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Park Our House!
A column by Fran
Crawford
Published in Yuba/Sutter Senior News
August 15, 1996
I used to live in a house.
I used
to live in a house. When I was about 45, give or take, the
church building at the end of my street was sold and
converted into a "Senior Center".
"Great!"I said. "In five years, when I qualify as a 50 year old senior I will be able to go down there and get lunch for 50 cents"
About the time I reached 50 the age of a 'senior' was upped to 55. When the whole senario repeated itself as I approached 55, I decided the heck with being a senior citizen.
If I waited around for a cheap lunch until I reached 60 I'd be missing a lot of experiences that were waiting for me out there beyond the street I had lived on for 26 years.
So we sold the house and moved into our fifth wheel. That's the first step. Now, as soon as we can find a way to make a living on the road, we plan to hit the open highway. Gas prices being what they are that may take a while.
In the mean time we get to take a trip about once or twice a year and inbetween times we are shuffled about in trailer parks so we are learning about packing, hitching up, towing, etc.
Steve, that's Steve Fletcher, my husband, business partner and tow-vehicle driver, is taking a course to become certified to repair RV air conditioners, refrigerators, awnings, etc.
All that may not finance our travels, but it's bound to come in handy keeping our own equipment functional when we are forty-umteen miles from nowhere.
We like to go to RV shows and Good Sam gatherings from time to time to see what is new in "stuff" for RVs. And it's fun to visit the recreational vehicle supply stores. It's fascinating to see all the ways everyday things are adapted for use in smaller weight-conscious environments.
Some things are definitely not the same as living in a "real" house, but for the most part Steve and I have adapted quite nicely to our reduced quarters.
One thing that is difficult for me to get used to is grocery shopping.
A friend commenting on this recently said "I bet getting groceries is easy. You just hitch up and drag the house to the store and say 'fill 'er up'!!"
The major problem is that grocery shopping is not one of my favorite passtimes. In the old Air Force days I would shop at the commissary only every six weeks. I'd stock up on everything but perishables. I had room to store stuff and then I didn't have to shop as often.
'Course now days you'd have to take out a loan to shop for a six week supply of food!
Even shopping monthly or twice a month cuts down on trips to the store, but as a full time RVer I'm slowly getting the message that my little refrigerator just doesn't hold what my 16 cubic foot freezer and regular sized frig held.
Fitting much more than a week's supply of canned goods and staples in the narrow "pantry" is a challenge also. But you do learn to step aside quickly when you open a door and an overstuffed shelf starts to toss things out at you.
The good side of that is no meal planning... you just cook what falls out. Actually that may be the origination of the expression "catch of the day"!
But all in all, living full time in an RV is quite an adventure. I'll be telling you more about it as time goes on... and maybe you have some stories to tell also. If so, send them along to me in care of the Senior Review.
Copywrite 1996 -- Fran Crawford