Tag Archives: camping

RV Living

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A quick look at my current RV living experience.

I’m back in Quincy, WA for the third consecutive year, gearing up for cherry drying season. On Saturday, when my first contract starts, I’ll be literally stuck here in town, waiting for it to rain so I can spring into action and fly for my clients. And if the weather stays the way it has been for the past week, I’ll be doing an awful lot of flying.

The previous two years, I lived in a 22-foot “hybrid” RV that included a hard-sided camper shell with a single slide out and two pop-up camper type beds. When I first bought this camper, I thought it would be perfect for this kind of mission. But I didn’t foresee the need to write three books in it or an excruciating back problem that would last a month. I realized that when you have to live in an RV for three to four months out of the year — with a parrot, no less — you’d better have a pretty damn comfortable RV.

So I bought what I considered to be “the perfect RV.” While I don’t really think it’s “perfect,” I still believe that it’s as close as I’m likely to get unless I have one built to my exact specifications — which is not an option. This RV has plenty of space, as well as comfortable places to sit. Best of all, I don’t have to work in the same space where I try to take my meals.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. @Miraz wanted to know more about my setup here, so let me go into that a bit.

The Campground

I’m living at the Colockum Ridge Golf Course. A weird thing about golf courses out here is that they often include a limited number of RV parking spaces. Colockum Ridge (formerly Quincy Golf Course), which is now owned and operated by the Port of Quincy, is one of those places. It has five or six full hookup sites — that means sites with water, electricity, and sewer hookups. The sites are not far from the main office, between a wide driveway area and a narrow path out to the golf course. One of the greens is about 50 yards from the last spot. The golf course also has a handful of water and electric only spots. Those are on the other side of the wide driveway, near a well-trafficked road.

For the first two years I was here, the monthly rate for a full hookup spot was $300. I thought that was a pretty good deal. The first year, all the full hookup spots were occupied by me and construction workers for a pair of data centers being built in Quincy. Last year, I was the only long term occupant. This year, in an effort to attract more long term occupants, they dropped the monthly rate to only $200. This is a steal. (Oddly, I was worried the rate might go up; never expected it to go down.) The only drawback to the lower rate is that they’ve apparently attracted the owner of a junky old trailer who seems to be using his site as a weekend getaway. (Sometimes a higher rate is good to keep the riffraff out.)

My RVAlthough the spots are small, they do have well-kept lawns. Parking is on a gravel spot that you need to back into; that gravel area is surrounded by railroad ties on three sides to keep it separate from the grass. The spots aren’t exactly level — as I found out this year — but they’re not far off. I surprised myself with my ability to get the trailer into the spot; it was the first time I’d every done any serious backing up and it didn’t take more than a few tries to get it into place.

There are a few drawbacks of living here:

  • They start tending to the grass not long after dawn. That means there are lawn mowers running as early as 5:30 AM. This doesn’t bother me because I’m usually awake by then.
  • Because the RV spots are near the office and the office is at the intersection of two major roads, traffic noise — especially trucks slowing down to make one of the stop signs — can be a bother. In my old camper, it actually kept me up at night. In my new one, I don’t hear much unless the windows are open.
  • Golf carts and the odd piece of maintenance equipment drive right past the back window of my RV all day long every day. Before I moved the trailer 2 feet forward to get the left wheels on blocks (for leveling), they’d be within arm’s reach of my back window. Now they’re 2 feet farther away.
  • The sites really are tiny — although I suppose they’re about the same as the standard RV parking lots selling themselves as RV parks or “campgrounds” these days. My front slide-out actually hangs over into the parking spot next to mine, which is on a weird angle. There’s nothing I can do about it.

But there’s plenty good about living here:

  • They allow me to have my mail delivered to their address. So I can get mail and packages delivered to me here. I’m also the one who collects the mail daily; apparently no one else ever checks it. The first time I checked it, the box was absolutely stuffed. The mail carrier must like me.
  • This year, I have a picnic table, which will come in handy (if it ever stops raining for more than a few hours) for using my new barbecue grill, eating out, and getting Alex the bird outside for a while.
  • After the RainI have some nice views. My “office” window looks out on an idyllic view of trees, a picnic table, and the golf course. There are also birds — primarily robins — digging in the grass for worms throughout the day. Soon they’ll bring their chicks.
  • My helicopter is parked at an ag strip right across the street. In fact, I can see it from my back window. That means I can hang out here until I’m called out to dry. Definitely beats sitting in the truck at an airport for hours, waiting for a call that might not come. An added bonus: watching the crop dusters fly by.
  • I can get wireless Internet that works just well enough to pay for it. (I’d be very happy if it worked reliably all the time.)
  • The golf course has a restaurant where I can get breakfast or lunch if I get too lazy to cook. It’s not a great restaurant, but I’m not complaining.
  • The golf course is only five miles from town, where there’s a supermarket, coin-op laundry, post office, and other conveniences.
  • The area, being a farming community, is relatively safe and secure, so I don’t have to worry about my personal safety or the security of my belongings. It’s unlikely, for example, that anyone will break into my truck or trailer or walk off with my barbecue grill.
  • The golf course is in the middle of a farmland grid, offering lots of easy bicycling for me to get exercise.
  • Yellow-Headed BlackbirdThe golf course is only a few miles away from the Quincy Lakes area, which offers hiking, fishing, camping, and wildlife photography opportunities. Over the past two years, I spent a lot of time with my camera at Quincy Lakes, photographing birds.

The more I stay here, the more I like it. I’m even thinking of blowing off an aerial photo gig in Nevada in August so I can spend another month here.

The RV

The RV is amazingly comfortable. Comparing it to my old RV is almost silly, but here are a few examples:

  • There is a ton of storage. Enough storage to put everything away and still have space for more. That includes inside storage for indoor things and underneath storage for outdoor things. I even have enough room to store the old muffler for my helicopter, which I need to get repaired so it’s available as a spare. (They cost $2K new.)
  • The kitchen area has counter space for my coffee maker and grinder and enough cabinet space to store all my food, pots and pans, and dishes. And it even has drawers for storing silverware, napkins, and utensils. The stove is self-lighting so I don’t need to have a lighter or matches handy all the time to use it. The sink is a decent size, too.
  • The table and chairs is a hell of a lot more comfortable than the booth I had in the old camper. And with lots of windows, its bright and airy.
  • The sofa may not be as comfortable as the one in front of our TV at home (which is the most comfortable sofa in the world), but it sure beats the sofa in our last trailer. And rather than covert into a short, narrow “bed” for guests, this one has a queen-sized air mattress that two can sleep on comfortably.
  • Alex's Cage in my RVThere’s a La-Z-Boy style rocker/recliner. (There were actually two, but we pulled one out to have room for Alex the Bird’s cage.) I never thought I’d like one, but I spend a lot of time in it. I sit here and blog or read in the morning with my coffee and sometimes do the same after I’ve covered Alex for the night. It’s right beside the big back window, so I can watch the world — or at least this part of it — go by.
  • The RV has not one, but two flat panel televisions. They’re kind of wasted on me — I don’t watch much TV so I don’t have a satellite receiver. But I can pick up about 6 channels, including Fox and PBS. The 32-inch TV in the main room has a DVD player, so I can watch my Netflix videos on something larger than my computer monitor.
  • My RV OfficeI have an “office.” It’s a slide out with a desk and room for a chair. I’ve got drawers and cabinets to store my office stuff, so there’s not a lot of junk lying around. I brought along my 24″ iMac so I have all the same computing capabilities I have at home. And I managed to bring my color laser printer (what was I thinking?) and store it out of sight in a cabinet. There’s even a spot for my scanner. The office area even has two windows that look out over the golf course.
  • The bedroom has a nice bed with a dresser and closet. So I can store all my clothes neatly and accessibly. There’s a window on either side of the bed. I can even walk around the bed. The only thing I wish it had was a night table or storage area for the kinds of things you like to keep beside you at night. (And yes, I will be buying a new mattress for it; the mattress it came with is a real piece of crap. Just not sure how I’m going to get it through the doorway by myself.)
  • The shower has enough hot water for me to take a shower without turning off the water during the wash cycle. Yes, I can bask under hot water for the entire time I’m in the shower. Like a normal person. In my old RV, it was typical to run out of hot water during a shower; in fact, when I camped at a campground with a shower facility, I used their shower. Those days are over.
  • The toilet has a food pedal for flushing. The old trailer had a hand lever. That meant I needed to bend over the toilet every time I wanted to flush. Gross. It’s simple things like this that really make a difference in your life.

So I’m not exactly suffering out here in Quincy, WA. Sure, it’s not as nice as the house my buddy Jim rented in Chelan last season when he had contracts up there, but it’s very pleasant. And unlike Jim, I don’t have to share my space with another pilot — or anyone else other than Alex the Bird.

In a way, it’s a bad thing that the RV is so comfortable and pleasant to live in. Combined with my relatively pleasant surroundings and cheap living costs, I feel that I’d rather stay here than go home. I never felt that way in the old RV — especially when the temperature started rising and the horrendously loud air conditioning couldn’t keep up. This is my home away from home and I’m really enjoying it.

Walking the Fence

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Part of ranch maintenance — even for our tiny “spread.”

About 10 years ago, interested in finding a summer place where we could go with our horses to escape the summer heat of the Phoenix area, we purchased 40 acres of ranch land in northern Arizona. Our lot at Howard Mesa Ranch is high desert land atop a mesa between Williams and Valle, AZ, about 40 miles south of the Grand Canyon.

Originally, we had high hopes of putting a vacation home up there. Our lot has 360° views that include Red Butte and the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the north, Mount Trumbull and its companion mountains on the Arizona strip to the west, Bill Williams Mountain to the south, and the snow-covered San Francisco Peaks to the east. We envisioned a 2-story home with a loft bedroom and big windows looking out over the views.

In preparation, we got a pair of water tanks, put in a septic system, and had the entire place fenced off with a 4-strand wire fence (smooth wire top and bottom, barbed wire in the middle per the CC&Rs). When we came up with our horses, they had 40 acres to wander and graze on.

But things change. We never built our vacation home. Maybe we will one day in the future, but I don’t know when that day will come. In the meantime, we camp out there on long weekends throughout the year. We’ve spent numerous July 4th weekends, several Christmases, and even one Thanksgiving at our off-the-grid retreat.

Like this weekend. We came up, mostly to check on the place and take care of some maintenance tasks. There’s a shed on the property that needs to be checked on regularly. And, of course, the fence.

Mike at Fence

Mike standing by the east side of our fence. That’s the San Francisco Peaks in the distance.

We walk the fence each time we’re up here. There’s over a mile of it, so it makes a nice walk. We’d put up the fence to keep our horses in, but now it worked primarily to keep the open range cattle out. I didn’t keep the elk out, though. They could — and did — jump the fence. Sometimes, their weight on that top strand of wire would shift the fence posts and bend the stays between them. Walking the fence meant repairing problems caused primarily by the elk.

In the old days, when we still had horses, Mike would ride the fence on horseback. He’d saddle up his horse and my horse would follow them. I’d busy myself with some other task, leaving them to get the job done without me. But with the horses gone, the walk would take longer. Jack the Dog wouldn’t be enough company for Mike. So I went along with them.

I carried a roll of wire, Mike carried the fencing tool. We walked the fence line, stopping occasionally to straighten stays, bang post deeper into the earth with a big rock, or tighten wires. It was easy to see where the elk had jumped the fence. It wasn’t just one or two elk, either. It was likely an entire herd. We didn’t mind the elk on our property. After all, they didn’t damage anything, like cows would.

Except the fence, of course.

Frost Heave

The southeast corner fence post. Over the years, frost heave has pushed the post up.

The fence had been professionally installed by a company based down near our Wickenburg home. They’d come up about a year after we’d brought the property and camped out until the job was done. The workers probably enjoyed being away from the low desert heat for a week or so. I wonder what they thought of the dark sky with its billions and billions of stars at night, or the coyotes that trot through the property as if they own it.

On the whole, the fence guys did a great job. Where they dropped the ball, however, is on the corners. Sure, they dug about three feet into the ground and secured those corner fence posts with concrete. But what they didn’t count on was frost heave, which is something you just don’t see down in the Phoenix area. Each winter, the ground freezes solid. As the soil freezes, it expands. It pushes up whatever it can to make room. Over the years, it has pushed the corner fence posts out of the ground. The fence is still sound, but the four corner posts no longer stand properly. One of these days, we’ll have to fix them.

Dead Animal

One of two partial skeletons we found while walking the fence.

Along the way, I caught sight of something odd about 200 feet from the fence. I went to investigate. It was the partial skeleton of a medium sized animal. Based on its size, skull, and the length of its neck, I think it may have been a young elk or perhaps a mule deer. There was no sign of antlers, so I don’t think it was an antelope. The bones had been picked clean, as you can see in this photo. The legs and entire hindquarters were missing. Mike found the lower jaw about 30 feet away. We think it may have been injured jumping the fence — or perhaps had starved when the ground was snow-covered — and the coyotes and birds had finished it off. Later, not far from the north side of the fence, we found another partial skeleton that also included the neck and part of the skull. Another unfortunate animal. I wonder how many others are within our 40 acres — or beyond it.

As we walked, it was clear that a lot of snow had laid upon the ground for a long time. The long, dried grasses were flattened out as if they’d borne the weight of deep, heavy snow for weeks on end. I could imagine animals jumping the fence, looking for food. I could imagine young or weak or injured ones dying, providing food for the carnivores and carrion eaters.

It took about 90 minutes to walk the fence and make the necessary repairs. By then, it had clouded up a bit and we were ready to take a break in the warmth of our camping shed. The job was done — until next time.

Off-the-Grid Camping in the New RV

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Working out the kinks.

One of the improvements I made on my old RV was to add a solar panel to the roof. It was connected to a battery charger which, in turn, was connected to the camper’s batteries. When the sun was out — which is during most daylight hours here in Arizona — the batteries were charged. This made the camper extremely useful for off-the-grid camping. My husband and I did a lot of that last year on our way back from Washington to Arizona. We never ran low on power, which was a good thing because we didn’t have a generator.

There are a few things that won’t work in an RV without a connection to A/C power:

  • A/C power outlets. This means you can’t plug in and use any device with a standard plug.
  • Certain light fixtures. Some lights are A/C while some are D/C. A/C fixtures won’t work without an A/C connection.
  • Microwave. Even if it’s standard equipment on an RV, it’s plugged into an A/C outlet.
  • Air Conditioning. It’s A/C and it sucks a ton of power when it is plugged in and running. That means that even if you have a generator, you need a pretty powerful one to run the A/C when you’re not hooked up to campground or city power.

There are a few things that will run on propane or battery (D/C) power if you’re camping off-the-grid:

  • Refrigerator. Setting the refrigerator on “Auto” tells it to look for A/C power first; if that’s not available, it uses propane from the onboard tanks (assuming the valves have been opened).
  • Stove/Oven. Obviously, they’re propane. It would be dumb to put an electric stove in an RV.
  • Water pump. If you’re not connected to a pressurized water line, a D/C pump activates when you run the water to pump the water from the onboard fresh water tanks.
  • D/C devices. Some RVs include D/C outlets — think of power ports or cigarette lighters on a car. My old RV had one and I added a second; my new RV had three and I added a fourth. These are handy for charging cell phones or plugging in low wattage inverters to plug in low wattage A/C devices like laptops.

Other appliances use D/C power all the time, but if you’re plugged in, your battery is being charged all the time, so it’s no big deal. The heater, stereo, and certain light fixtures are good examples.

As you can see, RVs are pretty much designed to be self-sufficient when you’re off-the-grid. There’s a limit, of course, to how long you can live in an RV without a hookup, though. The solar power (or a generator) helps take care of electrical needs. Eventually, however, you’ll run out of water or fill up your black water sewer tank. There are ways to get around these issues — for example, minimize toilet use by using public toilets whenever possible, carry extra water in external tanks, etc. — so two people can easily live in a well-equipped RV off-the-grid for several weeks if they need to.

Oddly, however, most RV owners do not live in the RV off-the-grid. Instead, many of them tend to pull their RVs from one parking lot-like RV park to the next, cram them into narrow spaces between other RVs, hook up power, water, and sewer lines, and retreat inside their luxury boxes to watch television.

I’m not like most RV owners.

Before trading in the old camper, I pulled the 135-watt solar panel off the roof. This past week, I had it installed, with a new battery charger and controller, on the roof of my new RV.

This weekend, my husband and I are out in the desert about 25 miles west of our Wickenburg home, testing the trailer’s off-the-grid setup. I’m out in Aguila, at a private “resort” where my clients are testing some wireless networking equipment. The test requires me to fly their equipment around in the helicopter to see how well it works with ground-based mobile and stationary equipment. There’s more to it than that, but for the sake of my client’s privacy, that’s really all I’m willing to say.

At Robson'sThe job has a lot of down time — time when I’m just waiting around for them to be ready to fly. It made sense to bring the RV out here for the weekend. It gives Mike and I a chance to get away and relax away from home and we can bring along Jack the Dog and Alex the Bird. And, of course, we can test the off-the-grid setup of the RV close enough to home so that if there’s a serious problem, we’re not suffering. So the RV is currently parked about 100 yards from the helicopter’s landing zone out in the desert.

We’ve discovered a few things:

  • When the refrigerator works off propane, it makes a noise that sounds like a fan running inside it. We’re not sure if it should be doing that. It seems to work fine and the fan noise does stop when the refrigerator reaches the correct temperature. But my last two RVs had silent refrigerators, so we’re a bit concerned.
  • The fresh water in the tanks smells like shit. I do mean that literally. We’re not drinking it, but we are washing with it. It’s making the RV stink a bit on the inside, so we have a lot of windows open to keep the air cleared out. This is our fault. We should have flushed out the system before using it. We’ll do that after this trip and likely run at least one tankful of clean water through it, too.
  • The new solar setup works great. It had the batteries fully charged before 10 AM. While it was doing that, we were using the lights, stereo, cell phone chargers (all D/C) and a 300-watt A/C inverter to charge my MacBook Pro and some aviation radios.
  • The 2000-watt Honda generator I bought so I could run A/C devices if I wanted to works great. It’s easy to start and can be very quiet. We gave it a good test on Saturday night when we ran it to see if we could watch a DVD (Up) on the 32-inch (or thereabouts) flat screen TV the RV came with. It ran hard when we first started it — likely to recharge the batteries we’d run down a bit after sunset while giving us A/C power — then settled down to a lower, quieter power setting. I don’t think I’d run it in the future just to watch TV, though.

Everything else works exactly as expected.

At this point, I consider this second test a success. It proves to me that the new RV can be at least as comfortable — more so, of course — than the old one when camping off-the-grid. Even though I didn’t get the solar power system I wanted, I think my less expensive solution — one solar panel to charge the batteries and a portable generator for more power when needed — will work fine.

One thing’s for sure: having a portable house along on these weekend long gigs is very nice indeed — even if I’m not plugged in.

Solar Power Woes

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Why I won’t be buying a solar energy setup for my new RV.

My old RV — which we drove away from this afternoon without a backward glance — had a solar panel on the roof. The panel charged the RVs two batteries, which, in turn could power the lights, stereo, and any devices we had plugged in to the unit’s two DC power ports. This was handy when we camped off-the-grid, as we did numerous times on our way from Washington state to Arizona last summer.

The system didn’t have an inverter, though. That meant that it could not power the AC power outlets or anything plugged into them, including handy devices like the microwave. We learned to do without.

Our New RigMy new RV is quite a step up from the old one. It actually has rooms. And a desk I can sit and work at. And lots of space.

Of course, I wanted it to have a solar setup, too. But a full-blown setup that would include an inverter and be able to power any of the outlets and devices on board. Okay, well maybe not the air conditioning, but everything else.

My husband, Mike, is a solar guy. He knows how to design solar power systems. He designed the one on our old RV and designed and built the significantly more complex one on our off-the-grid vacation “cabin.” So he sat down with a pen and paper and, using the Internet, researched a solution. I’d use the panel off my old RV, match it with a second panel, add two batteries, an inverter, and a bunch of other stuff, and have a 2KW solar setup. The cost: roughly $3K.

Now $3,000 is a lot of money, especially after pouring a bunch of money into a new RV. But I like the idea of renewable energy. And I love the idea of silent energy. So I was willing to spend another $3K. I saw it as an investment in the future.

We were in Quartzsite, AZ when I picked up the RV. There are lots of RV service centers there, including two that specialize in solar power systems. So we drove over to one to get a quote.

And that’s when things started getting funky.

One guy priced up a system for us what was just a bit over Mike’s estimate. That didn’t include installation labor, though. (I insisted on a professional installation.) He quoted us labor at $55/hour for maybe four hours. I took a deep breath and nodded. So the sales guy handed us off to the order writer. She priced everything out. But suddenly labor was $85/hour and we were looking at 10 hours or more. She refused to be pinned down, but I was seeing a minimum of $4400. My “ripoff radar” — developed after years living in the New York area — perked up and started sending me signals. I told the woman I’d sleep on it and we left.

We went to the other solar outfitter. We’d bought all our solar panels for the vacation cabin and some other equipment from them in the past. They priced out our system and came up with a solid number: $4168. Ouch.

Mike and I talked about it at some length. He’d already suggested a much cheaper alternative for the times we were off the grid: a 2000-watt Honda generator that could be used parallel with an identical model to give a total of 4000 watts. If you needed a little power, you’d fire up one. If you needed more, you’d connect the second one and fire it up, too. With 4000 watts, we could power everything in the camper, including the air conditioning.

At first, I’d resisted the suggestion. I wanted quiet power. The Honda generators were known for their quietness, but nothing would be as quiet as solar.

But the kicker: I could get the Hondas for less than $1,000 each. Just one would provide as much power as the solar setup we’d envisioned. No need for an inverter or charge controller or holes drilled in the RV roof.

Yamaha EF2000iS GeneratorLater that day, we walked around the RV show in Quartzsite, where vendors were selling all kinds of things for RVers. One of them had Yamaha generators. The Yamaha EF2000iS did the same thing the Honda I was considering did, but it was 2 decibels quieter and 2 pounds lighter. And a tiny bit cheaper to buy, too.

It was even cheaper on Amazon.com.

So I didn’t go with the solar setup. I just can’t justify the added expense — after all, to get 2,000 watts with solar power, we’d be spending four times as much as the generator would cost us.

And I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels this way.

It’s unfortunate. There are many people out there who want to do the “right thing” and use renewable energy. But it’s difficult to justify the added expense. When a friend pointed out that I’d have to buy fuel for the generator, I replied that $3000 worth of fuel could go a long way at 5 hours per gallon. The solar setup would never pay for itself.

I’m hoping that changes sometime soon.

The “Perfect” RV

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The search is ended, the RV has been purchased.

Yesterday, after five months of checking out possibilities, I purchased my fourth RV. It’s 2010 Keystone Montana Mountaineer, Hickory Edition, model 324RLQ. (The name is almost as long as the titles of some of my books.)

What Came Before

To understand what I wanted in an RV, it’s interesting to note what came before it. For years, we camped in tents on the ground. But as many readers will probably confirm, you reach a certain age when sleeping on the ground — even on an air mattress — takes away much of the pleasures of camping out. So about 10 years ago, we decided we needed something to “camp” in that allowed us to sleep off the ground.

I bought a used 1984 Coleman pop-up camper. The previous owner was meticulous with maintenance and the damn thing was in near perfect condition. The model was so old that it still had real canvas sides. It had two beds: a queen and a single, a table that could make another bed, a two-burner stove, and a microscopic sink. That’s it. We used it primarily on our Howard Mesa property, where we kept it parked and closed up. We’d go up there for a weekend, open it up, and camp out. It was perfect for summer days and nights. But it eventually fell into disuse. We left it at Howard Mesa as spare living space in case anyone came up there to visit with us. Years later, I “sold” it on Craig’s List for $1.

My TrailerBut then we got the horses and decided we wanted to be able to go camping with them. So I bought a 35-foot horse trailer with living quarters. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, the trailer has stalls for the horses in back — mine held three. It also had a sort of closet for storing saddles and other tack. The other half of its length was dedicated to living space for people. It had a queen sized bed, sofa, sink, two-burner stove, good-sized refrigerator, and full (although tiny) bathroom. All this stuff was crammed into a very small space. We added a screened-in room to expand our living space. This photo shows what it looked like parked on our Howard Mesa property with the screen room attached. I lived in this space every other week in the summer of 2004 when I flew at the Grand Canyon. Sadly, we rarely used the camper as it was designed — to take our horses camping with us.

My TrailerIn 2006, I sold the horse trailer and purchased a Starcraft Antiqua hybrid camper. To me, this was the best of both worlds: a hard-sided camper with the usual amenities (kitchen, bathroom, dining area, sitting area, bedroom) plus the outdoorsy feeling of tent camping. I bought this primarily because I thought we were going to go “on the road” with the helicopter in the summer of 2007. I’d do cherry drying and rides at events, Mike would help and do some of his work via “telecommute.” But Mike had a job change and cherry drying did not materialize that year. I subsequently took this camper to Washington State for cherry drying in the summers of 2008 and 2009 and wound up living in it for 4 months one year and 3 months the next.

The best way to determine whether an RV is right for you is it live in it. After a total of nearly 8 months living in this space, I was convinced that it was not right for me. It was time to stop screwing around and buy the “perfect” RV.

What is the “Perfect” RV?

You notice that I keep putting the word perfect in quotes? I’m doing that for two reasons:

  • You might argue that there’s no such thing as a “perfect” RV. I might have to agree with you. RVs are designed for groups of people, not individuals. That means no RV will have a “perfect” feature set.
  • What you want or need in an RV is not the same as what I want or need. So what you might consider the “perfect” RV might not look anything like what I think is the “perfect” RV.

Once you decide what kind of RV you want — pop-up camper, pull trailer, toy hauler, fifth wheel, motorhome, etc. — there are three main considerations:

Mountaineer 324RLQ Floor planFloor plan. The layout of the RV is likely to determine what amenities it has. If you’ve never shopped for an RV — or haven’t done it lately — you will be amazed at what they can cram into a space. For example, the RV I selected is 36 feet long and 8 feet wide. Yet it has a private bedroom, private bathroom, kitchen, dining area, living area with sofa and recliners, and desk. In many cases, it does this with slide outs. You drive along, park, and push a button to expand your living space.

KitchenBeing the picky person I am, certain elements of the floor plan were very important to me. I wanted to be able to access the refrigerator and bathroom without having to expand all the slides. For example, suppose I’m cruising down the road in the middle of nowhere and need/want a cold drink. I can pull over, climb into the RV, and grab one out of the fridge. And even take a leak in a bathroom I know is clean. I also wanted what’s called a “side aisle bath” — a bathroom with all components in the same little room. Other floor plans actually put the bathroom sink in the bedroom. I didn’t want that. And finally, I wanted working space that wasn’t the same place I ate. That means I needed a desk or space for a desk. An RV with a good desk is hard to find and I was perfectly willing to pull out a recliner or even a sofa to put in my own desk. But the model I wound up with actually had a good, usable desk and even had drawers (see photo below). So as far as floor plan is concerned, what I bought is pretty darn close to “perfect” — for me.

BedroomFeatures and Amenities. Every RV manufacturer and design has its own set of features and amenities. For example, a toy hauler includes a garage-like space in the back. A family model RV might include a separate bedroom — and even an additional half bathroom! — with bunks for the kids. Many luxury RVs have surround sound entertainment systems with wide screen televisions that rise out of a panel or fill an entire wall space. Some units have electric fireplaces. You can find kitchens with two refrigerators and bathrooms with bathtubs. Dining can be in a booth or table and chairs. Sofas can become second beds. Bedrooms can have televisions, closets can be cedar-lined, cabinets can have washer/dryer hookups. The list goes on and on. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you walk into an RV with yet another feature you didn’t think you’d ever see in an RV.

Desk and TelevisionFor us, less was more — on the inside, anyway. All the RV dealers in the world can assure us that an electric fireplace is a good feature because it gives off heat using the campground’s electricity rather than onboard propane. I can remind them all that we do a lot of off-the-grid camping where there is no campground electricity. A fireplace was a feature we simply didn’t want — yet it appeared in more than half the RVs we looked at! I was extremely pleased, therefore, when we found the unit I’d buy and saw that instead of a fireplace (see photo of typical configuration), there was an empty cabinet.

I did want lots of cabinet space, a dining table with chairs instead of booth, and a sofa or a pair of recliners. I wanted lots of big windows — and I’m thrilled that my desk has windows on two walls rather than just one — and I wanted all the windows to open. I wanted “day/night” shades on all the windows; I hope I never have to deal with a cheap metal venetian blind again.

Control PanelOn the outside, however, I wanted some of the newer modern features that were not available in the 2009 model I almost bought. At the top of the list was an electric awning — something I could roll out or back in with the push of a button. (If you’d manually rolled in an awning in your pajamas in the middle of the night when the wind kicked up as many times as I have, you’d understand why.) A remote control to deploy the slide outs was also useful when setting up the RV by myself, as I’m likely to do this summer. Ditto for electric stabilizer jacks and “landing gear.” And it seemed to make a lot more sense to have all hookups (except electricity) and sewer dump/flush controls in one place rather than scattered all over the side of the RV. These features were the primary reason I went with the 2010 model rather than the 2009 (which actually had more cabinet space in the kitchen).

But there are a few things I wanted that I didn’t get. A window in the kitchen, for example. The floor plan didn’t make that possible, but there are plenty of other windows. A night table — even a tiny shelf! — beside the bed. There is none in this floor plan because the bedroom is relatively small. (How much time do you really spend in the bedroom anyway?) Heck, I can’t think of anything else. In this model, I even got the file drawer I wanted at the desk!

Living AreaQuality and Price. Quality and price really do go hand in hand. You get what you pay for. A low-end fifth wheel that you might be able to pick up for $25K is simply not going to be as sturdy or well-built as a top-of-the-line fifth wheel that’ll cost you nearly $100K.

Where you’ll see differences in quality are in the walls, floors, cabinets, furniture, and fixtures. A cheap RV’s walls will be covered with inferior wall covering that’s likely to shrink in hot weather (as it did in my Starcraft) and show the staples that hold it together. The cabinets will be some kind of processed wood that’s light weight and easily broken. There might be fewer plastic light fixtures than you need for good illumination. Kitchen and bathroom fixtures will be plastic; countertops will be a formica laminate. Things will break quickly and often, especially if you’re careless. Of course, if you only use the thing a week or two a year, this shouldn’t be an issue. But if you plan to spend several months a year actually living in it, quality becomes important.

Steps to BedroomIn my case, I wanted good quality but knew I couldn’t afford — or, more accurately, were not willing to spend enough for — the best. So the very first part of my search was to determine which brands were below my quality needs or above my budget. This should be the first step in anyone’s search for an RV; you can waste a huge amount of time looking at units that simply won’t work for you because of insufficient quality or expensive price. I also cut from the mix any manufacturer what was in bankruptcy or had gone out of the business. 2008/09 killed a lot of them. That limited us to about ten different brands by three different manufacturers. Mountaineer is a mid-range Keystone product. Montana by Keystone is one step above it and I could have made that step if I found one I liked. Heartland’s Big Horn and Big Country were also in the running.

My Perfect RV

Easy ChairsThe Mountaineer I bought won on all three factors:

  • It had a floor plan that worked for me, given that when my husband joined me on the road with our dog, we’d need lots of space to be comfortable long-term.
  • It had a list of features and amenities that were in line with what I wanted and needed in an RV.
  • Its quality was acceptable while its price was within my budget.

I also got a smoking deal on the unit. Keep in mind that I had a quote in hand for a new 2009 model on a lot in Surprise, AZ. I didn’t like the salesguy there — he’d made the fatal error of talking down to me. (Tip for salesmen: never tell a woman shopping alone that she should go home and talk to her husband about a purchase decision.) Mike and I were ready to climb into the car and work him over on price, but I didn’t really want to give him my business at all.

BedroomI started calling some of the RV dealers I’d met with over the past few months — I kept all their cards — to see if they had the same model available. One, in Quartzsite, said he had a 2010. I told him I’d consider driving out to take a look if we could agree to a price over the phone. I told him about the 2009 I were prepared to buy. He asked me to make an offer. I did. He came back with a slightly higher offer that was still below retail. We were there by 2 pm and I had all the papers signed by 4:30 PM.

(Another tip for salesmen: Make sure all prospective customers get your card. You never know when one will call back and you’ll get the sale.)

Is a 2010 Keystone Montana Mountaineer, Hickory Edition, model 324RLQ the perfect RV? For us, it’s about as perfect as I’ll get right now. But for you? The answer isn’t that easy. If you want your perfect RV, you’ll have to do your homework to find it.