Life on Wheels

For those of you who are new to RVing and would like to receive an affordably-priced RV education from some experts in the field, check out the Life on Wheels conferences at http://www.rvlifeonwheels.com. This year's classes are offered at colleges or universities in Bowling Green, KY; Moscow, ID; Bethlehem, PA; and Des Moines, IA.

Life on Wheels was started by Gaylord Maxwell. If RVing has a godfather, he would be Mr. Maxwell. Chuck Woodbury, the man responsible for RV Bookstore, the RV Travel newsletter, RV Travel forum, Free Campgrounds forum, these blogs and many other informative sites has taught classes there. Joe and Vicki Kieva, who just finished presenting their seminars for two DVDs available soon in the RV Bookstore, will be there. And I am honored to be included with these terrific people. I will be teaching two classes in Idaho, Pennsylvania and Iowa: Saving Space and Weight in Your RV, and Basic Self-Protection. I will be focusing on solo women RVers as well as anyone who wants to be prepared and feel safe when they travel.

Check out the website and if you are near any of these areas, please think about signing up for classes that interest you at Life on Wheels.

Making Adjustments

The first three rules of computer operation are
1. Back it up
2. Back it up
3. Back it up

As a professional who makes her living using a computer (geekette), I understand those rules very well. Instead of using CDs, I have two 100 gigabyte Maxtor hard drives. One holds nothing but music (about 50 GBs). The other holds my programs, favorites, calendar, address book, spoken word recordings, etc.--also about 50 GBs. When I backed up my files a month ago, I was using my older computer running Windows XP. My new laptop runs Windows Vista, the latest pain inflicted on anyone purchasing a new computer with the operating system concocted by the spawn of Satan in Redmond, WA. OK: all you Mac users can now gloat. I'm sharing my tale of woe as a warning to any of you who are planning to upgrade your computer.

Some of your favorite hardware may not run on Vista because the drivers have not been updated yet. I have a wi-fi booster antenna that will not have the Vista driver until May, which means I'll have to limp along with my low signal strength until the chip manufacturer releases the new driver.

The biggest problem I had was with the back-up drives. I put password protection on them and when I plugged them into the new laptop, Vista refused to recognize them. I tried to load the software so I could remove the password protection (after spending an hour on the Internet and phone with the manufacturer to find out what to do), and Vista wouldn't open it. I had to take the drives to my friend 11 miles away who plugged them into his 10 year-old computer running XP, loaded the software, removed the password protection, deleted the software, and plugged them into his new laptop running Vista to see if they would work. They did. I picked them up, brought them home and finally loaded all my files.

So all you geekettes and geeks out there, please back up your files. If you're planning to purchase a new computer, investigate whether your current programs, hardware and software will work with Vista. You'll avoid losing something important and DTT (Data Transfer Trauma).

Oh. When I plugged in my printer and turned it on, Vista not only recognized it before I had to Add a Printer, it named it and made it the default. I'm grateful for small favors.

Tech Talk

Last Thursday evening, my laptop's power light went out for the last time. No matter what I did, I couldn't resurrect my four year-old Compaq Presario.

One of the best aspects of being an RVer is that there is always another RVer who is an expert in some area. It happened that a computer guru had a reservation this weekend in the park where I work. I left a note for him and he came over to look at my computer. It was a loose connection that eventually fried the motherboard. He and his wife were relaxing for the weekend so he didn't bring tools. I have a computer toolkit and he was able to remove the hard drive. He went to his RV and made three DVDs with data he managed to transfer from the drive. Then he returned the drive after removing the memory and since I wasn't online, he took a picture of the old laptop, wrote an ad and put it on Craig's List for parts.

In a future post, I'll be letting you know about Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, and its positives and negatives. If you're planning to purchase a new computer, I'll provide some links to sites that can help you with transferring information from your current to a new drive.

Trust Your Instincts

Well, the newer RV was not as expected so I'm keeping the one I have. The pictures were great; the engine was not. Fortunately, I brought friends who know engines and no one could guarantee that the RV and I would return home 150 miles away safely.

So the search continues...

New Home on Wheels

Well, I finally did it. I won the bidding on eBay and I'll be picking up my new (to me) 1980 24' Tioga class C motorhome on Sunday. That will give me a newer, better running motorhome that is 6' longer than the class A I have now. I didn't think I would want a class C because I didn't want to climb into bed every night. Fortunately, there is a couch that will be converted to a permanent bed in the back. The cabover bed will be storage. And the bathroom has a separate shower. Ah! No more squeegeeing (if that's a word) the floor after a shower. There is a cabinet in the bathroom, a built-in microwave, a bigger refrigerator that runs on propane or electricity. There are storage areas outside. There's a ladder to the roof which has two coats of rubber.

It's all good.

RDBE

From the March/April Escapees Magazine:

There was an Escapees heavy-duty truck rally in 2006 and during the rally, Davina Szmyt founded a new group. The group, for women who drive heavy-duty trucks or want to, is called RDBE (Rigs Driven By Estrogen). Davina says that she first came up with the idea at a medium-duty truck rally when Carolyn Fennel, wife of Art Fennel, previous president of the medium-duty truck group, called the men the "testosterone bunch." Davina thought the women should have a group with whom to talk trucks. She posted a survey on the Escapees H-DT Website. In her survey, she asked women if they drive their trucks some of the time, all of the time or not at all.

She received 11 responses at first. By the end of the rally, she had 29 women signed up for the group.

"This is an informal group," she says, "with no dues or rules." It is simply to:

• Advise and encourage women to step into the driver seat and take control,
• Provide a communication network for women to ask questions and share ideas,
• Offer helpful hints on how-to's when setting up, traveling in and converting H-DTs, and
• Create an RDBE forum for women drivers to have access and voice regarding the H-DT lifestyle.

Davina took pictures of the women with their trucks at the rally in Wichita and is currently creating a 2007 RDBE calendar.

If you are a woman RVer who is or wants to be a full-timer, I recommend joining the Escapees. And if you drive a medium- or heavy-duty truck, you'll have support from other woman RVers.

Why Aren't We Moving?

Is it just me or are RVers, particularly motorhome owners, more reluctant to move their motorhomes? It seems that many RVers who are in a site for a month (or more) don't want to move their RV once they arrive, even to fill the propane tank or visit attractions in the local area. Why is that?

I'm a full-timer and the owner of a small motorhome. I work part-time in a park that has some long-term guests who may be patients being treated at the hospital, employed in the area on construction jobs or who are traveling nurses. Most of them have fifth wheels or trailers and leave them on the site while they use their tow vehicle for transportation. Several are motorhome owners, however, and leave the motorhome parked for months without starting the engine or moving it. Am I wrong in thinking that's bad for the motorhome?

The reason I have a small 18' motorhome is so I can disconnect and go whenever and park wherever I want. In the past, I lived in a mobile home (which, as we all know, is immobile once it's placed in a space). I think some RVers are confusing the two. Many RVers arrive, pull into their space, hook up and don't move until they leave the park. When they ask about places to go and things to see, I give them directions and information appropriate to the RV they have, including large spaces to park safely. Most will say, "No thanks. It's too much of a hassle to disconnect everything and move it." Um--isn't it supposed to move? It is a recreational vehicle after all. Why aren't we moving?

Fear Factor

No, I'm not referring to the TV show where you eat insects or are surrounded by snakes while people at home say, "Ewww!" I'm talking about why more women aren't behind the wheel of their RV sharing the driving and enjoying traveling with their spouse/significant other/partner/friend. Many couples check into the park where I work and not many women are driving. The women will take care of the reservation, the registration when they arrive and may even drive the toad to the site after it's unhitched. Then she disappears inside the RV while he (and it's usually a he) takes care of connecting the power, water, sewer and TV cable, and levels the jacks.

Why aren't more women driving RVs? Most say they are afraid or just don't want to drive it because it's too much to handle. They don't help with setup or breakdown because someone else will take care of it. And when that "someone else" is gone, those women have a very pretty expensive toy they can't play with. They sell it at a loss because they never even tried to learn how to use it.

Well, I know an 89 year-old woman who travels alone in her 27-foot motorhome towing a VW Beetle. She's been traveling for many years and is planning to continue to enjoy her life on the road until she needs to hang up her keys. There are women in the RV Travel Forum who drive and take care of their RVs not because they have to; they want to.

If you haven't seen the world go by your window while driving your RV and listening to music or the sound of your own breathing, you haven't truly appreciated what traveling in an RV can mean. As the ad says, "Just do it."