The View Is The Same

Note: This is a repost from a few years back that I think is just as appropriate today.

In a thread on an online RV forum, a woman shared her excitement about her recent motorhome purchase and acknowledged that while the RV was older and small, it fits her needs. I posted a reply to her thread and told her that the neat thing about her little RV is that the view out the window is the same one that the folks in the biggest multi-slide, high-dollar motorhomes have.

For over eight years, we traveled and lived in our 1976 homebuilt MCI bus conversion, and loved it. Yes, it was old, yes, it was slow climbing up the hills, and yes, there were times we wished we had a little more space. But that old bus took us from coast to coast, and border to border many times. And I wouldn’t trade the memories we made in those years for any RV on the market today! 

We have known RVers who owned the newest and biggest and most expensive rigs on the road, and we’ve known folks wandering around the country in older rigs that are held together with duct tape and dreams. And guess what? Sometimes the folks in the older, smaller RVs were the happiest people we have ever met! It’s not about what you travel in, it’s about your mindset as you travel this great land of ours! If you understand that it’s all about the journey, and not about what takes you on that journey, you’re on your way to a successful RVing experience.

I’ve been a photographer for most of my life, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have sold enough of my work over the years to help support my hobby. The first picture I ever sold was a black and white image of the old Immaculate Conception church in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio, that I took when I was fifteen, with an ancient box camera. It was snowing heavily at the time, and the falling snow and black and white film gave the picture a very surreal effect. Over the years, I have known people who were sure they could produce excellent photographs if they could just afford the latest high-tech camera or some super-powered telephoto lens. But I think my mom paid a quarter at a yard sale for that old box camera I used to take the church picture.

At another time in my checkered past, I owned a gun shop in Tucson, Arizona. Every year when hunting season rolled around, at least one customer would come in to buy a rifle, and ask me “Are you sure I can kill a deer with this thing?” I always replied, “I have no idea what you can do with it, but I’m sure I can kill a deer with it!”

RVing is the same way. Our dear friends Peter and Connie Bradish have a very nice older Beaver with over 200,000 miles on it, that they love and have taken very good care of. Their motorhome has taken them on adventures all over the country and will continue to do so for many more years. Peter and Connie have worked hard and were careful in their financial planning. If they wanted something new, they could have it, but they are perfectly happy with their rig and I don’t think you could pry them out of it with a crowbar. They know that enjoying life, and RVing, isn’t about having the biggest rig in the campground. It about that view out the windshield, and enjoying every day of it.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of The Ghost Who Wanted Revenge, Book 4 in my friend Bobbi Holmes’ excellent Haunting Danielle series about an Oregon seaside bed and breakfast with a resident ghost of a previous owner who has been dead for almost ninety years. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with U.S. addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – An aging body is a very high price to pay for maturity.