Meet your fellow RVtravel.com readers, October 31, 2020

We asked RVtravel.com readers to tell us about themselves. Here are a few responses.

NOTE FROM EDITOR CHUCK: I want to let you know that I love meeting those of you who tell us about yourself. My staff and I write our articles and the words go off into cyberspace, and we don’t know exactly where they land. But then I look here and I see your faces and read your stories. I am so happy to meet you! 

From Peter Zama. We’re 2 years into weekend camping until my wife joins me in retirement. We mostly hit the TX State Parks and have been glad to get back into the swing (but just a bit) after 6 months of hangin’ around the house. Lots of projects completed though. Photo of us last year at a park near Austin with my brother and sister-in-law on the left. Looking forward to more camper time!

From Dick & Jane Burgman. We both grew up in central Indiana. I grew up working in a hardware store beginning in 6th grade and ended up buying it about 4 years after college. My wife is a registered nurse and worked in hospitals for many years. She got into risk management and finally working with an insurance company using her nursing degree. After 35 years in the hardware business, I decided to close it down due to so much competition which made the consumer dollar sliced too thin. After closing, we decided to try a new adventure in our life so we moved to Idaho. We pulled into Boise with no jobs and nowhere to live and the moving truck 3 days behind us. We fell in love with Idaho and spent the next 24 years there. We purchased a house up in the mountains. After growing up in the flat land of Indiana, it was quite a change.

In March of 2019, we left Idaho in our Newmar motorcoach and have been exploring the country ever since. We hope to visit 49 states and Canada. By the time we are done with that, we may have a bridge to Hawaii and we can include it in our travels. We love meeting new people and seeing the history and parks of our country. We travel with a 12-year-old cat named Midnight; we lost our dog, Missy, about a year ago. We have two grown boys and 3 grandsons. Our photo is from a park in Georgia – we are not the best at selfies. We are loving the RV travel life.

From John & Kay Martin. We have enjoyed fulltiming for over 6 years after wife retired. Started out with a big 5er and Megacab. Decided we wanted more capability on the road. So why not buy a 43’ MH? We named her Princess Grace of Monaco. Have put over 33K on it in 6 yrs. When you’ve moved all over the world many times over, it’s time to slow down. We love the Desert SW in the winter, and the Pacific NW in the summer. Take care to hug each other often and enjoy every sunset.

From Linda Arnold. I bought a Class C Sunseeker MB in 2015 to “practice” traveling in a motorhome before I retired. Took my first trip 25 miles from home to a casino – close enough someone could come get me if needed! Five years later, I retired in 2019, traded for a 2019 with a full wall slide and now I’ve got the hang of this!!!!

From Anna Zettle. Hubby Ivan and I have spent the last 2 winters in Texas; away from the Wisconsin snow and cold. We take advantage of quite a few of the out-of-park activities. This was taken on a catamaran cruise from South Padre Island. Come November we will load up the 2 motorcycles, my KitchenAid mixer so I can continue my baking business, and our 3 kitties. Button, Bonnie, and Grizabella love having a winter home and are the best travelers. Our 44-foot Cyclone toy hauler was the first RV we’ve ever had when we purchased it in 2015. As our kids said, “Go big or go home!” We went big and love it.

From Paul and Julie Klopping. We have both loved camping since we married 50 years ago. Back then it was a tent, sleeping bags and a Coleman stove. As a teacher, my summer was wide open so we often packed up the suitcases with our tenting equipment, flew to a beautiful area of the country we didn’t know, rented a car and took off!

After about 30 years of “sleeping on the ground” tent camping both here and in Europe, we upgraded to a darling yellow T@B. Finally came retirement and the chance to take the leap to renovate an older Class A, sell the house, belongings, cars, etc., and live the dream we’d always talked about… full-time travel. It’s now been 9-and-a-half years of the full-timing lifestyle in a remodeled 32’ Bounder and we couldn’t be happier. Waking up in gorgeous public parks and campgrounds is a dream come true. We’ve met so many wonderful travelers along the way, shared coffee or wine, volunteered at state parks, hiked, driven tons of miles, and had those scary moments when something didn’t go as planned – but we have never looked back. Covid-19 has put a damper on our planned trips as so many parks closed and reservations were cancelled, but that open road sure beckons us back. Soon, I tell it, soon.

From Tim Welch. Hi, I have been camping since I joined the Boy Scouts many, many years ago. Like most, I started with a tent and graduated to a 22′ Shasta trailer in 1975. Since then I have owned several motorhomes, class A and class C.

Currently, I am work camping in the overlooked state of Ohio in a beautiful private riverside resort named Wally World. It is named for the railroad that used to run along the river, the Walhonding Valley Railway: The Wally. The area is known as the canoe capital of Ohio but there are more kayaks than canoes these days. Yesterday we ran the river in our kayaks and saw a lot of wildlife. My favorite is when I spook an eagle on the ground and they fly right over my head because they follow the river due to the dense trees on both sides. It is so quiet I can hear their wings beating the air as they fly.

After 52 years of marriage, I am now rowing my own canoe with my two dogs, Daisy and Dunny, in my 2017 class C Chateau. Daisy is named for the cow because she is black and white like a Holstein. Dunny is named for my ex-father-in-law Ed Donohue. His friends called him Dunny. When I got my little Dunny she was a pain in the butt just like my father-in-law, so the rest is history.

Fall is coming to Ohio so I will be off to another work camping gig in Oak Hill, Florida, for the winter. I tell my friends that I have six wheels and I’m not afraid to use them.

We are Pam and Wayne Dorris. We purchased our first RV, a pop-up, in 1992, when my husband received orders to Anchorage, Alaska. We took a month driving up from Iowa with two preteens, a dog and a cat. That trip got us hooked on camping!! We have had a Class C, 2 bumper pulls and now a fifth wheel. Since we retired we travel half the year and keep a small home place in south Texas. We love seeing this great country and prefer state, county and COE parks to stay in. We have three sons living in different parts of the country so try to see them on our travels. We enjoy taking our only grandchild with us during her summer. We feel blessed beyond belief to be able to explore this great country!!

Meet our readers from last week’s issue.

We’ll introduce you to more RVtravel.com readers next week!

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