Sixteen years of full-timing

On October 22, 1999, I celebrated 16 years of full-time travel. That day, I reflected on my years of RV travel, remembering-the highlights and wondering if I could fit them all into a column. I decided to give it a try.

I was 29 years old and married when I started traveling year-round. My husband was laid off from his job, so I suggested we sell our home and most of our belongings and start traveling fulltime in our 20-foot travel trailer. We had both planned on traveling and selling our photographs someday, though it was supposed to have been after we retired. I figured it was time to see ifwe could make it as freelance photographers. it took years of hard work, but we managed to stay on the road, eventually moving into a 28foot travel trailer after I branched out into writing. in my first years of fulltime travel, I used to think that focal points occurred upon being in a beautiful place. Now I know that the people I meet on the road are what makes traveling so very special: Special scenes, wonderful places and amazing animal life are just an added bonus.

For example, last summer I spent two months at the South Fork Campground in South Fork, Colorado. I parked my fifthwheel trailer there while working on my lith book, a hiking guide to the Weminuche Wilderness. Linda and Jerry Tullos managed the lovely campground, where the Rio Grande lazily moved outside my door, and the nearby Rocky Mountains beckoned to me on many occasions. But it was the Tulloses and their guests who were the greatest highlights. I will never forget Linda and] erry and their wide, wonderful smiles, induced by love of life, job and guests.

Their love was catching as well. When I came home from one backpack trip, I found a number of monthly guests running the campground while the Tulloses were in Denver. They'd had to make an emergency run there so Linda could get muchneeded medical attention. With smiles on their faces, these wonderful friends were tal,dng care of the dogs, running the gift shop and cash register, helping new, guests find and park in their spaces and so much "more. One of mv summer high points was witnessing this amazing show of love, loyalty and friendship.

Making new friends and keeping in touch with old ones have certainly been highlights of my travels. Even though I've been blessed with two brothers, I have always longed for a sister. Now I have woman friends who are just like sisters. I met one such friend, My "Sister" Peggy, after she read one of my articles in Trailer Life. After my divorce, I'd written about traveling alone as a single woman and she wrote to me, telling me how brave I was and asking if she could meet me. I just happened to be in Oregon, our home state, when she wrote. We got together for lunch and we've been sisters ever since.

I was in Guadalupe Mountains National Park working on another Trailer Life story when I met the man who would become my husband. Chatting near the top of Guadalupe Peak, which at 8,749 feet is the highest peak in Texas, we exchanged business cards. Mike Vining asked for mine because he collects guidebooks and I write them. He gave me his because he is a mountaineer and rock-climbing guide from North Carolina who leads clients to the tops of lofty mountains. He thought I might be interested.

I didn't know it until later, but Mike was (and still is) fascinated by me and my fulltime RVing lifestyle. When he descended from the summit that day 0 stayed on top to enjoy the view), he stopped to take a picture of my truck and trailer parked at the local campground. Later he started writing and soon we became the best of friends. Today, we are still best friends and were married last year.

Full-time RVing has allowed me to see and do so many things, and to make friends in the most remote places. No doubt the most remote places have given me my newest friends. I met Nathalie, from Ottawa, Canada, and Maria and Andy, from London, England, during what was the biggest and best trip of my life. in early spring of '98, 1 flew south to the tip of Argentina to board a ship bound for Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falkland islands. I met my new friends, including Warren, another Londoner, on the ship.

Seeing and photographing penguins had always been a dream of mine, and I'm convinced that RVing allowed my dream to come true. When I got the call to go to Antarctica, I was visiting my folks in Southern California. I had left my fifthwheel at the Rancho Sonora RV Park in Florence, Arizona, spending time with Mike in Las Vegas before going on to visit my folks. I was there when I got the news, so all I had to do was go back to Las Vegas to say goodbye to Mike, drive to Florence to pack my bags and store my trailer. Soon I was flying from Albuquerque to Miami, Florida, en route to my dream place. I didn't have to think about taking care of my yard because I didn't have one, and I didn't have to worry about someone checking on my home, holding my mail, and so on, because I knew the people at Rancho Sonora would do all of that.

I didn't get to kiss any penguins in Antarctica (instead they just nibbled on my gloves), but I did get to kiss a gray whale in Baja California's San Ignacio Lagoon. I was there to do a story on the whales when I was overcome with emotion and decided Ijust had to kiss a whale. We'd had "friendly" gray whales at our skiff most of the day. Amazingly, these animals love to have their tongues rubbed. I thought I'd go a step further, though, so I leaned over the skiff's edge and kissed one of the whales. No doubt, it was one of the peak experiences of my career.

Peak experiences have come often in the past 16 years. I've hiked many of Oregon's trails while working on various books, experiencing the flora and fauna of the coast and the Cascades in my quest to visit all 36 Oregon wilderness areas. While working in the remote corner of southeastern Oregon, I've seen pronghorn antelope play, watched as bighorn rams butted heads and observed a porcupine, suffering from a cold, wipe its crusty nose clean by eating leaves and pushing them up against its face.

I've explored the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, watching a big bull moose feed in the stunning realms of the Squaw Creek drainage, and I've seen herds of 50-plus elk running across alpine tundra. In addition, bull elk have sung me to sleep at night, their eerie bugling providing the last sounds of my day.

In addition to hiking, I've spent a lot of time bicycling. Several times I've stored my home-on-wheels, once pedaling from coast-to-coast, Virginia to Oregon, and another time exploring the Atlantic Coast from Florida to Maine. Though I've been away from my trailer during these trips, I've made memories with the local townsfolk, as well as fellow travelers, including Rvers, of each town I passed through.

Now that I'm out of room, I've decided I can't fit 16 years of highlights into one column. But that's OK it'll give me something to write about somewhere down the road.

Copyright T L Enterprises, Inc. Feb 2000
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