Travel Data

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

OK. I know what you are thinking. What are these pictures all about? Well, I’ll tell you. Those of you who know us well, or have been in our home to eat, know that Carolyn is a good cook, no not “good,” a terrific cook! I could be prejudiced, but I am the beneficiary of all this goodness. Some of you have been lucky enough to receive gifts of her famous date-nut bread, which she sends out at Christmas time. Being on the road has not in anyway slowed this process down. Date-nut bread and cashew brittle are still being made and sent to special people. So, the question has come up. “How does she do it in an RV?”

The first picture is of our kitchen. It is not big, as you can see, but it is a normal kitchen, how-be-it, small! We still have all the normal and useful things like a stove, small toaster-oven and microwave and refrigerator-freezer. The frig is to the left. Cooking is cooking, small space or large. The only requisite is that we be stopped. Of course, it is sometimes a challenge to find the ingredients while in an out-of-the-way place. Our “pantry” space is much smaller than in our previous home, so we cannot always carry needed ingredients. We are still eating pretty much the same as we did in a “real” home, stationary that is, as compared to our present “mobile-condo.”

Take our Noon meal today, which is either Lunch or Dinner, depending on your custom, but for us it is the main meal of the day. “Chief Carolyn” prepared dried butter-beans, yams topped with butter, brown sugar, coconut and pecans. Added to that was a fresh-tossed salad with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, bell pepper, carrots, and onions topped with our favorite dressing. Blue cheese for Carolyn, honey-mustard for me. Add fresh-brewed, decaffeinated iced tea. No meat. No bread. We eat very little meat, when we do it is chicken or fish. We try to limit the bread, but we do like fresh baked bread. We do now, however, tend to make more one-dish meals and lots of home-made soups.

The second picture shows a solution to a problem. “What is the problem?”, you ask. You will note in the first picture that the toaster-oven sets behind the range. In order to open the top of the range, which folds back and sets straight up to use the burners, it was necessary to move the toaster-oven to the side. Is was a nuisances, so Carolyn came up with a solution so we would not have to move the toaster-oven. If you enlarge the picture you will see her innovation. Simple! She went outside and found two rocks, just the right size, to allow the top to be raised just enough, and held in place, to not have to move the toaster-oven and still be able to use the burners on the range. As a bonus, we can use the toaster-oven at the same time as well. You know the saying about necessity being the mother of invention, well here it is.

I promised you two or three weeks back that I would let you know about how our expenses in traveling turned out at the end of the year. So, here it is. We have kept close records of every mile traveled and every penny spent during the last seven months we have been on the road, from June through December 2007. We have traveled 12,412 miles: 8,233 miles pulling the fifth-wheel and another 4,179 miles without. During this time we have moved the trailer 40 times through 13 states.

I will tell you at the outset that our total expenses for the seven months was $16,681. I am sure that you are not interested in every small detail, so I have broken out some expenses that may be of interest, as a percentage of the total, as follows:

RV Park Fees: 11.7%

Fuel: 16.7%

Truck Maintenance: 3.3% (This includes a large, one-time expenditure.)

RV Misc.: 6.5%

Food: 19.2% (Of this amount, restaurants amount to 32.5% of our food $, 48 times in 30 weeks.)

Entertainment: 3.5% (Mostly fees into parks and attractions, but now including Dish TV.)

Laundry: .001% (The percentage is meaningless, but it amounts to about $4.15 weekly.)

If you want to know what these figures mean in dollars you can do the math. Some of you have wondered, as have we, if it costs more or less living in an RV than in a “regular” house. The way we figure it we are living for about half the cost in the RV, even including the total fuel cost to move us around.

That is about it for this week. Let me share another story with you that was shared with us by a good friend. This is supposedly a true story from the Orange County, Florida sheriff’s office.

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and , upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her voice, “I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!” The four men didn’t wait for a second invitation. They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver’s seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then it dawned on her why. A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station.

The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn’t stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun. No charges were filed. If you’re going to have a Senior Moment, make it a memorable one!