The Trip Home - Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

​Gilbert Ray Campground near Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

I woke up to a beautiful sunrise, which lit up the cacti to make a lovely contrast with the puddles on the blacktop road. (puddles in Arizona?) When I unpluged the electric cord, I got to see the cactus plant growing at the base of the electric box that harpooned me the night before.

After walking around the RV twice to make sure I didn't forget anything - hatches closed, antenna down, steps up - I jumped in and turned the key... nothing. That's just great! All I needed was a vehicle with a bad battery. I remembered I had read somewhere that you can start it from the coach batteries. There was a button on an overhead panel that said "vehicle boost start", so I held it down and turned the key again. Started right up. These RV people think of everything. That's when I remembered that I had turned the parking lights on last night. They were obviously on all night. That made me happy, though, because it meant there was probably nothing wrong with the battery, just the battery operator.

So I headed on down the road to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I allowed myself until about noon to sightsee prior to starting the 3 1/2 hour drive to my next destination before it got dark. It's a beautiful park/zoo with many walking trails through plant and wildlife exhibits. I ended up staying until about 2pm, and then started the drive to Deming, NM.

​Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The Trip Home - Tucson, AZ

​Chinook Under The Tree

This was the day that I picked up my Chinook Concourse.  I got in it and drove straight to the nearest Wal-Mart for supplies.  I pulled in the parking lot, and since it was warm and sunny, I thought of parking near a tree for some shade.  That was the first of many times I was reminded that I was now driving a vehicle that was 10 feet tall as I heard the tree branches scrape loudly across the roof, vents, and air conditioning unit.  (Note to self: don't forget what you're driving and try to drive through a fast food restaurant.)

Twenty-one feet long, 10 feet high, and as wide in the back as the dual axles.  No slide-outs, but it had everything I needed.  Confortable chairs, a table, sofa/bed, and self contained with a wet bath, refrigerator, stove, and it's own portable water supply.  Now I just needed to figure out how it all worked.  And best of all, it drives just like a large van.  After a short time driving, it was easy to forget it wasn't "just a van".  All I had to do to set up was find a level spot, and plug it in.

So I headed west out of Tucson and arrived a the Tucson Mountain Park Campground just after it got dark.  I found my site.  It was a short, back-in space, and I only had to get out and walk to the back to see where I was going about 3 or 4 times while backing in.  I got my little flashlight, pulled out the electric cord and reached down to lift the cover on the electric box.  A sudden severe pain stabbed at my finger.  It was dark, and I wondered if maybe I had been bitten by some horrible, deadly creature.  When I brought my hand under the light, I found I had a dead piece of cactus rammed up under the skin around my nail-bed.  (Note to self:  You're in Arizona...  all the plants growing in the campground are cacti that can impale you.)  The second attempt to plug in was done slowly and carefully, with lots of light.

I wasn't going to worry about hooking up water, as I was only there to sleep and leave early in the morning.  I was making up the bed, when I remembered that I hadn't clipped my pay stub to the post at the front of the site.  It was just starting to drizzle (in Arizona?), so I flipped on the parking lights to see, and jumped out the front door and quickly hung the stub.  I was ready for my first night in my new RV.  The roof air conditioning unit worked great, and all the lights seemed to work, except there didn't seem to be a light in the bathroom, but the flashlight worked fine.  I settled in for the night on the surprisingly comfortable sleeper sofa.

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The Maiden Voyage

So, did I mention that I never owned a motor home before?  The ideal thing to do when aquiring an RV, new or used, would be to make the first "shake down" trip a short one, close to home, as a time to get used to driving it, discover if it has any problems that need to be fixed, make sure you know how everything works, etc.  Well... the RV was in Tucson, AZ, and I was in northeast Arkansas.

So, yes, I took a one-way flight to Tucson (I'm not crazy about flying, especially by myself), and arrived at the home of the folks that sold it to me with my suitcase in hand, thinking of all the things that could go wrong.  What I found when I got there were some very nice, honest people with an RV in their driveway that was exactly as promised.  We spent some time going over everything, although it's really hard to thoroughly "learn" how everything works in just an hour or so.

We finished our transaction and I was happily on my way to the closest Wal-Mart to pick up supplies for the trip home.  The trip home proved to be an adventure.   

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​Trip Home From Tucson, AZ

I Found It!

I had been researching all the different types of motor homes for a while, and had pretty much settled on getting a Class C of some sort.  I really liked the way the 28' Forest River Lexington looked.  I took a weekend trip to a larger city near where I live and visited a number of different RV dealers.  I went by my self and got varied reactions from the salesmen at a single woman looking to buy an RV.  None of them were favorable.  I did manage to get offered a test drive for which I was grateful, since I was contemplating buying something that I had never even driven.  I had no idea what it was like to drive something that large.

The driving experience was good, although I felt like I spent more time looking in the rear-view mirrors to see if my wheels were crossing into the next lane, than I did looking out the front to see where I was going.  And it was a weird feeling to see the long back end swing around when turning, or backing up.  I knew that would be a matter of just getting used to the size of the vehicle.  I thought I had found my perfect RV, but couldn't quite finance it at that time, and common sense (and my son) told me to wait, because there would always be another one to come along.

I'm glad I waited.  What I did next may sound crazy, but I found one on Ebay that was different than any I'd seen before.  It was a 1998 Chinook Concourse with the captains' chairs.  It was only 21' long, and although I had been looking for something with a double bed in the back, and this one you had to pull out the sofa to make up a really small double bed, it looked great.  It was small, easy to maneuver, but still had everything I needed.  The price was right, and I thought it would be less maintenance, and easier to drive than what I'd been looking for.  The crazy part is that I bought it, sight unseen (except for the pictures), and arranged to pick it up in January of 2009.

​My Chinook Concourse

Alone

There were many adjustments I had to make when I lost the person that was a part of my life for 33 years.  Among them was getting used to the fact that many things he did I would have to start doing myself, or hire someone to do for me.  Now I was very thankful that I was pretty self-sufficient even while I still had him in my life.  I had taken trips in my car by myself, and such, and am pretty independent. So I started to look on the internet for travel groups for single folks, and found there are lots of people, both men and women, that travel either part time, or live full time, in RV's.  If they could do it, so could I!

Ok, so my dream of traveling the country in a motor home by myself wasn't as crazy as I thought...  And the research about motor homes continued.