What we learned about you last week (January 18-24)

By Emily Woodbury

Hola! I’m on day two of no caffeine, so forgive me if my writing is a bit…depresso. This is rough though! Oy. Anyway, I don’t have much to report this week. My father will be thrilled to know I finally read (and finished) Travels with Charley, his favorite book by John Steinbeck. Have you read it? Every RVer traveling America should. Also, I learned that I very much would like someone to make this giant slow-cooker chocolate chip cookie for me. You probably have a slow cooker, don’t you? Will you make it for me? Great, thanks!

Our poll last Saturday was a big hit. We had almost 5,200 responses – Wow! We wanted to know if you think that Walmarts will still allow overnight parking in five years. The majority of you, 57 percent, said no, you don’t, but 43 percent of you do. We asked you to leave a comment. Here’s what Gary had to say: “Unfortunately there are those that take complete advantage of any goodwill given to them by Walmart and other locales that allow overnight parking. As a member of a national RV group I/we have a code of conduct to follow, which includes one that states ‘to leave a spot better than when you arrived,’ to get permission, to purchase needed items if needed, etc. If most (ALL WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE) RVers followed even half of our code of conduct Walmart and others would/will be happy to continue hosting OVERNIGHTERS…NOT squatters.”

Ugh. I have a feeling the answers to Sunday’s poll will make me verrrrrrrry jealous. We wanted to know what the temperature is where you are right now (er, where you were on Sunday). Yup, as expected, most of you are making me jealous (wahhhhh). The highest percentage of you, which was 21 percent, said last Sunday it was over 70 degrees where you were. I’ll go in backward order here: 17 percent of you said it would be between 61-70 degrees, a tied 14 percent of you said it would be between 51-60 and 41-50. A smaller 13 percent of you were in 31-40 degree weather, 18 percent of you were spending time in a place where it was between 1 degree and 18 degrees, and a whole 3 percent of you (I’m actually quite shocked!) will be in temperatures under zero degrees. Where the heck are you?! Ah, comments tell me that you’re probably in Alaska. Brrrrrrrr (though beautiful!).

Monday’s poll wanted to know how often you diet to lose weight. More than half of you, 53 percent, said you very rarely do, or never at all. A little less than a third of you, 29 percent, diet sometimes, while others of you, 10 percent, diet often. Only 7 percent of you diet very often.

I’m only on Monday and I already wrote so much! You’d think I’d had five cups of coffee – yikes!

Well, we learned on Tuesday there’s a pretty good chance that your RV does not have an outdoor kitchen. Only 7 percent of you said that your RV does, but 93 percent of them do not. Does a portable grill on a picnic table count? I think so. And if that’s the case, my tent has an outdoor kitchen. Ha!

Do any of your motor vehicles have personalized license plates? That’s what we wanted to know on Wednesday. Actually quite a few of them, 20 percent, do! That leaves 80 percent of your vehicles that don’t. Linda’s comment made me laugh. She wrote, “I had a personalized plate – ‘Muffin.’ When we retired, we went to one vehicle and I didn’t think Muffin would look right on an F-350 long bed crew cab, so didn’t renew it.” Jon wrote, “The plate on our motorhome is TWOOFUS (there is only room for ‘two of us’)” And lastly, Gary commented: I don’t, but the guy that used to park next to me at the RV lot has one that says ArrrghVee. I wish I’d thought of that.” Brilliant!

Thursday’s poll asked motorhome owners if their passengers use the bathroom while the RV is moving. This used to be my favorite thing as a kid (don’t tell Chuck I told you that…). Alas, 30 percent of you are like me, and you do use the bathroom routinely while the RV is en route. Another 29 percent of you will let them use the bathroom sometimes (not down those dirt roads, I’m assuming?), and 17 percent will but only if it’s an emergency. A quarter of you say your passengers will just have to hold it.

Cha-ching! Friday’s poll taught us that you probably don’t gamble at casinos (70 percent of you answered that you never do, or hardly ever do). Some of you, 19 percent, will gamble seldom, 8 percent of you sometimes will, and 2 percent of you often do.

Okay, that’s a wrap! Can’t wait to learn more about you next week. See you then!