BTW Thor doesn't have a great reputation.  I saw it first hand a few weeks ago when a guy came in driving a brand new Thor ACE.  It was his first time out.  He never did get the auto leveling jacks to work right.  I went over and helped him manually get it level.  The next day he told me that the kitchen sink wouldn't drain, apparently something was wrong under the sink because all his other drains were fine.  He was on the phone with his dealer making plans to drop it off for warranty work. 

To use Thousand Trails like that you would need to get a seasonal site.  Some Thousand Trails have a waiting list, so you will need to contact that specific Thousand Trails.  Your seasonal schedule would work quite well for that.   Then, if there are Thousand Trails in the areas where you want to travel you could use your same membership to stay in them.

Thousand Trails properties are a mixed bag.  We've stayed in some really nice ones and we've stayed in a few with no desire to return. 

Good luck in your research.

When we had a 5th wheel we added Reflectix to most of the windows during a hot summer in Houston.  It really helped, although it made the interior of the 5ver feel like a cave.

Now we are in the motorhome and the front window seems to be the source of most of the heat in the coach.  I thought about getting some more Reflectix to put on the inside between the curtain and the window.  However, I read a few warnings here and there that the Reflectix would create so much reflected heat that it might crack a windshield.

Does anyone have any first hand experience of that happening either to them or someone they actually know? 

I'm not sure if this is an actual concern or just another one of those Internet deals that gets repeated over and over again with no first hand experience.

Thanks.

Much of the Mid-West and East have been hit with near-record setting heat with high humidity the last few days.  We've kept the shades drawn and in front added an extra layer using a sheet to trap some of the hot air.  Our a/c's have run non-stop from around 9:00 until 10:00 at night, keeping us reasonably comfortable, although the front of the coach is a bit warm.  An oscillating fan helps.

We are in Lancaster, PA so we went to the big shopping mall for walks.  Hopefully, the temps will soon return to merely hot summer days rather than these heat indexes of 110.

Is anyone else on this forum in this unusually hot weather?

Honestly, the responses to the original post haven't been this forum's finest hour.

Since the OP specifically says the residents in that particular park have no way of moving their rigs themselves it is obvious that he isn't talking about construction workers - those hard working folks are  as fond of big pickups as are the most avid weekend campers. 

Jack Pine Lodge is off the beaten track but on good highway.  It is in the Hiawatha National Forest between Munising, MI, on Lake Superior 30 miles to the north, and Manistique, MI, on Lake Michigan 25 miles to the south.   We stayed there a few years ago.  Here's our blog review.

I don't think there is any single answer.  For us:

1. Call ahead and ask the campground.
2. Delay until we are going to be at a campground that will accept a package.
3. Order online for Walmart in store delivery
4. Use an acquaintance in the area who is willing to receive a package.
5. Haven't tried it yet, but I got an email on my Ford account saying that Amazon will deliver to my car.  I'll have to give this one a try. (Just read that it isn't available in every city - I doubt it will be worth much in the places where we travel.)

Its funny how you can visit a website more than once a day and not even see the various page elements.  Today I noticed the advertisement for Escapees Hangouts at the top of the right column.  No telling how long it has been there, but I had never noticed it before.  The idea is a more low key event for Escapees - gathering in a campground for a week or so with some structure, but mostly just to hang out, meet and greet.  Our travel plans for the rest of this year are already set, but this is something I can see us wanting to do. 

I think this is a new program, so I expect no one has done one yet, but I think I'll keep an eye out for the 2020 schedule.

10 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

It is something I've wish they would do in the PNW.  It is extremely disheartening to see a popup trailer in a site where a larger RV would fit and the only thing left is the too short site - especially at Thunderbird where only 1/2 of the sites have sewer and even less have access to the sky for satellite reception.

As you can imagine there's a lot of discussion about it.  Those who dislike it have, I think, stronger feelings than those who like it.  However, overall, it's a fairly popular change.  Since it keeps coming up on the "Good and Bad" group on Facebook I did a survey asking people whether or not they like the change.  To date 389 people say they like it while 95 say they don't like it.  

Putting rigs in appropriate sized sites certainly make sense.  No private campground with a limited number of bigger sites would allow a smaller rig to use a bigger site - it just makes sense. 

However, that only works if the sites are otherwise equal.  Bigger sites aren't always better sites, but sometimes they are.  That's when the person with the smaller RV has reason to complain about being told that they can't use a particular site.  Of course, human nature being what it is, if you tell someone they can't use a certain site they will want to use it!

Personally, I think the underlying problem is that Thousand Trails keeps setting sites aside for annual or seasonal use.  The annuals are the ones filling up all the bigger sites, not the weekender with the small RV.

15 minutes ago, Barbaraok said:

All TT parks are first come when it comes to site assignments, as are a lot of the trails parks.  Just depends.  We always move on Sunday or Monday so have a good selection to choose from.

 

Just a note here - some Thousand Trails are now assigning sites based on rig size.  We've run into it at Forest Lake in NC, Williamsburg in VA, and Harbor View in VA.  I think they are doing it at Gettysburg Farm and Circle M in PA too.

4 hours ago, Darryl&Rita said:

Because keeping them out takes time and money. We have a volunteer brigade, that hides them, but the corporate IT office has decided they must be hands on for the final removal. Their time doing so removes their services from other issues, unless more IT is hired. Endless circle time. Invision boards, that the forum runs on, aren't particularly fun to oversee, either. In the past few years, the software has removed a lot of automated "housecleaning" tools, while charging more for the space. At the risk of a lynch mob forming, it may be time to look into a new provider. Think back to the last time the boards were down, and all the teeth gnashing, hair pulling, and wailing.

I ran a vBulletin forum for years.  It too has it's quirks and a rather steep learning curve. 

Having said that, once an admin figures a few things out it is pretty easy to keep, or at least limit, spamming.  To register, the person had to answer a couple of questions that couldn't be automated. 

There is also a function that limited the number of posts an individual can do in a set timespan.  The average user never experienced it, but a spammer who was doing multiple posts in a short time got throttled by the software. 

I could also block new registrants based on part of the world. 

Unrelated, but the THANKS mod was very popular and got tons of use.  It is a way to let someone know you appreciate what they have said without doing a "me too" post.

Having said all that, after years of running a forum, I greatly appreciate those who put forth the effort to keep a forum like this running.

6 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

What always amazes me when these come up is that some people go and look at every one of the posts when they are all the exact same spam! There were 26 identical posts and each one had been viewed at least 5 times????

Maybe web crawlers?

I don't think the questions even need to be RV related - just a text question: "What is the sum of seven and three?" will filter out most robots.

12 hours ago, Matthew said:

In my case, I'm healthy.  No past health problems.  Height and weight for a 66 year old are within norms.  Grandpa lived to 99 and dad to 92, both died in their sleep and nether had any health problems that prevented them from enjoying life. 

On the wife's side, one grand mother lived to 93 and the other to 103.  Her mother is still going strong.  Wife had her female plumbing removed and bladder rehung.

So in our case working a few more years, delaying Social Security checks for a few more years will provide for a bigger retirement nest egg for us.

Your mileage will vary.

 

I'm not sure why anyone would want to debate with you about when you plan on retiring.  It's an individual decision and you do a good job of explaining how you arrived at your decision.  
 

We retired a bit early and we are glad we did but I certainly don't think everyone should do what I did.

4 hours ago, Matthew said:

I don't understand why some folks would go to the expense of purchasing a rig, hauling it to a vacation camp spot, setting it up and maintaining just so they could watch TV at a different location. 

I don't understand why some people think everyone should do exactly what they do with their time.  

If any group of people march to the beat of their own drummer it's fulltime RVers.  

I'm a planner - mainly because I enjoy working with mapping software, doing Google research, etc.  If you don't want to plan and only intend on doing shorter stays you can probably just wing it.  If you want to do monthly stays or plan on camping during busy weekends in popular areas you may want to make reservations.

Regardless, most people find that they need reservations over long holiday weekends in popular areas.

Here's a blog I did on "Planner or Freelancer."

And here I thought they were just happy Chinese RVers wanting to join the conversation. 

15 hours ago, JimK said:

The most comfortable way to see the country would be primarily staying in good hotels, resorts, and even motels.  Lots cheaper than a big rig and paying for RV parks with hook ups.

Enjoy!  It's great being able to do things they way you think is best.

We went fulltime in 2013 and I tracked my startup expenses.  We bought used and, also, I included a bunch of stuff that was more annual expenses than startup expenses.   If you want to look at my info I suggest you not focus on what we paid, but rather on what we spent money on.  I focused on livability and safety.  I did a blog post about what it costs to get started fulltiming:  Here's the link.

12 hours ago, Jesse A said:

Thanks for the info! Defiantly helps with our own fiances. We noticed that campsites was a very large cost along with diesel, we try to boondock as much as possible.

Thanks - glad it helps.  A lot of people love boondocking and I know it saves a lot of money too.

9 hours ago, Kirk W said:

Our Medicare supplement premiums for 2 people total more than $4,000 per year but we have an HRA from my former employer that pays most of that. The $3000 of vangophotos can't be any health insurance that I know of unless he has coverage provided from some other source. But "GR Scott" doesn't list any health expenses at all.

As I explain in the expense sheet - I don't line item anything aside from RV related expenses.  I then do a lump sum "just living" line.  I explain that what I pay for health insurance and many other items won't help anyone researching fulltime expenses so I try to maintain a bit of privacy by not line iteming them.   

In our case, unless a person worked for the same employers we did and retired at the same age and year we did our health insurance costs would be meaningless to them.

---

I'm reminded of the TV commercial for Home Advisor - the neighbor asks his friend if he knows of a good landscaping company.  The neighbor says he does and before he can give his questioning friend the address, the fellow directs him to call them, describe the project and collect bids.  

It's one thing to share figures that a person can use in the mix in collecting expense information, another to try to tell them what they will spend on groceries and vehicle registration.