Angela is About to Go RV-ing Again! – by Brian Whiddon

Those of you who have been LONG-time WritersWeekly readers may remember that Angela spent some time living in an RV and touring the country with Max and Mason when they were very young.

Well, Angela and I are about to jump into the RV adventure again!

No, we’re not going to live in a camper. Angela has already experienced that, and we both lived on boats for years. No, we’re both happy with our house on the mountain. But we’ve decided to start stretching our legs a bit and planning some road trips, now that we’re empty-nesters.

Back in 2019, when we owned our wooded property in Florida, we purchased a 26 ft KZ travel trailer to stay in whenever we visited to camp and work the land. The county code enforcement office had told us that camping on the land was illegal. There was no electricity, no running water, and no structures. I guess Citrus County was wanting to prevent folks from just dropping a camper on a plot of land and living in it. (Damned Commies!) So, I had to hide the camper in the middle of the property and cover it with camo netting to prevent it from being seen from the road. We felt like outlaws on our own land!

Anyway, when we moved up here to Georgia, our daughter and son-in-law asked to borrow the camper to take the grandkids on various trips. We told them to just store the thing in their yard because they have more flat land then we do. At our house, we have to store the camper on our carport – taking up a lot of valuable space. It was good to know the camper was being used and not just sitting. We were busy with gardening and homesteading, plus Mason still wasn’t 18 yet. So, we weren’t really in a position to go out on the road.

Eventually, after they had their third kiddo, they weren’t in much of a position to hit the road much either. We were content to have them keep the camper on their land so we could use our carport. So, it sat for about 4 years.

What no one knew was that the roof sealant had dried and cracked quite a bit, and a leak had developed in the right front corner of the camper. For 4 years, every time it rained, water was creeping through the camper’s ceiling, down walls, into the floorboards. Back in March, when Angela and I decided we wanted to start travelling, we retrieved the camper and took it home. There were 5 different soft spots in the floor. I had watched several YouTube videos on how to repair camper floors, and was planning a DIY project. However, a broken back put the kibosh on that plan. So, in May we had a mobile RV repairman come re-seal the roof. (First things first.) Then he took it to his house to do the floor repairs. On the way to his house, the front portion of the ceiling collapsed because the support beams had rotted where they met up with the camper frame (more repairs).

We just got the camper back this month. I won’t tell you what the repairs cost. I will say it was a little more that HALF of what we bought the camper for! We’ve realized that the cost of having the roof sealed every few years (or doing it myself – if Angela will ever let me on a ladder again) is well worth it to prevent leaks and water intrusion. (Hey! Just like a sailboat!)

Anyway, the travel trailer is ready to travel, and our first planned trip sometime next month is going to be back to Florida to visit my mom. She’s got dementia and is going downhill fast, so we don’t know how much longer she’ll be around. She’s already having trouble recognizing my brother and sister. We’ll be staying at a campground right on the Little Manatee River.

We’re planning a bigger trip for next year – out west to Montana, then south to the Arizona and the Grand Canyon. If anyone has recommendations for RV parks in those states, we’d love to hear them. We’re looking forward to the occasional adventure, but I have a lot to learn about how RVs work. Next week I’m taking it to our local KOA to practice how to empty the black and grey water tanks. Wish me luck!

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Brian Whiddon is the Managing Editor of WritersWeekly.com and the Operations Manager at BookLocker.com. An Army vet and former police officer, Brian is the author of Blue Lives Matter: The Heart behind the Badge. He's an avid sailor, having lived and worked aboard his 36-foot sailboat, the “Floggin’ Molly” for 9 years after finding her abandoned in a boat yard and re-building her himself. Now, in northern Georgia, when not working on WritersWeekly and BookLocker, he divides his off-time between hiking, hunting, and farming.
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