Yachts on Wheels
Bliss was exploring the world with my adventurous wife, Betty. We explored four continents, North and Central America; Europe; and Australia and New Zealand. We camped in our Volkswagen Pop-Top in Morrocco (see Morrocco essay), Africa. And adventurous it was from exquisite beauty to a burned vehicle to “we need the snow tires.”
We were just a couple of hours out of Guatemala City, when we crested the hill. As we started down the long steep hill, magnificent Lake Atitlan unfolded before us in rich blue waters and then, across the lake, were majestic conic-shaped volcanic mountains. We camped in a beautiful, lush meadow bordering the lake. It was not a campground, just an open meadow. Often, we were the only campers there. Our view was the emerald-blue Lake Atitlan and the volcanoes on the opposite shore. One morning I was sitting outside our RV, the lake was absolutely calm, and I watched as an Indian canoe ghosted along in front of me, volcanoes forming the backdrop. A photograph could not have captured the breathtaking beauty ─ it was more beautiful than a Monet painting.
Betty and I always thought of our RV as a yacht on wheels. It did not have the romance of the water nor all the disadvantages of corrosion from saltwater, the lack of repair facilities and the difficulties of finding fuel either. It did have the freedom of the open road. We could always answer the question, “What’s on the other side of that mountain?”
Our first RV was a Volkswagen Pop-Top, the Pea Green Princess, that we purchased in Frankfurt, Germany. We parked the Volkswagen and spent our first night in the turret of a castle overlooking the Rhine River. I will never forget waking up that first morning and looking out over the Rhine and seeing the dynamics of the bustling German economy. There was a busy highway, the river with barges and boats and tugs going in both directions, and on the opposite bank, dual railroad tracks with trains also going both directions.
We drove the Pea Green Princess for three weeks and then shipped it back to the U.S. where we used it as a second car, and as planned, an easy way to enjoy the wonderful local campgrounds and do some trout fishing.
When we decided to try some more adventurous trips, we purchased a Winnebago Mini, the White Shark. It was diesel powered—I should say it was diesel underpowered because the diesel engine was not powerful enough to handle steep hills in drive gear and we would have to shift down to make it. I remember one hill at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala where I didn't think we were going to make it even in low gear. Somehow, the White Shark managed to creep to the crest. Yet it was a big improvement over the VW as it had a full kitchen and bathroom with shower.
Propane flame throwers? We stepped up to a class C motorhome (an RV on a Ford truck chassis.) It had good power and was very comfortable. We were returning to Aspen from a winter in Puerto Vallarta with most of our clothes, computer, jewelry, etc. We were about three hours north of Puerto Vallarta, when we stopped to change drivers and noticed smoke coming from the engine. We had a fire extinguisher, and I immediately tried to unlock the hood to fight the fire, but the release latch was far too hot to touch and there was no way to use the fire extinguisher through the radiator. I struggled to enter the van to rescue our belongings, but the smoke was too dense and all we could do was remove the motor scooter from the rack on the back and watch the vehicle burn. I was afraid the propane tanks would explode, but as they heated up, the propane would flare out like a flamethrower.
Two American, mango buyers drove up just as the Mexican fire brigade arrived from a nearby village. What a sight. The firefighters apparently had gotten their oversized uniforms from U.S. firefighters, and they were far too large. It looked like the seven dwarfs had come to fight the fire which, by the time of their arrival, was nothing but a smoldering frame on the highway. All our clothing, computers and shaving/makeup kits were gone. The firefighters tried to charge us for damage to the asphalt but our new American friends, who spoke perfect Spanish, intervened for us.
In the meantime, Mexican women were poking through the carnage picking out gold pieces and precious stones that had survived the fire.
By now we were totally hooked on RV life, and we purchased a series of class A motorhomes, which are essentially buses with kitchens, bedrooms, etc. Our last class A, Bertha, had a slide-out to substantially enlarge the living room when parked. A couple of times we started driving without retracting the slide-out, but we always caught it in time.
The modern Class A motorhome has all the conveniences of modern cars except for a few challenges. We had to grow accustomed to the size and remember to swing wide on corners because the rear wheels take the shortest route.
Betty destroyed a taxi in Puerto Vallarta. She had not driven since autumn, and just two blocks from where the RV had been stored, she cut a corner too close. It could have been a legal nightmare, but we were still in a city where we had employees and attorneys. The insurance company handled it.
One year, we were late starting south. When we left Aspen, we had to go a different route through Denver on I-25 to Colorado Springs. It started snowing and the wind was blowing hard. We had no snow tires and between the wind gusts and poor traction, it took everything we had to stay on the road. We were warm enough inside, but our waste tank was frozen. We skidded at the filling station, hit the waste tank on the median causing it to split open. At least the contents were frozen! We were able to get to an RV shop for repairs before the tank thawed. A small complication compared to what might have happened had we been blown off the road by two of the most dangerous threats for an RV: high wind and poor traction.
Exploring in a motorhome gave us unlimited opportunities for travel as we did not have to worry about hotel reservations or really anything except planning the next day's adventure. In those days Walmart allowed RV overnight parking in their lots, so we did not even have to worry about finding a campground. Many RVers solved the parked transportation problem by towing an automobile, but we thought this was too much trouble. Instead we carried a motor scooter on a forward rack and a bicycle on the back. We had a generator for power and basically all the comforts of home. In those days we felt completely safe traveling in Mexico and Guatemala and would frequently spend the night on a town square, parked across the street from a police station. Our evening entertainment was sipping a drink as we watched the Mexican couples do their courting-dance walking around the square.
One of our most memorable trips was from Aspen to Toronto where Barbara and Carson Bell joined us on our way to Montréal and the Maritime provinces before ducking down to Maine for lobster and other seafood delights. We hired a guide in Montreal and Quebec City, a necessity when you are driving a big motorhome.
People were amazed that Betty could drive these 36-foot monsters well into her 80s. Betty’s friends were in total shock at her lifestyle. Most of Betty’s Kansas City contemporaries thought an exciting trip was their annual two weeks in Florida at the same resort they went to year after year and probably was the same resort where their parents had vacationed. How thankful I am to have married someone adventurous enough to spend 12 years on a sailboat and then move into almost full-time RV living.
It was a sad day when we finally decided all good things had to come to an end and we sold Bertha, our last motorhome, to move into a retirement community in San Antonio.