I know you’ve seen them at your favorite RV park. Those guys who, the moment they arrive and have their RV parked and hooked up, are out there with a hose and bucket washing it, or using some type of waterless car wash product. But that’s not enough, oh no! Many of them seem to spend an inordinate amount of time every day polishing their homes on wheels. I’m not one of those guys.
My friend Dennis Hill is one of those guys, and he loves having shiny wheels on his motorhome. I respect that. I even admire it. But it’s just not me.
I can appreciate the pride of ownership one shows in a nice shiny motorhome, or truck and fifth wheel trailer; and an Airstream travel trailer polished to a high gloss is a beautiful thing to behold. But you’ll never see me out there with a rag and polish. I didn’t do it when I was into classic cars, and I don’t do it now.
Now, I could tell you that is because I’m so busy running our business on the road, writing blogs and books, and planning rallies. I could mention my bad back, or my arthritic hands, but let’s be honest – I’m just too damned lazy. Cleaning and polishing an RV is hard work, and when I was a very little boy, I watched some men working hard one day, sweating in the hot sun doing whatever it was that they were doing, and I made myself a promise to never do that. And I don’t. To thine own self be true, and all that.
I would much rather pull into a Blue Beacon Truck Wash, where for about $35 a crew will do a good job of washing away a few thousand miles of highway grime in a fraction of the time it would take me to do the same job. For a few bucks more, they will even hand dry the Winnebago. A couple of years ago in Yuma, a mobile RV wash outfit came to us and hand washed and waxed both the motorhome and our toad for less than $100. Even if I’m not doing anything besides sitting on my butt checking in with all of my friends on Facebook, my time is still worth more than that. The way I look at it, I’m helping put food on the tables of those people working at the truck wash, and that’s a good thing, right? I’m all about helping others, as you well know.
Besides, God doesn’t want me to have a clean RV. If he (or she) wanted me to, I’d have been born with the ambition to trot my portly posterior outside and actually accomplish something.
I think God doesn’t even want me driving a clean RV that somebody else washed. Case in point – yesterday on our way from Tucson to Apache Junction, we stopped at the Blue Beacon in Eloy and had the motorhome washed. I pulled out of the place and got back on Interstate 10, very proud of myself in my shiny motorhome.
Not more than an hour later, something slammed into the front of the RV that sounded like somebody had thrown two buckets of gravel at us. It gave Terry and I both a start, and then we realized that it was a large swarm of bugs we had run into. Very large, very juicy bugs, who splattered themselves all over the front of the coach. What a mess! I think it was God’s way of sending me a message about vanity. Some people are not destined to drive spanking clean RVs! Or at least not for more than an hour. 🙂
Thought For The Day – I may not be prefect, but at least I’m no fake.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Yep, that’s me for sure! I wash our 5’er maybe 2 or 3 times a year. I do get the bugs off the front cap when I don’t have anything else to do.
Bug juice can be caustic and very bad for the paint. So SOMEONE needs to clean the bugs off the front of your motorhome!!!!!!
Seems like every time I get ours washed, I then find a looong patch of road construction that has dust and dirt flying everywhere, or it rains. Generally I will find both within 200 miles of getting the thing washed. I do wash the front end and windshield every time I arrive at a destination. One reason is that I don’t like to put my window screens over a bunch of bug carcasses.
Truck washes do a great job, I use them all the time when on the road..
I am of the same mind. When I am at the campground, I am there to relax – and write. I might shoot a hose at the camper, but I am not going to take a rag to it.
I have to agree with you about washing & polishing vehicles being a waste of time. My husband is scandalized that I don’t have the urge to wash my car. And then he starts hinting about it needing to be waxed. It’s 21 yrs. old for God’s sake and to me it looks like it’s not suffering too much. I figure if he can’t stand how it looks he can wash & wax it. After all, he’s the one who can’t stand to just enjoy life without constantly working, or at least doing something that he thinks of as work. Me? I’m lazy too when it involves something I have no interest in. Keep on keepin’ on, Nick.
We are under threat of severe bodily harm if we wax the coach, this fits our lifestyle just fine, taking a hose to the rig is fine, no wax not polish. Now to get Mike to just do the front of the coach and get rid of the bugs is a job that has to be done. Life if to short to spend waxing a coach.
Only Nick Russell could write an interesting blog about running into a swarm of bugs. Thanks for a good read and a good laugh.
I can top that. We paid close to $100. at Palm Springs TTN, a few years ago.
Upon leaving later the same day, we got behind a truck carrying cows on the
freeway. Our motor home quickly looked like it had freckle’s !